MANUFACTURES.
Our historical notices of French manufactures are very imperfect, until towards the year 1600, when the wars of religion were brought to a close, and peaceful industry received encouragement from Henry IV. and his minister Sully. It was then that the patronage of government was extended to the manufacture of silk, of glass, of jewellery, of gold and silver tissues ; also of the finer woollens and linens ; for the coarser kinds had been established many cen turies before. But the great extension of the finer manufactures of France took place after 1668, dur ing the reign of Louis XIV., and the ministry of Colbert. It was then that workmen were invited from Holland, and induced to settle at Sedan and Abbeville, places still celebrated for their woollens.
In the south of France also, establishments were formed for making the light cloth suited to the Tur key market, so that, towards the year 1700, the ma nufactures of France, as well for woollens as other articles, had made considerable progress ; we mean, that they had arrived at the state to be expected from a people of great activity, but of little combi nation. The manual labour of the workmen was in. genious ; the machinery extremely imperfect ; the linen, the paper, and, in some measure, the wool lens and hardware, found their way abroad, because in the rest of Europe these manufactures were very backward ; and, in particular, because the ex ports of England were then very limited. The repeal of the edict of Nantes was a very impolitic measure, but its consequences have been much overrated, for England has profited very little by the extension of her silk fabrics ; and Brandenburg, the chief resort of the French emigrants, has never become an ex porting manufacturing country.
Another and a more important error is the cur. rent notion that French manufactures were formerly (from 1650 to 1750) more extensive and flourishing than at present : also that they underwent an almost total extinction during the Revolution. These, like many other impressions, in regard to France, rest merely on the loose allegations common in that coun try, where current report almost always partakes of the marvellous. Official data, wherever they are preserved, far from sanctioning such fluctuations, are in favour of a progressive, though slow increase.
To begin with the oldest, and most widely diffused branch, woollens, we find" that the relative numbers of workmen, at three distinct intervals, and in very different parts of the country, were as follows : Lizieux also in the north had nearly the same num ber of workmen (5000) throughout.
The finest qualities of woollens are made at Sedan, in Champagoe, and at Louviers, in Normandy. In these the only material is Merino wool. At Elboeuf and Darnetal, both likewise in Normandy, the qua lities are very various, the prices being from 6s. to 28s. the English yard. Carcassonne and Limoux owed the origin of their extensive manufactures to the abundant supply of wool from the pastures in the Pyrenees. Since the reduction of their exports to the Levant, an alteration in the quality of their cloths has opened to them a vent in the interior of France. The mountainous districts in Languedoc contain great numbers of sheep,.and are the seat of the manufacture of serges, tricots, and other coarse woollens, most of which are made, not by workmen collected in a factory, but on the domestic plan still followed in part of Yorkshire, and in the north-west of Wales. In the hamlets or villages-of the depart. ments of the Tarn and Aveyron, almost every house has its loom, and during the evenings in winter, or in the day time, when the weather is adverse to country labour, the women employ themselves in spinning, and the men in weaving.
A highly-finished species of the woollen manufac. ture, viz. shawls, veils, ladies' cloth, &c. has been in troduced in the present age into France. Rheims is the seat of this important branch, and employs, in the town and neighbourhood, no less than l0,000.
workmen. Similar articles are made at Paris. Two towns very remote from each other, Lodeve. in the south, and Vire in the north-west of France, manu factured, under Bonaparte, very largely for the ar my. French woollens are, in general, much thicker than ours. In the fine qualities, the raw material forms (Chaptal, Vol. 11. p.181) somewhat more. than half the cost. In ordinary qualities, it is somewhat the cotton manufacture was introduced into France about 1770, and at first in the south of the kingdom, the raw material being supplied, not from America, but from the Levant. From the south, this manufacture passed, about 1780, to Rouen, St Quentin, Paris, Lille, and other parts in the north, extending with a rapidity surpassed only by that of England. At present, and for many years back, the great import of cotton is from the United States. The total of the raw material annually brought into France is calculated (Chaptal, Vol. II. p. 1.50) at an average of L.3,500,000, and the value of the finish ed articles, after adding the labour and profit in every stage, at nearly L.8,000,000. This is not above one-fourth of the amount of the cottons annu ally made in Britain ; for, in this great department of manufacture, the French have only followed our steps, adopting our machinery after a certain lapse of time, and equalling us, perhaps, in the durability of the fabric, but seldom in its elegance or cheap ness. The last is, in a great measure, owing to the centre of the manufacture being at Rouen and Paris, places where the support of workmen, including the extra price of fuel, is not less expensive than in Lan cashire. The districts at present most remarkable for the cotton manufacture are, The cotton manufactures of the more substantial kind, called Bonneterie, such as stockings and are carried on in Champagne, in Normandy, and in the department of the Gard, in Languedoc. The total of the workmen, young and old, employed on cotton in France, appears to be about 200,000 The number of works for spinning cotton yarn nearly - 300 Looms for making Bonneterie (in 1812) above 10,000 Looms for weaving cotton cloth, 70,000 In the extent of her linen manufacture, France is greatly superior to England ; not that her soil is better adapted to the growth of hemp and flax, but because England depends on importations of linen from Ireland and Germany ; and the spinning of flax does not form the occupation of our female pea. santry. In France, particularly in the north, every farmer, and almost every cottager, covers a little spot with hemp or flax sufficient to employ his wife and daughters in spinning throughout the year a stock of linen being the usual dowry of these humble occupants of the soil. The weavers reside in towns and villages. In Normandy, Lisieux, Dieppe, the neighbourhood of Havre, Yvetst, Bol bee, and the more inland towns of Vimoirtiers and Domfront, are all remarkable for one or more branches of the linen manufacture. The more backward province of Brittany manufactures, at Rennes, St Malo, and Vitr6, quantities of coarse linen, canvas, and sacking ; but Anjou affords a much superior article ; the toiler de Laud have long been in repute, and give employment, in Laval and the contiguous towns, to nearly 25,000 workmen. Lille and its populous district have very extensive manufactures of hemp and flax, for the number of workmen so employed, directly or indirectly, in this part of French Flanders, is not short of 50,000. Since 1790, fine linen has, in France as in England, been in a great measure replaced by fine cotton. the two together employ, at St Quentin (in Picardy) and the neighbourhood, no less than 40,000 work. men. In a very different part of the kingdom, the province of Dauphine, there are carried on linen manufactures of "various qualities, the prices being from is. 6d. to 5s. a yard.