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Science, industry, and the social order in Mulhouse, 1798–1871

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Robert Fox
Robert Fox
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YG.
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There is a story, which historians of modern France often tell, of the ministerial official in Paris who had only to glance at his clock in order to know the exact passage of Vergil being construed and the law of physics being expounded in every school throughout the country. Invariably, the story is told for a purpose. It is used to demonstrate the high degree of centralization and the attendant rigidity of the French educational system, usually with special reference to the nineteenth century. The story, which has its roots in the rich corpus of Napoleonic legend, serves this purpose very well, but unfortunately it is both apocryphal and misleading. For while it is true that most nineteenth-century ministers with responsibility for education aspired to the ideal of total control, not one of them came close to it in reality.

Type
Presidential Address
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , July 1984 , pp. 127 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1984

References

This is a revised version of the Presidential Address delivered at the Annual General Meeting of the British Society for the History of Science in Manchester 15 May 1982.

I am grateful to the Royal Society of London for a grant towards the cost of research in France and Britain. I have also drawn on work, financed by the Joint SERC/SSRC Committee, which forms part of a more general study of the relations between scientific education and research and industrial performance in Europe since c. 1850.

In preparing the text for publication, I have been greatly helped by my recent appointment to a British Academy Readership in the Humanities and by a discussion of some of the material in the paper at the Parex seminar on ‘Science, medicine, and technology in Restoration France, 1814–30’, held at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, 31 August-2 September 1983.

1 Furet, François, Ozouf, Jacques et al. , Lire et écrire. L'alphabétisation des Français de Calvin à Jules Ferry (2 vols., Paris, 1977), vol 2, pp. 324–48Google Scholar, and Weber, Eugen, Peasants into Frenchmen. The modernization of rural France (London, 1977), pp. 67–94, 310–16, and 498–501.Google Scholar

2 Fox, Robert, ‘The savant confronts his peers: scientific societies in France, 1815–1914’, in Fox, Robert and Weisz, George (eds.), The organization of science and technology in France, 1808–1914 (Cambridge and Paris, 1980), pp. 240–82 (244–58)Google Scholar, and ‘Learning, politics, and polite culture in provincial France: the sociétés savantes in the nineteenth century’, Historical reflections/Réflexions historiques, 7 (1980), 543–64.Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Shinn, Terry, ‘The French science faculty system, 1808–1914: institutional change and research potential in mathematics and the physical sciences’, Historical studies in the physical sciences, 10 (1979), 271–332CrossRefGoogle Scholar: Paul, Harry W., ‘Apollo courts the Vulcans: the applied science institutes in nineteenth-century French science faculties’Google Scholar, in Fox, and Weisz, , The organization of science, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 155–81Google Scholar; Jo Nye, Mary, ‘The scientific periphery in France: the Faculty of Sciences at Toulouse (1880–1930)’, Minerva, 13 (1975), 374–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weisz, George, ‘The French universities and education for the new professions, 1885–1914: an episode in French university reform’, Minerva, 17 (1979), 98–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The emergence of modern universities in France, 1863–1914 (Princeton, New Jersey, 1983), pp. 134–95.Google Scholar

Illuminating though they are, these studies are all concerned with ‘official’ science in the provinces, chiefly in the faculties of science. They throw little light on the more indigenous traditions of provincial science.

4 The point is reflected in a vast secondary literature. In this paper, I draw in particular on: Histoire documentaire de l'industrie de Mulhouse et de ses environs au XIXe siècle (Enquête centennale) (2 vols., Mulhouse, 1902)Google Scholar, and Leuillot, Paul, L'Alsace au début du XIXe siècle. Essais d'histoire politique, économique et religieuse (1815–1830) (3 vols., Paris, 1959)Google Scholar. For a convenient economic history of the region, based on the Histoire documentaire and other standard sources, see Laufenburger, Henry and Pflimlin, Pierre, Cours d'économie alsacienne (2 vols., Paris, 1930–1932), vol. 2Google Scholar (‘L'industrie de Mulhouse’). An older but still valuable study cast in Durkheimian terms is Lévy, Robert, Histoire économique de l'industrie cotonnière en Alsace. Étude de sociologie descriptive (Paris, 1912)Google Scholar. Among more recent works, special mention should be made of the essays in Livet, Georges and Oberlé, Raymond (eds.), Histoire de Mulhouse des origines à no jours (Strasbourg, 1977)Google Scholar. Biographical information is readily available in Sitzmann, François Édouard, Dictionnaire de biographie des hommes célèbres de l'Alsace (2 vols., Rixheim, 1909–1910)Google Scholar. I have not given references to basic information contained in these volumes.

5 On the population of Roubaix, which increased from 8,000 in 1801 to 65,000 in 1866, and of other French towns, see the tables in Meuriot, Paul, Des agglomérations urbaines dans l'Europe contemporaine. Essai sur les causes, les conditions, les conséquences de leur développement (Paris, 1898), pp. 93–5.Google Scholar

The explosion of the populations of Mulhouse and Roubaix should be contrasted with the more sedate growth of most other textile towns. The population of Rouen, for example, grew by only about 15 per cent between 1801 and 1866 (from 87,000 to 100,000). Even the three-fold increases that occurred in the same period in the populations of Lyon and Lille (from 109,000 to 323,000 and from 54,000 to 154,000 respectively) seem modest by comparison with what occurred in Mulhouse.

