CHAP. XXVI. JEWELLERS. 301 



templated Paris only, and examined into the 

 state of its various manufactories, might be led to 

 conclude, that the consumption of silver and gold 

 in France was at least equal to that of England. 

 But the chief, almost the exclusive, fabrication 

 of jewellery, watches, clocks, and plate, is con- 

 centrated in the capital. Before the revolution 

 there were large establishments for the fabrication 

 of those articles at Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, 

 Strasburg, and some other places. At that time, 

 the number of workmen employed in those 

 branches in Paris and in Lyons alone amounted 

 to seventy thousand ; and the portion of the 

 gold and silver used by them was estimated by 

 Necker, in 1789, at about ten million livres 

 annually 1 . But most of those establishments 

 were reduced to ruin by the early political 

 events of the revolution, from the want of in- 

 ternal consumption, from the difficulty of ex- 

 portation to foreign countries, especially to the 

 great fairs of Frankfort, Leipsic, and other parts 

 of Germany, and from their commerce with the 

 colonies being almost annihilated. 



When France exchanged anarchy for a military 

 despotism, security was in some measure restored 

 to property, at least, in the capital ; and the 

 plunder of foreign countries, with the taste for 



1 See Statistique Generale et Particuliere de la France et de 

 ses Colonies, par P. E. Herbin, vol. ii. p. 180. 



