THE WEALTH OK NATIONS.

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as in many English, and in most Dutch towns. In thosetowns which are principally supported by the constant oroccasional residence of a court, and in which the inferiorranks of people are chiefly maintained by the spreadingof revenue, they are in general idle, dissolute, and poor; asat Rome, Versailles, Compeigne, and Fontainbleau. If youexcept Rouen and Bourdeaux, there is little trade or in-dustry in any of the parliament towns of France , and theinferior ranks of people, being chiefly maintained by the ex-pense of the members of the courts of justice, and of thosewho come to plead before them, are in general idle and poor.The great trade of Rouen and Bourdeaux seems to be altoge-ther the effect of their situation. Rouen is necessarily theentrepot of almost all the goods which are brought cither fromforeign countries, or from the maritime provinces of France ,for the consumption of the great city of Paris . Bourdeaux isin the same manner the entrepot of the wines which growupon the banks of the Garonne , and of the rivers which runinto it, one of the richest wine countries in the world, andwhich seems to produce the wine fittest for exportation, orbest suited to the taste of foreign nations. Such advantage-ous situations necessarily attract a great capital by the greatemployment which they afford it; and the employment of thiscapital is the cause of the industry of those two cities. Inthe other parliament towns of France , very little more capi-tal seems to be employed than what is necessary for supply-ing their own consumption; that is, little more than thesmallest capital which can be employed in them. The samething maybe said of Paris, Madrid , and Vienna. Of thosethree cities, Paris is by far the most industrious : but Paris itself is the principal market of all the manufactures establishedat Paris , and its own consumption is the principal object ofall the trade which it carries on. London, Lisbon, and Co-penhagen, are, perhaps, the only three cities in Europe , whichare both the constant residence of a court, and can at thesame time be considered as trading cities, or as cities whichtrade not only for their own consumption, but for that of othercities and countries. The situation of all the three is ex-tremely advantageous, and naturally fits them to be the entre-pots of a great part of the goods destined for the consump-tion of distant places. In a city where a great revenue isspent, to employ with advantage a capital for any other pur-pose than for supplying the consumption of that city, is pro-