Chapter XI: In the Nord

Valenciennes--The shabbiest historic town in North-eastern
France--Perfect cultivation of French Flanders--Cock-fighting and
flowers--Prosperity of the cabarets--One to every forty-four inhabitants
around Valenciennes--Growth of the mining and manufacturing
towns--Interesting buildings in Valenciennes--Carelessness of the
citizens about their city--A graceful edifice of the 15th century
falling into ruins--Valenciennes in the days of the Hanse of
London--Mediæval burghers and their sovereigns--A citizen of
Valenciennes, in 1357, the richest man in Europe--Festivals in
the olden times--Religious wars--Vauban at Valenciennes--How
the clothworkers fled from the Spanish persecution--Dumouriez
at Valenciennes--The Hôtel de Ville--Interesting local artists
from Simon Marmion down to Watteau and Pater--The triptych
of Rubens--Some historic portraits--The Musée Carpeaux--The
coal mines of Anzin--14,035 workmen there employed and
200,210,702 tons of coal extracted--Competition with Belgium,
the Pas-de-Calais, England, and Germany--The coal mines of
Anzin organised a century and a half ago--The discovery of coal
in North-eastern France--Energy shown by the local _noblesse_--Pierre
Mathieu, an engineer, strikes the vein in 1734--The lords
of the soil claim their rights over the coal--A long lawsuit ending
in a compromise--A business arrangement under the _ancien
régime_--The hereditary principle recognised in the organisation
and undisturbed by the Revolution--An orderly, quiet, and prosperous
town--A region of factories intermingled with farms--Charming
home of the director--The company encourages workmen's
homes, with gardens and allotments--An improvement on the
Cité Ouvrière--2,628 model homes now occupied by workmen--For
three francs a month a workman secures a well-built cottage,
with drainage and cellarage, six good rooms and closets, and a
plot of ground--2,500 families hold garden sites for cultivation--Fuel
allowed, and a general 'participation in profits' of a practical
sort--The right of the workmen to be consulted recognised at
Anzin a century and a half ago--Beneficial and educational
institutions--An industrial republic--How the National Assembly
meddled with the mines--Mining laws in France, ancient and
modern--Influence of politics on the output of the mines--Every
Republican development at Paris diminishes, and every check to
Republicanism at Paris develops, the great coal industry--The
great strike of 1884--During that year the company expended for
the benefit of the workmen a sum equivalent to the profits divided
amongst the shareholders--What caused the collision therefore
between capital and labour?--A syndicate of miners under a
former Anzin workman, Basly, puts a pressure from Paris upon
the workmen at Anzin to develop the strike--The pretext found in
contracts granted to good workmen--The object of the strike
to establish the equality of bad with good workmen--Boycotting
and intimidation--Dynamite and Radical deputies from
Paris--A Republican minister asks the company to accept Basly
and his syndicate as an umpire--Bitter opposition of the Basly
syndicate to the saving fund system--They demand a State
pension fund--And pending this a fund controlled by the syndicate--A
despotism of agitators--Upshot of the strike--The mines in
the Pas-de-Calais--Visits to workmen's houses--Fine appearance
and carriage of the miners--Their politics--Women and children--Good
ventilation and sanitation of the mines--'No man can be
a miner not bred to it as a boy'--Excellent housekeeping of the
women--Miners of Southern and Northern France--Influence of
high altitudes on character--The elective principle in the mines--Morals
and conduct of the mining people--Churches and
schools--A children's school at St. Waast--A digression into the
Artois--What the Tiers-Etat of Northern France wanted in 1789--The
_cahiers_ of the Tiers-Etat--Respect for vested interests--A
visit to St.-Amand--The conspiracy of Dumouriez--Ruin of a
magnificent abbey--A beautiful belfry--Interesting pictures by
Watteau--Co-operation at Anzin--What its advantages are to the
workmen--Eight per cent. dividends to the members in 1866, and
an average during 23 years to 1889 of 11-80/100 per cent.--How the
workmen and their families live--Table of articles purchased--Attendance
upon the schools--Influence of women and families--Increase
of juvenile crime under irreligious education in France
and the United States--Louis Napoleon's National Retiring Fund
for Old Age--Regulations of the Anzin Council affecting this
fund--Average expenditure of the Anzin company for the benefit of
workmen 'fifty centimes for every ton of coal extracted'--The
Decazeville strikes in 1888--They begin with the murder of one
of the best engineers and end with a workman's banquet to the
engineer-in-chief 259-331