The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century

manufacturing activities within the City walls for reasons associated to public
health. 25 Curriers were less localised. In 1822 only 1/6 of London curriers were
south of the river.26
The French leather industry was, if compared to the British equivalent,
extremely scattered during most the eighteenth century. Paris was not the only
centre of leather production and manufacture in the Kingdom. However, changes
in the legislation and the increasing size of the French capital, made Paris a pivotal
leather market (see also paragraph 1.6.1). In 1755, for instance, the manufacture of
Saint-Germain obtained the right to open in Paris a depot to sell their leather. This
particular right was granted because of the high quality leather produced in Saint-
Germain. 27 It was also part of a series of measures that continued over the
nineteenth century in order to increase not only the scale of the Parisian leather
market, but also its quality. 28 Paris seemed in fact not to be able to co-ordinate the
entire national leather market in the way London did. In 1788 the French capital
had, among its 937 établissements de commerce fabrique, only 14 leather dressers
and 28 tanneries. Most tanneries supplying the French capital were concentrated in
the Parish of Saint Médard. Here were the biggest tanneries in Paris and probably
in the whole kingdom. In 1732, on a total of 13 local Parish Jurés, seven were
tanners and five were leather dressers. 29 Most of the other leather businesses in
Paris had very small scale and figures suggest that the three decades preceding the
Revolution saw a decline of the Parisian leather industry.30
During the Revolution Paris acquired again a key role in leather commerce. In
order to co-ordinate extensive military supplies, the Parisian leather market was
considered necessary to produce shoes and saddlery. In 1793, for instance, De
Berteval proposed to force provincial producers to sell in Paris at least 2/3 of their
production in green leather. 3' In the late 1810s and early 1820s Paris counted for
J.H. Clapham, An economic history of modern Britain (Cambridge, 1926-39), vol. iii, p. 170.
J. Statham, 'The location and development of London's leather manufacturing industry', cit., p.
81.
v AN ADIX 22: untitled manuscript.
28
Annuaire general du commerce et de l'industrie, de la magistrature et de ladministration
(Paris, 1840), p. lxi.
29 D Garrioch, The formation of the Parisian bourgeoisie, 1690-1 830 (Harvard, 1996), p. 58.
°
B. Gille, Documents sur l'état de l'industrie et du commerce de Paris et du Department de Ia
Seine (1778-1810) (Paris, 1963), p. 58.
J.A. Rubigny de Berteval, Observations importantes, cit., p. 23.
31