“a french town ... in which the product of successive ages, not without lively touches of the present, are blended together harmoniously, with a beauty specific—a beauty cisalpine and northern—and of which turner has found the ideal in certain of his studies of the rivers of france, a perfectly happy conjunction of river and town being of the essence of its physiognomy.”—deny l’ auxerrois: walter pater.
many centuries ago, certain chieftains of the allobroges were inspired to plant their little village of cularo at the supremely strategic point of all southern gaul. they built it a trifle to the east of the meeting place of two rivers, the isère and the torrent of the drac; north of them stretched the high, unbroken wall of the lower alps. and there in the sheltered valley they lived and were protected against incursions of other more warlike tribes—until the great conqueror of the world poured its invincible legions over the mountain barriers, and rome seized the little allobrogian defence town to be a colonial outpost of considerable military importance. on the site of cularo sprang up the strongly fortified gratianopolis, thus called in honor of the emperor gratian who reinforced the walls begun by diocletian and maximian. later, with the decline of the roman power and the development of the frankish nation, the latin name was abbreviated to grenoble—by which the modern city is known to-day as the chef-lieu of the department of the isère in france.
31the town, from its birth to the end of the sixteenth century, was familiarly styled “la ville du pont,” the city of the bridge. for more than a thousand years it commanded the only point where it was possible to cross the river isère. it was also designated “the old roman route town,” for it lay on the natural highroad which linked italy on the north with the country of france, the valley of the po with that of the rhone. the quaint, turreted bridge which spanned the river in medi?val days provided passage to the alps from french soil, and was the gateway to france for strangers approaching over the mountains. while its strategic position in time of war must be apparent, the site of the city was no less vital to trade and to later industrial development. as early as 1615 grenoble was known, far and wide, as “the city of glovers.”
the earliest records of the consuls of grenoble, which have been preserved almost intact since 1244, tell us only of “drapers, tailors, apothecaries and shoeing-smiths” in the city; and in 1489 they mention in addition sailors, pastry cooks, carpenters, barbers—but not glovers. only the weavers, tanners and curriers of wool and hemp presage the industrial future. there seems to be some question of a lone glover in 1328 who gave his services to the dauphin. but probably this workman made numerous things for his fellow-citizens, gloves included, and at the same time was a dealer in furs and perfumes. in the statutes of the glovers of paris, dating from 1190, they are styled “marchands-ma?tres-gantiers-parfumeurs,” mastermerchants-of-gloves-and-perfumes, 32and are accorded the exclusive right to prepare and sell these luxuries. furs were usually added to their stock in trade. but the solitary glove-maker of 1328 was in no sense a pioneer of the glove guild in grenoble, else had he apprenticed to himself other workmen, and the town been filled with glovers fully a hundred years earlier than it was.
the latter part of the sixteenth century was a period of war and domestic upheaval for grenoble, during which the city government was tossed back and forth among predatory barons until, in 1590, lesdiguières, “the king of the mountains,” took the town by siege in the name of henry iv. under lesdiguières’ remarkably public-spirited governorship, peace returned, commerce was resumed, and natural resources, scarcely recognized before, were drawn upon for the development of new crafts, whose products, now for the first time, were to be exported to all parts of france and even into other countries. among these new crafts glove-making instantly sprang into prominence.
for the raw materials were everywhere at hand. on the slopes of the mountains, enclosing like the tiers of a vast amphitheatre the city seemingly chosen by nature to become the mis-en-scène of the glove drama, millions of wild goats fed. already the tanners and tawers had tested the admirable quality of their skins, and those of the females in particular were found to be of the fine, soft variety, peculiarly free from flaws, so admirably adapted to the making 33of gloves. for the process of tawing the skins, moreover, the waters of the isère, because of their singular purity, were incomparable. and in the city itself—its population now greatly increased by prosperity and peace—lived scores of skilled artisans and their sons, well fitted for the careful cutting and shaping of gloves; while the women, equipped with three-cornered needles, quickly became adepts in sewing gloves by hand.
other occupations, which now received special impetus in medi?val grenoble, were the weaving of hemp textiles—for hemp was the most prolific crop of the alluvial river valleys—paper-making, and the manufacture of playing-cards; about 1630, the fruit of the vineyards on the mountain slopes, was turned into wine for exportation, and beautiful pottery and tiles were made of the rich clay deposits of the drac. but of all these crafts, the one taking first rank from the very start, and the one which quickly identified itself with the town, was gloves. in the municipal acts, glovers often appear after 1606. in 1619 claude honoré, a master glover, was elected consul. and in 1664 a certain skilled workman, jean charpel, an artist in his line, proclaims himself glover to the king.
