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Internet Modern History Sourcebook
Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière:
The State of the French Economy, 1789
I have seen eighty, ninety, a hundred pieces of cotton or woollen stuff cut up, and
completely destroyed. I have witnessed similar scenes every week for a number of years. I
have seen manufactured goods confiscated; heavy fines laid on the manufacturers; some
pieces of fabric were burnt in public places, and at the hours of market: others were
fixed to the pillory, with the name of the manufacturer inscribed upon them, and he
himself was threatened with the pillory, in case of a second offence. All this was done
under my eyes, at Rouen, in conformity with existing regulations, or ministerial orders.
What crime deserved so cruel a punishment? Some defects in the materials employed, or in
the texture of the fabric, or even in some of the threads of the warp.
I have frequently seen manufacturers visited by a band of satellites who put all in
confusion in their establishments, spread terror in their families, cut the stuffs from
the frames, tore off the warp from the looms, and carried them away as proofs of
infringement; the manufacturers were summoned, tried, and condemned: their goods
confiscated; copies of their judgment of confiscation posted up in every public place;
fortune, reputation, credit, all was lost and destroyed. And for what offence? Because
they had made of worsted, a kind of cloth called shag, such as the English used to
manufacture, and even sell in France, while the French regulations stated that that kind
of cloth should be made with mohair.
I have seen other manufacturers treated in the same way, because they had made camlets
of a particular width, used in England and Germany, for which there was a great demand
from Spain, Portugal, and other countries, and from several parts of France, while the
French regulations prescribed other widths for camlets.
Source:
From: Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière, De la Liberté du Travail, (Paris,
1830), Vol. II, pp. 353-4.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton.
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