JACQUARD, JOSEPH-MARIE, was born at Lyon, on the 7th of July 1752, of humble parents, both of whom were employed in ope rations connected with weaving. He is said to have been left to teach himself even to read and write ; but at a very early age he displayed a taste for mechanics, by constructing neat models of bnildiugs, furniture, &-c., for amusement. At the age of twelve his father placed him with a bookbinder for a time, and he was subsequently engaged in type-founding and the manufacture of cutlery, in both of which occupations he gave evidence of talent. Owing to the death of his mother, young Jacquard returned to the house and occupation of his father, who died some years after, leaving him a small property, which he employed in the attempt to establish a business in the weaving of figured fabrics. The undertaking failed, and he was compelled to sell his looms In order to pay his debts. Ile subsequently married, and hoped to receive a portion with his wife which might assist him out of his pecuniary difficulties; but this expectation proved delusive, and he was compelled to sell his paternal residence. His wife, to whom he is said to have been tenderly attached, is described as a model of patience, kindness, and activity ; while he appears, without fortune or foresight, to have occupied himself with ingenious schemes for improvements in weaving, cutlery, and type-founding, which pro duced nothing for the support of his family. Necessity at length compelled him to enter the service of a line-maker in Breese, while his wife remained at Lyon to attend to a small straw-hat business. In 1792 he ardently embraced the revolutionary cause, and in the following year he returned to Lyon, and assisted in the memorable defence of that place against the army of the Convention. His only son, then a youth of fifteen, fought by his aide. Being denounced after the reduction of Lyon, they were bath compelled to fly, and they then joined the army of the I thine. his sou was killed in battle, and upon this Jacquard returned to Lyon, where he found his wife, whom he had been unable to inform of his flight, earning her bread by plaiting straw, In which humble occupation he was compelled by poverty to &mist. Lyon at length began to rise from its ruins, and its artisans returned from Switzerland, Germany, and England, where they had taken refuge. Under these circumstances, Jacquard applied himself with renewed energy to the perfection of the beautiful appa ratus for figured weaving which bears his name. Ho had conceived the idea of such an apparatus as early as 1790, and be now succeeded, though but imperfectly, in accomplishing his end. His machine was presented, in September 1801, to the national exposition of the pro ducts of industry, the jury of which awarded him a bronze medal for its invention. In the same year he obtained a patent, or ' brevet
d'lnventioo; for a term of ten years. He set up a loom on his new principle at Lyon, which was visited by Carnet and several other of the statesmen who were assembled at that city in 1802 to arrapge the affairs of the Cisalpine republic.
About this time the attention of Jacquard appears to have been directed, by the accidental perusal of a paragraph from an English newspaper, stating that a reward was offered by a society in this country for the invention of such an apparatus, to the construction of a machine for weaving nets for fishing and maritime purposes. From the account given by Dr. Bowring, who had conversed on the subject with Jacquard himself, before a select committee of the House of Commons on the silk trade in 1832, this would appear to have been Jacquard's first mechanical invention ; but the more circumstantial account in the ' Suppldment' to the 'Biographie Univereelle, to which we are chiefly indebted for the materials of this article, shows that such was not the case. He accomplished the desired object ; but, having amused himself and his friends with his contrivance, he threw it aside. Ilis machine-made net however fell into the bands of the prdfet at Lyon, and the result was that, according to the arbitrary fashion of the time, he and his machine were placed under arrest and conveyed to l'aris, where the invention was submitted to inspectors, upon whose report a gold medal was awarded to him in February 1804. On occasion of this forced visit to Paris, Jacquard was intro duced to Napoleon I. and Carnet, when the latter, not understanding his mechanism, roughly asked him if he were the man who pretended to do that impossibility—to tie a knot in a stretched string. Jacquard, not disconcerted at such a reception, explained the action of his machinery with simplicity, and convinced the incredulous minister that the supposed impossibility was accomplished by it. He was then employed for a time in repairing and putting in order the models and machines in the Conservatoire des Arts et M6tiers, and while there he produced some ingenious improvements in weaviug-machiuery, one of which was for producing ribbons with a velvet face on each side. He also contrived some improvements upon a loom invented by Vaucan son, which improvements have been stated to bo the origin of the Jacquard machine. According to the French authority above referred to, however, this improvement upon Vaucanson's loom was not con nected with his great invention ; and, as its mechanism is very complex, its application limited to very small patterns, its action slow, and its coat very groat, it is couaidered to belong rather to the class of curious than of useful machine.