François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour

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François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour
Born
François Barthélemy Arlès

(1797-06-03)3 June 1797
Sète, Hérault, France
Died21 January 1872(1872-01-21) (aged 74)
Vallauris, Alpes-Maritimes, France
NationalityFrench
Occupation(s)Railway executive, humanist
Known forSaint-Simonianism

François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour (3 June 1797 – 21 January 1872) was a French silk merchant and leading exponent of Saint-Simonianism. He was born to a poor family, had little formal education and began work in a shawl factory at the age of 16. Later he joined a silk company based in Liepzig, Germany, married into the owners' family and was placed in charge of its Lyon operations. Working first for his in-laws and then independently, he made a fortune in silk. Arlès-Dufour also became involved in banking, railways and the Suez canal project. He played an important role in the Lyon Chamber of Commerce, and as a member of the jury in various international expositions. He believed in free trade and in social institutions that would help the most disadvantaged social classes.

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.[1]

Silk merchant

Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin (1796–1864), long-time friend and partner of Arlès-Dufour

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.[1]

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.[1] Arlès-Dufour became a convert to Saint-Simonianism in 1829 and remained faithful to the system for the rest of his life. The goal was to hasten social change during the transition to an industrial society following the principle that "All social institutions must aim at improving the moral, intellectual and physical fortunes of the most numerous and poorest classes". Arlès-Dufour was a friend of the Pereires and the Talbots, industrialists who were also Saint-Simonians.[1]

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.[1]

Other enterprises

François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour by Nadar

Arlès-Dufour appears to have been the force behind the creation of the Banque de Lyon in 1835–36. He was a promoter of the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Lyon(fr) (Paris-Lyon Railway) and the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Lyon à Avignon(fr) (Lyon-Avignon Railway) and was a director of both of these companies. He helped merge them to form the Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM: Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean Railway), and seems to have been a director of the PLM.[1]

In 1833 Enfantin led a party of 20 French technicians to Egypt to undertake new surveys and put new life into the Suez Canal and Nile Barrage projects. He met Ferdinand de Lesseps, at the time Vice-Consul for France in Egypt, and was presented to the Khedive Muhammad Ali, who approved the barrage but not the canal. Enfantin stayed in Egypt until 1837 working on the barrage, then returned to France.[2] In his 1834 Un mot sur les fabriques étrangères Arlès-Dufour applauded the Suez Canal project, which would soon bring Paris as close to Calcutta as to Saint Petersburg.[1] In 1844 Enfantin founded the journal L'Algérie, with some funding from Charles Ignace Plichon. Enfantin, with support from Arlès-Dufour, was dreaming of creating a great railway network in France. He planned to also establish maritime commercial links with the Indies through a Suez canal.[3]

In 1846 Enfantin and Arlès-Dufour created the Société d'Études du Canal de Suez, with French, English and German sections. The other French member were Jules, Léon and Paulin Talabot. The English members were Robert Stephenson and Edward Starbuck. The other members were Alois Negrelli of Vienna and Féronce and Sellier of Liepzig, who representedGerman firms.[4] The company had initial capital of 150,000 francs, with its headquarters in Enfantin's house. In effect it was a semi-official enterprise, with strong support from the Muhammed Ali, who paid most of the cost. The plan was set back in 1849 when Muhammed Ali Pasha died and was succeeded by the pro-English Abbas Pasha.[5] It was revived in 1854 when Sa'id Pasha came to power in Egypt and heard and approved de Lesseps' proposal in November 1854.[6] Later de Lesseps would take full credit for the canal project.[1]

In 1853 Arlès-Dufour and Enfantin founded the Compagnie générale des Eaux in Lyon, and in 1854 founded the Lyon Société des Omnibus. Arlès-Dufour participated in foundation of the Crédit Industriel et Commercial in 1859.[1] The Crédit Lyonnais was created by Henri Germain on 6 July 1863 with an innovative model based on accepting small deposits on which it paid interest, and using the deposits to finance short-term loans. The first shareholders included Arlès-Dufour and other Saint-Simonians such as Paulin Talabot, Enfantin and Michel Chevalier, a close advisor to Napoleon III. There were 140 initial depositors, growing to 10,000 by its second year.[7] When Enfantin died in 1864 he left all his property to Arlès-Dufour.[1]

Public 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.[1]

In 1830 he was elected deputy mayor of Lyon. He was a municipal councilor of La Guillotière, a district of Lyon, in 1855, and general councilor of the Rhône department. 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.[1]

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 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.[1]

Arlès-Dufour was involved in various charitable organzations including the Comité auxiliaire de bienfaisance (from 1829), the Caisse de prêts des chefs d'atelier de soierie and the Société de Secours mutuels des ouvriers en soie. He was a strong believer in the right of poor people to education. He founded the Société d’Instruction primaire du Rhône in 1828, and was this society's secretary general until his death.[1] Arlès-Dufour and Désiré Girardon, professor at the Martinière college, founded the École Centrale lyonnaise pour l'Industrie et le Commerce in 1857. The purpose was to train the best students of the Martinière scool in chemistry, industrial mechanics, civil construction and industrial design. The school, today the École centrale de Lyon, opened on 3 November 1857 with 14 students.[8] In 1864 Arlès-Dufour founded the Société d'enseignement professionnel du Rhône(fr). He also founded a public library, a free primary school and a free secondary school in the Lyon suburb of Oullins. On 30 November 1867 Arlès-Dufour. Émile de Girardin and Frédéric Passy founded the International and Permanent League for Peace. In 1868 he created a homeopathic dispensary in Lyon.[1]

François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour died on 21 January 1872, in Vallauris, Alpes-Maritimes. He was a Commander of the Legion of Honour and a member of the L’Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Lyon.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Canton-Debat 2000.
  2. ^ Wilson 1939, pp. 7–8.
  3. ^ Emerit 1974, p. 32.
  4. ^ Wilson 1939, p. 9.
  5. ^ Wilson 1939, p. 10.
  6. ^ Wilson 1939, p. 12.
  7. ^ Vaslin 2013.
  8. ^ Histoire – École centrale de Lyon.

Sources

  • Canton-Debat, Jacques (2000), François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour, Société des études saint-simoniennes, retrieved 2018-02-08
  • Emerit, Marcel (1974), "Du saint-simonisme au catholicisme : Ignace Plichon, député du Nord", Revue du Nord (in French), 56 (220), retrieved 2017-08-02
  • Histoire (in French), École centrale de Lyon, retrieved 2018-02-09
  • Vaslin, Jacques-Marie (16 August 2013), "Henri Germain, prudent banquier du Crédit lyonnais", Le Monde (in French), retrieved 2018-02-09
  • Wilson, Arnold T. (1939), The Suez Canal : Its Past, Present, and Future (PDF), London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, retrieved 2018-02-09
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