A VISIT TO LYONS
At Chambéry we interrupted our trip through southern France to visit
Lyons, the center of the silk industry not only for France but for the
entire world. For once, we traveled by train. There is an element of
strain about mountain motoring which is as severe upon driver as upon
car. A diversion is not only welcome but almost necessary to the
motorist who has twice guided his car over the Alps within the short
space of a few days. The exhilaration of looking down into France or
Italy from the summit of the Alps does not lessen the dangers of the
long descent, where for considerable stretches every foot of the way is
crowded with possibilities of accident.
Lyons, while usually overlooked by the vast army of summer tourists,
holds, in many respects, a unique place among the world's great cities.
We would speak of its magnificent location upon two rivers, the rapid
Rhone and the sluggish Saône; of the twenty-seven bridges that cross
them; of the many miles of tree-lined quays, which hold back the spring
floods and offer a lovely promenade to the people. No one who has seen
Lyons will forget how the houses rise in picturesque confusion, tier
piled above tier, to the heights of Fauvière, where some of the Roman
emperors lived centuries ago, and where, on the site of the old Roman
forum, stands a beautiful church, overlooking the city and embracing one
of the views of Europe of which one never tires. On a clear day the Alps
are visible, and the snows of Mont Blanc, and just outside the city one
can see the two rivers uniting in their sweep to the Mediterranean.
Lyons is a military stronghold. Its prominence as a manufacturing and
railroad center indicates, of course, its great strategic importance.
Seventeen forts guard the hills around the city. The army is much in
evidence. This constant coming and going of the French soldiers gives
much color and animation to the street scenes. Everyone is impressed by
the cuirassiers. They are powerfully built and look so effective, like
real soldiers who could uphold the traditions of Napoleon's time, and
who would feel much more at home on the battle field than at an
afternoon tea. We saw the Zouaves, in their huge, baggy red _pantalons_
and with their faces tanned by exposure to the tropical sun of Algeria.
Their red caps reminded us of the Turkish fez.
[Illustration: _The Rhone at Lyons_ _Page 65_
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]
[4] _Political History of Modern Europe_, by Ferdinand Schwill, Ph.D.
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.
[5] From "The Alpine Road of France," by Sir Henry Norman, M. P., in
_Scribner's Magazine_, February, 1914.
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.
A superior loom organization, combined with a temperament naturally
artistic and creative, explains the advantage of the Lyonnais
manufacturer over his American rival, and why it is that American buyers
for our large department stores come to Lyons twice a year to select
designs and place orders with the Lyonnais manufacturers. Department
stores which cater to the wealthiest class of trade have their
representatives permanently stationed here to keep in closest possible
touch with the latest French fashions.
This question of style is of such absorbing interest to the average
American home that it will be worth while to notice the forces at work
in Lyons to produce it. Paris is so largely the parade ground for new
fashions that nearly everyone overlooks the tremendous influence of
Lyons in the creation of styles. The hundred and more silk manufacturers
of Lyons have their own designers, who are constantly devising new
patterns and color combinations. Most of the new designs and color
schemes that appear every season in muslins, taffetas, satins, in all
the varied kinds and qualities of silk, have their origin here. This is
the creative source. It is Paris that discriminates and decides to which
of these new patterns it will give expression in the models which will
be copied in all the fashion centers of the world. Paris has the
artistic sense of knowing how to combine the materials that Lyons
furnishes. The two cities work together. The famous fashion stores of
Paris and the silk manufacturers of Lyons are the primary factors in the
creation of styles, and yet, after all, the origin of style is to be
found in the spirit of the times. Our restless age craves constant
change. A century ago in France, when life moved more slowly, the silk
dress was an important part of the bride's trousseau, and after being
worn on special occasions through her life, was handed down to the next
generation. But to-day the styles change with the seasons.
And as they change in Paris so they change in the United States. If we
look at this question of style simply from the standpoint of
organization, it seems remarkable how perfectly every little detail of
the complicated machinery has been worked out. A French silk
manufacturer, who arrived in Lyons after a visit to several American
cities, was impressed not only with the rapidity with which styles
spread from the upper to the middle classes, and the quickness with
which the American people grasp new ideas of dress, but also with the
fact that Paris fashions appear in New York and Chicago at almost the
same time that they appear in Paris. He saw accurate reproductions of
the spring Paris fashions, made in America of French materials, and with
the color, the line, the idea, the detail, so perfectly reproduced that
it would have been difficult to decide between them and the Paris
garment. More and more we are coming to realize our great debt to
France, and to the Old World, for our education in matters of taste, for
our appreciation of beauty in line and color.
And in Lyons one comes closest to this artistic spirit in the workshops
of the weavers, and especially those who work on the hand looms. There
are thousands of these weavers of the old school that has done so much
to make famous the silk industry of the city. Their wages are small and
they work amid surroundings of extreme poverty. We visited some of them
in their shops. Often we found the loom situated in a damp, gloomy
basement, or on the top floor of some old house that looked as though it
might have passed through the storm and stress of the period of the
French Revolution. These sanitary conditions are so bad that in 1911
there was organized a charitable company with the sole purpose of
providing decent lodgings where the weavers could work under improved
conditions of light and shade. We always found them hospitable, eager to
exhibit their work and explain the workings of the loom. In one workshop
the weaver was busy with a piece of satin, the design being wrought in
silver and gold. For this beautiful bit of tapestry, which had been
ordered for one of the apartments of the Queen of England in Windsor
Castle, the workman was receiving only one dollar a day. On another loom
there was being reproduced a piece of sixteenth-century brocade. A
French millionaire had noticed the original in a museum and wanted an
exact reproduction of it for a new château he is building. After a
morning passed amid such scenes, you feel that Lyons is worth visiting,
if for no other reason than to see at their work these artists of the
loom who are so closely associated with one of the world's oldest and
most interesting industries.