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Technology and the French Glass Industry, 1640–17401

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Warren C. Scoville
Warren C. Scoville
Affiliation:
University of California at Los Angeles
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Extract

Industrial expansion depends upon the state of the industrial arts. If we are to explain the rise of “modern industry” we must know precisely what the technological developments were in particular industries during those periods that are recognized as having been extremely important in the development of modern industrial techniques. This study, therefore, deals with the growth, structure, and technology of the French glass industry during a critical period (1640–1740).

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1941 , pp. 153 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1941

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References

2 Perhaps the most important single feature of “modern industry” is the production of commodities on a very large scale by privately owned and privately operated plants using expensive, complicated machinery and employing large numbers of wage earners working together under their employer's roof.

3 The industry can definitely be divided into at least five branches: (1) plate, mirror, and optical glass, (2) white or crystal glass, (3) common green glass, (4) bottle glass, and (5) window glass.

4 In my description of the methods followed in French glass production I have relied to a great extent on numerous illustrations found in Vols. IV and X of the Recueil de planches sur les sciences, les arts libéraux et les arts mécaniques, avec leur explication (Diderot, and D'Alembert, , eds.; Paris, 1765, 1772Google Scholar) and in Vols. III, V, and VII of the Recueil de planches de l'encyclopédie par ordre de matières (Panckoucke, publisher; Paris, 1784, 1787, 1789)Google Scholar and on the excellent articles entitled “Glacerie, ou l'art de fabriquer les glaces” and “Art de la verrerie” in Vols. III and VIII, respectively, of the Encyclopédie méthodique: arts et métiers mécaniques (Panckoucke, publisher; Paris, 1784, 1791Google Scholar). Although these works were published during the latter half of the eighteenth century, they are extremely helpful to any one interested in the technology of glass production during the century following 1640. The archives of the Saint-Gobain Plate Glass and Chemical Company in Paris contained (in 1937) abundant data on the techniques used in the production of all kinds of glass in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Several published works also proved useful: Bosc d'Antic, Oeuvres, contenant plusieurs mémoires sur l'art de la verrerie (Paris, 1780) ; Haudicquer de Blancourt, L'Art de la verrerie (new ed.; Paris, 1718) ; C. Loysel, Essai sur l'art de la verrerie (Paris, an VIII) ; Néri, , Merret, , and Kunckel, , Art de la verrerie (Durand, Laurent, trans.; Paris, 1752)Google Scholar ; des Bruslons, Savary, Dictionnaire universel de commerce (Paris, 1723)Google Scholar ; and de Perrin, Bénéton, “Dissertation sur la verrerie,” Mémoires pour l'histoire des sciences & des beaux arts (commonly called Journal de Trémoux) (Trémoux, octobre 1733)Google Scholar.

5 The mixture of unmelted materials from which glass was made.

6 Archives Nationals, F12. 1489A; Y. 14124; Archives Départementales de la Gironde, C. 310, 1594; Archives Départementales de la Seine-Inférieure, E. Famille du Vaillant Desmarêts.

7 Archives Nationales, F12. 1489B; Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Portefeuille des arrêts et mémoires; Encyclopédie méthodique: arts et métiers mécaniques, III, 155 ; VIII, 451, 471–472, 478, 487, 499–501; Haudicquer de Blancourt.

8 These methods were practically identical. Windowpanes à la Bohême (or en table) were slightly thicker than those d l'Allemagne (or en manchon) and were always gradually cooled in annealing ovens before they were cut and flattened out.

9 See Beaupré, J., Les Gentilshommes verriers, ou recherches sur l'industrie et les privilèges des verriers dans l'ancienne Lorraine aux XVe, XVIe et XVIIe siècles (2d ed.; Nancy, 1846)Google Scholar; Lepage, Henri, “Recherches sur l'industrie en Lorraine et principalement dans le département de la Meurthe (verreries, papeteries, cartes à jouer, mines),” Mém. de la soc. des sciences, lettres et arts de Nancy, XXVI (Nancy, 1850)Google Scholar ; Ad. Marcus, , Les Verreries du comté de Bitche: Essai historique (XVe-XVIIIe siècles) (Nancy, 1887)Google Scholar.

