“lo, the old order changeth!”
how the glove craft of grenoble spontaneously sprang up, took firm root and grew until it controlled, to a great degree, the fortunes of that city, has been shown in the foregoing brief summary of events. the many phases of life with which glove-making was bound up in medi?val days, its social and economic importance to the community and its pre-eminence among the early industries, cannot have failed to be apparent. from about 1600 the chief city of the dauphiné underwent an astonishingly rapid development.
but, if the seventeenth century was little short of phenomenal in glove history, glove-making in grenoble was not fated to become one of the leading enterprises of the world without a struggle. the hundred years that followed were at once the most sterile and the most fecund in the annals of the trade—and, for that matter, the same is equally true of the eighteenth century as regards its bearing upon the destinies of europe. destructive of immediate results and of contemporary prosperity, this era which endured the birth throes of modern states and the upheavals of the revolution, was, nevertheless, big with prophetic good. and it is to the everlasting honor of the glovers of grenoble that they bore their part in this 42vast social and political movement, which temporarily threatened death to their personal interests, with their eyes fixed, not upon gain, but upon those high ideals and principles to which their faith clung, even in the midst of business paralysis and social chaos.
while the flame of the revolution did not break forth until nearly the close of the century, the spirit of modernity and unrest attacked the french people fully a hundred years before the fall of the bastille. in grenoble the transition from the old order to the new was anticipated as early as 1691, in response to a proclamation of the king that the business of the country be taxed to refill the royal treasury.
after the brilliant victories of his early reign, louis xiv. had suffered severe reverses. he was gravely in need of money to repair the military organization. new resources must somehow be found, and that immediately. the only adequate answer which presented itself took the form of taxation imposed upon the business interests of the realm. the glovers of grenoble, accordingly, in 1691, organized themselves into the corporation des gantiers, or corporation of glovers, to determine how heavily their industry should be taxed in support of the régime. while they felt loyally obliged to contribute all they were able to the king’s cause, by the very act of their organizing and by virtue of the funds they furnished, they became masters at home, respected by the monarch, independent and self-governing. their sacrifice of money to the government 43had, in the same hour, bought them their freedom in all that pertained to their local affairs.
the importance of this initial association for an economic purpose scarcely can be overestimated. the corporation later proved the unit of strength which was to render the glovers, as a body, invincible through the endless chain of vicissitudes, political, moral and industrial, which all but swept away, in the next hundred years, the totality of progress gained in the seventeenth century. in 1590 grenoble had not 10,000 inhabitants. in 1692 vauban values the population at 33,000. during the seventeenth century, then, its numbers had more than tripled, and this must needs strike one as the more remarkable inasmuch as city life in that epoch was little developed. such growth, as we have seen, went hand in hand with the evolution of its industries. in 1692, vauban wrote:
“the city contains a very numerous bourgeoisie, and is filled with a high quality of artisans which furnish a great variety of products to the largest part of the province. its increase has been such that it actually is bursting out of its new ramparts. the city has dire need of expansion; all ranks of people demand it irresistibly.”
in 1700 vauban submitted a plan for enlarging extensively the city proper. this was not to be realized, however, until one hundred and forty years later. already the tide had turned. the people were passing out through the gates of grenoble, never to return. the eighteenth century was destined to be such a period of sacrifice and retardation, 44in a material sense, as the town had never known, even in the pestilence-ridden, war-mad days which preceded the advent of lèsdiguieres.
the explanation of the exodus which ushered in the new century leads us back, for a moment, to certain events which, until now, we have not had occasion to mention. a great blessing to grenoble in the past had been the edict of nantes, by which henry iv., in 1598, had put an end to the religious wars. it had paved the way for the uninterrupted peace of the seventeenth century, and thus for the efflorescence of grenoble’s crafts and industries. the revocation of the edict of nantes by louis xiv., in 1685, really marks the turning point in that city’s prosperity. the testimony of contemporaries confirms this opinion, and the verdict of those living twenty years later in the famous glove town, assigns to the same cause the steady shrinking of the population during the second decade after the revocation.
