For a long time the French, through indolence or antipathy—­for it was more to their liking to be occupied with arms and chivalry than with matters of interest and profit—­took but a feeble part in the trade which was carried on so successfully on their own territory.  The nobles were ashamed to mix in commerce, considering it unworthy of them, and the bourgeois, for want of liberal feeling and expansiveness in their ideas, were satisfied with appropriating merely local trade.  Foreign commerce, even of the most lucrative description, was handed over to foreigners, and especially to Jews, who were often banished from the kingdom and as frequently ransomed, though universally despised and hated.  Notwithstanding this, they succeeded in rising to wealth under the stigma of shame and infamy, and the immense gains which they realised by means of usury reconciled them to, and consoled them for, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected.

[Illustration:  Fig. 199.—­Discovery of America, 12th of May, 1492.—­Columbus erects the Cross and baptizes the Isle of Guanahani (now Cat Island, one of the Bahamas) by the Christian Name of St. Salvador.—­From a Stamp engraved on Copper by Th. de Bry, in the Collection of “Grands Voyages,” in folio, 1590.]

At a very early period, and especially when the Jews had been absolutely expelled, the advantage of exclusively trading with and securing the rich profits from France had attracted the Italians, who were frequently only Jews in disguise, concealing themselves as to their character under the generic name of Lombards.  It was under this name that the French kings gave them on different occasions various privileges, when they frequented the fairs of Champagne and came to establish themselves in the inland and seaport towns.  These Italians constituted the great corporation of money-changers in Paris, and hoarded in their coffers all the coin of the kingdom, and in this way caused a perpetual variation in the value of money, by which they themselves benefited.

In the sixteenth century the wars of Italy rather changed matters, and we find royal and important concessions increasing in favour of Castilians and other Spaniards, whom the people maliciously called negroes, and who had emigrated in order to engage in commerce and manufactures in Saintonge, Normandy, Burgundy, Agenois, and Languedoc.

About the time of Louis XI., the French, becoming more alive to their true interests, began to manage their own affairs, following the suggestions and advice of the King, whose democratic instincts prompted him to encourage and favour the bourgeois.  This result was also attributable to the state of peace and security which then began to exist in the kingdom, impoverished and distracted as it had been by a hundred years of domestic and foreign warfare.