Juan Batista

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1/31

Jean-Baptiste Rveillon: A Man on the Make in Old Regime FranceAuthor(s): Leonard N. RosenbandSource: French Historical Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer, 1997), pp. 481-510Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/286854

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2/31

Jean-Baptiste Reveillon:A Man on the Make

in

Old Regime France

Leonard N. Rosenband

Jean-Baptiste Reveillon

had a fine house. Its

charming grounds

covered

nearly

five

acres,

and it contained a

library

of more than

fifty

thousand

volumes,

furniture

worth fifty

thousand

livres,

and

a

magnificent

wine

cellar. Parisians gossiped about it, strolled to the edge of the city

to see

it, and in April 1789 ravaged it.'

With

his house and the

wallpaper

works

that

occupied

the

ground

floor besieged, Reveillon took refuge in the Bastille. He was pained

and puzzled by the crowd's fury. After all, he was a good employer. He

paid high wages

and

kept

hundreds of

his

workers

on

the

books

dur-

ing the fierce winter of 1788-89, when no wallpaper could be made.2

From the

belly

of the

Bastille,

he cried out

for

justice

and

compensa-

tion. In

his

"Expose justificatif,"

the

pamphlet

he

penned

in his sanc-

Leonard N. Rosenband is an associate professor of history at Utah State University.

He is the

coeditor of The

Workplaceefore

he

Factory:

Artisansand

Proletarians,

500-1800

(Ithaca,

N.Y.,

1993).

For their comments and insights, the author would like to thank Sally Clarke, Michael

Dintenfass, James Farr, Anthony Grafton, Brad Gregory, Daryl Hafter, Jeff Horn, Christopher

Johnson, WilliamJordan, Eric Olsen,

Thomas

Safley,

and

Benjamin Weiss.

The author wrote this

essay at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University and re-

vised it at the Dibner Institute

for

the History

of

Science and Technology

at MIT. He is

grateful

to both institutions.

1

The principal modern discussion

of

the Reveillon

riots is in

George

Rude,

The Crowd n

theFrenchRevolution

Oxford, 1959),

34-44. See also Charles

Tilly,

The ContentiousFrench:our Cen-

turiesof PopularStruggle Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 232-34;

Simon

Schama,

Citizens:

A

Chronicle

f

theFrenchRevolution

New York, 1989), 326-31;

and

Jacques Godechot,

The

Taking of

the Bastille:

July

14th,

1

789,

trans. Jean Stewart

(London, 1970),

133-51.

An earlier account is in Jean

Collot,

"LAffaire Reveillon, 27

et

28

avril

1789,"

Revue des

questionshistoriques 21 (1934): 35-55,

and

122

(1935): 239-54. Invaluable primary documents are found in Charles-Louis Chassin, Les Elections

et les cahiersde

Paris

en 1789, documentsecueillis,

mis en

ordre,

et

annot&s,

vols.

(Paris, 1889),

3:49-

142.

For

Reveillon's

own account

of the riots

(and

of his

rise

and

fall), seeJean-Baptiste Reveillon,

"Expose justificatif pour le sieur Reveillon, entrepreneur de la Manufacture royale de papiers

peints, faubourg St.-Antoine,"

in Memoires du

Marquis

deFerrieres, 3 vols.

(Paris, 1821),

1:427-38.

For the scale of

Reveillon's property,

see

431;

for the value of

his

furniture,

see

438;

and for R&

veillon's

library

and wine

cellar,

see

Godechot,

137-38.

2

Reveillon, "Exposejustificatif," 434-35.

FrenchHistoricalStudies,Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer 1997)

Copyright

C

1997 by the Society for French Historical Studies


3/31

482 FRENCH HISTORICAL STUDIES

tuary, he claimed that he started out "by living from

the work of my

hands "3 He knew poverty: "After three years of apprenticeship

[to a

merchant-stationer], I found myself, for several days, without bread,

without shelter,

and almost

without clothing."

Rescued

by

a

friend, a

carpenter's son, and then nurtured by a "merchant"

who perceived

that

"misery

does not

always suppose misconduct," Reveillon

found his

footing.4 With a nimble mind, boundless energy, and a virtuous wife,

he

made a fortune. His story, as he scripted it in 1789,

was a bourgeois

parable.

The

crowd should have celebrated the

rise

of

one of its own,

rather than bring him to his knees.

Six years earlier, Reveillon had pursued the title of royal manu-

factory

for his

paper mill

at

Courtalin-en-Brie and

his wallpaper works

in the

faubourg Saint-Antoine

in Paris. He

directed

his petition to the

Council

of

State, the government agency that granted

such privileges.

Never at a loss for words, he evidently turned his request into auto-

biography, freighting

it

with detail

and

emotion;

certainly, the Council

of State document that retold

his

tale

was

rich in

both.5

In

fact,

this

extract

from

the council's registers is

a

catalogue

of

Reveillon's anger,

pride, resentments, and stubbornness. Not surprisingly, its theme and

tone

departed

from

Reveillon's appeal

from the Bastille. This

telling

of his rise

was laced with the

names of the titled and

well-placed, sug-

gested that his sensitivity and creativity

in

matters of

style and taste had

made

him

wealthy, and tempered

his tradesman's drives. Indeed, he

always

shared the

news

of his technical

advances, spreading

the

wealth

among

his

brother manufacturers.

He

was

a

man

of disinterested lu-

mieres,with

an

aristocrat's panache.

In

him,

the

great rivals

of the

Old

Regime, talent and rank, became one.

Reveillon's virtuous wife, bourgeois patron,

and devoted friend

are all absent from this

pre-Revolutionary

account

of

making good. My

purpose, however,

is not

to indict him for

duplicity.

Rather,

this

essay

explores

the

tactics of a

man

on

the

make in

a

society

of ranks.

As

he

threaded his

way

to fame and

fortune,

he

necessarily

fashioned and

severed

connections, remaking himself,

his

audience,

and his

story.

And he

made

enemies. Each

time the state looked

after

his

interests,

it circumscribed the latitude of the gens de metier, he men of the craft

communities.

This

paper

widens

the search for the sources of the

Re-

veillon

riots

beyond

the

price

of

bread and the

politics

of 1789. It

sug-

3

Ibid., 428.

4

Ibid., 429. In this quotation, and

throughout

the

passages quoted

from

Reveillon's

"Ex-

pose justificatif," I have dispensed with his italics

and selective capitalization.

