64 FRENCH TEXTILE INDUSTRIES [CH

was

usedfor silk-throwing, for driving fulling mills inthewool industry, and scutching mills for flax.

The

^linen

^and

^wool

industries were very widespread and

most

French country-

women

spun wool or flax. Silkmanufacture

was

concentrated mainlyat Lyons. Cotton

was worked

in the north-west, from

Rouen by Amiens

^{to Lille,andinsouthernAlsace. Silk}

had

the

most

elaborateandcapitalisticindustrial organisation.

The

chief riskswere taken and the

main

profits enjoyed

by

the so-called maitrefabricant,

who

bought

raw

material and

had

itprepared forthelooms, furnishedthe designs, andsoldthefinishedsilks.

Weaving was

ⁱⁿthehandsofthe maitreouvrier,

who

keptafew looms and employed ^{a handful of}

journeymen

and apprentices.

Wool

weaving

was

mainlyinthehands ofsmallmasters,working independently at

home,

or employing outworkers

on

a very modest scale. It was in the linen manufacture that really primitive conditions were most prevalent

—

_{^the village weaver}

who worked up

hiscustomer's yarninto materials forher

own

use, or the

loom

in the peasant's house to

make

the linen at

h^me.

The most

strikingchanges inthefirsthalfofthe nineteenth century were in the cotton industry.

The

industry

was

young, having only

come

into existence inthe course of the eighteenth century. BeforetheRevolutionits

most

flourishingbranch

was

calico printing, the printing of indiennes as theywere called, in imitation of theEasternfabrics.

The

trade

was

carriedonat Lille, St Denis, and elsewhere.

There

were also important manufactures ofcotton velvet at Evreux, Amiens, Dieppe

and

other places in the north-west.

The

Alsatian cotton industry beganshortly before 1750 with theprinting ofindiennes,atrade learnt from the south

Germans

and the Swiss.

At

the start,

both in Alsace and the north-west, the calico or muslin

was

imported. Spinning in the eighteenth century was almost confinedto

Normandy

andtheLilledistrict,andcottonweaving was stillasmalltrade.

By

1800 thejennywaswell acclimatised in thedepartmentofthe

North

and weaving wasalsoprogressing.

Butrapid progress was quiteimpossible under

war

conditions, with Englishfrigates on allthe trade routes.

The

government did not facilitate progress.

Heavy

duties were laid on im-

Ill]

FRENCH TEXTILE INDUSTRIES

₆₅

ported cottonin1806

and

1810,aspart ofNapoleon'scontinental policy.

Yet a start

was made

withthe

new

machinery undergovern-

ment

patronage.

The most

interesting story is that of Alsace, because there spinning

and

weaving were

new

trades

which came

ⁱⁿ with the

new

century. Spinning machines,

no

doubt jennies,arefirstheardof_{in 1803.}

Two

yearslaterweavingwith the flying shuttle began, and with it the true Alsatian cotton manufacture.

Almost from

thefirsttheseimproved

hand

looms were often found, not in cottages, but in ateliers

communs —

primitive weaving sheds

—

^{as might be expected in a}

young

industry

which

required entrepreneurs

who

were capitalists, if

only on a small scale,to supplythe

new

machines. Five years aftertheflying-shuttleloom,

came

thefirstwater driven spinning machines; and

two

years later(1812), the first Alsatian steam- engine

was

set

up

in a tiny spinning mill.

Meanwhile

a few

more

important establishments

had

sprung

up

in the North.

There

was

a cotton spinning mill with 90 workpeople near Lille in 1801,

and

a

mixed

establishment at Valenciennes, in which spinning weaving and printing were ^all carried

on by what seemed

the

huge number

of 126 workpeople.

By

1810 there were 22 spinning mills at Lille, each employing on the average

from

60 to 70 workpeople^.

There

were 13 mills at Roubaix

and

8 at Tourcoing.

But

there

was

not

much power

inthese mills.

A

^great part ofthe machinery

was hand

driven jennies;

some

of it

was

driven

by

horses.

The

^country about

Lille,unlike Alsace,is riotwell suited forwaterwheels

and

there were

no

steam-engines there before 1818.

With

the peace Alsace

went

rapidlyahead.

About Mulhouse

^'

therereally

was

anindustrialrevolutionbetween 1815

and

1850.

The new

spinning industry there counted 500,000 spindles b;^

1828

and

1,150,000

by

1847

—

^{a third of all the} spindles in France.

The power loom was

adopted perhaps

more

quickly there than

anywhere

in Europe, ^{not excluding} Lancashire.

Experiments with ^it began about 1823.

By

1830 there were,

• For comparison ^it may be noted that the averagenumber of persons employedin a^listof 43 Manchester mills in 1816 was approximately300.

