A Journey Through France in War Time Part 9

In the afternoon we had a meeting with the citizens and the Chamber of Commerce of Gren.o.ble. The discussion took a very wide range--from the tariff question to the latest news from the front.

Next the party visited a plant for the manufacture of sheet steel by electricity.

In the evening we were banqueted at the Grand Hotel. On my right sat M.

Paisant, Director General; on my left was Mr. Thomas W. Mutton, Vice-consul of the United States of America at Gren.o.ble; near was was Mr. Tenot, Prefect of the district.

This part of France is noted for the amount of cement manufactured.

Walnuts are grown in this section in large quant.i.ties. I discussed these things with Mr. Murton.

There was a discussion at the banquet over female suffrage and the birthrate, and this grew very animated.

On Friday, September 29th, we left Gren.o.ble and stopped at Voiron and were here treated, at 9:30 A. M., with a "pet.i.t dejeuner". We next visited the monastery Grande. This was founded in the Twelfth century by St. Bruno. The present building was commenced and completed in the sixteenth century and the community originally had forty-two monks or fathers. This monastery is where the celebrated liquor, "Chartreuse", was manufactured, the basis of which is brandy, distilled flowers, and herbs. This formula was known only to the monks. While at the monastery in France each monk had an individual garden and an individual cell.

When an extra penance seemed necessary special silence was given them and they were compelled to remain in their cells for months at a time.

There were long corridors and in the bas.e.m.e.nt places for servants and retainers. In the center of the grounds was a very beautiful place where the fathers were buried. We were told that the order was recruited mainly from the intellectual cla.s.s, many of them widowers. Special rooms were reserved for travelers without money and without price.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Monastery of Chartreuse.]

The Carthusian order of Monks established themselves at Gren.o.ble, France, in 1132. The original receipe for the famous cordial was given them in 1602 by Marshall d'Estress. Friar Jerome Maubec arranged the present formula in 1755, and it remained unchanged until their expulsion by the French Government, July 2nd, 1901. More than two hundred ingredients go to make up Chartreuse, and nowhere else in the world can this cordial be manufactured. Chartreuse is the unsolved enigma of French compounders of liqueurs. Its manufacture has ceased. It is quite true that at Tarragona, Spain, the monks still continue to make cordial under the name of "Peres Chartreux", but it is generally agreed that, owing to the change of locality and climate, the "Peres Chartreux" now made there is not equal to the old Chartreuse. There are a number of people in Gren.o.ble who make imitation Chartreuse, but it is not so good as the real thing.

The monastery library contained twenty-two thousand volumes. These monks were also known as the Chartreusers, or Carthusian Monks. This was the head monastery, but there were branches in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

The fathers lived on a simple diet and no meat was allowed. They were not allowed to speak to each other except twice a week, on Sunday and Thursday. This old monastery is now used as a hospital for convalescents.

After this most interesting visit we were taken to luncheon at the Hotel du Grand Som, and later for a ride of one hundred miles in the military automobiles, through a mountainous country.

We arrived at Annecy at 8 P. M. and stopped at the Imperial Palace Hotel. This is one of the finest watering places in France. A beautiful lake surrounds the hotel, with mountains in the distance.

The next morning we called upon the Mayor and went through the usual speeches. We were given a boat ride on the lake. Then we visited an old castle. The coast looked very much like the coast of Maine between Bath and Squirrel Island. We were taken by boat from Annecy to Menthon and had luncheon at the Palace Hotel. Here Mr. Damour made his first speech, which was received so enthusiastically that he was kissed by nearly all the Frenchmen present.

We then visited an electric steel plant at Acierils, the French name being the "Electriques of Ugine". We were greeted by, among other things, a couple of American flags, but they were upside down.

We left Annecy at 5 P. M. for Lyons and stopped at the Terminus Hotel.

We saw a number of tattooed soldiers, that is tattooed with powder marks, they having seen service.