5

Archives nationales (henceforth

AN),

F12

1477,

"Extrait des

registres

du Conseil d'Etat"

(henceforth "ER"),13Jan. 1784, unpaginated.


4/31

JEAN-BAPTISTE

REVEILLON: A MAN

ON THE

MAKE

483

gests

that

the downfall of

his

house can also

be traced

to the means

he

used

to build

his

fortune.

Most historians learn about the destruction of Reveillon's house

from

George

Rude's classic,

The

Crowd n the

French

Revolution.

Rude

described

throngs and banners,

smashed glass

and torn

furniture,

and

then a massacre.

The repression

of the Reveillon

riots left

many dead,

perhaps

more than in any

of the Revolution's

risings

before the journee

of 10

August

1792, which

effectively

ended the

monarchy.6 Moreover,

this turmoil stoked

the passions

that led to

the sacking of

the Bastille

(from which

Reveillon

had already

fled)

eleven weeks

later.

For Rude, the real tinder for the bonfires lit in Reveillon's gar-

dens

was

not

paper

and

gum.

Instead,

it

was

the

perilously

high

cost of

the four-pound

loaf of bread,

the staple

in the diet of

Paris's working

poor.7

When

Reveillon

spoke

out about

inflated

production

costs

and,

evidently,

lamented the days

when

men

got by

on much

lower wages,

he incited the people's

anger.

The crowd hanged

him in effigy

and

took

its

revenge.

The

gutting

of

Reveillon's house

was

the natural

reaction

of men

whose

guts

ached

with

hunger,

of

women

whose

breasts ran

dry. "The Reveillon riots," Rude maintained, "areunique in the history

of the Revolution

in that they represent

an insurrectionary

movement

of

wage-earners."8

Though

the

political

atmosphere

was charged

and

the

people

chanted

"Vive

le

Tiers

Etat" while they

wrecked

Reveillon's

house,

"[t]he

primary

cause

of the disturbance,

as so often

in the riots

of the old

regime

-

and

of the Revolution

-

lay

in the

shortage

and the

high price

of

bread."

9

Reveillon's

fortune-hunting

and

his

wallpaper

works hardly fig-

ured in Rude's account of the riots. Yet the dynamism of both is

evident

in a

partial

roster

of the

craftsmen

he

employed:

base-coat

brushers,

carpenters,

chiselers,

designers, dyers,

engravers,

locksmiths,

painters,

paperhangers,

paperworkers,

printers,

sculptors,

and wall-

paper

makers. Equally,

the

privileged

status

he

sought

would

permit

him to

manufacture

and distribute wallcoverings

of

every

sort without

interference

by

the

interested

guilds.10

When

the craft

communities

tried

to

shorten

his reach and

seized

his

tools,

Reveillon's

powerful

friends in Versailles and Paris crushed their efforts. But his fine house

proved

no sturdier than

its foundations

in the Old

Regime.

6

Contemporary

estimates

of

the

death toll

varied

widely (see

n.

120, below).

For the com-

parisons with

10

August 1792,

see

Godechot,

The

Takingof

the

Bastille,

147.

7

Rude,

The Crowdn theFrench

Revolution,

42.

8 Ibid.,

39.

9

Ibid.,

44.

10

AN,

F12 1477, "ER."


5/31

484 FRENCH

HISTORICAL STUDIES

In 1889, Charles-Louis Chassin published

a

collection of docu-

ments on the Reveillon riots. He offered only sparse

comments about

the wellsprings of the turmoil, but he did observe that certain craft

communities considered

"the

new industry of wallpaper

manufacture"

to be an interloper, a violator of immemorial privileges. In fact, the

evolution of wallpaper was complex, and several

guilds had already

sparred over the rights to produce its ancestors. If Chassin detected a

more promising line of inquiry when he reported Reveillon's conflict

with

the

paperworkers' association, he,

like

Rude, largely ignored

the

man and his

maneuvers.11

In 1741, Reveillon wrote from the Bastille, he began his career

"as

a

worker."

He had

spent

three

years

as

an apprentice

to a

papetier;

otherwise, Reveillon was silent about his toil during

this period. All he

got

out of his

indentures,

he

recalled, was

hard

times.

"It was a mat-

ter

of

having work," said

the

wealthy manufacturer about

his

luckless

start. He turned to

the

streets, where

he

was

reduced to "despair": "I

was

perishing,"

he

remembered,

"from

sorrow

and

starvation."

But he

had the

good fortune

to run into one of

his

friends,

a

young carpenter.

He, too, lacked money, but sold a tool so that Reveillon could eat. Re-

veillon, then, knew

the

virtues

of

solidarity

and

the

pain

of

a pinched

stomach:

'Ah the

man who has known misfortune

so

well,

can he then

forget

so

easily

the unfortunate?"

Still,

he

was

in

no condition to

pros-

per.

His disheveled state did not

inspire

confidence;

at

first,

the

mer-

chant

who

became his

patron pushed

him aside.

Finally,

his benefactor

agreed

to let

Reveillon stay

in his home for a

few days.

He

saw through

Reveillon's poverty, grew

attached to

him,

and

kept

him

around.

For

his part, Reveillon observed, "Iprofited from his lessons" -but not so

much,

in

the

beginning,

as he

would

have

liked.

When

he left the mer-

chant's

protection,

his

savings

amounted

to a mere

eighteen

francs.12

On the loose

again,

Reveillon

preferred

to

work

for

his

own

ad-

vantage.

He had "a natural

taste for

speculations."

13

His

early

ventures

were

not

very large,

but

quite satisfying.

He

loved

to recall

them,

as

well

as their

fruits: the first

silver watch

he

carried and

the first hundred

ecus

he

possessed.14

Next came a

wife, attracted,

Reveillon

boasted, by

his "steadyconduct" and the "sort of intelligence that one supposed of

me."

15

He became

a

paper

merchant and

his

success

in this

commerce

mirrored the

Weberian

virtues

that

brought

him a

spouse:

"Thrifti-

11

Chassin,

Les Elections

t

les

cahiers,

55.

12

RWveillon,

"Exposejustificatif,"

429.

13

Ibid.

14

Ibid.,

429-30.

15

Ibid.,

430.


6/31

JEAN-BAPTISTEREVEILLON: A MAN ON THE MAKE

485

ness, cleverness, and exactness,

here were the first and already the only

means

I

employed."

6

And he displayed his attention to that classic

bourgeois virtue, punctuality, with style

-he

capped his rise from rags

to first riches with a timepiece.

