qui borne à dix-huit villes le nombre des lieux où l'on pourra faire des bas au métier; un arrêt du 18 Juin 1723 enjoint aux fabricants de Rouen de suspendre leurs travaux du 1er Juillet au 15 Septembre, aim de faciliter ceux de la récolte; Louis XIV., quand il voulut entreprendre la colonnade du Louvre, défendit aux particuliers d'employer des ouvriers sans sa permission, sous peine de 10,000 livres d'amende, et aux ouvriers de travailler pour les particuliers, sous peine, pour la première fois, de la prison, et pour la seconde, des galères."
That these and similar regulations were not a dead letter, and that the officious and vexatious meddling was prolonged down to the French Revolution, we have the testimony of Roland, the Girondist minister.[1] "I have seen," says he, "eighty, ninety, a hundred pieces of cotton or woollen stuff cut up, and completely destroyed. I have witnessed similar scenes every week for a number of years. I have seen manufactured goods confiscated; heavy fines laid on the manufacturers; some pieces of fabric were burnt in public places, and at the hours of market: others were fixed to the pillory, with the name of the manufacturer inscribed upon them, and he himself was threatened with the pillory, in case of a second offence. All this was done under my eyes, at Rouen, in conformity with existing regulations, or ministerial orders. What crime deserved so cruel a punishment? Some defects in the materials employed, or in the texture of the fabric, or even in some of the threads of the warp.
"I have frequently seen manufacturers visited by a band of satellites who put all in confusion in their establishments, spread terror in their families, cut the stuffs from the frames, tore off the warp from the looms, and carried them away as proofs of infringement; the manufacturers were summoned, tried, and condemned: their goods confiscated; copies of
- ↑ I quote at second hand, from Mr. Carey's Essay on the Rate of Wages, pp. 195–6.
