156 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



peanuts) have their chief quarters, is the centre of that 

 industry, and in 1895 the whole of that hill, thickly 

 covered with houses, five, six, eight and ten storeys 

 high, resounded with the noise of the looms which were 

 busily going in every apartment of that big agglomera- 

 tion. Electricity has lately been brought into the ser- 

 vice of this domestic industry, supplying motive power 

 to the looms. 



To the south of Lyons, in the city of Vienne, hand- 

 weaving is disappearing. " Shoddy " is now the lead- 

 ing produce, and twenty-eight concerns only remain 

 out of the 1 20 fabriques which existed thirty years ago. 

 Old woollen rags, rags of carpets, and all the dust from 

 the carding and spinning in the wool and cotton factories 

 of Northern France, with a small addition of cotton, 

 are transformed here into cloth which flows from Vienne 

 to all the big cities of France 20,000 yards of " shoddy " 

 every day to supply the ready-made clothing factories. 

 Hand-weaving has evidently nothing to do in that in- 

 dustry, and only 1300 hand-looms are now at work out 

 of the 4000 which were in motion ten years ago. Large 

 factories, employing a total of 1800 workers, have taken 

 the place of these hand-weavers, while " shoddy " has 

 taken the place of cloth. All sorts of flannels, felt hats, 

 tissues of horse-hair, and so on, are fabricated at the 

 same time. But while the great factory thus conquered 

 the city of Vienne, its suburbs and its nearest surround- 

 ings became the centre of a prosperous gardening and 

 fruit culture, which has already been mentioned in 

 chapter iv. The banks of the Rh6ne, between Ampuis 

 and Condrieu, are one of the wealthiest parts of all 

 France, owing to the shrubberies and nurseries, market- 

 gardening, fruit-growing, vine-growing and cheese-mak- 

 ing out of goats' milk. House industries go there hand 

 in hand with an intelligent culture of the soil ; Condrieu, 

 for instance, is a famous centre for embroidery, which is 

 made partly by hand, as of old, and partly by machinery. 



