Mémoire des fabricans de soude de Marseille, en réfutation d'une pétition de quelques habitans du département de l'Aude, présenté à la Chambre des Pairs et à celle des Députés

First edition of this memorandum defending the chemical soda industry of Marseille against its detractors from the Aude region.
Our copy is offered in an unbound state.

A rare document bearing witness to an early episode of industrial lobbying that would shape the global destiny of Marseille soap.

The manufacture of Marseille soap rests on two essential ingredients: olive oil and soda. For centuries, this soda was imported from Spain in vegetal form, derived from the calcined ashes of salicornia and barilla, its trade monopolized by the major Marseille mercantile houses. Everything changed between 1808 and 1811: the Peninsular War initiated by Napoleon abruptly cut off this supply, and the Imperial State imposed the use of artificial soda produced according to the process developed by Nicolas Leblanc from sea salt, granting the new soda works exemption from the salt tax and strict customs protection against imports. Within a few months, some thirty entrepreneurs invested nearly 4 million francs in industrializing the Leblanc process on the outskirts of Marseille. This chemical revolution would enable the Marseille soap industry to achieve its industrial expansion: up to 90 soap factories in the 19th century, and 180,000 tons produced by 1913.

Yet in 1816, the outcome was far from certain. The Restoration maintained the imperial preferential regime, while former traders in natural soda, ruined by the import ban, sought by every means to overturn this system. The year was particularly tense: the factories at Septèmes, near Marseille, were threatened with arson by rioters, and the Minister of the Interior, Lainé, was compelled to intervene publicly to guarantee the protection of the industry. It was in this climate that the opponents of the soda manufacturers attempted a new maneuver by shifting the battleground: a petition was presented to the two Chambers established under the Charter of 1814—the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies, then dominated by the ultraroyalists whom Louis XVIII would dissolve in September of that same year—by “some inhabitants of the department of Aude.”

The present memorandum, printed by Rouchon, Printer to the King in Marseille, constitutes the institutional response of the soda manufacturers. They are under no illusion as to the nature of the maneuver, stating explicitly from the outset that these inhabitants of Aude merely appear to be the authors of the protest; they are “in reality the instruments of a new aggression” orchestrated by the same adversaries who have already “created so many dangers and so many obstacles” to their industry. The geographical displacement of the dispute, from Marseille to Aude, is a deliberate tactic designed to renew, under a different pretext and setting, an economic offensive previously repelled.

The memorandum, extending to page 33, answers the petition’s arguments point by point, recounts the history of soda manufacture in the Bouches-du-Rhône since 1808, and reminds both Chambers of the scale of the investments committed, estimated at 7 to 8 million francs in the Bouches-du-Rhône alone. It concludes by citing a public pledge from the Minister of the Interior assuring that the royal government has no intention of revoking the incentives granted to the soda works, and warns that should these establishments disappear, the loss would fall solely upon France, to the benefit of soda manufacturers in other regions of the kingdom and the trade in foreign natural soda.

Both a documentary witness to the emergence of industrial lobbying under the constitutional monarchy and an illustration of the conflict between the old Mediterranean trading economy and the new French chemical industry, this memorandum marks a turning point whose consequences extend far beyond the immediate controversy. The soda manufacturers would prevail. Their industry would prosper, supplying Marseille’s soap makers with abundant and inexpensive raw material. Without this victory, Marseille soap might never have attained its global stature.