His was the story of virtue rewarded,

humbled, and, Reveillon hoped, compensated once

more. It was a tale

fit to tug at

the

hearts

of

"les gens reflechis"

and the

purse strings

of

Necker.17And

it

was

somewhat off the mark.

Jean-Baptiste Reveillon was born in 1725, the son

of a man who

enjoyed the title of bourgeois

e

Paris.18

He completed his three-year ap-

prenticeship, which was

the standard term for a young mercer, in 1744,

probably with the small-time merchant-stationer Frantois Maroy.19Re-

veillon

may

have endured

some straitened

times because

of the

ap-

parent collapse

of his

parents'

marriage, but his journey to middling

prosperity was more direct

than he pretended.

In

1753,

he purchased

Maroy's tools,

merchandise,

and

signboard (enseigne). (At

the

time

of

this

transaction, Reveillon

and

his

mother were living

in Maroy's house

on the rue de la

Harpe.)

The

price was

4568

livres,

9

sous,

3 deniers.

Reveillon paid two thousand

livres

in

cash, agreed

to redeem the rest

in five annuities, and accepted an annual rent for the boutique of 369

livres.20A year later, he

married Maroy's daughter,

whose dowry of

eight

thousand livres erased

the

annuities

and

put

a

firm

prop

under

Reveillon's

Weberian

virtues.21

As a

mercer,

Reveillon

entered

a

commercial

world

of broad flexi-

bility. Many

of the

goods

he

bought

from

Maroy

reflected

his

station

as marchand

apetier,

or he

acquired ink, pens, pencils,

desks, scissors,

rulers,

and

writing paper

of

every type

and format. Typically,

in

the

jack-of-all-products orbit of the mercers, he also obtained wax, brooms,

mirrors, lanterns,

watch chains, snuffboxes,

and

spyglasses. Gaming

material had

played

a

part

in

his

father-in-law's

affairs,

since

Reveil-

ion

purchased dice,

checker-and-chess

boards,

and

an

omen of future

conflicts, playing

cards.22What Reveillon

did

not secure

was

the

right

to

manufacture

paper goods

in his

own

name.

Mercers,

as befitted

their

lofty rank,

were

to earn

their

livings

in

commerce,

not

by toiling

16

Ibid.

17

Ibid., 429.

18

Henri

Clouzot and

Charles

Follot,

Histoire

du

papierpeint

en France

Paris, 1935),

38.

19

On the mercer's

apprenticeship,

see

Pierre Vidal and

Leon

Duru,

Histoirede la

corporation

des

marchands

merciers

Paris, 1911),

113 and

171;

on the

probable identity

of

Reveillon's

patron,

see

Clouzot and

Follot,

Histoiredu

papier

peint

en

France,

40-41.

20

For the

details of this transaction, see

Clouzot and

Follot, Histoire du papier peint

en

France,41.

21

Ibid.

22

Ibid.,

42.


7/31


with

their hands. So

Reveillon acquired only a printing press and two

trimming presses from Maroy, which mirrored the prerogative of the

marchandmercier o refine products made by others.23Of course, enter-

prising mercers struggled to stretch these limits. For instance, in 1699

a judgment issued by the Parlement permitted the Parisian mercers

to

make use of

hammers, smoothstones,

and "other

tools" in ready-

ing their papers for sale, despite the complaint of the community of

papetiers-colleurspaper furnishers and hangers).24

Reveillon was drawn to manufacturing by the rage for flock paper.

Known

also as

papier

bleu

dAngleterre,

his

wallcovering

was

produced

by sprinkling powdered cloth, or flock, in a pattern defined in tacky

paper.

It

eclipsed

the

dominos,

he

printed

or

handpainted sheets that

portrayed religious and, later, secular themes and decorated the walls

of the

popular classes. Even more, it surpassed the papiers de tapisserie,

which,

as

their

name

suggests,

were

paper

imitations of

tapestry (and

brocades

and

leather)

and enlivened the walls of a

more

elevated

cli-

entele.

Most

notably, however,

the

stylishness

of flock

paper

rested in

large

measure on an

English innovation,

the

pasting together

of

indi-

vidual sheets into a roll before printing or flocking took place.25De-

signers were now

liberated from

the

"tyranny"

of the dimensions of a

single sheet

of

paper.

As

Anthony Wells-Cole put it,

the

production

of

paper

rolls meant that "fashionable

luxury

textiles came within reach

of imitation

by

the

paper-stainers."

6

Newly

freed from one sort of

boundary,

the flock

paper

manufac-

turers quickly

ran

afoul

of another.

Dominotiers, ngravers, painters,

and

printers

had

struggled tirelessly

over the

right

to fashion

colored and

printed images. Transformations in taste and technique blurred the

lines between

the various

crafts, thereby raising

the stakes. The

guilds

campaigned

for favorable

rulings by

the

state,

which

often took

the

form of

clarifying,

if

impractically,

the borders. One

pronouncement,

for

example,

held that

a

dominotier

ould

employ

his

press only

in the

presence

of a master

printer

or

his

deputy.27

Thus

Reveillon's

decision

to manufacture flock

paper

ensnared

him in

a

web

of conflicts.

According

to the Council of State's version

of

Reveillon's

rise,

Pari-

sians got their first look at flock paper in 1753, when the English am-

23

Ibid.

24Vidal and Duru,

Histoirede la

corporation esmarchandsmerciers, 18.

25

On

the evolution

of

wallpaper,

see Clouzot and

Follot,

Histoiredu

papier

peint

en

France;

Lesley

Hoskins, ed.,

The

PaperedWall

New York, 1994);

and

Francoise Teynac,

Pierre

Nolot,

and

Jean-Denis

Vivien, Wallpaper: History,

rans.

Morgan

and

Conway Lloyd (New York, 1982).

26

Anthony Wells-Cole,

"Flocks,

Florals,

and Fancies:

English

Manufacture

1680-1830,"

in

Hoskins,

The

PaperedWall,24.

27Teynac, Nolot, and

Vivien, Wallpaper,

8.


