La Rochelle, on the same coast, was much more flourishing at this period, owing to the numerous coasters which carried the wines of Aunis and Saintonge, and the salt of Brouage to Flanders, the Netherlands, and the north of Germany.  Vitre already had its silk manufactories in the fifteenth century, and Nantes gave promise of her future greatness as a depot of maritime commerce.  It was about this time also that the fisheries became a new industry, in which Bayonne and a few villages on the sea-coast took the lead, some being especially engaged in whaling, and others in the cod and herring fisheries (Fig. 194).

Long before this, Normandy had depended on other branches of trade for its commercial prosperity.  Its fabrics of woollen stuffs, its arms and cutlery, besides the agricultural productions of its fertile and well-cultivated soil, each furnished material for export on a large scale.

The towns of Rouen and Caen were especially manufacturing cities, and were very rich.  This was the case with Rouen particularly, which was situated on the Seine, and was at that time an extensive depot for provisions and other merchandise which was sent down the river for export, or was imported for future internal consumption.  Already Paris, the abode of kings, and the metropolis of government, began to foreshadow the immense development which it was destined to undergo, by becoming the centre of commercial affairs, and by daily adding to its labouring and mercantile population (Figs. 195 and 196).

It was, however, outside the walls of Paris that commerce, which needed liberty as well as protection, at first progressed most rapidly.  The northern provinces had early united manufacturing industry with traffic, and this double source of local prosperity was the origin of their enormous wealth.  Ghent and Bruges in the Low Countries, and Beauvais and Arras, were celebrated for their manufacture of cloths, carpets, and serge, and Cambrai for its fine cloths.  The artizans and merchants of these industrious cities then established their powerful corporations, whose unwearied energy gave rise to that commercial freedom so favourable to trade.

[Illustration:  Fig. 194.  Whale-Fishing.  Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Cosmographie Universelle” of Thevet, in folio:  Paris, 1574.]

More important than the woollen manufactures—­for the greater part of the wool used was brought from England—­was the manufacture of flax, inasmuch as it encouraged agriculture, the raw material being produced in France.  This first flourished in the north-east of France, and spread slowly to Picardy, to Beauvois, and Brittany.  The central countries, with the exception of Bruges, whose cloth manufactories were already celebrated in the fifteenth century, remained essentially agricultural; and their principal towns were merely depots for imported goods.  The institution of fairs, however, rendered, it is true, this commerce of some of the towns as wide-spread