a bit of history

An introduction with a benevolent spirit.

The little history of canuts

Birth and development of the Lyonnaise factory

Louis XI dreamed of it in 1466 ... François 1er realized it ... in 1536.

The silk is officially established in Lyon under the impetus of François Ier (after the first unsuccessful attempt by Louis XI): the first production workshops "of gold, silver and silk fabrics" borrow a lot from the Italians very Present in Lyon since the Renaissance in fairs and banks. But there, the weaving of silk in Lyon began in 1536, under the leadership of Turquet and Naris, Piedmonte weavers installed in Lyon.

Thus, a small town in the Middle Ages, Lyon grows from the Renaissance (15th and 16th centuries) from 30,000 to 100,000 inhabitants, while the silk is set up.

The Great Factory

In the 17th, the “big factory” is set up. This original organization (dispersed manufacture) includes:

  • The weavers (canuts), who weave on their own trades.
  • The (silky) merchants, who receive orders, provide the raw material and the drawing to the canuts.

During the two centuries of stability that follow (17th and 18th), 15,000 looms occupy 40% of workers in the city.

Between 300 and 400 merchants-fabricants make the reputation of the Lyon silk, which is essential throughout Europe, in particular by the technical improvements of Dangon in 1610 (profession "at the draw").

The talent of some 80 designers of the city, among others: Revel, Pilitment and the famous Philippe de Lassalle, make Lyon a European capital of silk at the end of the 18th century.

After the French Revolution

The Revolution of 1789 is a disaster, and the city suffers from the lack of orders of the nobility and the clergy. Socials emigrate to Switzerland or Germany.

A few years later, the conditions became favorable again thanks to the impulse given by Napoleon 1er, who wants to decorate his palaces, dress his court, and supports the development of the Jacquard mechanics.

The weavers, until then, are installed in Old Lyon and in the peninsula, where they lack space and light.

Birth of the Rousse Cross

From 1812 began the construction of the Croix Rousse district, a new, very characteristic district, intended to receive the weaving workshops. It offers many advantages:

  • La Croix Rousse is close to the Terletaux district, where most of the merchants-fabricants work
  • The district has virgin land, in the hands of a bourgeoisie that took advantage of the Revolution
  • The hill has a famous air
  • Taxes are almost nonexistent (no granting)

The architecture is functional and robust, with large windows (for light) and a large ceiling space (4 meters high on average), in order to install the looms.

This new buzzing district of activity promotes a common life, which gives it a forged soul in shared efforts and the struggles that have revealed great solidarity ... Distrustful of power, it is the theater of the famous "Canuts revolts", in 1831, 1834 and 1848.

Greatness and decline of the Lyon silkor

However, La Croix-Rousse will lose its independence without much regret, during the attachment to Lyon in 1852, because the work has resumed and the equipment will considerably improve (water, gas, funicular ...). It is gradually welcoming 3/4 of the city's weaving trades, and the Lyon silk is consumed an international influence: 40 % of exports to Great Brittany, 25 % to the United States.

La Croix Rousse develops quality production, specializing in the production of complex fabrics. The simpler fabrics are often made in the surrounding regions, by a rural workforce, often more docile but less qualified.

Demographic statistics of the Rousse Cross


A quick decline

In the 20th century, the decline will be rapid, despite some brief periods of prosperity in 1919, 1920 and 1950.

The activity mechanizes: we go from 500 to 1,300 mechanical professions at the Croix-Rousse from 1900 to 1920.

Weaving is developing in neighboring regions (Massif Central, Isère, Ain), which had room to accommodate industrialization.

Today, only a few arm of arms remain to meet the needs of prestigious sponsors, or for national museums (PRELLE, and TASSINARI CHATEL companies).

The Lyon Factory

It is an old corporate type organization, born under the old regime, with its many regulations, the most important of which are those of 1554, 1667 (Colbert) and 1744, intended to normalize and guarantee the quality of silk tissues, but Also to preserve the hand-up of a wealthy urban bourgeoisie, on a population, whose revolts are feared. This factory, dispersed manufacture, has three elements.