8/31

JEAN-BAPTISTEREVEILLON: A MAN ON THE

MAKE

487

bassador to France imported some to decorate

the

home he rented in

Passy.28The fad was

on, but matching seams and mounting the

paper

proved difficult. Reveillon mastered the knack first, his trade swelled,

and he attracted the

right sort of customers -courtiers

and rich com-

moners. (Whereas probity and paternalistic

impulses were

Reveillon's

self-confessed virtues

in 1789, good taste, invention, and friends

in high

places

loomed larger five years earlier.) When

the

Seven

Years' War

put

an end to

his

supply

of flock

paper,

he fashioned his own at "prices

so much

lower

than those of English papers" that

he

drove

them from

French markets.29

Reveillon was not the first Parisian who made flock paper. At least

two engravers had mastered the art before

him; but Reveillon

was a

mercer and hence barred from the manufacture of goods in

his own

name. All of

this,

he knew, was not lost

on the interested guilds, such

as the cartiers-dominotiers card-and-domino

makers), imprimeursen taille-

douce

(copperplate

printers),

and

tapissiers

(tapestry-makers).

So

Reveil-

lon fled. 'Alarmed

by the conflicting demands [contradictions]

that a

multitude of guilds

in Paris could make him bear," Reveillon

moved

his shops to Laigle, in Normandy.30Expenses there exceeded revenues,

although

his

wares

rivaled those of the best English producers.

He had

to go

back

to the

center of fashion and luxury consumption,

Paris.

When

he returned to the

capital,

Reveillon

did not renew

the

lease

on the small

shop

on

the

rue de la

Harpe.

He had left the realm

of the

petty

mercer. He

opened

a

boutique

on the rue

de l'Arbre-Sec in the

Marais

and, judging

by

the ten

or

twelve workers

he

employed there,

a

modest

workshop

on the rue de

Charonne.31

His

flock

paper,

he remi-

nisced in 1789, was "very superior" to that of his French competitors,

yet

sold for half the

price.

He had combined

a craftsman's

scruples

with

a

businessman's

instincts. Soon

he

required space,

for his labor

force mushroomed

to

"40,

50,

60 and as

many

as 80

workers."32

And

he needed

protection.

Reveillon

sought "shelter,"

in

the

council's

words,

"from

every

explosion."33

Rather

than

pursue

membership

in

a

craft

community,

he

purchased

a

privilege,

or

particular right,

to exercise

the trade

of copperplate printer.34He obtained this legal entitlement from the

28

AN,

F12 1477, "ER."

29

Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31

For the number of

workers,

see

Reveillon, "Expose

justificatif," 430;

for the location of

his enterprises,

see

Clouzot

and

Follot,

Histoire

du

papierpeint

en

France,

44 and

46.

32

Reveillon,

"Expose

justificatif,"

430.

33

AN, F12

1477, "ER."

34

For Reveillon's

specific

privilege,

see ibid.

On

the

general

use of

privilege by large-scale


9/31

488

FRENCH HISTORICAL

STUDIES

prevot de

l'hotel,also

known as the grand prevo^t

e France,

the official

charged with the

maintenance and security

of the court

and the king's

residences.35 Reveillon, then, drew closer to the legions who met the

needs

of the grand mondeof the

Old Regime.

He may have also

bought

himself

some trouble,

since the Parisian

guilds, which

entrusted the

resolution

of their legal

conflicts to the Chatelet,

squabbled

ceaselessly

with the provost's

court over matters

of

jurisdiction.

Reveillon's provocation

of

the copperplate printers

did not

end

with

his

purchase

of a

privilege

to

exercise their trade.

He also em-

ployed "the best designers

of the

Gobelins" tapestry

works, and

had

them set their patterns in copper.36The printers struck back. "Despite

[his] privilege,"

they

seized

Reveillon's

presses,

"with the noisiest

and

most

humiliating display."

A magistrate finally

stopped "this prosecu-

tion."

37

Emboldened by

the reach of

his

protection,

Reveillon decided

to

widen

his line. He

imported

printed English wallpaper

by way of

Holland

and imitated it

successfully. Still,

Reveillon grumbled

in 1789,

he had never imagined the "vexations"

(tracasseries)

mposed by

"the

jealousy

and

despotism

of the [craft]

communities." Several

guilds "pre-

tended" that "I was invading their rights," he lamented. One part or

another of

his

wallpaper works

was

invariably

a

"usurpation."38

"The

least idea

that

I

carried out,"

he fumed, "wasa theft

from the printers,

the

engravers,

the

tapestry-makers,

etc.,

etc."39

Meanwhile,

Reveillon

still

had to solve the

problem

of room for

his

booming

business.

In

1763,

he leased

a

large

site on the

grounds

of

the Folie

Titon,

and four

years

later became

the

proprietor

of this white

elephant.40

Titon

du

Tillet,

who

died

in

1762,

was

a financier

eager

to construct that parvenu's dream, a house that drew comments and

sightseers.

Its

pavilion

and

outbuildings

were

surrounded

by

a

box-

wood

maze,

an

orangery, stables,

and a

quincunx

adorned

with

statues.

Nearby

Titonville,

as this hamlet

within

the

city

was

known,

stood two

other

follies.41

Its

purchase

surely

enhanced

Reveillon's

visibility,

for

everyone

in the

first ranks of Parisian society,

at

least,

had heard of this

estate.

And Reveillon craved publicity

and the connections

it

brought,

manufacturers,

see Michael Sonenscher, Work

and

Wages:

Natural

Law,

Politics,

and the

Eighteenth-

Century rench

Trades

Cambridge,

1989), 216-18.

35

For the role and responsibilities

of the pr&v6t e

l'h6tel,

ee Marcel Marion,

Dictionnaire

des

institutionsde

la Franceaux XVIIeet

XV7IIe

i&les

1923; rpt.,

New

York, 1968),

453.

36

Clouzot and Follot,

Histoiredupapierpeint

en

France,

44-45.

37

AN, F12 1477, "ER."

38

Reveillon,

"Expose justificatif," 430.

39

Ibid.,

431.

40

For

the

leased property,

see Clouzot and

Follot,

Histoiredu

papier

peint

en

France,46;

for

the

date

of

purchase,

see

ibid., 47.

41

Teynac, Nolot, and Vivien, Wallpaper,

8.


10/31


489

not only as a marketing edge

but also as a talisman against the craft

communities of the capital.

Like Reveillon's cramped shops on the rue de Charonne, Titon-

ville was located

in

the

faubourg Saint-Antoine, a vast expanse of sheds,

hangars, and workbenches at

the periphery of Paris. Work there

was

free, that is, conducted legally

outside of the framework of the guilds.42

Even in this enclave, however,

Reveillon

had reason to be wary. Many

of

the

capital's trade

communities attempted, time and again, to infringe

upon

the

quarter's liberty. They sent expeditions into the faubourg

in

search

of

shoddy work and

unqualified workers, and confiscated tools

and products. In particular, the community of card-, carton-, paper-,

and

tarot-makers threatened Reveillon, for they boasted

ofjurisdiction

over

both

"the

City

and

faubourgs

of Paris."43

After all,

the

producers

of

the

faubourg were

nominally

excluded

from

the

right

to sell or even

deliver

their

wares

to Paris

proper.

