MERCHANTS AND TRADE INSTITUTIONS: THE RIGHT OF STAPLE IN MAINZ BETWEEN 1797 AND 1814

This article examines the debates on the abolition of the right of staple in Mainz and Cologne between 1797 and 1814. When the French conquered the left bank of the Rhine, they proclaimed their intention to liberalise milk, and navigation on the Rhine, at the same time as they abolished the privileges in the four Rhenish departments. This revived an old debate on the right of staple: while the chambers of commerce in Cologne and Mainz defend it as a means of policing shipping and trade, those in some French cities (Koblenz) and German cities (Frankfurt, Dusseldorf) were calling for its abolition in the name of economic freedom and the principles of the French Revolution. The Convention of the "Octroi of the Rhine", which was signed in August 1804, eventually maintained this right as "right of compulsory transfer". The article therefore analyses the reasons why the French government maintained and confirmed until 1813, what constituted a privilege.