6 Quoted in Leuillot, Paul, ‘Le centenaire de Lambert (1828) dans le Mulhouse en expansion au début du XIXe siècle’, in Université de Haute-Alsace. Colloque international et interdisciplinaire Jean-Henri Lambert. Mulhouse, 26–30 septembre 1977 (Paris, 1979), pp. 75–93 (78).Google Scholar

7 Mieg, Paul, ‘La langue et la culture française à Mulhouse jusqu'à la fin du XVIIIe siècle’, in Les lettres en Alsace [Publications de la Société Savante d'Alsace et des Régions de l'Est, no. 8] (Strasbourg, 1962), pp. 179–92.Google Scholar

8 Souvestre, Èmile, ‘Mulhouse’, Revue de Paris, new ser. 31 (1836), 145–53 (147).Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 148.

10 It seems virtually certain that some kind of intervention occurred, though the published information on Souvestre's rapid departure from his post at the collège communal is limited to a note in the Histoire documentaire de l'industrie de Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 1, p. 84.Google Scholar

11 The eulogies, all delivered to the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, are published in Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 24 (1852) 115–29Google Scholar (Auguste Scheurer-Rott on Schlumberger), 193–217 (Achille Penot on Koechlin), and 269–81 (Jean Weber on Zuber).

12 The establishment of Koechlin, Schmaltzer et Cie in 1746 marks the beginning of the history of Mulhouse as a significant industrial town. Two of the partners—Jean-Jacques Schmaltzer and Koechlin—had had industrial or commercial experience; the role of Dollfus was chiefly as a designer.

13 See the list of children and their occupations and marriages in Brandt, André, ‘Une famille de fabricants mulhousiens au début du XIXe siècle. Jean Koechlin et ses fils’, Annales ESC, 6 (1951), 319–30 (321n).Google Scholar

14 Dollfus, Auguste, ‘La famille Koechlin’, Bulletin du Musée Historique de Mulhouse, 6 (1881), 108–10 (108).Google Scholar

15 The industrial communities beyond the boundaries of the republic were established to help in the securing of markets in France and to avoid customs duties and some restrictive legislation within the republic. Achille Penot explains this legislation as an attempt to protect the older, small-scale manufacturers of woollen cloth and the associated traders; see Histoire documentairc de l'industrie de Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 1, p. 298Google Scholar, and cf. the similar analysis given in Mossman, Xavier, Les grands industriels de Mulhouse (Paris, 1879), pp. 8–9 and 17–18.Google Scholar However, it seems necessary to draw a distinction between the obstructiveness often displayed by the six ‘tribes’, or trade corporations, into which the population of Mulhouse was divided, and the attitudes of the civic leaders of the republic, most of whom were cautiously favourable to the new industry of calico-printing; see Engel-Dollfus, Frédéric, ‘Rapport sur un mémoire traitant de l'industrie du colon du Haut-Rhin’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 32 (1862), 527–33 (530)Google Scholar, and Laufenburger, and Pflimlin, , Cours d'économie alsacienne, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 2, pp. 185–216.Google Scholar

It should be noted that Mulhousien influence never embraced Colmar. The difference between the economic and social development of the two towns is marked. The greater openness of Colmar to outside influences is suggested by the fact that the only Catholic textile manufacturers in southern Alsace, Antoine Herzog (father and son), were established just outside the town, at le Logelbach, from 1818 to 1870.

16 On Oberkampf, whose factory at Jouy began operating in 1760, see Chassagne, Serge, Oberkampf. Un entrepreneur capitaliste au siècle des lumières (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar, and, for a briefer treatment in English, Chapman, S. D. and Chassagne, Serge, European textile printers in the eighteenth century. A study of Peel and Oberkampf (London, 1981).Google Scholar

17 Indiennes, or indienneries, was originally the name given to the printed cotton fabrics which had been produced in India since ancient times. But it was quickly applied to the similar, though invariably coarser, products which began to be manufactured in Europe from the seventeenth century.

18 In most of the standard histories, the conflict between the aristocrates (led by Josué Hofer) and the patriotes (led by the families of Koechlin and Thierry) is played down. But see Dollfus, Max, Histoire et généalogie de la famille Dollfus de Mulhouse 1450–1908 (Mulhouse, 1909), pp. 9–10Google Scholar, on what was in reality a bitter confrontation. The Hofer and Dollfus families were both split on the issue, and while the members of those families which had strong industrial interests never doubted that the union was necessary, laments about the passing of the old order continued to be voiced until well into the nineteenth century. The most vociferous of those who deplored the disruptive effect of industry was Mathieu Mieg (‘the chronicler’). His coolness towards the industrialists is very plain in his main historical works: Der Stadt Mülhausen Geschichte bis zum Jahr 1816 [1817] (2 vols., Mulhouse, 1816–1817)Google Scholar and Relation historique des progrès de l'industrie commerciale à Mulhausen et ses environs (Mulhouse, 1823).Google Scholar