10 See, for example, de Girancourt, A., Nouvelle étude sur la verrerie de Rouen et la fabrication du cristal à la façon de Venise aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Rouen, 1886)Google Scholar ; Schuermans, H., Verres fabriqués aux Pays-Bos (et en France) à la “jaçon de Venise” ef “d'Altare” (Letters published; Brussels, 1884–1893Google Scholar).

11 Crystal ware made at Rouen was said to be equal in every respect to that blown at Murano—the Venetian suburb where the furnaces were actually located (de la Fieffe, Le Vaillant, Les Verreries de la Normandie, les gentilshommes et artistes verriers normands [Rouen, 1873], 291)Google Scholar; and Nevers was long known to travelers as the little French “Murano” (Schuermans, 107, 747).

12 Quoted in Houdoy, Jules, Verreries à la façon de Venise: la fabrication flamande d'après des documents inédits (Paris, 1873), 13–14Google Scholar. Mézières was a French shop.

13 See Cochin, Augustin, La manufacture des glaces de Saint-Gobain de 1665 à 1865 (Paris, 1865)Google Scholar and Frémy, Elphège, Histoire de la manufacture royale des glaces de France au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1909)Google Scholar.

14 In accordance with the prevailing commercial policy of European nations, Venetian laws imposed the death penalty on all artisans who deserted their native land in order to propagate the secrets of plate-glass manufacture in foreign countries, and created emissary executioners to trail the “traitors” and mete out justice by poison or dagger upon the first occasion.

15 Archives Nationales, G7. 216; Bibliothèque Nationale, Mélange Colbert, Ms. 142, fols. 277–280; Boivin, Eugène, Autour de la glacerie de Tourlaville (Cherbourg, 1929), 77–85Google Scholar, 97 ff.; Frémy, 56 ff.; Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Vieilles archives. Unfortunately, most of the manuscripts in the private archives of the Saint-Gobain Plate Glass and Chemical Company (in the home office at Paris) are unclassified and grouped in eight liasses and two cartons. I was not allowed to number them, and the individual documents had no title. Consequently, all of my references to these important manuscripts are necessarily vague and incomplete.

16 See below, 157–158, 164–165.

17 This estimate is based upon production-capacity figures for typical furnaces used in casting and in blowing (Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Historique de la verrerie, 167 ff., 178–179, 337, 341, 345, 389, 403 ff. 581; Vieilles archives, liasses and cartons; Organisation de Saint-Gobain en 1769: [III] Administration; Portefeuille des arrêts et mémoires).

18 Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Vieilles archives.

19 Bernard Perrot of Orléans, Pierre Perreau of Paris, Sieur Fresny de Rivières, Louis Lucas de Néhou, and Abraham Thévart.

20 Archives Départementales du Loiret, A. 396. Considerable uncertainty exists as to the actual date of the discovery, and M. Schuermans (804) certainly antedates it (see Boivin, 277 ff.).

21 Archives Nationales, F12. 640, 1491; Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Vieilles archives, liasse 1665–1737; Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds français, Ms. 21808, fols. 70–72. Whether Perrot had sufficient capital to utilize his invention apparently did hot influence in the least the king's decision, for in none of the documents pertaining to this matter was this question considered.

22 du Pradel, Abraham, Le Livre commode des adresses de Paris pour 1692 (Fournier, Edouard, ed.; Paris, 1878), II, 140–141Google Scholar.

23 Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Vieilles archives; Frémy, 86.

24 Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Lettres … mémoires techniques sur les glaces, 1769–1800.

25 In 1700 all instruments directly used in casting at Saint-Gobain were valued at 14,558 l. (Frémy, 267–268 n.).

26 Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Vieilles archives, liasses and cartons. Each of these establishments seems to have had two main furnaces. One at Saint-Gobain was for casting; the other was used in blowing.

27 Sometime between 1669 and 1700 bottles were made after English methods in a factory at Charleroi. Louis XIV had chartered this factory in 1669, but Charleroi had probably reverted to Spanish rule before the shop adopted the English techniques. (Archives Nationales, ADx1. 53; F12. registres 712, pp. 118–120; 73, pp. 561–565; liasse 1488A; K. 1032, document 73.) Gaspard Thevenot, shortly after 1708, built a bottle factory near the castle of Folembray in Picardy (Archives Nationales, F12. 1488A; G7. 1697). So far as I have been able to ascertain, this factory was the first shop in France proper which made bottles in the English manner.

