Guild regulations also restrained capitalist production. Trade with the colonies had been artificially concentrated in the hands of a small group of privileged merchants. Internal trade was also hampered by the huge amount of customs barriers, which covered the entire country. Despite the intensive development of manufactories, in the period of absolutism significantly hampered by the accumulation of capital, necessary for the further development of production. Industry and trade levied substantial taxes and fees, which went mainly for the maintenance of the nobility. The government has repeatedly resorted to illegal withdrawals of funds from wealthy industrialists.
This policy led to the fact that a large number of companies such as the factory was bankrupt and liquidated, thus indicating that it is impossible to go machine production under the domination of the feudal-absolutist regime. As in the Middle Ages, the population is still divided into three estates – clergy, nobility and third estate. Clergy and nobility, numbered respectively 140 and 130 thousand people from 26 millionth of the French population and were the privileged classes. They do not pay taxes and retain the medieval privileges. It is these two classes is the stronghold of absolutism in the country.
The third estate was very uneven. These included representatives of the bourgeoisie – the large, medium and small, as well as the French peasantry. It is quite clear that the standard of living they had quite different. Especially difficult was the position of the peasantry. It was crushed by a mass of liege duties, taxes and charges in favor of church and state, did not have the material means needed to acquire more sophisticated tools and industrial products in general.