the sudden withdrawal of religious liberty cost france three hundred thousand of her people who emigrated to germany, holland, and other protestant countries. a large element in these emigrations were the skilled artisans. grenoble alone was deprived of nearly three thousand persons, among them the family of the lèsdiguieres, many others of the nobility and the gentlefolk, and a large body of masters and apprentices.
in 1705 the city lost five hundred individuals of the religious profession and seventy-three families of “gentilhommes,” whose disappearance was no trifling matter, 45as these personages had been liberal patrons of the glovers, and it was their wealth which, in great part, had made business move. industry in grenoble, on every hand, was in a grievous state—but especially glove-making, the home demand being suddenly removed, and foreign trade little developed at that period.
such was the deplorable effect of the revocation. the glovers, however, proved themselves possessed of almost unbelievable powers of recuperation. in 1729 we find the sale of grenoble gloves spreading rapidly in germany, switzerland, savoy and piedmont. foreign trade steadily increased, despite the fact that the population of grenoble remained, virtually, at a standstill. but trade abroad brought also foreign competition. while the revocation had actually served grenoble, indirectly, by causing the ruin of her rivals in france—blois and vendome, which could not support the drain of their emigrations; and especially grasse, which was seriously crippled by loss of its master glovers and the departure of most of its families of wealth—these selfsame emigrations doubtless stimulated the manufacture of gloves outside france. many of those who had served their apprenticeship in grenoble, and master glovers holding the secrets of her arts, probably became rivals, in other lands, of the city they once had called their own.
all this complicated subject of commercial relations, the advantages and disadvantages of foreign trade, and the history of the glove market, will be treated separately 46and in detail in the chapter which follows. for the present, let us keep to our main issue—the vicissitudes in general of gloves and glove-makers in the leading glove city of the world during the stormy years of the eighteenth century.
from 1737 to 1746 we learn that the life of the grenoble glovers—on the surface, at least—was comparatively monotonous. the manufacture made some progress, but the possibilities of expansion were not such as to stimulate very keenly those at the head of things. the masters and the workers lived without disagreement, apparently; the time-honored rules of the craft continued to be observed on both sides. in the corporation a public magistrate managed the affairs of the association; the glovers themselves, it would seem, being too indifferent to take an active part. prosperity appears to have been just about commensurate with the needs of the corporation.
and yet, beneath this evident torpor, a vast inquietude was moving, like an earthquake under the sea. a fermentation of social discontent—bred by the philosophy of the times, by the glaring disparity between the ruling class and the working people, the latters’ distrust of the morals and the assumed authority of the former, by the teachings of freemasonry and the trades unions—was slowly gathering momentum. in working centres—conspicuously in grenoble and throughout the dauphiné—the wealthy people were constantly framing remonstrances, begging the royal council to curb the mutterings of the proletariat.
47the outbreak of the seven years’ war, in 1756, increased the industrial depression by cutting off a part of the foreign demand, particularly for gloves, and by calling away from france many men for the army. in 1759 a heavy tax was imposed by the crown upon skins. this proved the last straw. it meant that skins for tawing were hardly to be had, and thus the glovers were without materials for their manufacture. their irritation was acute, and the parliament of grenoble was obliged to carry before the king the united protestations of the corporation des gantiers.
this defence in behalf of the grenoble glovers was at once an act of justice and an achievement of admirable foresight. the parliament did more than merely present the honest grievances of the industry. with a commendable vigor and pride it laid before the king a constructive measure which was to become the occasion in france of an economic revolution in the skin and glove trades. this was the beginning of the breaking down of custom duties on gloves between provinces. after a few years the internal taxes on this product were entirely abolished. thus vanished all unfair competition at home, and neighboring glove cities ceased to come under the title of “the foreigner.” at the same time, the selling of skins from province to province became free and general. great fairs were held by the skin merchants, the tawers and tanners, for the benefit of all the surrounding region. exportation of skins decreased, while home manufacturers rejoiced in the abundance of excellent materials.