28 Nef, John U., The Rise of the British Coal Industry (London, 1932), I, 219Google Scholar.

29 Haudicquer de Blancourt, I, 36–37.

30 In 1740 there may have been in France proper as many as fourteen bottle factories using only coal in their melting furnaces. This estimate is based on numerous manuscripts in various departmental and national archives and the specific references—totaling more than 75—can be obtained from my unpublished dissertation entitled “The History of the French Glass Industry from 1640–1740 (The University of Chicago, 1940), 25–26.

31 See above, 154.

32 Archives Nationales, F12. registre 75, p. 585; Encyclopédie méthodique: arts et métiers mécaniques, VIII, 454.

33 Archives Nationales, V7. 491.

34 See below, 164.

35 Encyclopédie méthodique: arts et métiers mécaniques, VIII, 468–469.

36 Archives Départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, C. 3418.

37 Archives Départementales de la Gironde, C. 310, 1594.

38 Archives Nationals, F12. 1487, 1489A; Archives Départementales de la Seine-Inférieure, C. 159.

39 Archives Nationals, F12. 2425.

40 Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Historique de la verrerie, 28.

41 Nef, John U., “A Comparison of Industrial Growth in France and England from 1540 to 1640,” The Journal of Political Economy, XLIV (1936), 306Google Scholar.

42 VIII, 486–487.

43 Italics supplied.

44 Archives Départementales de la Seine-Inférieure, E. 785.

45 Archives Nationales, X1a. registre 8644, fols. 167–169.

46 Le Vaillant de la Fieffe, 278.

47 Bondois, Paul-M., Les Verreries nivernaises et orléanaises au XVIIe stècle: Jean Castellan et Bernard Perrot (1647–1709) (Paris, 1932), 9–10Google Scholar; Garnier, Edouard, Histoire de la verrerie et de l'émaillerie (Tours, 1886), 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Archives Départementales de la Gironde, C. 1594.

49 Archives Nationales, F12. 1488A.

50 Archives Départementales du Puy-de-Dôme, C. 574.

51 Archives Départementales de la Gironde, C. 1596; Archives Départementales du Rhône, C. 13.

52 Some attempts were made to burn coal in its furnaces at Tourlaville and Saint-Gobain, but the experiments were never wholly satisfactory or popular (Archives Nationales, F12. 1487; O1. 1992A, côtes 4 and 9 ; Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Vieilles archives, liasses and cartons; Historique de la verrerie, 20, 21; Bibliothèque Municipale de Caen, Ms. 425, Vol. I, A. 2, p. 3 ; Cochin, 76; Frémy, 253).

53 At this time a French factory was successfully melting this kind of crystal. This was the large Cristallerie de la Reine, which had been moved to Montcenis in Burgundy soon after it had first been opened at Saint-Cloud (Archives Nationales, F12. 1486, 2425). At least seven other attempts to make flint glass were made either shortly before or after 1786 (Archives Nationales, F12. 1486, 1487, 1497B, 2425, 2766; Archives Départementales de l'Hérault, C. 2766; Archives Départementales de la Seine-Inférieure, C. 159, 2120).

54 Archives Nationales, F12. 1486.

55 Savary des Bruslons, during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, stated in his Dictionnaire universel de commerce (I, col. 1617; II, col. 1893) : “Any kind of drinking cup other than ordinary glass is scarcely used any more in France, and Venetian crystal glasses are no longer esteemed.…” “Frenchmen scarcely know at present what Venetian Goblets are like.”

56 Henri Havard, Les Arts de l'ameublement: La verrerie (Paris, n.d.), 196. Attempts were even made to introduce Bohemian, German, and Lorraine techniques into Italy (Schuermans, 292, 549, 874).

57 By the middle of the eighteenth century the Royal Plate Glass Company had built 52 houses for its workers at Saint-Gobain, and shortly after 1770 it built 22 more (Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Organisation de Saint-Gobain en 1769: [III] Administration).

58 Archives Nationales, Q1. 804; Archives Départementales de la Seine-Inférieure, E. Famille du Vaillant Desmarêts; Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Historique de la verrerie, 217; Boivin, 127; Baron de Dietrich, Description des gîtes de minérai, forges, salines, verreries … de la Lorraine méridionale et septentrionale (Paris, an VIII), 325; Frémy, 190; Le Vaillant de la Fieffe, 134–135.