On Sunday, October 1st, at 8 A. M. we left Lyons for Le Creusot, where the great French steel plant is located. A serious discussion was held on the train about going to the front and the dangers were depicted quite vividly. We stopped at Chagny, after pa.s.sing a very old church dating back to the Tenth century. We saw, as we pa.s.sed along, droves of beautiful white cows, with not a speck of color.

X.

THE CREUSOT GUN WORKS

Arriving in Le Creusot we stopped at the Grand Hotel Moderne and had a most enjoyable Sunday evening. It was discovered that our French secretary, Emile Garden, had quite a tenor voice. He started in to sing the Ma.r.s.eilles Hymn, and it was not long until all the Commission joined, and then the hotel employes. Before we got through scores of people came in from the street to see what was going on. The incident was telegraphed by the newspaper correspondents to the Paris papers, and it aided in the work of the commissioners by showing their patriotism and sympathy for France.

We were told that there had been no strike at Le Creusot for twenty-five years. The employes wear a special sleeve decoration which indicates that they are in the same cla.s.s as soldiers; that is to say, they are making cannon and munitions and working for France.

We were given a breakfast at the Schneider club house and then visited the plant. We were refused admission to the munitions plant. The works employ about twenty thousand men and two thousand women. The output of the plant is large projectiles, and for this reason the number of women employed is relatively small. A number of five hundred and twenty millimeter sh.e.l.ls were shown to us; these sh.e.l.ls are more than seven feet long and weigh a ton and a half. We were also shown the guns from which they are fired, but these were not quite completed. This plant contains four blast furnaces of very small capacity, making special grades of pig iron. The initial heat is not used, the steel being reheated and repoured. A good deal of Vanadium alloy is used, and this is made in America. At this plant we met Mr. Edmond Lemaitre, an engineer who had been in Youngstown employed as an inspector. All the employes, both men and women, wear wooden shoes. We noticed an absence of safety devices and safety notices. Armored cars were being manufactured for the government as well as armor plate, but this armor plate mill was away behind the mills in our own country.

We had luncheon at the club house, but no speeches were made. None of the proprietors or directors of the company was present. We then visited the company hospital, a part of which was occupied by electric devices for treating the wounded. Then we came to the home where the orphans of the employes are taken care of.

[Ill.u.s.tration: New 520-mm. Gun, Carrying Projectile Seven Feet in Length and Weighing 3,100 lbs., seen at Creusot Works.]

A great deal of attention is paid to the sanitary conditions and also to the uniforms of the men, and a great deal that is done for the workmen could be copied in our American plants. The history of these works, the greatest of their kind in France, is interesting. Their former ore supply, or at least a large part of it, was captured by the Germans near Verdun.

The name Creusot was first mentioned in an old charter in 1253. In the year 1502 coal was discovered there, and the year 1793 saw the opening of the Ca.n.a.l du Centre. During the French Revolution the plant was taken and exploited by the state and a little before the year 1800 was given back to its owners. During the Napoleonic wars much work was done here.

In the year 1815, gun making was stopped and only coal mining was allowed.

The dynasty of the Schneiders continued for four generations; the last one, Charles Eugene Schneider, was born in 1868.

The first French locomotive was built at this plant and, in 1841, the first hammer moved by steam power.

In the year 1855 the Crimean war led to much activity at this plant. In 1867 ten thousand workmen were employed. In the year 1870 the first Bessemer steel produced in France, was made here, although the process had then been in use in the United States for six years.

Since 1884 these works have been exporting guns to many foreign countries.

In 1897 a large plant was built near Le Havre for the manufacture of naval guns. In 1882 they built large naval works near Bordeaux, and since 1906 they have been building the largest wars.h.i.+ps at that place.

In 1909, at Hyeres, near Toulon, studying and making of torpedoes was begun, and this was followed in 1910 by submarines. Five plants are now scattered through France for this kind of work.

The Creusot works do not employ children under fourteen years of age.