“one sees the glovers,” observes a noted traveller of those times, “filling all the streets after 1610, and especially the rues saint-laurent, perrière, très-clo?tre, and the suburb, together with the curriers, tanners and tawers, and the combers of hemp.”
although most historians date the close of the middle ages and the beginnings of modern europe from the era of the protestant 34reformation, spanning the period from 1517 to about 1560, grenoble remained for a hundred years longer a medi?val city in every sense of the word. france continued a catholic country, and grenoble, sequestered in a southern province, scarcely felt the disquieting breath of the great religious revolution which was sweeping mid-europe. its ideas and its civilization changed little, even while fresh consciousness of its natural powers and material resources was impregnating the city with new industries. the spirit of craftsmanship—that joyous love of perfection, not only in the fine but also in the useful arts, which characterized the renaissance—was still the ruling temper of its citizens; and the guild of glovers, the most numerous and influential of all the artisans, particularly personified this civic character. if we would gain some notion of the part glove-making actually played in the lives of these people, and the status of the glove-craft as it first appeared in medi?val europe, we have only to journey in imagination to grenoble in the middle of the seventeenth century, on the occasion of the great annual festival of the glovers.
it is a clear, tranquil morning in the latter part of july, 1650, and the sun, scarcely an hour’s march above the mountains, is flooding with almost tropic brilliancy the matchless paradise of the dauphiné. in its confluence of rivers and fair valleys, the ancient capital city, grenoble, shines in the midst of the green plain of grésivaudan. impossible to describe the ever-changing charm of the horizons!—as, from the city itself, the eye 35sweeps eastward, northward, westward, over range upon range of snow-crowned mountains, under a sky so pure, so glowing, that distant peaks apparently loom near, and the cool breath of alpine heights gently smites the cheek.
eastward, the prongs, the pinnacles, the clear-cut outlines of a sierra; it is the chain of belledonne. from the devastation of its summits and terraced slopes, one divines beneath its summer cloak of verdure concealing only its lower descent, the adamantine rock moulded for all time by the glaciers of the ice age. it is indeed the advance guard of those massive crystal formations, the veritable backbone of the alps, which penetrate into france from mont blanc. on a morning like this, the swiss peak itself can be seen, cleaving the far-away heavens which overhang savoy.
in the west the spectacle changes. beyond the vast plain of the drac appears a long, white cliff, little carved out—a rigid line of limestone falling sheer to the valley where lies grenoble. this is the compact mass of vercors, almost impassable. yet, suddenly, the cliff makes way; the vale of furon leaps through the chasm in the mountain wall. an ancient road, winding ribbonwise to westward, puts into communication the valley of the isère with the wooded brows, the vast grassy hollows, of the vercors countryside.
northward, the limestone reappears in the chartreuse. but these mountains, unlike vercors, are twisted and broken, resembling a half demolished castle with great apertures and rents in its once impregnable sides. 36their countless little vales and fertile levels glow with stream-fed pasturage and with billowy forests. and everywhere, among the foothills of the encircling ranges, roam herds of goats and cattle, without suspicion of the fate which awaits them with the coming of the great fair of the autumn at grenoble.
on this july morning the old town gleams like a strange jewel, set in the spacious, lush meadow lands, stretching league on league, to the mountains. vast gardens of hemp wave to its very walls. vineyards veil the nearer hills, and the mulberry dots the plains of the southeast. the isère, restless, ever seeking new outlet, interlaces with a network of sparkling tributaries the great expanse of grésivaudan. all the richness of the region, all the amazing variety and beauty with which nature has surrounded this ancient city, seems concentrated, in the early hush and radiance, in an act of worship.
now the sun has penetrated the shadows below the city walls, and is stealing through the sinuous, crowded streets, peculiar to towns which long have been cramped within the precincts of strong fortifications. the tiled eaves lean so close one upon another, as in some places actually to shut out the sky. if we might fly up like a bird and look down over the grenoble of 1650, we would be gazing upon a confusion of multi-colored roofs, set at every conceivable angle of picturesqueness, and upon a bewildering congregation of chimneys and chimney-pots. also, we would note that the town lay on both banks of the isère, connected by a tower bridge, and protected 37on the north by the fortress of the bastille.