19 See, in particular, Dupin, F. P. Charles, Voyages dans la Grande-Bretagne, entrepris… en 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, et 1820 (6 vols., Paris, 1820–1824).Google Scholar

20 Chaptal, J. A., De l'industrie française (2 vols., Paris, 1819).Google Scholar

21 In his ‘Discours préliminaire’, Chaptal wrote, with only slight exaggeration, that by 1819 France had established herself ‘in the first rank of manufacturing nations’ and that she was ‘unrivalled in the chemical arts’. See Chaptal, , De l'industrie française, op. cit. (note 20), vol. 1, p. xlv.Google Scholar

22 Smith, John Graham, The origins and early development of the heavy chemical industry in France (Oxford, 1979), especially p. 312.Google Scholar Smith's book is a notable exception to the point I make at the end of note 3, above. The local context of the industrial science he describes is treated in great detail.

23 The relevant correspondence is quoted in Chassagne, , Oberkampf, op. cit. (note 16), pp. 218–19Google Scholar, and less extensively in Chapman, and Chassagne, , European textile printers, op cit. (note 16), pp. 142–3.Google Scholar For a full transcription, see also ‘Lettres écrites d'Alsace par S. Widmer (1788–1809)’, Bulletin du Musée Historique de Mulhouse, 34 (1910), 105–17 (107–17).Google Scholar

24 Young's evidence appears in the Fifth report from Select Committee on Artizans and Machinery, Parliamentary Papers (hereafter P.P.) 1824, vol. 5, pp. 579–82.Google Scholar

25 It was certainly far smaller than the number engaged in the region of Paris, chiefly by manufacturers of steam-engines and other industrial machinery. At Humphrey Edwards's Chaillot works, for example, 500 English workmen were said to be employed in 1824; see John Martineau's evidence in First report from Select Committee on Artizans and Machinery, P.P. 1824, vol. 5, p. 9.Google Scholar Cf. also the figures of 200 and 300 English workmen said to be employed at the iron works of Manby and Wilson at Charenton; it seems that all positions at Charenton, except those of unskilled labourers, were filled by Englishmen. The figure of 200 is given by William Turner, a steam-engine fitter, in Second Report from Select Committee on Artizans and Machinery, P.P. 1824, vol. 5, p. 110Google Scholar; the figure of 300 is Alexander Galloway's, given in Report from the Select Committee on the Laws relating to the Export of Tools and Machinery, P.P. 1825, vol. 5, p. 43.Google Scholar According to Galloway, between 15,000 and 20,000 British artisans were employed in what he described as ‘the French Empire’. Roughly a tenth of this number were employed in the manufacture of iron; about 1,000 of the workmen were in Paris.

26 Brandt, André. ‘Travailleurs anglais dans le Haut-Rhin dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle’, in Actes du 92e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes. Strasbourg et Colmar 1967. Section d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine (2 vols., Paris, 1970), vol. 2, pp. 297–312 (300).Google Scholar

27 Cf. the equally disenchanted comment of James Lever, formerly a textile worker in Saint-Quentin, who complained, on his return to England, that he could not live as comfortably in France as he could in Manchester and that he could obtain ‘no good ale’ and only inferior beef and mutton. Laver's evidence is in Fifth report, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 336–7.Google Scholar

28 Nicolas Schlumberger's contacts with Manchester were particularly close. He worked in England for over three years between 1802 and 1805, corresponded with Benjamin Kennedy and William Fairbairn, and seems, after the Empire, to have been very effective in persuading British workmen to to emigrate to Alsace (see below, note 31, for example). On the ease of contacts between the Haut-Rhin and south Lancashire in the early decades of the nineteenth century, see Brandt, André, ‘Apports anglais à l'industrialisation de l'Alsace au début du XIXe siècle’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, no. 1 (1967), 27–41Google Scholar, and ‘Travailleurs anglais dans le Haut-Rhin’, op. cit. (note 26).

29 The engine, which was probably of the kind designed by Watt in the 1780s, was constructed by Salneuve in Paris and used to drive spinning machinery. See ‘Résumé des notes laissées par M. Hartmann-Liebach sur l'histoire industrielle du Haut-Rhin, depuis les premières années du XIXe siècle’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 47 (1877), 218–35.Google Scholar

The extent of Mulhousien backwardness in power technology is also conveyed by Émile Dollfus's observation that water power only began to replace horses and manual labour for the driving of machinery in 1809–10. See Dollfus, , ‘Notes pour servir à l'histoire de l'industrie cotonnière dans les départements de l'Est’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 27 (1855–1857), 435–61.Google Scholar

30 Penot, Achille, Statistique générale du départment du Haut-Rhin (Mulhouse, 1831), pp. 322–3.Google Scholar

31 Brandt, , ‘Apports anglais’, op. cit. (note 28), pp. 30–1.Google Scholar According to Leuillot, , L'Alsace au début du XIXe siècle, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 2, p. 347Google Scholar, Dixon was recruited in the first place by Nicolas Schlumberger. Risler frères had been established as recently as 1818. They were the first machine-builders of any consequence in the region.

