Riot of the silk weavers in Lyon

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The silk weavers' uprising in Lyon in November 1831 was the first major social uprising in France at the start of the industrial age . Like two others in the same place in 1834 and 1848, he was put down by deployed military .

Street fighting in front of the Saint-Nizier church in Lyon in 1831 (illustration from the 19th century)

environment

Location Lyons

Lyon is the third largest city in France after Paris and Marseille and had around 165,000 inhabitants around 1830, of which an estimated 30,000 were engaged in silk weaving. As early as 1466, King Ludwig XI ordered. to set up its own national silk weaving industry in Lyon. The main reason was the huge annual trade deficit with Italy of around 450,000 gold écu . In 1536 King Francis I authorized two merchants, Étienne Turquet and Barthélemy Naris, to manufacture silk in Lyon in a "Royal Letter of Authorization" . Étienne Turquet (1494–1560) had the idea, like in Italy, whose precious silk fabrics he presented to the city council, to have silk woven in his hometown of Lyon and thus to counteract poverty. With the king's letter in his pocket, he managed to convince the city fathers. Better looms were set up, there were two old looms all over Lyons, and orphans were used as workers. He introduced the division of labor in the weaving trade and enjoyed considerable support from the king, who in 1540 established the silk production monopoly in Lyon by decree. From then on, the nobles only had their silk woven in Lyon, France changed from importing silk to exporting silk. On the one hand, Tuquet succeeded in giving the lower class in Lyons work and bread and fighting poverty, but in return used the cheap labor for his own gain. Although hardly known today, he is considered the real "father" of the Lyons and thus of the French silk industry. In the 16th century , the city on the Rhone and Saône developed into a center of French silk craft alongside Tours and became the first address in Europe in this sector.

Jacquard loom

The Canuts , as the silk weavers were called, originally settled in the Saint-Jean district, which over time, however, appeared unhealthy to the weavers due to its narrow space. At the beginning of the 19th century, they decided to move their craft to the slopes of Croix-Rousse. In this nearby parish, houses were built with large windows and very high ceilings to meet the special needs of their wooden looms . The more modern mechanical looms, which had been decisively improved by one of their own, Joseph-Marie Jacquard , allowed higher production volumes and also managed without a rope puller, an activity that was previously carried out by children employed for this purpose .

Those employed in the silk weaving trade mostly worked for richer people and were exposed to harsh living and working conditions: long working days and low incomes were their lot. Workshop owners with two looms were considered very poor. Anyone who owned three or four got by with their family to some extent. Silk weavers mostly ate dry bread and thin soup. Some couldn't afford meat, eggs, or cheese.

Under these circumstances, the master craftsmen could only employ a few people, mostly family businesses . In the then established publishing system for textile products, the small entrepreneurs were heavily dependent on the trade, which bought and sold the manufactured items and, on the other hand, also supplied the producers with raw materials. In 1830, silk fabrics from Lyons contributed about a third of French export earnings.

In the meantime, textile manufacturers had emerged in the larger European countries in the 18th century, and their goods were pushing onto the market. The factory owners expanded their capacities with the improved mechanical looms. The home weavers and their masters were powerless against this in the long run. In the longer term, they should have no chance against cheaper factory production, a process of upheaval triggered by the industrial revolution that few were aware of at the time. The ruin of the home weavers was creeping.

Lyon followed a movement that emanated from the workers of Paris on 27 July 1830 which is against the decisions ( " orderlies " ) of King Charles X had rebelled. The tricolor became the emblem of the rebels, which was later processed by Victor Hugo in his novel "Les Misérables" (German " Die Elenden " ). The decline of the Bourbons in the July Revolution triggered a shock wave across Europe: Brussels and Warsaw rebelled against the authorities in August and November 1830.

First uprising of the silk weavers

causes

Fighting during the uprising of 1834

The reason for the discontent of the silk weavers was a long-term reduction in their wages in the French Empire. Earnings for silk products had fallen significantly within 20 years, for the fabric “levantine” from 1.30 to 0.60 francs , for velvet from 1.00 to 0.10 francs, for grosgrains ( “reps” ) from 2 .50 to 1.00 francs. When the purchase prices were constantly reduced, the dealers referred to foreign competition. In the Saint-Paul prison in Lyon there were many canuts who could no longer pay their debts.

From 1830 onwards, the silk weavers saw a glimmer of hope in their misery: the economic upswing in the silk fabric trade triggered by stronger demand . They wanted to benefit from it and have a minimum wage set for their work. At the suggestion of the Prefect Bouvier-Dumolard, a delegation of employers and workers met in Lyons on October 25, 1831, established a tariff and entrusted the monitoring of compliance to an arbitration board . During the negotiations, a silent crowd waited in front of the house for the outcome of the negotiations.

The prefect's initiative, following the settlement, was frowned upon by some business owners, who viewed the prefect's attitudes as demagogic and the concessions made by their representatives as signs of weakness. On November 10, 1831, 104 entrepreneurs refused to apply the tariff, which they viewed as an exaggerated demand by silk weavers with regard to remuneration. For them the tariff was an obstacle to the freedom of the markets.

