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This paper presents the state of progress of a French international trade dataset called the “Base Montesquieu”, which is focused on products. It includes the foreign trade data contained in the annual series entitled “Tableau général du commerce de la France avec ses colonies et les puissances étrangères sur la période 1836-1938” [Table of France’s general trade with its colonies and foreign powers over the period 1836-1938]. The article presents the data and discusses their robustness. It also analyses the issues associated with the digitization and conversion of this source into a database in order to make them available to researchers.JEL code: N7