32 Brandt, , ‘Apports anglais’, op. cit. (note 28), pp. 32–3.Google Scholar For a list of fourteen British engineers engaged by André Koechlin et Cie in 1827, see Brandt, , ‘Travailleurs anglais dans le Haut-Rhin’, op. cit. (note 26), pp. 308–9.Google Scholar

33 Brandt, , ‘Apports anglais’, op. cit. (note 28), p. 33Google Scholar. Nicolas Koechlin, who was chiefly responsible for the construction of the railway system in southern Alsace, ordered the first three locomotives for the new lines from Sharp, Roberts, and Co. Thereafter, most locomotives were constructed by engineers in Mulhouse, who used the imported locomotives as their prototypes.

34 Koechlin-Schouch, Daniel, ‘Notice nécrologique sur M. James Thomson’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 23 (1850–1851), 182–5.Google Scholar

35 At the Frankfurt fair of 1818, for example, Mulhousien printed cottons were 40 per cent dearer than their British rivals, yet they were preferred by buyers because of their superior design; see Leuillot, , L'Alsace au début du XIXe siècle, op. cit. (note 4), p. 389.Google Scholar Over the next half century, the preference was not sustained, as I point out in note 102, below.

36 See the obituary cited in note 11, above.

37 At Dollfus-Mieg et Cie, for example, coloristes would commonly receive an annual salary of 12,000 francs (about £500). This should be compared with the salaries of professors in the provincial faculties of science, which seldom exceeded 5,000 francs. Even at the end of a long and distinguished academic career (spent almost entirely in Mulhouse as a close associate of the great industrial families), the chemist Achille Penot earned less than 6,000 francs p.a. in the early 1860s; see his personal file in Archives Nationales, F17 21456. It is also instructive to compare the salary of £400, rising to £600, that was offered to Lyon Playfair when he accepted his appointment as ‘chemical manager’ with James Thomson at Clitheroe in 1841; see Reid, T. Wemyss, Memoirs and correspondence of Lyon Playfair (London, 1899), p. 44.Google Scholar Such a salary was quite exceptional in England at the time.

38 These two tendencies are evident in the history of Nicolas Koechlin et frères between 1802 and 1836. The firm began in 1802 when, at the age of twenty, Nicolas Koechlin set up as a spinner at Massevaux. A quarter of a century later, at the peak of their prosperity, Nicolas Koechlin et frères were engaged in calico-printing and spinning in Mulhouse; spinning, weaving and bleaching at Massevaux; and calico-printing and weaving at Loerrach. By then, there were, in all, 5,000 employees. When the firm was wound up in 1836, the various activities continued to be pursued, but under a number of separate firms. By the 1830s, the huge firm of Dollfus-Mieg was unusual in maintaining strong interests in all three main branches of the textile industry: spinning, weaving and calico-printing. On the trend, which tended inevitably to undermine the community of interests among the industriels, see Laufenburger, and Pflimlin, , Court d'économie alsacienne, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 2, pp. 270–1.Google Scholar

39 The standard history of the Société Industrielle in its first fifty years is Penot, Achille, ‘La Société Industrielle de Mulhouse’, on pp. 1–136Google Scholar of Travaux et mémoires présentés à la Société Industrielle lors de la célébration du cinquantième anniversaire de sa fondation, a supplement to volume 46 (1876)Google Scholar of the Bulletin of the society. See also Centenaire de la Société Industrielle (2 vols., Mulhouse, 1926), vol. 1, pp. 11–187.Google Scholar

40 Koechlin, Jacques was imprisoned specifically for the pamphlet, Relation historique des événemens qui ont eu lieu à Colmar, et dans les villes et communes environnantes, les 2 et 3 juillet 1822 (Paris, 1822)Google Scholar, in which he criticized the provocative behaviour of the civil and military authorities in the arrest and execution of the Bonapartist conspirator, lieutenant-colonel Joseph-Augustin Caron.

In fact, the masonic associations of the Société Industrielle were even stronger than I indicate in the text, for another three of the founder-members subsequently joined the Parfaite Harmonie lodge. See Koehnlein, Max, ‘Un inspirateur de la Société Industrielle treize ans avant sa fondation’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 99 (1933), 453–62 (458)Google Scholar.

The establishment of the Parfaite Harmonie lodge was part of a revival of masonic activity which occurred widely in Alsace. The lodge was an important focus for liberalism and bonapartism in the Restoration, though in later years, especially after 1848, it came to be more closely associated with republicanism. See Leuillot, Paul, ‘Bourgeoisie d'Alsace et Franc-Maçonnerie aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles’, in La bourgeoisie alsacienne. Études d'histoire sociale [Publications de la Société Savante d'Alsace et des Régions de l'Est, no. 5] (Strasbourg, 1967), pp. 343–76 (362–5).Google Scholar

41 Lévy, , Histoire économique de l'industrie cotonnière en Alsace, op. cit. (note 4), p. 234.Google Scholar

42 Fohlen, Claude, L'industrie textile au temps du Second Empire (Paris, 1956), p. 139.Google Scholar Fohlen does note, however, that the opening of the canal did help to alleviate (though it never solved) the very serious problem of obtaining cheap coal in the Mulhouse area; see note 88, below.

