Laon
The lively little city of Chauny, standing in the heart of the rich and lovely valley of the Oise, the 'golden vale' of this part of France, has a history of its own of which I shall presently have something to say, and which throws some interesting light upon the general history of France.
But Chauny owes its actual prosperity mainly to its connection with the Company of St.-Gobain. From a very early period in the annals of the company, the plate-glass made at St.-Gobain was sent across the country to Chauny, and thence by water to Paris, where it was polished and 'tinned' at the company's works in the Rue de Reuilly.
When the first machines were invented for saving much of the manual labour spent upon these processes, it occurred to the managers of the company that these machines might be advantageously worked with the water-power of the Oise at Chauny. This was in the beginning of the present century. About the same time, thanks to the foreign wars provoked by the Girondists to promote the Revolution, it became very difficult to obtain the supplies of natural soda necessary for the manufacture of plate-glass, these supplies having been drawn, down to that time, almost exclusively from Alicante in Spain; and the chemist Leblanc hit upon a process for extracting soda on a great scale from sea-salt. Of this invention the managers of St.-Gobain promptly availed themselves; and, after a brief and unsatisfactory experiment at a place called Charlesfontaine, they established at Chauny some soda-works, which have since been developed into the most extensive chemical works in France.
Taken in conjunction with the glassworks also now established here, these works extend over an area of some thirty hectares, fourteen of which are occupied by buildings. Numerous canals fed from the Oise traverse this immense area, some of them supplying water-power, others serving as waterways. The place, in short, is an industrial Amsterdam or Rotterdam in miniature, lying between the river Oise, the Canal de St.-Quentin, and the Canal de St.-Lazare. The Cité Ouvrière, built for the workmen by the company, lies beyond the Canal de St.-Lazare and on the road from Château Thierry in Champagne (the birthplace of La Fontaine) to Béthune in Artois.
The streets and areas within the works are most appropriately baptized by the names of the eminent men of science to whom the company is indebted for great services either directly or indirectly: the Cour Lavoisier, the Rue Pelouze, the Rue Guyton de Morvaux, the Rue Leblanc, the Rue Gay-Lussac, the Cour Scheele, the Rue Hély d'Oisset.
Besides the dwellings put up for the benefit of the workmen at Chauny, the company has built here a chapel, established a free dispensary, and organised excellent schools for the children of both sexes, under the supervision of the devoted Sisters, who have not yet been 'converted' out of Chauny.
'What is the feeling of the people here on this question of clerical teaching?' I asked an acquaintance of mine, who formerly filled an important post in the local administration of this region, and who now devotes himself to his flowers and his library in a charming old house of the eighteenth century, the high-walled courtyard of which is tapestried with luxuriant vines and creepers.
'All the sensible people in Chauny,' he said—'and there are many sensible people in Chauny, though in the old times our neighbours used to speak of us as "the monkies of Chauny"—are quite disgusted with all this newfangled nonsense, and with these incessant attacks on the clergy. The troublesome element here in Chauny is not to be found among the workmen: it is to be found among the people who do not work. Of course, everybody knows that it is the great chemical and glass works here which make Chauny prosperous. But for St.-Gobain we should be where we were a hundred years ago. And so there is a tendency all through the Department to come to Chauny, in hopes of finding work under the company. Of course, in nine cases out of ten, those who seek it thus do not get it, for it is the rule of the company always to give the preference to people from Chauny, or the immediate neighbourhood.
'Of course the unsuccessful "immigrants" linger about the place, and as they don't find work they go lounging about the town, and take to drink too often and, in short, soon become the raw material of which in these days the freemasons are making what they call "Republicans." You have it all,' he added, 'in the letter which M. Allain-Targé has just written, refusing to be a candidate this year for the Chambers.'