down in the roughly paved rue saint-laurent the clatter of sabots on the stones announces that the townspeople are astir. shutters are thrown open. bursts of song herald the holiday. crowds of goats, driven through the streets, are being milked at the house doors. then, from the cathedral of notre dame—whose foundations, it is said, were laid by charlemagne—the bells proclaim with sweet solemnity the call to early mass. out of the houses pour the people in gaily embroidered holiday dress, group joining group with merry exchange of salutations, until, trooping through the narrow streets, the colorful procession appears like a wandering rainbow threading the grey mazes of the old town.
house after house they pass and shop after shop, each bearing above the portal a shield emblazened with the selfsame coat-of-arms—the heraldic device of the guild of the glovers. their occupants, gayest of the gay, fast swell the throng, with masters and their families and apprentices—the young boys in the retinues stealing shy glances at the pretty daughters of their masters, the maidens covertly returning their admirers’ bashful looks.
and now the multitude melts into the tender gloom of the ancient cathedral; their voices are hushed in the sweet fluting of the choir. above the heads of the kneeling populace glows the shrine of saint anne, lit with innumerable candles and smothered in exotic, summer flowers. for this is the 38annual fête-day of the mother of the virgin, the patron saint of les gantiers, revered by all good glovers throughout france. at grenoble, however, the feast is observed with greater magnificence than anywhere else, for the glovers constitute by far the most numerous body, and the most prosperous, of its citizens, and theirs is the crowning festivity of the whole year.
according to monkish legend, the good saint anne made a livelihood while on earth by knitting gloves. “the knitting saint,” in homely terms of affection the people liked to call her. they were wont to regard her as one like themselves—only holier far, for the great honor god saw fit to confer upon her—fulfilling her simple task from day to day, the needles always busy in her fingers. their love for her was so strong, indeed, and so enduring, that early in the nineteenth century the glovers ordered a statue of their saint set up in a public square of grenoble, where it may be seen to-day. it represents the mother of mary, knitting, with a half-finished glove in her hand and a basket of gloves at her feet.
mass celebrated, the long summer day is given over to street festivities, to feasting, dancing and pageantry. the doors of the glovers’ guild-hall, converted into a flower-adorned banqueting room, stand wide open. the glovers’ shops and houses overflow with hospitality. as at a great fair, popular arts and pastimes occupy the squares and spaces before the public buildings; several such distractions begin at once and continue simultaneously. mountebanks and musicians, 39folk dances, columbines and pierrots, flower-girls, venders of bon-bons and petits joujoux of every description, all commingle in a laughing, jabbering, singing, whirling, shimmering, merry-making throng. a wheeled street-stage, drawn by donkeys, with bells jingling about their necks and on their trappings, makes the rounds of the town. wherever it stops, the gay curtains of the miniature theatre are parted to disclose the play-actors who give a medi?val burlesque of don juan, amid the noisy applause and high-pitched laughter of the onlookers.
but the great feature of the day is the pageant of the glovers, in which each master, with his apprentices and family, has his special part. this takes the form of a procession of carnival vans, or floats, drawn by gorgeously caparisoned horses, and followed by crowds of young apprentices and workmen and workmaidens on foot, who enact in pantomime the various processes of glove-making as it was practiced in medi?val days. beautiful kids and chamois from the mountains, wreathed with blossoms as though for sacrifice, are led by troops of peasant gar?ons in blue smocks. the cutters advance, rhythmically jingling their shears; and the needlewomen move by more slowly, drawing their shining implements in perfect unison through the unfinished gloves they carry in their hands. a spice of rivalry enlivens the exhibition, for every master-glover has taken pains that his own personal retinue shall be as large and as brilliant as possible. every apprentice is fired with the desire to so comport himself as to be an honor to his master—and, 40incidentally, to attract the admiration of the maiden of the house he hopes to win.
angelus finds the merry-makers still romping, singing, dancing; a little wearily the couples break apart, and the townsfolk once more flock through the streets, transformed in the afterglow to running rivers of gold, and are lost in the stilly dusk of the cathedral. and now the tapers gleam like stars upon the altar of saint anne, and the fading flowers send forth a sweet, benumbing perfume, as heads are bowed to receive the evening benediction. on the rough, uneven stones of the floor they kneel, imploring in their hearts the good saint who protects and prospers all devout glovers, that the craft may wax stronger with every year in the city of grenoble.
so we see an entire community uniting in a great religious, civic, industrial and social festival to celebrate and re-consecrate the craft of glove-making. the place of honor this calling held in former times is unique and striking. in the chapters which follow we shall observe how gloves—and especially the gloves of grenoble—have sustained their early tradition through three hundred years of political vicissitude and commercial struggle.