43 The exhibition of 1828 is described in ‘Rapport sur l'exposition des produits de l'industrie, à l'occasion de l'arrivée du roi, le 11 septembre 1828’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 2 (1828), 73–166.Google Scholar On the visit of the king to Mulhouse see Fargès-Méricourt, P. J., Relation du voyage de Sa Majesté Charles X en Alsace (Strasbourg, 1829), pp. 145–60.Google Scholar Despite the fuss, the visit to Mulhouse lasted a mere 4½ hours.

It cannot have been easy for Koechlin to show public enthusiasm for the royal visit, but for him, the fall of Villèle's reactionary ministry in January 1828 would certainly have resurrected hopes of some liberalization of the Bourbon régime which he professed to despise. Koechlin also became involved in the visit as the most generous of the industriels who financed the elegant residential and commercial development known as the New Quarter. Both the king's visit and the exhibition of industry were organized in ways that drew attention to the magnificence of the new buildings and so, indirectly, celebrated its sponsors. It is typical of Koechlin's opportunism that after making his address, he presented the king with a written statement of the needs of Mulhousien industry; see Fargès-Méricourt, , Relation du voyage de Charles X, p. 153.Google Scholar

44 See Table 3. As the Table shows, the trend continued. Thirty years later, Catholics outnumbered Protestants in the ratio of three to one.

45 See Penot's obituary of Koechlin, Nicolas, cited in note 11, p. 202.Google Scholar

46 Villermé, Louis, Tableau de l'etat physique el moral des ouvriers employés dans les manufactures de colon, de laine et de soie (2 vols., Paris, 1840), vol. 1, p. 27.Google Scholar

47 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 439. The information that I give on Mulhouse is taken from vol. 1, pp. 14–61 and 437–46.

48 For a typically indignant riposte to the charges, see Penot, , Statistique générale du Haut-Rhin, op. cit. (note 30), pp. 316–17Google Scholar:

The criticisms of those industries which employ large numbers of workers in one building… have been directed chiefly at spinning. The criticisms have been exaggerated. No, our workers are not the pinched, stunted creatures that they are said to be …

Needless to say, Penot did not mention that, in 1827, a committee of the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse had declined to take action on a proposal by one of the more compassionate employers, the spinner Jean-Jacques Bourcart of Guebwiller, for the imposition of a limit of twelve hours on the working day in spinning mills and a ban on the employment of children under the age of nine. For Bourcart's proposal, which was modelled on the British legislation of 1825 on working hours and the employment of children, see Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 1 (1826), 373–86.Google Scholar The proposal was rejected on the grounds that it would infringe the personal freedom of employer and employee alike.

49 Chassagne, , Oberkampf, op. cit. (note 16), p. 218Google Scholar, and ‘Lettres écrites d'Alsace’, op. cit. (note 23), p. 111.

50 Leuillot, , L'Alsace au début du XIXe siècle, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 1, p. 444.Google Scholar The statement by Puymaigre, à prefect of unimpeachable loyalty to the Bourbons, was made at the time of the elections of 1824. His belligerence towards the Koechlins is reflected very clearly in his comment: ‘nous allons voir si c'est la famille des Bourbons ou la famille Koechlin qui gouverne le Haut-Rhin’. In the event, Jacques Koechlin was re-elected, but the larger vote for the other deputy, a legitimist, justified Puymaigre's view that the liberal cause had suffered since the previous elections in 1821.

51 Villermé, , Tableau dt l'etat des ouvriers, op. cit. (note 46), vol. 1, p. 24n.Google Scholar Villermé (ibid., vol. 1, pp. 14–18) noted the marked demographic change that occurred in a period of less than two years in the mid-1830s. In April 1834, 4,960 of the 9,860 workers in the cotton mills of Mulhouse lived in the town, 4,900 of them in surrounding villages; by the end of 1835, of a total of 11,637 workers, 6,573 lived in the town, with only 5,064 coming from outside.

52 Penot, Achille, ‘Notice sur M. Jean Koechlin-Dollfus’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 41 (1871), 52–61 (57).Google Scholar

53 Koechlin, Édouard, ‘Aperçu géologique sur les environs de Mulhouse’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 2 (1828), 258–76 (276).Google Scholar

54 Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 3 (1829), 1–21.Google Scholar

55 On the history of the teaching of industrial chemistry in Mulhouse, see (in addition to the standard works cited in note 4) Histoire de l'École de Chimie de Mulhouse publiée à l'occasion du 25e anniversaire de l'enseignement de M. le Dr Emilio Noelting 1880–1905 (Strasbourg, 1905), especially pp. 1–45Google Scholar, and Oberlé, Raymond, L'enseignement à Mulhouse de 1798 à 1870 (Paris, 1961), pp. 215–17.Google Scholar Oberle's book is an invaluable source for all aspects of the history of education in Mulhouse.

56 See the Tables on pp. 31–5 of Histoire de l'École de Chimie, op. cit. (note 55), pp. 31–5.Google Scholar The largest categories of students in the period 1879–1905 were: Alsatian (37·93%), Russian (15·60%), German (9·16%), French (8·32%), Austrian (8.06%), Swiss (7.47%), and Italian (6·24%).

