| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
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| Research Abstract |
In this study, in order to elucidate the trend of public opinion in France on Napoleonic regime, I reconsidered mainly the attitudes and reactions of the merchants and manufacturers in Bordeaux, Rouen, Strasbourg and Mulhouse to the Continental Blockade enforced by Napoleon.
First, I could find out three different phases of the cotton industry, i.e. phases of recovery (1800-06), of expansion (1807-10) and of contraction (1811-14). So, the industrial development stopped in later years of Empire and in Rouen particularly, the disaffections of merchants and manufacturers toward the Blockade policy gradually deepened because they could hardly exploit the continental markets enlarged by Napoleon.
Second, I ascertained that these three phases of the cotton industry during the Napoleonic period correspond roughly to the movement of commercial activity of Strasbourg, French trade center with inlands parts of Europe beyond the Rhine. There, the marchants in face of the rampant smuggling of British goods expressed repeatedly their complaints against the government's commercial policy, while in Bordeaux, in spite of the end of prosperous colonial trade, the trading merchants and shipowners successfully adapted to the new circumstance and, by using the neutral ships and Napoleon's licenses or shifting their business bases to America, they continued to enjoy to certain extent the profits of overseas trade. But, including the case of Bordeaux, the crisis of 1810-11 caused a longterm depression of economic activities and with this increased rapidly the disaffections of business elites to the Napoleonic regime. So, I could get an outlook that the general upsurge of anti-Napoleonic sentiments was limited to the last years of the Empire.
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