Traders

The traders, or "merchant-fabricants" (between 400 and 1000 entrepreneurs) bring silk, have it prepared (milling, dyeing and hatching), as well as fabric drawings, which they will take care of eating. They do not "manufacture", they give this work in a way, according to a price that they determine alone most often. Most of the traders are installed at the foot of the Croix-Rousse hill.

Atelier or master-workers' leaders

About 8,000, including half at La Croix-Rousse, at the top of activity in the middle of the 19th century. Owners of the equipment and sometimes of the workshop, they work and make their family work, apprentices and companions, but depend on the “price” given by merchants, and the economic situation, variable in this area of ​​manufacturing products luxury.

The master weaver is more like a small boss than a worker. It is the master weaver who discusses the price like the manufacturers. When they agree, the manufacturer provides chain threads and weaving frames. When it comes to shaped tissues, it is also the manufacturer who provides the boxes.

Companions or workers

About 40,000, approximately, hired, often housed and fed by the workshop manager and also paid to the parts (about half of the "price"). They most often have very rough working and existence conditions.

Large revolts

The major canut revolts in the 19th century (1831,1834, 1848)

This Croix-Roussienne epic, in addition to making a lot of ink flow, has aroused bright debates as to the brand it has left on history. So we will only make a brief overview.

The price at the origin of the conflict

This is the question of the "price" which is at the origin of the revolt of 1831. The term "price" corresponds to the fixing of the price between manufacturer and master weaver, different remuneration to each type of article ordered: the weavers are dependent on the orders placed by the manufacturers, and they are the first to undergo the vagaries of the market.

When they agree, the manufacturer provides chain threads and weaving frames. When it comes to shaped tissues, it is also the manufacturer who provides the boxes.

While several times, in 1811 and 1826, the masters weavers had obtained a minimum rate, in 1831, the manufacturers, embarrassed by the economic and political crisis of 1830, broke this agreement and wanted to impose a remuneration freely negotiated with each Master weaver. This system has the effect of causing a collapse of remuneration levels: more than 60% fall for shaped tissues.

The misery that reigns is all the more problematic as the orders resumed ... The weavers and their entourage then begin a march to the city, with dignity and in silence, on October 25, 1831. The authorities as well as a majority of merchants, very Worried but also impressed, agree to negotiate for the recovery of the official price on the initiative of the prefect Bouvier-Dumolart.
A quarter of the merchants are opposed to the price: the Paris authorities and the Bourgeois National Guard of Lyon block the 'Application of agreements and cause an uprising of the Croix-Rousse. The weavers take over the prefect and the general commanding the troops. Fire shots burst into poorly elucidated circumstances.


Towards a conflict resolution

Thanks to good organization and the advantage of the strategic position of the Croix-Rousse hill, the insurgents triumphed in less than 48 hours, on November 21 and 22, 1831. Blood has been shed and there will be about 150 killed and 500 wounded. However, a relative order was maintained by the workshop leaders who remained masters of the revolt.

A velvet dresser, Martin Buisson, took charge of the troops and took control of the city by opposing looting attempts. The workers' leaders, who enter the movement only to defend the collective agreement and who have no political aims, even declare that they only want "law and order" and do not quite know what to do with their victory. The prefect and the local authorities were therefore reinstated and the tariff was confirmed.

Meanwhile, the government of Louis-Philippe in Paris which became aware of the "danger" and the risk of "contagion", sends his own son, the Duke of Orleans, accompanied by an army of 25,000 men commissioned by Marshal Soult. He occupied the city on December 3, 1831 and did not take long to remove the prefect, considered too conciliatory. He also abolished the price, when he was behind the conflict. However, this failure will not take anything away from the reach of the event and we will not even dare to condemn the leaders, put in judgment in Riom (far from Lyon!).

The revolt of 1834

Much more political, it proves that the malaise persists. It all began in February 1834 with a strike by the canuts in Croix-Rousse, but the movement spread to other districts, especially that of Vaise, and even spilled over into the political field. Indeed, the Republicans wanted to take advantage of this to oppose the government of the July Monarchy, which had restricted freedoms.

