296 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



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 industry of both this region and Brit- 

 tany. On the contrary, 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 con- 

 tributed 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, however, 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, employ- 

 ing 8,000 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 em- 

 broidering fancy shoes. Moreover, quite a 



* Twelve thousand in 1906. 



