The topic of “Capitalism and the Historians” is a subject far exceeding the limitations normally imposed by historical discipline. In fact, in a still wider context, this subject has much to do with the great ideological division of the modern world into the two vast camps of capitalist and communist countries, a most somber spectacle facing us today. The aim here is not to trace the steps by which we have reached the tragic facts of contemporary affairs, but rather to show how our beliefs concerning these matters (such as the view taken of capitalism) are influenced largely by our impression of the past.

In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Continental Blockade momentarily ruined the maritime commerce of Western Europe and, by the same token, increased the importance of the land routes of this area. More dian other regions, the valley of the Saone and the Rhône, squeezed between the Alps and the Massif Central on the isthmus separating the Mediterranean from the North Sea, profited from the dislocation and came to know an intense activity. For some 105 leagues from Marseilles to Chalon, the products of Provence and Languedoc, as well as colonial goods brought in along the Mediterranean, took this road leading to Paris and the countries of the Northwest on the one hand, to Strasbourg, Alsace, and Germany on the other. Superbly situated in an obligatory point of passage, Lyons enjoyed at that time an exceptional prosperity; placed as she was at the terminus of the new Cenis road, she added to the Rhone traffic proper the free importation of silk from Lombardy and the Piedmont and the trade in Illyrian and Levantine cotton which had crossed the plains of northern Italy. Thus was realized little by little that “Lyonnaise conquest of the peninsular market of the Empire” described by Marcel Blanchard. Coming ahead of even the traditional silk industry, transport constituted the primary source of wealth of a city where nearly two hundred truckers and shipping agents built up solid fortunes, all the while hoping that nothing would come to halt the process.