EconomicJournal, Sept. 1915,P-475-

66

FRENCH TEXTILE INDUSTRIES

^[ch.

2000 inuse and

by

1846 10,000; and in the ^latter year only

some

12,000

hand

looms survived inthewhole ^{Alsatiancotton}

'irea.

Water

power, so easily accessible along the ^slopes from theVosges to the Alsatian^plain, was still dominant; but there had

grown up

in a single generation a true factory system, its roots well nourished

by

mechanical invention and

by

a strong engineeringindustry. Itboreitsusualbittersocialfruit.

The North

inthose days

moved

slowly,because steamcame ipso gradually.

There

are said to havebeen 24 steam-engines inLille and its suburbs

by

1832; but they were allsmall and so late as 1856 the mills of that district

had

_{but 932} h.p. of steam between them. ^{Lille, Roubabc,} Tourcoing, Armentieres, thewholecottonareaofthedepartmentof theNorth,hadonly 550,000spindles in 1849^;and

most

oftheweavingwasstilldone

"out," in the cottages. It should be added that

much

ofthe yarn

went

into cottonhosieryand lace; towards theend of the period also into union fabrics, for which it was

mixed

with linen, worsted, or silk; and that all these industries remained

more

backward inmechanical and industrial organisationthan the cottonmanufacture proper.

The

department ^of the

North

was not the only region in northern France where cotton was spun,

woven

or printed.

But its historyistypical of northernconditions.

The Norman

cottondistrict, about thevalleyofthelowerSeine,hadfarmore spindlesthantheLille districtin1846 (between one and^{a half}and

two

millions)becauseithad

more

waterpower; butthegeneral conditionsweresimilar.

The

intermediatedistrict,Picardy with headquartersatAmiens,never

became

amanufacturingareaon the great scale, thoughit did

some

spinningandretained afew important establishments forprinting, velvetmaking,andso on.

In the French wool industries the

most

important develop- mentsof the earlynineteenthcenturywereneither inmachinery nor in organisation, but in the raw material supplies. French wool in theeighteenth century was inferior in quahty and was notusedatallinthe bestcloths. Spanish merinotookitsplace.

But between ₁₇₇₅ and 1825 the systematic breeding ofmerino sheep in France itself altered the position; and subsequently the

home

supplies ofmerino woolcould be augmented, though

Ill]

FRENCH TEXTILE INDUSTRIES

₆₇

with difficulty

owing

to tariff conditions,

from

Australia via the

London

market. Several important branches of theFrench wool manufacture

owe

their

modern

prosperity entirely to this

new

state of affairs.

Such

are the worsted

(combed

wool) in- dustries of

Reims and

of the

Le

Cateau district,

which drew

their fine wool

from

the

new

flocks of the Tardenois and the/

Picardy downs.

Fine

wool was

not the only

new raw

material.

At

the other

end

ofthescaleFrancelearnt

from

England, between 1820

and

1840,

how

to

make

" unions "

—

^woolgoodswithacotton

warp

—

andshoddycloth,orasitiscalled inFrench, drap derenaissance,, twice-borncloth,thewoolin

which

has seenserviceoncebefore.

These goodsforthe multitudewere

woven

mainlyin

Normandy,

where the practice ofspinning

up

ends ofyarnandwastewool had been

known

in the eighteenth century before the drap de renaissance proper,

made from

torn

up

rags,

came

into fashion.

The

.chief

Norman

manufacturing centres were Louviers, Evreux

and

Elboeuf.

Towards

the middle of the nineteenth century, these cheaper goods were being turned out also at Sedan,

which

until about 1840

had

beenthe seatof the finest cloth manufacture only,

and

also in the wool manufacturing towns of the far south,

Mazamet,

north of Carcassonne, and

Lodeve

in the Cevennes, towns

which had come

to the front as manufacturers ofstout

and

coarse

army

cloth forthe troops of theBourbons,

and

then for the innumerable armies of re- volutionary

and

Napoleonic France.

The

towns just mentioned do not nearly complete the list

"^

ofFrench wool manufacturing centres, but they illustrate the widespread diffusion of the industry.

Two more must

be mentioned, even in the

most summary

account

—

Roubaix

and

Parisitself.

The

^little town,or bigvillage, ofRoubaix

grew up most

literallyunder the

shadow

ofLille, inthe old days

when

the French lawsaid that without special leave industries

must

beconfinedtotherealtowns. Lillefoughthardforitsprivileges.

By

₁₇₈₉

Roubaix had

about 5000 people and a miscellaneous weavingtrade.

