SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES 147 



linen in their houses. The same must be said of a group 

 of industrial villages, peopled with clothiers in the neigh- 

 bourhood of another Normandy city, Elboeuf. When 

 Baudrillart visited them in 1878-80, he was struck with 

 the undoubted advantages offered by a combination 

 of agriculture with industry. Clean houses, clean dresses, 

 and a general stamp of well-being were characteristic of 

 these villages. 



Happily enough, weaving is not the only small in- 

 dustry of both this region and Brittany. On the con- 

 trary, scores of other small industries enliven the 

 villages and burgs. At Fougeres (in Ille-et-Vilaine, to 

 the north-east of Reims) one sees how the factory has 

 contributed to the development of various small and 

 domestic trades. In 1830 this town was a great centre 

 for the domestic fabrication of the so-called chaussons 

 de tresse. The competition of the prisons killed, how- 

 ever, this primitive industry ; but it was soon substituted 

 by the fabrication of soft socks in felt (chaussons de 

 feutre). This last industry also went down, and then the 

 fabrication of boots and shoes was introduced, this last 

 giving origin, in its turn, to the boot and shoe factories, 

 of which there are now thirty-three at Fougeres, em- 

 ploying 8000 workers (yearly production about 5,000,000 

 pairs). But at the same time domestic industries took a 

 new development Thousands of women are employed 

 now in their houses in sewing the " uppers " and in 

 embroidering fancy shoes. Moreover, quite a number 

 of smaller workshops grew up in the neighbourhood, 

 for the fabrication of cardboard boxes, wooden heels, 

 and so on, as well as a number of tanneries, big and 

 small And M. Ardouin Dumazet's remark is, that one 

 is struck to find owing to these industries an un- 

 doubtedly higher level of well-being in the villages 

 quite unforeseen in the centre of this purely agricultural 

 region.* 



* Vol. v., D. 270. 



