Introduction: Profits and economic development during the old régime -- Privileged enclaves and the guilds: liberty and regulation -- The privilege of liberty put to the test: industrial development in Normandy -- Companies, colonies, and contraband: commercial privileges under the old régime -- Privilege, liberty, and managing the market: trading with the Levant -- Outside the body politic, essential to the body economic: the privileges of Jews, protestants, and foreign residents -- Privilege, innovation, and the state: entrepreneurialism and the lessons of the old régime -- The reign of liberty? Privilege after 1789