Francia - History Lab

Definitive peace treaty concluded between King Charles IV and the French Republic

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:04 +0000

The signing of the Peace of Basel put an end to the conflict between the Spanish monarchy, under the crown of Charles IV, and the French Republic. Through this treaty, Spain recovered its territorial integrity in the face of France’s abandonment, having to cede the Spanish part of the island of Santo Domingo as well as some commercial advantages hitherto in the hands of the Spanish Monarchy. A year later, this confrontation changed completely with the signing of the Pact of San Ildefonso, in which Spain and France allied against England.

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Autograph of Francisco de Cabarrús Aguirre, Count of Cabarrús

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:33:04 +0000

Francisco Cabarrús, Minister of Finance between 1808-1810, supported the government of José I along with other enlightened figures such as Mariano Luis de Urquijo, José Domingo de Mazarredo and Gonzalo O’Farrill. Among the numerous projects in which he took part, we can highlight that together with Miguel de Múzquiz, and with other European financiers, in 1782 he devised the project for the creation of the Banco de San Carlos – the first Spanish national bank. He created the Royal Company of the Philippines and started the Cabarrús Canal, today the Canal de Isabel II.

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List of those killed and wounded on the Bahama in the Battle of Trafalgar

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:51 +0000

After Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, the Spanish court proved to be a weak extension of French policy. Charles IV’s latent weakness encouraged the French cause around the invasion of Portugal in 1801. A year later, France and England signed the Peace of Amiens, but their confrontation was soon to resume, and Spain became involved in this confrontation. The direct consequence of this situation was the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), where the Spanish fleet was destroyed by Admiral Nelson’s squadron. This defeat led to a further weakening of control of the overseas territories, which resulted in considerable economic collapse.

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Warnings from France on the uprising being prepared by the Moors in Spain

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:42 +0000

During his reign, Philip II (1556-1598) encountered serious social problems within his dominions. Of particular relevance was the case of the Moors, i.e. the Mudejars who had accepted their conversion to Christianity in order to remain on Spanish soil. An example of this can be seen in this document, which warns, from France, of the possibility of an uprising in the territories of the Monarchy. As a result of these events, numerous processes of confirmation of conversion and faith took place over the decades in order to account for the correct religious behaviour of the converted families. The historical process, marked by events such as the Rebellion of the Alpujarras or the War of the Alpujarras, finally led to the expulsion of the Moors from the Spanish Monarchy. This order, issued by Philip III, was carried out in stages between 1609 and 1613.

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International maritime wax production and trade around 1800

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:32:18 +0000

Spanish pastoral beekeeping during the Modern Age was one of the most advanced beekeeping systems in Europe. The seasonal movement of hives became widespread in Spain in the early modern period; other countries such as France had to wait until the end of the 18th century to experience the necessary conditions for the development of the beekeeping sector. As a result, the amount of honey and wax collected increased. The resource shows the production of wax, marked on the map with cross lines, and its distribution throughout Europe and the western Mediterranean. In Spain, the main beekeeping areas were the regions of Galicia, Extremadura, the north and Mediterranean coast of Andalusia, the south and centre of Aragon, the Valencian coast, the north of Majorca, Murcia and parts of La Mancha. Waxes came to the Peninsula from the Netherlands, the Maghreb and the French region of Landes; however, due to the wars of the Revolution and the French Empire, trade channels were affected.

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The storming of the Bastille

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:09 +0000

The Bastille was considered a symbol of the despotism of the French monarchy because it was a prison for many victims of monarchical arbitrariness. At the time of its fall, this medieval fortress barely housed any prisoners within its walls, yet it had great symbolic value for what it signified as a representation of absolute power. Its seizure by the Parisian people marked the beginning of the French Revolution and still stands today as a milestone in the history of revolutions.

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Execution of Louis XVI of France

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:09 +0000

Louis XVI (1754-1793) was king of France from May 1774 to October 1789. His accession to the throne was promising, with great reforms for the state expected of him, but his lack of character, court intrigues and clashes with the nobles prevented him from carrying out the necessary measures. In an atmosphere of great tension, at the Estates General in 1789, the Third Estate proclaimed itself the General Assembly, which considerably diminished its power. In the face of this, it adopted a dual attitude, expressing agreement with the Assembly, while conspiring against it to eliminate the revolutionaries. After an attempt to flee the city of Paris, he was arrested in Varennes, taken back to the French capital and suspended from his duties. After the storming of the Tuileries palace where he then resided, he was arrested, tried and finally guillotined on 21 January 1793.

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French fundraising to pay for the Nine Years’ War

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:56 +0000

The strategies chosen by the French monarchy to try to pay for the Nine Years’ War can be studied through the figure of the French financiers and assistants. In contrast to the regularity of these financiers and assistants, with the contracts they signed to offer certain goods or services to the monarchy, there were the French traitants. These intermediaries, who, although they managed to collect a large amount of goods and capital for the monarchy, were exceptionally expensive due to their extraordinary nature, and had an appalling impact on the coffers in future accounts if their services were used too much.
The revenue collected during this conflict came from the rents obtained from the crown, the taxes levied by the French Treasury, the change in the value of coins and the so-called traités. The graph shows the great importance given by Pontchartrain, the French Finance Minister, to extraordinary financing, which accounted for almost half of the money allocated to pay for the war and 70% of the resources collected in 1691.

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Collection of the Bolla Tax in Barcelona (1599-1695)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:41 +0000

The so-called “derecho de bolla” was an indirect tax applied to all goods sold in Catalonia during the 16th century until 1769. Within the Catalan market, the textile industry was an important sector. The graph shows a decrease in the collection of the bolla tax from 1599 to 1695. Undoubtedly, as the author points out, the decline of the Catalan textile sector meant lower revenues. The industry of this product lost competitiveness as a result of the counterfeiting that took place, both in the fabric and in the dyes. This was compounded by the massive influx of fabrics from central and northern Europe. Even with margins for modernisation of the sector, the “War of Separation or the War of the Reapers” between 1640 and 1659, with the incorporation of Catalonia into French sovereignty after the betrayal of the Catalan elites to the Spanish Monarchy, led to the numerous imports of French products into this territory, increasing the level of tax collection of the bolla duty despite the detriment of the local product. The demographic decline also led to lower consumption and production; nevertheless, the level of tax collection was bicephalic. Thus, the level of consumption was just as important as the effective collection capacity of the authorities, a capacity that led to collection problems due to political and social instability.

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Population distribution in Europe (1500-1750)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:13 +0000

During the European Modern Age, the distribution of population among the different countries of the continent diverged according to their size, population characteristics, demography and socio-economic system. In general terms, the urban world grew quantitatively between 1500 and 1750 in most Western countries, although with varying intensity. England was the most developed in this respect; a development, however, that was already present in some Mediterranean countries, such as Spain and Italy, and others in the north, such as Belgium and the Netherlands. Despite urban growth, the great evolution that the author identifies in relation to population is the exponential development of the non-agricultural rural world. In fact, if in 1500 there were 152 rural nuclei of this type, in 1750 they rose to 236, in contrast to the decrease in the agricultural sphere, from 612 in 1500 to 505 in the middle of the 18th century. The transformation of the rural world was, once again, uneven across the continent. While England, Germany, France, Austria/Hungary and Poland were the communities that most experienced this process, Italy and Spain experienced it with less incidence. In short, the distribution of population in modern Europe meant that the countries where the agricultural revolution developed the earliest grew at the quantitative levels that were already present in the Mediterranean areas.

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