ABSTRACT
This chapter challenges the traditional and romantic approach of illicit commerce as a manifestation of popular protest against state’s taxation and prohibition, as incarnated by the Gallic Robin Hood, Mandrin. Leader of a band of armed smugglers, he waged a continual war with agents of the Fermiers Généraux from the Swiss and Savoy borders to the Rhone Valley and the Massif Central with six separate campaigns over two years. Seen as a true hero by the local population, he was finally arrested and condemned to death by the Commission de Valence on 24 May 1755. Through a detailed analysis of people involved in contraband—from well-known merchants and professional smugglers to pedlars and female servants—the motivations for fraud (e.g. part of usual business activities or of survival strategies) and the specificities of the calicos underground market are carefully scrutinised: clearly the dividing line between those involved in smuggling and those who protected and tolerated it was extremely porous. A particular attention is given to the gender ratio at every level of calicos traffic.
