P1: JZP 9780521887175c08 CUUS091/Prak 978 0 521 88717 5 November 22, 2007 17:20 8 Inventing in a World of Guilds: Silk Fabrics in Eighteenth-century Lyon Liliane P´erez This chapter examines the production of silk brocades in Lyon in the eigh- teenth century through the technical possibilities and skills that under- pinned inventiveness, the social status of inventive artisans, and the policy of innovation that the powerful silk guild known as the Grande Fabrique developed in tune with the municipality.1 Thanks to Lesley E. Miller and Carlo Poni, we know about the practices and the context of artistic cre- ation in Lyon, especially the part played by design.2 The success of the Lyon silk fabrics relied on design creativity and on the management of stocks of patterns owned by local firms. Their protection, application, and fraudulent circulation were the basis of the new Lyon fashions launched yearly across Europe. The utility of design was based upon technical inge- nuity. Inventing a new fabric relied on a combination of new patterns as well as new devices and commercial projects, calculations, and plans. No refined patterns could have been realised without the multiplication of warp threads and of numerous tiny shuttles for weft threads, new devices for quickly changing patterns on looms, and new stitches giving the illu- sion of relief, shades, and half-tones in portraits. New flowered silks were 1 I am very grateful to Alain Cottereau, Paul A. David, Dominique Foray, Daryl M. Hafter, Christine MacLeod, Lesley E. Miller, Jacques Mairesse, Giorgio Riello, Kate Scott, and Joan Unwin for their helpful comments on this chapter. 2 L. E. Miller, ‘Paris-Lyon-Paris: Dialogue in the Design and Distribution of Patterned Silks in the 18th Century’, in R. Fox and A. Turner (eds.), Luxury Trades and Consumerism: Studies in the History of the Skilled Workforce (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 139–67; Miller, ‘Silk Designers in the Lyon Silk Industry, 1712–1787’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Brighton Polytechnic, 1988; C. Poni, ‘Fashion as Flexible Production: Market and Pro- duction Strategies of the Lyon Silk Merchants in the 18th Century’, in C. F. Sabel and J. Zeitlin (eds.), World of Possibilities: Flexibility and Mass Production in Western Industrializa- tion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 37–74; Poni, ‘Mode et innovation: les strat´egies des marchands en soie de Lyon au XVIIIe si`ecle’, Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine 45 (1998), 589–625; also N. Rothstein, Silk Designs in the Eighteenth Cen- tury, in the Collection of the V&A Museum (London: Thames & Hudson, 1990); A.-M. Wiederkher, ‘Le dessinateur pour les fabriques d’or, d’argent et de soie. Le t´emoignage de Nicolas Joubert de l’Hiberderie, dessinateura ` Lyon au XVIIIe si`ecle’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Lyon-II, 1981. 232 P1: JZP 9780521887175c08 CUUS091/Prak 978 0 521 88717 5 November 22, 2007 17:20 Silk Fabrics in Eighteenth-century Lyon 233 at the heart of a web combining work on shapes, materials, processes, and projects.3 These claims raise several questions. How could technical creativity develop within a silk guild that dominated the economic, social, and political life in Lyon? How did the guild cope with theft, fraud, copy- ing, and poaching in a system in which competition between craftsmen was intense?4 Did guild officials contrast legitimate copying with illegal imitations? How did inventors express and explain the linkages between creating new patterns, contriving new technical devices, and launching new enterprises? We shall first analyse how the Grande Fabrique and the municipality fostered innovation through the collective management of technical ini- tiatives. In Lyon, politics supported innovation and technology helped shape public policy. Alain Cottereau has described this process for the Revolutionary Era and the nineteenth century;5 we will push back the enquiry into the eighteenth century when the guild was still the main economic actor in town.6 Second, we shall examine the balance between 3 J.-L. Le Moigne and H. V´erin, ‘Sur le processus d’autonomisation des sciences du g´enie’, in De la techniquea ` la technologie, Cahiers S.T.S. 2 (1984), 42–55. 4 D. M. Hafter, ‘Women in the Underground Business of Eighteenth-century Lyon’, Enter- prise & Society 2 (2001), 11–40; Hafter, ‘The Cost of Inventiveness. Labors’ Struggle and Management’s Machine’, Technology and Culture 44 (2003), 102–13. On imitation and invention, see M. Berg, ‘Commerce and Creativity in Eighteenth-century Birmingham’, in Berg (ed.), Markets and Manufactures in Early Industrial Europe (London: Routledge, 1991), 173–204; Berg, ‘From Imitation to Invention. Creating Commodities in the Eigh- teenth Century’, Economic History Review 55 (2002), 1–30; H. Clifford, ‘Concepts of Invention, Identity and Imitation in the London and Provincial Metal-working Trades, 1750–1800’, Journal of Design History 12 (1999), 241–55; C. Lano¨e, La poudre et le fard. Une histoire des cosm´etiques de la Renaissance aux Lumi`eres (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2004). 