57 On this school, see ‘Séance d'installation de l'École gratuite des Chauffeurs’, in Mémoires de la Société Impériale des Sciences, de l'Agriculture et des Arts de Lille, 2nd ser. 5 (1858), v–viii.Google Scholar

58 As mayor from 1836 to 1843, André Koechlin was a powerful opponent of any attempts to reduce the emphasis of the collège on scientific and industrial studies and to extend its very limited teaching in Greek and Latin. During the mayoralty of Émile Dollfus (1843–8), a different philosophy prevailed, and the collège assumed increasingly the character of a collège royal without ever being formally designated as such. See Oberlé, , L'enseignement à Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 55), pp. 132–47.Google Scholar

59 On the establishment of the École Supérieure, see Oberlé, , L'enseignement à Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 55), pp. 197–205.Google Scholar The pamphlet Inauguration de l'Ecole Préparatoire à l'Enseignement Supérieur des Sciences et des Lettres de Mulhouse, published to mark the opening of the school on 17 November 1855, is also helpful. Comparable schools were established at the same time in Rouen, Angers, and Nantes, in an attempt to meet the new demands being made on the educational system as a result of economic and demographic change. The instruction, which lasted two years, was practical in orientation, adapted to the needs of young people entering industrial and commercial careers for whom the more advanced and ‘purer’ curriculum of the faculties was inappropriate.

60 For a comment on Fortoul's desire for centralization and its consequences see Fox, Robert, ‘Science, the university, and the state in nineteenth-century France’, in Geison, Gerald L. (ed.), Professions and the French state, 1700–1900 (Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 66–145 (86–92).Google Scholar

61 Oberlé, , L'enseignement à Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 55), pp. 207–10.Google Scholar As Oberlé notes, the shortage of students was equally marked in the other Écoles Préparatoires.

62 Boissière, Jean-Louis-Émile, Vingt ans à Mulhouse 1855–1875 (Mâcon, 1876), p. 7.Google Scholar

63 Boissière noted the importance of this administrative change; see ibid., p. 121. It seems that the salon organized by the new sub-prefect was an object of particular interest, though salons were by no means unknown in Mulhouse by the mid-century, as Boissière's comments on gatherings presided over by Madame Nicolas Koechlin make clear.

According to the Histoire documentaire de l'industrie de Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 1, p. 130Google Scholar, the town council of Mulhouse had petitioned on several occasions since 1814 for the transfer of the Sous-Préfecture from Altkirch to Mulhouse. The transfer necessarily entailed that of the tribunal de première instance (the main regional court) as well.

64 On the history of the project and its realization, see Véron, Eugène, Les institutions ouvrières de Mulhouse et des environs (Paris, 1866).Google Scholar

65 Roberts's book was translated into French, at the request of the President, Louis-Napoleon, , as Des habitations des classes ouvrières (Paris, 1850)Google Scholar. Its effect in Mulhouse was further heightened by the publicity given to it at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851, to which the Société Industrielle sent a deputation, and by a visit which Roberts made to Mulhouse.

66 The scheme allowed for occupants to become the owners of their houses after paying rent (initially 22 francs a month) for twenty years.

67 On this point, see Martin, René, La vie et l'oeuvre de Charles Dollfus (Mulhouse 1827–Paris 1913) (Gap, 1913) pp. 17–21.Google Scholar

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69 Verny, Louis-Édouard, ‘Proposition ayant pour objet d'encourager, sous les auspices de la Société Industrielle, le goût de la littérature et l'étude des sciences et arts’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 7 (1834), 471–80 (473–4).Google Scholar

70 Ibid., p. 479.

71 Oberlé, , L'enseignement à Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 55), pp. 239–40.Google Scholar

72 Seep. 7 of the address which Penot delivered at the opening of the École Préparatoire in 1855, in his capacity as director of the school, reproduced in Inauguration de l'École Préparatoire, op. cit. (note 59). Quite separate but equally successful lectures were organized for working men and their families in the 1850s and 1860s; see Oberlé, , L'enseignement à Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 55), pp. 241–6.Google Scholar

73 Weber, Jean, ‘Notice biographique sur M. D1 Dollius-Ausset’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 41 (1871), 34–44 (38–43).Google Scholar

74 Weber, Jean, ‘Notice biographique sur M. Joseph Koechlin-Schlumberger’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 33 (1863), 535–53 (541–50)Google Scholar; and Grad, Charles, ‘Études historiques sur les naturalistes de l'Alsace. Joseph Koechlin-Schlumberger 1796–1863’, Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire Naturelle de Colmar, 14e et 15e années (1873–1874), 283–314Google Scholar (292–313).

