Europe from a Motor Car

by Russell Richardson

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood

The Place des Terraux, peaceful enough to-day with its busy shops and clouds of white doves, witnessed many a tragic spectacle of the French Revolution. The guillotine stood in the center of the square. Lyons, always royalist in its sympathies, was one of the first cities to raise the standard of revolt against the excesses of the revolutionists in Paris. The consequences of this act were fatal and terrible. The Reign of Terror in Paris was surpassed by the more gruesome reign of terror in Lyons. An army was sent against the city, which was finally captured, after a desperate resistance. "Then the convention resolved to inflict an unheard-of punishment; it ordered the destruction of a part of the city and the erection on the ruins of a pillar, with the inscription, 'Lyons waged war with liberty; Lyons is no more.'"[4]

The city was "the scene of perhaps the greatest cruelty of the Revolution, when women who had begged for mercy to their dear ones, were tied to the foot of the guillotine and compelled to witness hours of butchery."[5] It was soon found that the guillotine did not work fast enough. The defect was quickly remedied. Hundreds of captives were taken outside the city, where the guns of the revolutionists continued the slaughter on a larger and more satisfactory scale.

Possibly the most interesting fact about modern Lyons is its industrial prominence. Baedeker tells us that the city exports annually over one hundred million dollars' worth of silk. Its life seems to be founded upon this one industry. The rich Lyonnais are silk manufacturers. The museum of silks is the finest thing of its kind in Europe. In the old part of the city is the statue of Jacquard, the inventor of the silk loom. As we walked through the narrow streets, there could be heard the sharp clicking of the shuttles, a sign that the weavers were busy at their looms. We were shown the "conditioning house," where the imported raw silk is tested and subjected to a high temperature. This is the first important step in the manufacture of silk, which in the raw state absorbs moisture readily. But by exposing the silk to heat at a temperature of seventy-two to seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit, the water evaporates and the weight of the silk may then be ascertained. To prevent fraud it is then marked by a sworn valuer. France raises very little raw silk, most of it being imported from Japan and China. Out of a population of nearly half a million, nearly a third is directly engaged in the production of silk, and the workers in the surrounding districts would probably number as many more. For a distance of thirty miles, outside of Lyons, the country is dotted with little houses, each containing one or more looms. The prosperity of few large cities is more clearly the result of a single industry.

Americans are especially interested in Lyons for its connection with the starting of silk manufacturing in the United States. A short time ago we were shown a letter written in 1863 by an American living in Lyons. He refers to the excitement created in this district by the rumor that weavers were being engaged with a view to establishing silk manufacturing in the United States on a very extensive scale, and that several companies had been formed and had sent out agents to purchase in Lyons all the machinery and looms used in the manufacture of silk. The writer doubted if the conditions in the United States would make possible the success of the venture. In spite of this prediction, the industry developed rapidly, so that to-day nine hundred American manufacturers have a combined annual output valued at over two hundred million dollars. At the time of the assassination of Lincoln the United States government received a silk flag from the weavers of Lyons dedicated to the people of the United States in memory of Abraham Lincoln. The flag was of the finest fabric and was inscribed: "Popular subscription to the Republic of the United States, in memory of Abraham Lincoln. Lyons, 1865."

But while the United States is making more silk than France, Lyons remains the real center and heart of the industry. American high-power looms are mostly engaged in turning out, by the mile, a cheaper kind of silk, and largely confined to standard grades in most common use. The thread is much coarser. After having lived in Lyons it is possible to understand why this city continues to be the center of the silk industry, even when we consider that this is a mechanical age, and that the inventions of one nation spread quickly to competing nations. American manufacturers are using the Jacquard loom, a Lyonnais invention. The first American looms were imported from Lyons, but one thing which was not bought and imported with the loom, was that aptitude for handling it which is inborn in the Lyonnais. Machinery has its limitations, and back of the machine is the question of efficient labor. The trained hand of the workman is needed at every turn. The looms of Lyons are famous for their light, soft, brilliant tissues. The silk thread woven into many of these beautiful products is so fine that two and one-half million feet of it would weigh only two and one-fifth pounds.

It is an experience to see the weavers at their work, and to watch the sure, skillful way in which they weave the thousands of delicate threads into harmonies of color. Their skill is the heritage that has come down from father to son. These workmen have a start of many centuries over their American competitors. Their ancestors were weaving silk before America was discovered, the industry being started in Lyons in 1450 by Italian refugees. Traditions count for a great deal in the silk industry, and from the moment when Lyonnais weavers gained the Grand Prix from their Venetian rivals, under Louis XIV, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, their looms were busy making costly robes and rare tapestries for the royalty of Europe. In the museum at Lyons is a robe worn by the famous Catherine II of Russia. One is shown tapestries that adorned the apartments of Marie Antoinette in the Tuileries at Paris, and the throne room of Napoleon I in the palace at Versailles. Money could not buy these precious souvenirs of the Lyonnais looms. Many of the gorgeous robes worn at the coronation ceremony of George V were made in Lyons. To-day, as in the past, to make these rich silks and brocades that France is exporting, there is needed not only the skill of the worker, but the soul of the artist. This artistic French temperament is the important and deciding factor that makes Lyons the center of the silk industry. There has been the attempt to create in the United States a style which would be distinctly American. It failed. The German emperor also encouraged efforts to create a style which would be typically German. The result was the same. The atmosphere in these countries is too commercial and mechanical for artistic vitality. In such an environment it is said that the French weavers who are employed in American silk factories become less effective, and lose much of their artistic originality. The industrial pace is too fast. The cost of labor in the United States is so great that the emphasis has to be placed on speed and quantity in order to cover the cost of production. But in Lyons, with a cheaper labor cost, the organization of hand and power looms is so perfect that a manufacturer is able to fill large orders readily.