5 A. Cottereau, ‘La d´esincorporation des m´etiers et leur transformation en ‘publics interm´ediaires’: Lyon et Elbeuf, 1790–1815’, in S. L. Kaplan and P. Minard (eds.), La France, malade du corporatisme? XVIIIe–XXe si`ecles (Paris: Belin, 2004), 97–145. 6 Classic studies of the Lyon silk industry include E. Pariset, Histoire de la fabrique lyonnais: Etude´ sur le r´egime social eteconomique ´ de l’industrie de la soiea ` Lyon, depuis le XVIe si`ecle (Lyon: A. Rey, 1901); J. Godart L’ouvrier en soie. Monographie du tisseur lyonnais: Etude´ historique,economique ´ et sociale (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1976 [1899]); C. Ballot, L’introduction du machinisme dans l’industrie fran¸caise (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1978 [1923]); M. Garden, Lyon et les Lyon au XVIIIe si`ecle (Paris: Les Belles-Lettres, 1970); and P. Cayez, M´etiers jacquard et hauts-fourneaux. Aux origines de l’industrie Lyon (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1978). More recent studies, along with those of C. Poni, D. M. Hafter, and L. E. Miller cited here, include Soieries de Lyon: Commandes royales au XVIIIe si`ecle (1730–1800) (Lyon: Mus´ee Historique des Tissus, 1988); O. Zeller, ‘La soierie Lyon, de la tradition de prestige aux techniques de pointe’, 112e Congr`es des Soci´et´es Savantes (Paris: CTHS, 1987), vol. 1, 95–101; A. Cottereau, ‘The Fate of Collective Man- ufactures in the Industrial World: The Silk Industries of Lyon and London, 1800–1850’, in Sabel and Zeitlin (eds.), World of Possibilities, 75–152; L. Hilaire-P´erez, L’invention technique au si`ecle des Lumi`eres (Paris: Albin Michel, 2000), 74–8. See also Cottereau, P1: JZP 9780521887175c08 CUUS091/Prak 978 0 521 88717 5 November 22, 2007 17:20 234 Liliane P´erez guild activities and inventors. Paradoxically, the collective aims of the guild fostered individualistic claims and competitiveness. Invention was shaped by conflict. In that context, how did a heroic model of invention emerge from the legends of de Lasalle and later Jacquard?7 Artisans, Guilds, and Innovation Artisans constituted the main workforce in Lyon during the Ancien Regime and they produced most finished goods. Most Lyon inventors up to and during the Industrial Revolution came from their ranks, espe- cially in the luxury trades, where constant innovation was essential for business.8 Historians have generally considered artisans and their guilds as brakes to innovation because of their alleged secrecy, conservatism and inherited know-how, the strict rules for quality standards, and the barriers between trades. More generally, artisans are supposed to have been subjects of ‘blind routine’ and of a collective ethos that choked initiative. Steven L. Kaplan has demonstrated how masters could express contradictory feelings toward guilds, which helped them gain reputation, authority, and credit in the marketplace, but also restrained their personal ambitions.9 Soieries de Lyon et autres fabriques collectives: des exp´eriences alternativesal’´ ` economie classique au XIXe si`ecle (forthcoming). 7 D. M. Hafter, ‘Women Who Wove in the Eighteenth-century Silk Industry of Lyon’ in Hafter (ed.), European Women and the Preindustrial Craft (Bloomington: Indiana Uni- versity Press, 1995), 42–64; Hafter, ‘Avantage, femmes: la participation des femmes au n´egoce ill´egala ` Lyon au XVIIIe si`ecle’, in N. Coquery, L. Hilaire-P´erez, L. Sall- mann, and C. Verna (eds.), Artisans, industrie. Nouvelles r´evolutions du Moyen Ageˆ a ` nos jours (Lyon: SFHST(ENS-Editions, 2004), 249–58; C. Fairchilds, ‘Three Views on the Guilds’, French Historical Studies 15 (1988) 688–92. 8 Fox and Turner (eds.), Luxury Trades and Consumerism; Hilaire-P´erez, L’invention technique; M. Berg and P. Hudson, ‘Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution’, Economic History Review 45 (1992), 24–50. 9 S. L. Kaplan, La fin des corporations (Paris: Fayard, 2001); Kaplan, ‘Les corporations parisiennes au XVIIIe si`ecle’, Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine 49 (2002), 5–55. Also P.Minard, La fortune du Colbertisme: Etat et industrie dans la France des Lumi`eres (Paris: Fayard, 1998); Minard, ‘Les communaut´es de m´etier en France au XVIIIe si`ecle: une analyse en termes de r´egulation institutionnelle’, in S. R. Epstein, G. Haupt, P. Soly, and C. Poni (eds.), Guilds, Economy and Society. Proceedings of the 12th International Economic History Congress (Madrid: Fundacion Fomento de la Historia Economica, 1998), 109–20; Kaplan and Minard (eds.), La France; A. Thillay, Le faubourg Saint-Antoine et ses ‘faux ouvriers’. La libert´edutravail`a Paris aux XVIIe et XVIIIe si`ecles (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2002); Thillay, ‘La libert´e du travail au faubourg Saint-Antoineal’´ ` epreuve des saisies des jurandes parisiennes (1642–1778)’, Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine 44 (1997), 634–49; and several articles on these questions in I.
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