75 Sitzmann, , Dictionnaire de biographie des hommes célèbres de l'Alsace, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 2, p. 691.Google Scholar

76 Thackray, , ‘Natural knowledge in its cultural context’, op. cit. (note 68), pp. 699–701.Google Scholar

77 ‘Resumé des notes laissées par M. Hartmann-Liebach’, op. cit. (note 29), pp. 232–3.Google Scholar

78 Zuber, Ernest, ‘Notice nécrologique sur M. Engel-Dollfus’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 54 (1884), 267–95 (271–2).Google Scholar

79 Dollfus, , ‘Notes pour servir à l'histore de l'industrie cotonnière’, op. cit. (note 29), p. 444.Google Scholar Although the self-acting mule was an English invention, the new machinery was supplied by André Koechlin et Cie. By 1853, 30,000 spindles of the new design were in use at Dollfus-Mieg et Cie; see Dollfus, , Histoire et généalogie de la famille Dollfus, op. cit. (note 18), p. 506.Google Scholar

80 Dollfus, , ‘Notes pour servir à l'histoire de l'industrie cotonnière’, op. cit. (note 29), pp. 445–6Google Scholar, and Reybaud, Marie-Roch-Louis, Le coton. Son régime, ses problèmes, son influence en Europe (Paris, 1863), pp. 44–7.Google Scholar

81 O'Neill, Charles, Chemistry of calico-printing, dyeing, and bleaching (Manchester, 1860), p. iii.Google Scholar In fact, there is a slightly grudging air about O'Neill's comments on French supremacy. In his view (p. iv), the French tended to receive excessive credit for their work in calico-printing and related technologies because innovations made in Switzerland, Belgium, Northern Italy, and parts of Germany, as well as those made in France, were regularly announced in French journals, notably of course the Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse.

82 Homburg, Ernst, ‘The influence of demand on the emergence of the dye industry. The roles of chemists and colourists’, Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists, 99 (1983), 325–34 (329–3)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Homburg's work forms part of a broader study of the development of the dye industry now nearing completion under the direction of Dr W. J. Hornix of the University of Nijmegen.

83 Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 30 (1859), 225.Google Scholar

84 On this case, in which Jean and Armand Gerber-Keller unsuccessfully challenged the claims of Renard frères to a monopoly on the manufacture of Fuchsine (or Magenta), see Haber, L. F., The chemical industry during the nineteenth century. A study of the economic aspect of applied chemistry in Europe and North America (Oxford, 1958), pp. 201–2Google Scholar, and other standard sources.

85 The response of the most important chemical manufacturer in southern Alsace (the firm of Charles Kestner at Thann) is instructive. Kestner's cautious response to the opportunities presented by artificial dyestuffs contrasts markedly with the firm's long-standing activity in the preparation of natural dyes. According to the Histoire documentaire de l'industrie de Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 2, pp. 578–9Google Scholar, Kestner did manufacture aniline violet and other products related to the new technology. But the venture was soon abandoned, and Kestner reverted to the more traditional activities of the French heavy chemical industry, specializing in particular in the production of sulphuric acid; see Laufenburger, and Pflimlin, , Cours d'économie alsacienne, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 2, p. 80nGoogle Scholar, and Grad, Charles; Études statistiques sur l'Industrie de l'Alsace (2 vols., Colmar, Strasbourg, and Paris, 1879–1880), vol. 1, pp. 308–9.Google Scholar

86 See Hofmann's report on Class II (‘Chemical and pharmaceutical products and processes’), in International Exhibition of 1862. Reports by the juries on the subjects in the thirty-six classes into which the Exhibition was divided (London, 1863), p. 136.Google Scholar

87 Ibid., p. 117.

88 According to Thierry-Mieg, Charles, ‘Rapport sur les forces matérielles et morales de l'industrie du Haut-Rhin, pendant les dix dernières années (1851–1861)’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 32 (1862), 431–73 (459)Google Scholar, the number of steam-engines in the Haut-Rhin increased from 163 (a total of 3,565 H.P.) in 1851 to 473 (11,027 H.P.) ten years later. The continuing concern about the price of coal is evidence of the limited advantages that were obtained by the opening of the Rhône-Rhine canal and the improvement of the railway network; see note 42, above.

89 See, for example, huge, Koechlin's ‘Mémoire sur les machines à vapeur, sur des expériences comparatives à faire entre les divers systèmes de machines, et sur l'utilité que présenterait un ouvrage complet et classique sur cette partie essentielle de l'industrie manufacturière’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 9 (1836), 79–182Google Scholar, and the related contributions by Koechlin, Joseph and Choffel, on pp. 183–277.Google Scholar

90 The first report on Hirn's experiments, which were performed on a 120 H.P. Watt engine at le Logelbach, appeared in a letter he wrote to the President of the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, dated 21 October 1854. See Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 26 (1855), 274–7.Google Scholar

91 Zuber, Ernest, ‘Notice nécrologique sur M. Engel-Dollfus’, Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 54 (1884), 267–95 (268–9)Google Scholar, and Mossmann, Xavier, Vie de F. Engel-Dollfus (Paris, 1887), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

92 For a detailed biography of Dollfus, see Martin, , La vie et l'oeuvre de Charles Dollfus, op. cit. (note 67)Google Scholar. A contemporary of Dollfus who ‘escaped’ at about the same time was Charles Schlumberger. In the late 1840s, Schlumberger entered the École Polytechnique and went on to a career in state employment, as a marine engineer, and to a consuming vocation as a naturalist.

93 Laufenburger, and Pflimlin, , Cours d'économie alsacienne, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 2, p. 286.Google Scholar

94 Histoire documentaire de l'industrie de Mulhouse, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 1, p. 230.Google Scholar

95 On this issue, see, in addition to the standard sources, Mossmann, , Vie de F. Engel-Dollfus, op. cit. (note 91), pp. 28–39.Google Scholar Frédéric Engel-Dollfus was deeply involved in the debate, taking the side of his father-in-law, Jean Dollfus, along with most of the large calico-printers.