48the corporation of glovers, however, suffered meanwhile from the growing restlessness and vague ambitions of its workers. the old regulations were gradually and inevitably giving way before the awakening consciousness of a new race of wage-earners, grown almost morbidly distrustful of vested authority. the dauphiné was afflicted with the bad example of many of its aristocrats. the nobility was indeed unworthy of its rank. the pervading restiveness and insubordination of the working class sprang out of a deep, instinctive resentment against the prevailing order. of course, the first point of friction lay between the apprentices and the masters.
though the severities of apprenticeship were modified, the former good faith between these two was irretrievably lost. fear of foreign competition faded into insignificance before this intimate situation—the suspicious attitude toward one another of masters and workmen. such was bound to be the price of a last, furious assault upon the mouldering ramparts of long-decayed feudalism.
the master glovers, on their side, shared in the social discontent, and participated in the long drawn-out struggle between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie to determine which of these should predominate in the local tribunals. the glovers of grenoble contended that they, as an organized body of people, no longer merely having a trade, but enjoying also a social position encroaching on the importance of the man of the robe, the magistrate and the attorney, should have the largest voice in the making of the laws. their 49product, they argued, was bringing money into france from england, germany, switzerland, and other northern countries, where more than one-half of their gloves were sold. in 1775, it is stated, out of 100,000 dozen pairs of gloves made in grenoble, 60,000 were on commission for the foreigner. naturally enough these manufacturers and merchants felt that over an idle, and even vicious, aristocracy, their opinions and practical needs should lead in shaping public legislation.
further, bitter contention involved the business men of grenoble with the lawyers of that city, for the latter persisted in looking down upon plain citizens not bred in their profession, and in excluding them from public affairs. in 1789 all glovers were shut out of the city council. in view of the fact that they “gave work daily to more than eight thousand persons, and thus enabled to live one-third of the population of grenoble,” the glovers resented bitterly this deliberate indignity from “les hommes du robe.” it only fired them the more to throw themselves into the great conflict ahead; to prove that, even if they could not discourse so eloquently upon public matters as those who had insulted them, “at least they knew how to talk less, act more, and give all they possessed” to the cause of justice.
thus, with the greatest crisis, perhaps, of modern times approaching, the glovers found themselves, workmen and masters alike, drawn almost before they knew it, into the very heart of the maelstrom. industry itself was at a standstill. nay, it was slipping 50backward; for in the midst of such internal suppression of terrible passions, such scorching hatreds, and ideals to set the world on fire, what footing could there be for the arts of peace?
and then the black cloud burst. grenoble was drained of men whom the actual eruption of the revolution forced to flee its walls. it was emptied of soldiers departing for the centre of action. the revolution put out of business many of those following religious vocations, whose offices now were enlisted in grimmer callings; it wiped out of existence the gentlemen of leisure. there had been many of these latter in the beautiful, old city of the dauphiné.
and who was there left to wear gloves, in all the length and breadth of france? what was to become, in such an hour, of an industry which addressed itself to the pleasure-loving rich, and to the privileged classes? the rich? there were no more rich. privilege—the title, the robe, the gown? lost off in the wild scurry of fugitives! in the appalling reaction, such a harmless mark of elegance as the glove, became, so to speak, branded with horror. to be seen in gloves in those days was to be marked for a criminal against mankind; to be suspected of being a royalist, a lover of the king, a judas to the people.
so we have the spectacle of the glovers, “plain men of business,” throwing over every material advantage, to hurl themselves and all they possessed into the french revolution. “the revolution!” cries m. xavier roux in his invaluable book, the glovers of grenoble, published for private circulation 51in that city in 1887, “they themselves desired it. they sacrificed to it their money and their effort.” again he says:
“it would seem as though, in their eyes, there were no longer practical ‘interests’; there were only ideas. never, perhaps, as then, has a whole people forgotten its industry, it business relations, and suffered itself to be moved by principle alone.”
and yet one spectacle more remains—the silent factories on the isère. for the first time since the founding of its main industry and source of prosperity in the past, we behold the paradox of a gloveless grenoble!