59 Archives Départementales du Calvados, C. 2973, 2975.

60 Archives Nationales, G7. 1690. If these sums had been spent to employ unskilled laborers, approximately 272,970 men could have been put to work for one day.

61 This company was both privately owned and operated. In 1695 t h e glass-blowing factory with furnaces at Tourlaville and finishing plant at Saint-Antoine had merged with the glass-casting factory established at Saint-Gobain.

62 Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Vieilles archives, liasses and cartons.

63 Archives Départementales de la Seine-Inférieure, E. 785.

64 Archives Départementales de l'Hérault, C. 2764; Archives Départementales de la Nièvre, B. 230; Rodier, Paul, Les Verreries des hautes forêts de Darney (Epinal, 1909), 32.Google Scholar

65 This summary is based on data found in: Archives Nationales, E. registre 1911 (9 mars 1700); F12. 1490, 1491; G7. 219 (8 septembre 1714), 1690; O1. 1992A, côtes 2 and 4; T. 141, côte 10; Archives Départementales du Calvados, C. 2975; Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, Vieilles archives, liasses and cartons; Délibérations, fol. 47; Etat des officiers et commit, 1774–1792; Historique de la verrerie, 126 ff., 167 ff., 178–179, 337, 341, 345, 389, 403 ff., 581; Organisation de Saint-Gobain en 1769: (I) Fabrication, (II) Ouvriers, (III) Administration; Portefeuille des arrêts et mémoires; Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Moreau, Ms. 1384, fols. 240–249; Mélange Colbert, Ms. 142, fol. 277; Frémy, 57–58, 59, 60, 103, 105, 218 ff., 233, 237 n. 1.

66 Archives Nationales, E. registre 1035B, fols. 133–134; F12. registres 75, pp. 577 ff.; 83, pp. 456–475; liasses 1486, 1488A, 1489A, 1489B, 1490; Q1. 1508 (28 octobre 1754) ; V7. 490; Archives Départementales du Calvados, C. 2975; Archives Départementales de la Côte-d'Or, C. 1918; Archives Départementales de la Gironde, C. 1594, 1595; Archives Départementales de l'Hérault, A. 45, document 107; Archives Départementales d'Ille-et-Vilaine, C. 1518, 3929; Archives Départementales d'Indre-et-Loire, C. 140; Archives Départementales du Puy-de-Dôme, C. 576; Archives Départementales du Rhône, C. 13. 14; Archives Départementales de la Seine-Inférieure, E. 785.

67 Archives Nationales, F12. 1486, 1489A; G7. 726; Y. 14124; Archives Départementales du Calvados, C. registres 22–25, p. 752; Archives Départementales de la Seine-Intérieure, E. Famille du Vaillant Desmarêts; Archives Départementales du Tarn, E. registre 329, fols. 247–248; Archives de la Compagnie de Saint-Gobain Viellies archives, liasse 1665–1737; Le Vaillant de la Fieffe, 19, 147–148, 170.

68 Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Moreau, Ms. 901, fol. 657; Baron de Dietrich, 26, 34, 37, 301, 345, 374, 378; Description des gîtes de minérai, forges, salines, verreries … de la Haute et Basse-Alsace (Paris, 1789), 261, 330, 357, “Tableau général” in the Appendix; Fournier, A., La Verrerie de Portieux (Nancy, 1886), 14–15 n., 34, 75 n. 1.Google Scholar

69 Archives Nationales, F12. 680, 1487; Q1. 805.

70 In fact, it seems more likely that they were producing less in 1740 than a century earlier.

71 Archives Nationales, E. 1741 (18 février 1667) ; F12. 680, 1488A; Q1. 1625, 1626; Archives Départmentales des Bouches-du-Rhône, C. 2301; Archives Départementales du Calvados, C. 2975; Archives Départmentales de l'Hérault, C. 2760; Archives Départementales de la Nièvre, E. registres 265, 266; Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Moreau, Mss. 901, fol. 678; 977, fol. 152; Le Vaillant de la Fieffe, 369, 389; Saint-Quirin, “Les Verriers du Languedoc (1290–1790),” Bull, de la soc. languedocienne de géographie, XXVII (1904), 288; XXVIII (1905), 201–203, 355–358.

72 These generalizations about the increase in the number of shops in the different branches of the glass industry from 1640 to 1740 are based on a study of both primary and secondary sources. Exact reference to these sources—all too numerous to indicate here—can be obtained from my unpublished University of Chicago dissertation.