This time, the notables who were so afraid in 1831 of the "scum" of the Croix-Rousse, react very quickly and can count on an army of 10,000 men who remained on the spot. Like La Croix-Rousse itself not moved much, it is the big street in Vaise that sees the main massacres, quickly forgotten. "Order reigns" in Lyon for many years: those of the rise of the silk, barely slowed down by all these events.

The revolt of 1848

It corresponded to a new economic crisis and the collapse of the July Monarchy. It was a new and last outburst by some of the canuts of the Croix-Rousse, who had armed themselves on the occasion of the revolutionary days of February 1848. In June 1848, on the slopes of the Croix-Rousse, the uprising of these "Voraces" took place.

The repression is as immediate as it is brutal and we will no longer hear about the Croix-Roussiennes revolts. Prudent, the Emperor Napoleon III will ensure the dismantling of the fortifications of the Croix-Rousse and the attachment of it to the city of Lyon, in 1852.

In debate

The role of Joseph-Marie Charles dit Jacquard, Lyon (1752-1834)

Fertile inventor, encouraged by Napoleon, by the city of Lyon, and decorated by Louis XVIII ... a benefactor of humanity for the relief brought to the task of the weavers and especially that of the children (his statue is very present on the Place de la Croix-Rousse).

However, there is no shortage of criticism. While yesterday was described for the expensive price of its mechanics and its immediate lack of efficiency, today the debate is about the name of this machine. We would like to do justice to the inventors that preceded it (Falcon, Dangon, Vaucanson and Camchon) or who have improved it (Breton). In any case, the character of Jacquard is a complex personality, which the specialist Jean Huchard has dissected in almost all his aspects in the various official municipal ballots of the city of Lyon.

The term "canut"

Employed wrongly and through today, but in a rather flattering sense (the “canut” apartment, the republic of canuts, ...) had on the contrary a pejorative meaning in the past and even passed for insulting, especially to eyes of the silk weavers themselves. It must therefore be handled with caution.

This term appeared around 1805 and perhaps comes from the fact that the canes of the master workers were devoid of their attributes (the “nude canes”), at the time of the abolition of corporations (end of 18th, at the time of the revolution).


The social condition of silk workers

This social condition was often bad, especially with regard to companions and for everyone, during crisis periods, “murders”, frequent in a luxury industry. Admittedly, the price is very thin, especially for the companion, who only perceives half and the little people, apprentices, women, ancillary professions of weaving, who only perceive crumbs. The income of the weavers, down 1830 to 1848 (this question of the "price" was also at the origin of the revolts) amounted from 1850, but was subsequently reduced due to the rise in prices and competition from industries.

The master weaver, on the other hand, is a small entrepreneur with a level of higher education, allowing him to manage his workshop: he buys his equipment and manages his orders. He must know how to read and count.

La Croix-Rousse: a social laboratory?

It is certain that we can see, especially in the 1830s, original institutions: the first mutual insurance company, the Société du Devoir Mutuel, the first "workers" newspapers, L'Echo de la Fabrique, l'Echo des Workers, the first cooperative store, while some workshop leaders participate in the very official city prudhomes council.

Marxist historians saw in the 1831 revolt a turning point in workers' history .
However, it is necessary to be prudent: on the evening of an unexpected victory, which delivered them the city of Lyon, in 1831, the heads of the Canuts declared themselves in favor of "the law and the order", "the People hungry, but do not plunder ”, because these men are not part of the battalions of the new proletarians of the big nascent industry. Admittedly, they know how to unite and act against misery and exploitation, "the harshness of times and merchants", but they also show certain conservatism, reacting after the fact to the vagaries of the market. There is nothing surprising there, since we are here at the stage of pre-industrialization, with the survival of old practices or institutions, as is for example the very active association of ferrandinier companions duty.


Let yourself be told the history men and silk trades.

A reading of the official bulletins written by Jean Huchard.

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