François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour

François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour
François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour by Nadar
Born	François Barthélemy Arlès (1797-06-03)3 June 1797 Sète, Hérault, France
Died	21 January 1872(1872-01-21) (aged 74) Vallauris, Alpes-Maritimes, France
Nationality	French
Occupation(s)	Railway executive, humanist
Known for	Saint-Simonianism

François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour (3 June 1797 – 21 January 1872) was a French railway executive, humanist and leading exponent of Saint-Simonianism.

Early years

François Barthélemy Arlès was born on 3 June 1797 in Sète, Hérault. His father joined the army as a private soldier and had risen to the rank of battalion commander by the time of the Napoleonic Wars. François received little schooling as a child, but after his father retired gained some education at the Lycée Impérial à Paris. His father died in 1811 and two years later his mother, who was illiterate, was forced to withdraw François Arlès from school due to lack of money. At the age of 16 he became a factory boy at a shawl factory, then a worker and then a foreman. On 30 March 1814 he was among those who held out on Montmartre hill to try to halt the advance of Blucher's troops on Paris. After Napoleon returned from exile in Elba, Arlès arrived too late to fight in the Battle of Waterloo.

Commercial career

In 1816 Arlès made several long sales trips in Germany with a sample of fabrics and shawls. In 1817 he met Prosper Enfantin in Frankfurt, the future leader of Saint-Simonianism. Also that year he visited the silk trading house in Leipzig of Dufour frères, a family that had emigrated from France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. François Arlès tried to teach himself better French, and also learned German and English and studied the new discipline of political economy. In 1820 he had a personal interview with Jean-Baptiste Say at the Conservatoire des arts et métiers in Paris, and for some time attended Say's course on economics. In 1821 Dufour frères offered him employment with their firm. In 1824 he married Pauline Dufour, only daughter of one of the brothers.

At the time of his marriage he joined his name to that of his wife to become "Arlès-Dufour". In 1825 he was placed in charge of the important Dufour freres branch in Lyon. This was the start of his prosperous career as a silk merchant. During the American crisis of 1837 he was almost ruined by customers in America defaulting on their debts to him. He left Lyon for London en route to New York. In London he received financial support from his friend and correspondent William Leaf and did not have to continue his journey. In partial recovery of his debt he received two properties at Kingston and Wilbur in New York State. In 1838 he created a personal company under the name "Arlès-Dufour", based in Milan. He established branches in Paris, Saint-Étienne, Zürich, Krefeld and London. In 1851 the building holding this company's offices and warehouse in Milan was destroyed by fire. He was buried in the rubble of the building, but managed to escape. He closed his company on 31 December 1859, when he was aged 62.

Other activities

Arlès-Dufour was strongly in favour of free trade. In 1828 he published an article in the Lyon paper Le Précurseur in which he spoke in favour of the free export of French silks in return for the free entry of foreign silks, which drew protests from those who felt the Lyon silk industry could not survive without protection. He made many business trips abroad, particularly to England, where he became a friend of John Bowring, who shared his views on economics. Bowring visited Lyon in 1832. Arlès-Dufour also established cordial relations with British political and business leaders such as John Bright and Richard Cobden. In articles in 1832 and 1833 in L’Écho de la Fabrique Arlès-Dufour wrote on subjects such as industry in Lyon, tariffs, cooperation with England and a progressive income tax.

Arlès-Dufour appears to have been the force behind the creation of the Banque de Lyon in 1835-36. He participated in foundation of the Crédit Industriel et Commercial. In 1863, with the help of his former partner Henri Germain, he founded the Crédit Lyonnais. He became a director of the Caisse des Associations Coopératives in Paris.

Arlès-Dufour was elected to the Lyon Chamber of Commerce in 1832, and remained a member for almost 36 years. He exerted a strong liberal influence, and gained a considerable reputation for his frank statements about the policies of successive governments. His struggle for free trade was finally vindicated with the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier Treaty for free trade between Britain and France. Richard Cobden, who signed the treaty on behalf of Britain, wrote a personal note to him thanking him for the role he had played in the conclusion of the agreement.

As a member of the Lyon Chamber of Commerce, Arlès-Dufour organized an exhibition of foreign silk factories in Lyon so local producers could compare their goods to those of their main foreign competitors. Arlès-Dufour was a member of the jury at the Exposition des produits de l'industrie française in Paris in 1844 and 1849. He attended the The Great Exhibition in 1851 in London as a member of the jury. He was secretary-general of the imperial commission for the 1855 Paris Exposition Universelle. He was again a member of the international jury at the 1862 International Exhibition in London and the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

On 30 November 1867 Arlès-Dufour. Émile de Girardin and Frédéric Passy founded the International and Permanent League for Peace. François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour died on 21 January 1872, in Vallauris, Alpes-Maritimes.

Sources

• Canton-Debat, Jacques (2000), François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour, Société des études saint-simoniennes, retrieved 2018-02-08