with its schools and workshops; it would thus do away with the principal sources of anti-clericalism: far from showing any desire to adopt this course, it seems to be its intention to develop these establishments still further, and thus it is laying up for itself still further opportunities for displays of popular hatred for the clergy."[1] What has happened since 1901 surpasses my forecast.
In factories and workshops customs of great brutality formerly existed, especially in those where it was necessary to employ men of superior strength, to whom was given the name of "grosses culottes" (big breeches); in the end these men managed to get entrusted with the task of engaging other men, because "any individual taken on by others was subjected to an infinite number of humiliations and insults"; the man who wished to enter their workshop had to buy them drink, and on the following day to treat all his fellow-workers. "The notorious When's it to be? (Quand est-ce?)[2] would be started; everybody gets tipsy. … When's it to be? is the devourer of savings; in a workshop where When's it to be? is the custom, you must stand your turn or beware." Denis Poulot, from whom I borrow these details, observes that machinery did away with the prestige of the grosses culottes, who were scarcely more than a memory when he wrote in 1870.[3]
The manners of the compagnonnages[4] (a kind of trade
- ↑ G. Sorel, Essai sur l'église et l'état, p. 63.
- ↑ Quand est-ce? This was the question addressed to the newcomer in a workshop, to remind him that according to custom he must pay for drinks all round—"Pay your footing."
- ↑ Denis Poulot, Le Sublime, pp. 150–153. I quote from the edition of 1887. This author says that the grosses culottes very much hampered progress in the forges.
- ↑ The compagnonnages were very ancient workmen's associations, whose principal purpose was to enable carpenters, joiners, locksmiths, farriers, and others, to make a circular tour round France, in order to learn their trades thoroughly. In the towns on this circuit there was an hotel kept by the Mère des compagnons; the newly arrived
