Why monopoly failed: the rise and fall of Société La Fuchsine

Abstract

Historians are invariably wiser after the event. Their approaches to the subject of this paper, the Société La Fuchsine, make no exceptions to this rule. That company was formed in December 1863 with the participation of the Crédit Lyonnais bank to exploit the patent monopoly on the synthetic dyestuff known as fuchsine, and its derivatives, of the Lyons firm of Renard frères et Franc. No one could have foreseen that before the close of the decade this whole adventure would end in utter failure. In the eyes of contemporaries La Fuchsine was one of the most impressive and awe-inspiring firms of the European dyestuffs industry in the 1860s. Yet by 1868 La Fuchsine was virtually bankrupt, although it dragged out its legal existence until 1875. However, in every other sense it was already dead well before that date.