For

thirtyyears it

grew

slowly. In 1824^it

was

still onlyconnected with^Lille

by

acountryroad,impassablein winter. It

had no

post, no water power, hardly even water

68

FRENCH TEXTILE INDUSTRIES

^[ch.

enough for its ordinary needs. But its population

grew

to 15,000

by

1830 and to 34,000

by

1850. Its trade

was mixed

—

worstedweavingprimarily,andsecondarilyallthe

mixed

fabrics of worsted with silk,cotton andmohair, for clothing,hangings

_

and furniture. Roubaix

demands

attention as one of the very few

mushroom

industrial towns of

modern

France

—

^{^Paris,}

becauselagrandevillealwaysmanaged, and manages,tohavea

hand

in nearly every French industry. For the wool industry of1815-50^Paris did agreatdealof dyeingandfinishing,anda certain

amount

ofcombing,spinning and weaving. It

was

also the

home

ofcapitalistentrepreneurs,

who

furnishedpatternsand materials for weavers working so far

away

as

Le

Cateau, on fency goods andarticlesof fashion.

Round

every one ^of these manufacturing centres were the weavers ofthe countryside.

Wool

weaving

was

untouched by

power

duringthefirsthalfofthe century. Inspinningand the preparatory process of carding, machinery

made

considerable conquests.

Much

of this machinery

was

hand-worked. But water-frames, theArkwright type of spinning machinery, had

^come in forthe spinning ofworstedyarn.

The

bigcylindrical carding engines were also being driven

by

water; the fulling mills always had been.

Here

and there, after 1830, ^especially in the flat industrial district of the north, little steam-engines were set

up

^todriveone orothertypeofmachine.

At

the very end ofthe period, effective machinery for comibing was being 'worked out

by Heilmaim

in Alsace and

by

contemporary inventors in

England^but

it hadnotyet

come

into general use.

Reims, the

main

headquarters of the

combed

wooltrade, was

still reputed to have its 10,000

hand

combers, working in- dependently for piece wages or grouped in small workshops.

Dyeing andfinishingwere done

by hand

inrather largerwork- shops;though machines were appearinginthe dye-houses,and shearingmachinesfor cutting thenapofwoollenclothhad

come

into general use, inspiteofstrong opposition

from

theold

hand

shearers. Everywhere the industry

was

rich in small masters and small concerns. Behind

them

stood the organising entre- preneurs ofthe towns, like those of Paris; but these were not a

new

industrial type.

Ill]

NEW INDUSTRIES AND PROCESSES

₆₉

The

remaining textile industries were even less affected

by new

inventions than that of wool, until the late forties.

The Lyons

silktrade

had

alwaysused

some

water

power

forthrowing,

i.e. twisting the fibres into yarn strong enough to stand the strain of the loom. It

now

added a Httle steam power. It

adopted Jacquard's

loom

for figured fabrics, as did the

mixed

weavingindustriesoftheNorth; but

power

wasnotyetapplied to theJacquard loom.

The

firstmentionof a

power

loom,even

forplainsilk, isin1843-4. Flaxand

hemp

spinningby

hand

were

still carried

on

in allparts ofFrance in 1840.

Hemp

was spunt entirely

by hand

to1850;and, althoughafewflaxspinningmills wererising in the North,it

was

guessed that millyarn

was

not

much more

than a tenth of the total output of Francein 1844.

Five years later, however, therewere said to be250,000

power

driven flax spindles in about 100 mills^; and their product was beginningtobeat the

hand

yarn.

The power

loom,thoughvery well suited for plain linen weaving, had only just

begun

to compete withthe

Unen hand

looms,which were to befound in every department andin

most

fair-sized villages.

§ 15.

The

reports of the industrial exhibitions facilitate the dating of

new

industriesor

new

methods.

Some

illustrationsof importance

may

be taken

from

them.

Among

the outstanding

new

industries

was

that ofgas.

Gas

was first tried at Paris in^"

1815.

A

^few years later the Palais Royalwas illuminated, and

afterthat

movement was

rapid,asspeedwas then reckoned. By^

1844Paris

was most proud

ofher 65,000 gas burners

—

^sayone

burner to every fifteen of the population, for both indoor and outdoor illumination.

There was

in fact very little of the former;

and

even the street

lamp

brackets, les lanternes, only vanished slowly.

Among

other

new

industries with a scientific foundation

which

arose in these years,

may

be noted india- rubber, the daguerrotype

—

^{^in 1845 there were thirteen pro-}

fessional photographic artists in Paris

—

^and electroplate.

The

chemical industryproper

made

considerable^progress,and

new

processes were steadily introduced.

The

chemistry offats

was

explored, with consequences

which

were eventually revolu- tionary forthesoap andcandle trades.

The

beet-sugarindustry, struck

down

for a time

by

the competition of cane sugar

when