There are often three generations employed in this same kind of work, and some families have up to twenty members working in one plant. They have always been spared epidemics of any serious nature. With sanitary and prosperous homes, few deaths have occurred in the first year of life. The rate of deaths at Le Creusot is only ten per thousand while the average in France is 16 per thousand, and in bad industrial centers 25 per thousand. Eighty per cent. of the children are nursed by the mother. After the seventh month before birth mothers rest, and for a period after and during this time they receive the usual wages.

The first school was opened here in 1787. At the age of fourteen children can become apprentices and those of other towns or villages are often attracted. After they have a school certificate, entrance to the works is optional. From the age of twelve to sixteen years they must do military preparation, with flags and musical band. The brightest children go to high school to become engineers, and they are taught by the best professors in France. They pay back the cost of their education only when they have secured a good position. A thorough medical examination is necessary.

Since the year 1875 savings banks for children have existed.

The first domestic science school was organized in Europe in the year 1865 at Goteborg. At first all the mothers were opposed to these schools, but they soon favored them. One cannot enter these schools without a diploma from the common schools. Each teacher is given twenty-four pupils. The girls are taught to make their own apparel, gardening, cooking, was.h.i.+ng, ironing, mending and keeping home expense accounts.

There are three cla.s.ses of workmen. Ten selected, twenty auxiliaries, thirty uneducated laborers. In January, 1912 there were twenty thousand men employed. They all sign a full contract, after reading it, before getting into the works. The contract can be cancelled by either party with one week's notice. No proprietor of a saloon can work in the plant.

From 1837 to 1911 the salaries have increased 130 per cent. In the year 1911 the total of salaries was nearly thirty-three million francs. The annual donations amount to three million francs. Delegates are nominated by the workmen for conference with the employers to suggest better conditions and improvements in working methods. Sixty-six per cent. of their suggestions or demands have been adopted and the result is peace and confidence. The company provides swimming pools, divided into two parts, one-half for adults and the other half for younger men and boys.

The homes are subject to constant sanitary inspection and all unsanitary buildings are destroyed. Safety appliances and all protecting apparatus are painted in brilliant red. There has been a constant study of the workman's house, since the eighteenth century. In 1840 the company had one hundred workmen's houses; in 1912 two thousand five hundred, and in addition to this hundreds of these houses have been bought by the workmen by slow annual payments added to the rent. The types of houses vary for one to four families. The rents are low and do not pay regular interest on the investment. Ground s.p.a.ce for gardens is furnished by the company, with annual compet.i.tions and rewards for the best results.

Trees and seeds are furnished at nominal prices. There are two thousand, two hundred and fifty gardens under cultivation.

The savings bank is managed by the company and safe investments are made for the workmen, returns of from three to five per cent, on savings being guaranteed.

In the year 1911, eight thousand workmen's accounts reached thirteen million francs. The chief use of the savings is to buy homes. The total amount advanced to workmen for building houses since 1845 was five million francs, of which only eighty-three thousand, five hundred are not yet paid back.

Co-operative societies for reducing the cost of living are organized to enable the workmen to get supplies at cost. They were started and managed by the Schneider Company and gradually left in the hands of the workmen themselves.

Club houses are maintained with tennis courts, fencing bouts, games, gymnasiums, a children's theatre, gun clubs, rowing clubs and musical societies. The time spent in rehearsing for orchestras is not deducted from the pay. Free medical attendance for the workman and his family is given. Emergency and base hospitals are provided by the company. Modern and up-to-date mutual benefit societies are managed by the workmen. Old age pensions have been financed differently during the last century and are now supported by one per cent. from the workman, two per cent. from the Schneider Company, and three per cent. from the State.

Houses are provided for men over sixty years of age, and when it is possible aged couples are kept together.

We reached Dole at 9 o'clock P. M. on Monday, October 2nd.

Dole is the birthplace of Pasteur, the great French scientist who discovered the antidote for hydrophobia. His name is known throughout the world.