Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD.

The small world which lives in elegant houses knows little of the great world in dingy apartments with bare walls and empty cupboards. Those who walk or ride in the sunshine often forget the darkness of the mines, or the tiresome treadmill of the factories.

Over a century ago, in Lyons, France, lived a man who desired to make the lives of the toilers brighter and happier. Joseph Jacquard, the son of a silk-weaver who died early, began his young manhood, the owner of two looms and a comfortable little home. He had married Claudine Boichon, the daughter of a goldsmith who expected to give his daughter a marriage portion, but was unable from loss of property. Jacquard loved her just as devotedly, however, as though she had brought him money. A pretty boy was born into their home, and no family was happier in all France. But the young loom-owner saw the poor weavers working from four in the morning till nine at night, in crowded rooms, whole families often bending over a loom, their chests shrunken and their cheeks sallow from want of air and sunlight; and their faces dull and vacant from the monotony of unvaried toil. There were no holidays, no walks in the fields among the flowers, no reading of books, nothing but the constant routine which wore out body and mind together. There was no home-life; little children grew pinched and old; and mothers went too early to their graves. If work stopped, they ate the bread of charity, and went to the almshouse. The rich people of Lyons were not hard-hearted, but they did not think; they were too busy with their parties and their marriages; too busy buying and selling that they might grow richer. But Jacquard was always thinking how he could lighten the labor of the silk-weavers by some invention.

The manufacture of silk had become a most important industry. Seventeen hundred years before Christ the Chinese had discovered the making of silk from silk-worms, and had cultivated mulberry-trees. They forbade anybody to export the eggs or to disclose the process of making the fabric, under penalty of death. The Roman Emperor Justinian determined to wrest this secret from China, and thus revive the resources of his empire. He sent two monks, who ostensibly preached Christianity, but in reality studied silk-worms, and, secreting some eggs in two hollow reeds, returned to Justinian, and breaking these canes, laid the eggs on the lap of the beautiful Empress Theodora. From this the art spread into Italy, and thence into France.

The more Jacquard thought how he could help the silk-weavers of France the more he became absorbed, and forgot that money was needed to support his family. Soon the looms had to be sold at auction, with his small home. The world ridiculed, and his relatives blamed him; but Claudine his wife encouraged him, and prophesied great fame for him in the future. She sold her little treasures, and even her bed, to pay his debts. Finally, when there was no food in the house, with tears in his eyes, Jacquard left his wife and child, to become a laborer for a lime-burner in a neighboring town. Claudine went to work in a straw-bonnet factory; and for sixteen years they battled with poverty.

Then the French Revolution burst upon Lyons in 1793. Her crime before such murderers as Robespierre and Marat was that she was the friend of Louis XVI. Sixty thousand men were sent against her by the so-called Republicans, who were commanded to utterly destroy her, and write over the ruins, "Lyons made war upon liberty; Lyons is no more." Six thousand persons were put to death, their houses burned, and twelve thousand exiled; among them Jacquard.

His only child, a brave boy of sixteen, had joined the Republican ranks, that he might fight against the foreign armies of England, Austria, and Naples, who had determined, under Pitt, to crush out the new government. At the boy's earnest request his father enlisted with him, and together they marched toward the Rhine. In one of the first battles a cannon-ball struck the idolized son, who fell expiring in Jacquard's arms. Covered with the blood of his only child, he dug a grave for him on the battle-field; and exhausted and heart-broken went to the hospital till his discharge was obtained.

He returned to Lyons and sought his poor wife. At last he found her in the outskirts of the city, living in a hay-loft, and earning the barest pittance by spreading out linen for the laundresses to dry. She divided her crusts with her husband, while they wept together over their irreparable loss. She soon died of grief, but, with her last words, bade Jacquard go forward in developing his genius, and have trust in God, who would yet show him the way of success. Blessed Claudine! A sweet, beautiful soul, shining like a star in the darkness of the French Revolution.

Jacquard with all earthly ties severed went back to the seclusion of inventing. After his day's work was done as a laborer, he studied on his machine for silk-weaving. Finally, after seven years,—a long time to patiently develop an idea,—he had produced a loom which would decrease the number of workmen at each machine, by one person. The model was placed at the Paris Industrial Exposition in 1801; and the maker was awarded a bronze medal. In gratitude for this discovery he went to the image of the Virgin which stood on a high hill, and for nine days ascended daily the steps of the sacred place. Then he returned to his work, and seating himself before a Vaucanson loom, which contained the germ of his own, he consecrated himself anew to the perfecting of his invention.