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Between 1814 and 1815, at the time of the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne, several dozen businessmen attempted to have the title of “manufacture royale” reinstated. Although they were all dismissed, these requests nonetheless led the administrators of the Bureau consultatif des arts et manufactures to take stock not only of the reasons for the decision under the Empire to reserve the title of “manufacture impériale” for a few companies particularly linked to the State, but also of the uses of the title “manufacture royale” under the Ancien Régime. The results of their survey and their processing of the dossiers thus bring into play several visions of the past, while leading to an interpretation of this institutional mechanism and its economic effects, which legitimised its disqualification as a refusal of “privileges”. This article compares the analysis of the dossiers created under the Empire and the Restoration with the results of the ANR “Privileges” project on business privileges in early modern Europe.