Nevertheless,

Reveillon's

rise,

as he

depicted it,

mimicked the

virtues

of the

man: both were

straightforward

and

swift.

"I

prospered,

I

was esteemed,

I

was

content,"

he remembered

wistfully.44

His

migra-

tion to the faubourg Saint-Antoine was timely, for the production of

wallpaper

was

drifting away

from its roots

in

the book

trade

and

par-

ticularly

the manufacture of

endpapers.

His

craft,

in

general, gravitated

toward

the

other

furnishing

trades

in

the

faubourg

Saint-Antoine.45

"Tapestry-paper,"despite

the

vogue

for flock

wares,

was

still

used

as

an

inexpensive

material for

cornices, moldings,

and

false

ceilings.

And

flock itself was soon

challenged by

the

new

trendsetter, papier

peint,

once

the

French turned to

prejoined

rolls and mastered the technical

problems associated with distemper, a mixture of water, pigments, and

a

binding agent.

Jean-Michel

Papillon,

the

engraver,

offered

an

engag-

ing description

of these

printed

"coloured

designs,"

rich

"with

flowers,

damask

patterns, ornaments,

etc.

in

different

colours,

all in

distemper

and

absolutely

matt,

like

stage

scenery."46

Not

surprisingly,

this

wallpaper

found a

ready

market. As bour-

geois

homes

were

divided into

functionally

different

rooms,

the broad

42 On the "sovereign" faubourg Saint-Antoine and its limits, see Steven Kaplan, "Guilds,

'False

Workers,'

and

the Faubourg Saint-Antoine," trans. John Merriman, in Edo and Paris: Urban

Life

and the State in the

Early

Modern

Era,

ed.

James McClain, John Merriman,

and

Ugawa Kaoru

(Ithaca,

N.Y.,

1994), 355-83.

43

Bibliotheque nationale (henceforth BN), MS. Collection Joly de

Fleury, 648,

fol.

128,

April 1766.

44

Reveillon, "Expose justificatif," 430.

45

Teynac, Nolot, and Vivien, Wallpaper, 8; see also Clouzot and Follot, Histoiredu papier

peint

en France,30 and 32.

46Jean-Michel

Papillon, quoted

in

BernardJacqu6,

"Luxury Perfected:

The

Ascendancy

of

French

Wallpaper, 1770-1870," in Hoskins, ThePaperedWall,56.


11/31


variety of designs in

papiers peints

proved to be a

perfect comple-

ment.47

With substantial profits to be made, the

corporate regulation

of wallpaper production in Paris sparked ceaseless, intricate conflict.

Beginning

in

1773, the community of papetiers-colleurs, the

imagiers

graveurs-enlumineurs

(colored print designers,

engravers-illuminators),

the

peintres en batiments

(housepainters), and the

maitrespeintres-artistes

of

the Academy of Saint-Luc protested and litigated

against "the liberty

of

the

manufacture

of

wallpapers."48

But the

industry's

leaders, above

all

Reveillon,

fashioned their

products

in

the

privileged liberty

of the

faubourg

Saint-Antoine.

Moreover,

the French state

had

legalized

the

manufacture of lightweight, printed cottons in 1759. As a result, "a

multitude of

artistes

and

foreign workers" engaged in the craft

migrated

to France. They were "employed indiscriminately," observed the Coun-

cil of

State,

in

shops

that

produced

chintz and in

those that made

wallpaper.49

So

Reveillon and the other

entrepreneurs who

turned to

the new

line

of

wallpaper

had

a

skilled,

mixed

work

force

at

their

dis-

posal

-a

flock

of artisans

beyond

the

grasp

of

the Parisian

guilds.

Reveillon was

fast

becoming

a

fixture

in the

"international

cir-

cuits," as Michael Sonenscher described them, "of designs and de-

signers, colours and chemicals, styles and fashions."50

In

this

elevated

company, which competed for the custom

of

courts

and

capital cities,

his

wares

had to be

flawless.

For

that,

he needed

better

paper.

Paper was made by hand during the Old Regime.51 It was pro-

duced

by

skilled

men,

but even

they

could

not rid it of all the

defects

of

its

origin

as discarded linen.

Though

the

rags

were

fermented to

weaken

the fibers and

then

pulped by hammers, partially

milled

strings

showed up in the paper. Knots, too, left their imprint, in the form of

unevenly

absorbent

patches.

Reveillon's

trade

was

threatened

by

these

blemishes:

"It

was

impossible

to obtain

papers

from the best mills in

which

the

pulp,

the

color,

the

consistency

were

exactly appropriate

to

conversion

into

wallpapers

and flock

papers."52Weary

of

depending

on

others,

Reveillon

bought

a

paper

mill in

Courtalin-en-Brie

(Seine-

et-Marne),

about

thirty-five

miles

from

Paris. He

purchased

the mill

from a

penurious widow and soon after rescued

her finances.53

Perhaps

47Jacque,

"LuxuryPerfected," 57.

48

Chassin, Les

Elections t les

cahiers,55.

49

AN,

F12

1477, "ER."

50

Sonenscher,

Work

nd Wages, 13.

51

For

the

technique

and

instruments

of

papermaking

in

Old

Regime

France,

see Nicolas

Desmarest,

"Papier (Art de

fabriquer

le),"

Encyclopedie

ethodique:

rtset

metiers

mkcaniques,

66

vols.

(Paris,

1788),

5:463-592.

52 AN,

F12

1477, "ER."

53

Reveillon,

"Expose

justificatif,"

431.


12/31

JEAN-BAPTISTEREVEILLON: A MAN ON

THE MAKE 491

he

was bragging quietly about

his

ability

to spot a good deal and act

on it; certainly, he was trumpeting his

generosity, a persistent theme

in the pamphlet he wrote amid the ashes of Titonville. Whatever the

case, he lavished funds on his new mill: the acquisition

and refurbish-

ing of Courtalin cost him fifty thousand

ecus.54

With

his

purchase

of Courtalin, Reveillon also obtained labor

problems. Paperworkers were among

the most assertive skilled men in

Old

Regime Europe.