The workers reacted to the rejection with the uprising from November 21 to 24.

The revolt

The silk weavers decided to go on a week-long strike on November 21, 1831 . This was not hidden from the authorities and they in turn took precautions to maintain public order.

Several hundred weavers gathered that day in the hilly suburb of Croix-Rousse (which was independent at the time and had only belonged to Lyon since 1852), forced workers to turn off their looms and urged the civilian national guard to put up barricades. Then the protesters went downhill to Lyon. The gendarmerie there blocked the path for those who came along. Shots soon rang out in the tussle and several people died. The people ran back home, got clubs, sticks or shovels and now marched as a much larger group with a black flag leading to Lyon. It bore the inscription "Vivre en travaillant, ou mourir en combattant ..." ("Live working or die fighting"). At noon, the deployment of the army and the national guard escalated the situation and got out of control. Fighting broke out that lasted into the evening.

The town hall in Lyon was taken

On November 22, 1831, workers in Lyon took possession of the Bon Pasteur barracks and looted the armories. Several units of the army and the national guard were attacked and taken under fire. The infantry tried in vain to stop the workers and then withdrew while the civilian national guard defected the insurgents. The workers then turned to the city, which was evacuated by the authorities. The battle turned hard. There were around 600 victims, including around 100 dead and 263 injured by soldiers and 69 dead and 140 injured by civilians.

The city hall of Lyon was occupied by the insurgents. But the workers' leaders, who only wanted to achieve a proper implementation of the joint agreement, could not make more of their victory and the police quickly took over again. A rebel committee was formed, consisting of 16 master craftsmen, but in the absence of a real program it did not take any concrete measures. The silk weavers rejected ideas to proclaim a republic by a large majority, expressly only wanting to enforce their collective agreement.

Crackdown

Marshal Soult

On December 5, 1831, armed forces led by the Duke of Orléans , Ferdinand Philippe d'Orléans, duc de Chartres , and the Minister of War, Marshal Nicolas-Jean de Dieu Soult , entered Lyons with 20,000 men to put down the uprising. There were again around 600 deaths and around 10,000 people were driven from the city.

The Paris government decided to replace the prefect, abolish the tariff and build a fort to separate Croix-Rousse from the city of Lyon. Of 90 workers arrested, 11 were prosecuted but released in June 1832.

According to Interior Minister Casimir Pierre Périer , the revolt was “against the freedom of trade and industry” and he declared on December 26, 1831 that “society would not allow itself to be threatened with impunity”.

Second uprising of the silk weavers

A second survey took place in 1834.

causes

After the failure of the February strikes , the vote on the law against workers' unions and the February ruling against the leaders provided the fuel for the uprising that broke out on April 9, 1834.

The revolt

The army occupied the city and the bridges, but the first rifle shots rang out from the troops, which were aimed at an unarmed crowd. Immediately the streets were filled with barricades. The organized workers stormed the barracks of Bon-Pasteur and barricaded themselves in the neighborhoods by making fortified camps, as in Croix-Rousse. It was the beginning of the "bloody week".

On April 10, 1834, new exchanges of fire with the troops took place. The rebels took possession of the telegraph office, the Guillotière district and then Villeurbanne, where the barracks were taken. The black flag fluttered over Fourvière, Saint-Nizier and l'Antiquaille.

Fighting continued on April 11th. The Croix-Rousse district was bombed by the army, which had received reinforcements. There were insurrection attempts in Saint-Étienne-des-Oullières and Vienne .

On April 12, the army attacked and took the rebellious Guillotière district after destroying numerous houses with artillery .

Crackdown

On April 14th, the army commanded by Michel Louis Arsène Lalande gradually conquered the city ​​and launched a third attack on the Croix-Rousse district, massacring numerous workers .

On April 15, 1834, the "bloody week" ended in Lyon. The second great uprising of the silk weavers was bloodily suppressed. There were more than 600 victims. More than 10,000 insurgents were captured in a mammoth trial in Paris in April 1835 and sentenced to deportation or heavy prison terms.

Effects

A third Canuts uprising would eventually take place in 1848. Although it was also violent and characterized by identical reasons for the exploitation of the workers, this revolt did not acquire the same reputation as that of 1831.

The first uprising attracted international attention and became the basis for further workers' revolts in the 19th century. The uprising of the silk weavers gave rise to a feeling of real community of interests in the workers' conscience. It is the starting point for an age in which the physical and moral distress of the workers in the incipient capitalism came into focus.

literature

  • Maurice Moissonnier: La Révolte de canuts. Lyon, novembre 1831. 2nd revised and expanded edition, Éditions Sociales, Paris 1975 ( Problèmes. Histoire 2, ISSN  0336-7673 ).
  • Fernand Rude: Les révoltes de Canuts. (1831-1834). La Découverte, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-7071-5290-9 .
  • Jean-Jacques Soudeille: La révolte de canuts. Les insurrections lyonnaises 1831-1834. Spartacus, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-902963-59-1 ( Spartacus. Série B 177).

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