Brussels was also situated on the banks of the Seine. Before entering the city, the convoy arrived at the docks, where a splendid building had been erected. Henry Joseph Langhenhoven was waiting at the entrance.
If the stock exchange had been completed, it would have been included in the morning's itinerary, since it stood in the city center. But since it was unfinished, this trade and exhibition market would take its place.
Ever since Louis XIV had bombarded central Brussels and occupied the original bread and cloth markets with his own palace, merchants had been forced to trade elsewhere. Usually, they chose the city gates, because entrance taxes were collected there. Outside the gates, things were not as concentrated as in the city center, but there were certain conveniences nonetheless. It was like the difference between vendors in a food market and those setting up stalls illegally outside it. Vendors inside the market paid management fees, while those outside did not. When people coming to buy vegetables saw that the produce outside was cheaper and more convenient, they bought it there instead. Naturally, the vendors inside, who had paid the management fees, would not stand for it. They demanded that the market find a solution, or they would refuse to pay the fees—or simply leave the market and occupy the roadside like the outside vendors.
This phenomenon existed in other cities as well, with different places adopting different methods of management. Henry Joseph Langhenhoven was a senior official of the Exhibition Tax Guild. In Latin, it was called "toloneum," meaning road tax.
This differed from a toll tax. It meant that if a vendor wished to set up a stall on the road and display his goods for customers to choose from, he had to pay tax. If he hid