Their collective

strength

and

success in

imposing

their will had several roots. First, their

tasks had changed little since

European papermaking flowered in thirteenth-century Fabriano. Put

another way, their masters could not call on an alternative division of

labor to dilute the paperworkers' skills.

Second, the journeymen re-

stricted

access

to their craft.

Only

the offspring of worker dynasties

and

only

the

properly

initiated

need apply.

For

papermaking

was a

net of

family and friends,

skills

and slang, drunken debauche nd

cold

rainy nights on the road. Third, papermaking was a seasonal business.

An

entrepreneur eager

to take

advantage

of

storm-quickened

turns of

his millwheel hastily knuckled under to the workers' every demand.

Finally, the journeymen paperworkers of France relied on a potent

combination to maintain their

version

of the

proper

order

of the craft.

National

in

scope,

it

was

regional

in

effect.

It

made use

of

arson, fines,

walkouts, warnings,

and circular letters to

bring

recalcitrant manu-

facturers in

line,

and

added beatings

to

convince wayward

brothers.55

Small wonder that

one

contemporary

muttered that

the

paperworkers

had created "a little republican state

in the midst of the monarchy."56

Reveillon turned

the

monarchy

loose

on this

republic.

As

early

as

1671, the government had attempted to crush the workers' "seditious

police"

of the craft.57Above

all,

the state

sought

to

regulate tramping,

the sternest

test

of

the

paperworkers'

control over access

to their trade.

For

the

workers, hiring

and

departure

were times

of

joy

and

affirma-

tion,

enlivened

by

toasts and treats. For the

government, leave-taking

was

a time of

risk, creating

that most

dangerous sort,

the masterless

man.

Accordingly,

the state

required

paperworkers

to

notify

their

em-

ployers

six

weeks

before

they quit

and the

manufacturers to

observe

54

AN,

F

12

1477, "ER."

55

On

the sources and

nature

of

the

paperworkers'

assertiveness,

see

Leonard N. Rosen-

band, Managing

to Rule: TheMontgolfier aperMill,

1761-1805 (forthcoming),

chap. 2.

56

Quoted in Alexandre

Nicolai, Histoiredes

moulins

d

papierdu Sud-Ouest

e

la

France, 1300-

1800, 2 vols. (Bordeaux, 1935),

1:54.

57

For the quoted passage,

see 'Arrft du Conseil d'Etat du Roi,

qui condamne

en des amen-

des l'entrepreneur

de

la manufacture de papier 6tablie a

la

Motte pres

Verberie," (26

Feb. 1777).

The entire document is reproduced

in Desmarest, "Papier,"553-55;

the quoted phrase appears

on 553.


13/31


14/31

JEAN-BAPTISTEREVEILLON: A MAN ON THE MAKE 493

places." But the fines it prescribed were collected slowly, "in the hope

that calm would

be

restored." Despite this indulgence, the journeymen

who had gathered at La Motte remained as mutinous as ever, and their

bravado was encouraged by their new boss, who pledged to have the

decree

annulled.

The

intendant

of

Paris,

Bertier

de Sauvigny, found all

of

this worrisome. He wanted to send the mounted constabulary (mare'-

chauss&e)

o La

Motte

to collect the fines without

delay.

"This

act

of

jus-

tice and firmness," he reasoned, was the only way to get the whip hand

over this "undisciplined tribe." A show of strength, he continued, might

produce ripples, for Bertier feared more than La Motte's rebels. "This

dangerous independence," he fretted, "has spread in other manufac-

tures." He had received "a good many complaints" about the impunity

"with which

[paperworkers] abandon,

without

permission

and

without

conge,

heir

shops and work already underway."

4

In

the end,

he

settled

for

the arrest

of

Roche, the foreman who had started it all by seducing

Reveillon's

workers

away

from Courtalin.65

Soon

after,

the

mare'chausse'e

tationed

at

Beauvais,

also

at the

out-

skirts of

Paris,

foiled a

conspiracy among

some

printed-cotton

workers.

These men toiled for a manufacturer named Baron, who had a "con-

siderable establishment" which

Bertier

claimed

merited

"every pro-

tection."

Baron's

workers

had

banded together with

the intention of

deserting

his mill

en

masse. Bertier

was

horrified,

and

quickly

drew

a

connection with

the

events

in

Reveillon's shops:

"He

[Baron]

has

just

suffered approximately

the same difficulties as the

entrepreneur

of the

paper

mill at Courtalin."

Fortunately,

Bertier

reported,

this

complot

was

smashed and its

leader

was seized and

imprisoned

for

eight days.

His

fellow workers returned to their tasks, although three later fled, with

the authorities

in hot

pursuit.

"This

type

of

worker,"

Bertier

under-

stood,

"is

very

much

like

those of the

paper mills,

at least those where

one

manufactures

papers

called

English papers

or

wallpapers."

There

was "much

to fear" if

familiarity

bred accord

among

these

workers;

they might become

more

dangerous

than "one

can

imagine."66

While

Bertier worried,

the

walls

shouted

Reveillon's name, portraying

him as

a man hostile to the

paperworkers' ways

and the

association that de-

fended them. One suspects that the indienne-workers, o near to the

wallpaper

makers and

to

Paris, whispered

the same

message.

Reveillon did

not mention

the

labor

troubles at Courtalin

in

his

"Expose justificatif." Instead, he boasted

that the

mill,

in his

hands,

64

AN,

F12

1478A,

Bertier

to

Blondel,

8

July 1777.

65

AN,

F12

1478A,

Bertier

to

Blondel,

22

Aug. 1777.

66

AN,

F12

1478A,

Bertier

to

Blondel,

23July 1777.


15/31


"regained vigor, and became one

of the best of the kingdom."

67

Echo-

ing

his

claims,

the

Council of State reported that Reveillon was free

"to harvest the most agreeable fruit of his observations, his experi-

ments, his expenses."

Reveillon's papers were "promptly and perfectly

imitated"

in

several mills. The shortage of paper

fit

for wallpaper and

flock

wares was over.

"All

would prosper," especially Reveillon, who

now had

a

vertically integrated system of supply and production.68

Almost

certainly

Reveillon's

improved product

was

papier vdin,

or

wove paper."

These sheets were free of the

crosshatched tracings that

marred most Old

Regime papers.

Papermakers

had tried

to

hammer

the marks out of their reams, but to no avail:the "raying"of handmade

paper was

its

birthmark.