96 The correlation between a settled, concentrated community and a capacity to organize working-class protest is a recurring theme in Merriman, John M. (ed.), French cities in the nineteenth century (London, 1982)Google Scholar. See especially Merriman's Introduction and the contributions by Charles Tilly and Michael P. Hanagan.

97 L'Huillier, Fernand, La lutte ouvrière à la fin du Second Empire (Paris, 1957), pp. 59–72.Google Scholar

98 On the elections, see Brandt, André and Leuillot, Paul, ‘Les élections de Mulhouse en 1869’, Revue d'Alsace, 99 (1960), 104–28.Google Scholar

99 See Table 3. In ‘Les élections de Mulhouse en 1869’, op. cit. (note 98), p. 124, Brandt and Leuillot give the following figures for the religious affiliations of the population of Mulhouse in 1866: Catholics 45, 550, Protestants 11, 211, Jews 1, 939, others 73 (total 58, 773). In Alsace as a whole, the proportion of Catholics to Protestants was slightly lower, being of the order of three to one.

100 For a list of nine firms that developed manufacturing activities in France in the aftermath of the annexation, see Bopp, Marie-Joseph, ‘L'oeuvre sociale de la haute bourgeoisie haut-rhinoise au XIXe siècle’, in La bourgeoisie alsacienne, op. cit. (note 40), pp. 387–402 (402)Google Scholar. André Koechlin et Cie (assimilated from 1872 as part of the very successful Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques) was a particularly notable enterprise which began manufacturing in France (at Belfort), though it did not do so until 1879.

101 Jean Dollfus was the most notable of the public figures who stayed and remained loyal to the French traditions of Mulhouse. Despite his defeat in the elections of 1869 and his advanced age, he re-entered the world of politics as the deputy for Mulhouse in the Reichstag from 1877 to 1887.

102 The relative importance of French and foreign markets varied very considerably between the 1830s (when the export trade in textiles from Alsace prospered) and 1871. But exporting in this period was never an easy task. On the eve of the annexation, spinning and weaving were totally dependent on the horne market, and only the calico-printers exported to a significant extent, 22 per cent of their production going abroad. In these circumstances, any reduction in the ease of access to French markets was a major blow. See l'Huillier, Fernand, ‘Deux siècles d'exploitation textile haut-rhinoise (1750–1950)’, Société Industrielle de Mulhouse. Bulletin trimestriel, nos. 1–2 (1950), 111–22 (119–20).Google Scholar

103 The Tables show very clearly the effects of the introduction of new and greatly improved machinery in the quarter of a century before the annexation. The main changes were: a) the continued rise in the number of spindles, especially after the introduction of the self-acting mule in the early 1850s, b) the rapid adoption of the power loom in place of the hand looms on which weaving still largely depended in the 1840s, and c) the increasing productivity of calico-printers (achieved at a time when the work force and the number of factories in this industry were diminishing). See also Table 8, which makes very clear the changing structure of the cotton industry in the Haut-Rhin, with the commercial importance of spinning and weaving overtaking that of calico-printing. The faltering authority of Jean Dollfus in the 1860s probably owed something to this trend, since, despite his interests in spinning and weaving, he always spoke as the representative of the calico-printers.

104 This explanation for the shortcomings of French science has a long history, going back to the mid-nineteenth century. By the time of the war of 1870, it had become a commonplace in the mounting demands for reform that were being voiced by Sainte-Claire Deville, Pasteur, and others; see Fox, , ‘Science, the university, and the state’, op. cit. (note 60), pp. 105–6.Google Scholar For a classic statement of the ills of centralization in the modern literature on France, see Ben-David, Joseph, The scientist's role in society. A comparative sstudy (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1971), pp. 88–107.Google Scholar

105 Fox, , ‘Science, the university, and the state’, op. cit. (note 60), pp. 84–101.Google Scholar

106 Shinn, , ‘The French science faculty system’, op. cit. (note 3), passim, but especially p. 326.Google Scholar Shinn shows how difficult it is to establish any correlation between performance in research and the degree to which French science was subjected to close central control.

107 Leuillot, , L'Alsace au début du XIXe siècle, op. cit. (note 4), vol. 2, p. 379.Google Scholar

108 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 389n. Daniel Koechlin's indifference to the system of national exhibitions was flaunted in a characteristic way when he did not even bother to collect the gold medal (or the decoration of the Legion of Honour) that he was awarded in 1819. The more extreme royalist governments of the 1820s reciprocated the sentiment. At the 1827 exhibition, for example, the exhibits from Mulhouse were said (by Nicolas Koechlin) to have been relegated humiliatingly to a remote corner. Under the July Monarchy, which the industrialists found politically more acceptable, Mulhousien involvement in the national exhibitions was more conspicuous. In 1834, firms in the Haut-Rhin won 13 gold medals, 14 silver medals, and 9 bronze medals, and 5 industriels in the region were decorated with the Legion of Honour; see Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, 7 (1834), 466–7.Google Scholar