CHAPTER XI

IN THE NORD

Valenciennes--The shabbiest historic town in North-eastern France--Perfect cultivation of French Flanders--Cock-fighting and flowers--Prosperity of the cabarets--One to every forty-four inhabitants around Valenciennes--Growth of the mining and manufacturing towns--Interesting buildings in Valenciennes--Carelessness of the citizens about their city--A graceful edifice of the 15th century falling into ruins--Valenciennes in the days of the Hanse of London--Mediæval burghers and their sovereigns--A citizen of Valenciennes, in 1357, the richest man in Europe--Festivals in the olden times--Religious wars--Vauban at Valenciennes--How the clothworkers fled from the Spanish persecution--Dumouriez at Valenciennes--The Hôtel de Ville--Interesting local artists from Simon Marmion down to Watteau and Pater--The triptych of Rubens--Some historic portraits--The Musée Carpeaux--The coal mines of Anzin--14,035 workmen there employed and 200,210,702 tons of coal extracted--Competition with Belgium, the Pas-de-Calais, England, and Germany--The coal mines of Anzin organised a century and a half ago--The discovery of coal in North-eastern France--Energy shown by the local _noblesse_--Pierre Mathieu, an engineer, strikes the vein in 1734--The lords of the soil claim their rights over the coal--A long lawsuit ending in a compromise--A business arrangement under the _ancien régime_--The hereditary principle recognised in the organisation and undisturbed by the Revolution--An orderly, quiet, and prosperous town--A region of factories intermingled with farms--Charming home of the director--The company encourages workmen's homes, with gardens and allotments--An improvement on the Cité Ouvrière--2,628 model homes now occupied by workmen--For three francs a month a workman secures a well-built cottage, with drainage and cellarage, six good rooms and closets, and a plot of ground--2,500 families hold garden sites for cultivation--Fuel allowed, and a general 'participation in profits' of a practical sort--The right of the workmen to be consulted recognised at Anzin a century and a half ago--Beneficial and educational institutions--An industrial republic--How the National Assembly meddled with the mines--Mining laws in France, ancient and modern--Influence of politics on the output of the mines--Every Republican development at Paris diminishes, and every check to Republicanism at Paris develops, the great coal industry--The great strike of 1884--During that year the company expended for the benefit of the workmen a sum equivalent to the profits divided amongst the shareholders--What caused the collision therefore between capital and labour?--A syndicate of miners under a former Anzin workman, Basly, puts a pressure from Paris upon the workmen at Anzin to develop the strike--The pretext found in contracts granted to good workmen--The object of the strike to establish the equality of bad with good workmen--Boycotting and intimidation--Dynamite and Radical deputies from Paris--A Republican minister asks the company to accept Basly and his syndicate as an umpire--Bitter opposition of the Basly syndicate to the saving fund system--They demand a State pension fund--And pending this a fund controlled by the syndicate--A despotism of agitators--Upshot of the strike--The mines in the Pas-de-Calais--Visits to workmen's houses--Fine appearance and carriage of the miners--Their politics--Women and children--Good ventilation and sanitation of the mines--'No man can be a miner not bred to it as a boy'--Excellent housekeeping of the women--Miners of Southern and Northern France--Influence of high altitudes on character--The elective principle in the mines--Morals and conduct of the mining people--Churches and schools--A children's school at St. Waast--A digression into the Artois--What the Tiers-Etat of Northern France wanted in 1789--The _cahiers_ of the Tiers-Etat--Respect for vested interests--A visit to St.-Amand--The conspiracy of Dumouriez--Ruin of a magnificent abbey--A beautiful belfry--Interesting pictures by Watteau--Co-operation at Anzin--What its advantages are to the workmen--Eight per cent. dividends to the members in 1866, and an average during 23 years to 1889 of 11-80/100 per cent.--How the workmen and their families live--Table of articles purchased--Attendance upon the schools--Influence of women and families--Increase of juvenile crime under irreligious education in France and the United States--Louis Napoleon's National Retiring Fund for Old Age--Regulations of the Anzin Council affecting this fund--Average expenditure of the Anzin company for the benefit of workmen 'fifty centimes for every ton of coal extracted'--The Decazeville strikes in 1888--They begin with the murder of one of the best engineers and end with a workman's banquet to the engineer-in-chief 259-331