Essentially,

a worker made this

paper by dip-

ping his mold, a rectangular wire sieve bounded by a wooden frame,

into a vat of warm, watery pulp.

He

then

lifted

the

mold, with the in-

fant

sheet clinging to it and gave it a series of

customary shakes. After

the

pulp

had

spread evenly

and the

water

had

drained

away, pressing

and

drying

would

fix the

imprint

of

the mold's

wires,

thick "chain-

lines" and

slender "laid-lines,"

in the sheets.

In wove paper, a fine brass screen, laced together on a loom,

replaced

the wires of a traditional mold. Rather than

sharp impres-

sions, this threaded brass left indistinct marks and sheets of a more

uniform thickness. The

advantages

of

vdin

were first

visible

in an

edi-

tion

of

Virgil published by

the

English printer John Baskerville

in

1757.69Across the Channel, the

issue

of

priority was tangled. Reveillon

claimed to

have woven

the first

brass molds

in

France,

as

did

his

friend

Etienne

Montgolfier,

who had

designed

the

wallpaper

works at Titon-

ville. Yet another paper manufacturer, the Johannot family, also took

credit for

this

advance.70(Once

collaborators,

the Johannots

and the

Montgolfiers,

located

in

the same

town

in

the

Ardeche,

had entered

into a bitter

rivalry

for

preferment

and

state

subsidy.)

Etienne Mont-

golfier probably

had the best

case,

but he was distracted

by

the

instal-

lation of Dutch

machinery

at his mill

and, perhaps,

hot-air balloon-

ing.71 Reveillon, characteristically,

moved forward

quickly, evidently

refining

his brass molds with mesh

imported

from

England.72

Never

shy

67Reveillon,

"Exposejustificatif," 431-32.

68

AN,

F12

1477,

"ER."

69

Dard Hunter,

Papermaking:

The

History

and

Technique f

an

Ancient

Craft 1947;

rpt.,

New

York, 1978),

125-28.

70

For the

Johannots' claim, see the

letters from

Didot to Blondel in

AN,

F12 2281.

71

For the

Montgolfiers' claim, see

Charles Gillispie, The

Montgolfier

Brothers nd the Inven-

tion of Aviation, 1783-1784

(Princeton, NJ., 1983), 82;

for

the

delay

and

Reveillon's

role,

see

Marie-Helne

Reynaud,

Les

Moulins

d

papier

dAnnonaya

l're

prg-industrielle,

es

Montgolfier

t Vida-

Ion

(Annonay, 1981),

123,

n.

121.

72

On the

imported brass mesh, see AN, F12

2281,

Didot to Blondel, June 1783.


16/31

JEAN-BAPTISTE

REVEILLON:

A MAN ON THE

MAKE

495

about broadcasting

his achievements,

he turned

to informed friends

to spread

the word.

One explained

to

Blondel, the

intendant

of com-

merce charged with the oversight of papermaking, that the manufac-

ture

of vdin

at Courtalin constituted

"a discovery,

at

least for France."

73

In 1784,

the Council of State

maintained

that "Reveillon

has discov-

ered

the means to fabricate,

at

his

paper

mill

in

Courtalin,

papers of an

equal

thickness throughout

without

trace of laid

or rib

lines." 74

Basker-

ville,

even

the

Montgolfiers,

had

disappeared

from the story.

In

fact,

Etienne Montgolfier

understood the

rules

of the game

too.

He

turned

to

his own role

in the perfection

of wove paper,

among

other

innovations, to secure the title of royal manufactory for his family's

mill.75

n

the

circles traveled by

the

Montgolfiers

and Reveillon,

a repu-

tation

for

quality

and style,

and

the technical

mastery and daring

that

married

the

two,

attracted

the

right

clients. These

men

might

become

allies, even patrons

in the

pursuit

of a

privilege;

and the

possession

of

a

privilege

paid,

whether

in the form

of

protection

from

competitors

or the freedom

to

experiment

with

designs, colors,

and

chemicals.

In

this rarefied air,

Reveillon knew,

talent

and rank fused.

To further his ascent, Reveillon literally took to the air. He lent

the

vast

gardens

of Titonville

to

his comrade

Etienne

Montgolfier,

who

used

them,

in Charles

Gillispie's

phrase,

to build

a hot-air balloon

"fit

to float

above

a king."

76

Reveillon

had

gotten

in on

the

ground

floor of

the balloon craze,

an enthusiasm

that

gripped princes

and

craftsmen

alike.

The first

Parisian

balloon,

launched

from Reveillon's garden,

had

a

background

of azure with

ornaments

of

gold;

the

second,

which

rose from Versailles,

was

called

the

Aerostat

RNveillon;

later

balloon,

in

which Reveillon again had a hand, was the Marie-Antoinette.ean-Pierre

Montgolfier,

at home running

the

business,

counseled

his brother

to

turn

the

publicity

surrounding

the balloon

flights

into

coin

by

landing

a contract

to

supply

the India

Company

with

paper.77

Meanwhile,

Re-

veillon's

papiers

peints

hovered

above

Paris. To the

capital's

trade

com-

munities,

he must have

cast

an

oppressively

large

shadow.

Reveillon's

down-to-earth

business

continued

to take

off. He was

the dominant

figure

in

his

craft,

and

he fashioned

wares

of unsur-

passed beauty. So spectacular was the demand for papierpeintthat one

observer

blamed

it

for the hard times

endured

by

the

tapestry-paper

producers.

Wallpaper,

he

confided,

was

"within

the

reach of

tout le

73

AN, F12 1477, Anisson-Duperron

to Blondel,

10

Sept.

1783.

74 AN, F12 1477,

"ER."

75

Gillispie,

TheMontgolfier

Brothers,

2.

76

Ibid.,

37; and,

for the construction

and

flight of the first

Parisian balloons,

1478B, 25-66.

77

Ibid., 39.


17/31

496

FRENCH HISTORICAL STUDIES

monde."Whereas three men, an engraver and two printers,

could make

three or even four thousand aunesof wallpaper per day, a whole

family

could fabricate only one piece of tapestry paper measuring thirty aunes

in

a month. As a result, the manufacture of wallpaper

soaked up the

supply of paper, rendered it

more dear, and

left

"an immense quantity

of

[tapestry-paper] workers without work," "a multiplicity

of pauvres

and brigands."78

Reveillon's own work force, however, swelled. With-

out formal

training

as

a designer, engraver, or chemist,

Reveillon was

schooling men to play these

parts.

