| Summary: | This chapter discusses the fortunes of the principal ports of the French Atlantic in the eighteenth century, among them Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Nantes, Marseille, and Le Havre, but also smaller ports like Lorient, Saint-Malo, and Bayonne, which all at various moments enjoyed years of unprecedented prosperity. It shows how not all of them invested in the same forms of commerce or enjoyed the same peak years of prosperity. Some concentrated on direct commerce with the Caribbean islands, others on fishing off Newfoundland, but increasingly merchants were tempted by the rich profits to be made from slaving. The chapter looks at the investments made by the merchant community in the fabric of their cities, discusses their architecture and elegant town planning, and notes the impressions they made on foreign visitors who saw them in a comparative perspective.
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