More

precisely,

he

explained,

"I

en-

gaged them, by my

observations,

to

apply

their talents to the

perfection

of my works [manufacture]."79eveillon was comfortable with novelty

and technical

ferment, whether

in

the

form of

manned flight

or

experi-

ments with velin. But his

"new

successes"

and

his

visibility,

so

essential

to an arriviste,had their

risks.80Once again,

he

acted in a disinterested

fashion,

or

so

the Council of State

maintained.

He had aired the se-

crets of the manufacture of vdin

himself, "with the prayer to

spread

it

everywhere

that the administration judges it can be

useful."

1

After

Turgot's

liberal

experiment

crashed in

1776, Reveillon's

pri-

mary corporate adversarywas the newly combined company of relieurs,

papetiers-colleurset

en

meubles

(bookbinders, wallcovering

and

paper

fur-

nishers

and

hangers). They

were

unmoved by

his selfless

gesture

of

diffusing

the

procedures

for

making

vdin.

Instead,

Reveillon

stormed,

they

hatched

a scheme

"to

appropriate exclusively

the fabrication of

flock

papers

and

wallpapers."

He left the

particulars

of their

plan

un-

spoken, but

he

did note that the

painters

"raised the same

preten-

sion."82

In

1778,

the

community

of master

painters, sculptors, gilders,

and marble-cutters passed a resolution concerning ownership of the

designs

used

in

wallpaper

and flock

paper. Essentially,

this

action

be-

stowed a sort of

copyright

on the owners of the

patterns.

A

second

deliberation added that each roll of

wallpaper

must be embossed

with

the name of its

manufacturer, thereby imposing

the

system

of

corpo-

rate

marques

n

a

trade

that

had been

free of

them.

Worse

yet,

these

actions had been ratified

by

the lieutenant

general

of

police

in Paris.83

Reveillon

took all of this

personally.

He

poached

designs

and

techniques from friends and foes liberally, and counted on his wealth

78

AN,

F12

1478B,

"MImoire du

S[ieur] Paillieux 1'aln6

negociant a

Paris,"

24

Nov. 1778.

79

Reveillon,


432.

80

Ibid.

81 AN,

F12

1477,

"ER."

82 Ibid.

83

For a brief

account of

these

events,

see Clouzot

and

Follot,

Histoire du

papier

peint

en

France,50-52;

see also

AN,

F12

1477,

"ER."


18/31


497

and influence to avoid any penalty.84Now, however,

Reveillon had to

endure more "seizures," as the wardens of the guild

of painters and

allied crafts marched into his shops and removed the tools of his many

trades.85

Reveillon

fumed that

the

tactics

of

the craft

communities were

"destructive of the

industry,

and did

irreparable

damage

to

me

above

all."86

He

responded by knocking

on familiar doors. Reveillon believed

that he had ended certain trials

by obtaining

a

privilege

from the pre-

vot

de

l'hotel

o exercise the trades of

"painter-gilder

and sculptor," but

this

grant

did not

stop

the

paperhangers

and their cohorts.87For that,

Reveillon

turned to Jean-Charles-Pierre Lenoir, the lieutenant general

of police in Paris. Lenoir's job description was deceptively simple: he

was to maintain order

in

the

city.

His

responsibilities,

however, were

extraordinarily diverse, ranging from the surveillance

of beggars and

the book trade to ensuring full granaries and proper observance of

Sundays

and fetes. The

welfare

of both

commerce

and the arts et me-

tiersalso

fell

under

his

charge. Reveillon owed

the restoration of the

"peace

[calme]"

he

required

to

prosper

to "the

protection

of

Monsieur

Lenoir," the council reported. Lenoir had journeyed

to Titonville, rec-

ognized the "importance" of Reveillon's works, and halted the appli-

cation

of the

guildsmen's resolution, putting

a

temporary

end

to

"the

effects of an insidious project."88

Yet Reveillon was not entirely reassured. The

newfound "tran-

quility"

he

savored

remained at the

mercy

of the

paperhangers

and

wallcovering

makers'

"enterprise." (By "enterprise"

Reveillon

evidently

meant a pattern

of

encroachment coupled with

the

legal

and

political

clout

to do

so.)

Nor

did the

numerous

"points

of contact" between the

production of flock and printed papers and a variety of trades comfort

Reveillon.

He

dreaded

a

future

of one

guild

after another rubbed raw,

of

overheated

displays

of the

corporations'

"bad

temper [humeur]"

nd

"vanity."

At

any moment,

he

might

have

to

contend with

"new

seizures,

new

legal proceedings."89

He had

already given

up

his business as a

marchand

papetierand,

with

that,

his

shop

on

the rue

de

l'Arbre-Sec.

He had ceded this concern to two

longtime employees,

sacrificing, by

his own account,

an annual revenue

of

twenty-five

to

thirty

thousand

livres. He did so, he claimed, to devote more time to his wallpaper

works.90

Left

unspoken

were

the

profits generated

by

Courtalin

and

84

For

a

suggestive

episode,

see Clouzot

and

Follot,

Histoire

du

papier

Peint

en

France,

67-68.

85

AN,

F12

1477,

"ER."

86

Reveillon,

"Expose

justificatif,"

432-33.

87

AN,

F12

1477,

"ER."

88

Ibid.

89

Ibid.

90

R6veillon,


431.


19/31


Titonville that permitted this gesture. And it is also plausible that

Re-

veillon's generosity

served

to

eliminate one

snare,

one

more

flashpoint

in his contest with the Parisian guilds. Nothing, however, could still

his "exertion"

or

"zeal"

for the

perfection

of his art. He

had persisted

in this course without financial support from the state. All he asked

was that

the

king

"shelter

[him]

from the trouble that the

members

of

the communities of arts et metierscould bring to

his

works."

91

He

there-

fore requested the title of royal manufactory for both his paper mill in

Courtalin and

his

wallpaper works

in the

faubourg Saint-Antoine.

Royal

manufactories

did

not

necessarily produce

for the court.92

Rather, they were textile and paper mills, forges and foundries, glass-

works

and salt refineries that merited

special

consideration.

Whether

valued

as

producers

of

strategic goods

or

dazzling luxury items, they

were

also

supposed

to be centers of

invention.

The

title is

generally

associated

with

a meddlesome

mercantilism,

but

that is too

confining,

since

entrepreneurs

across a wide

spectrum

of crafts

and

industries vied

for this distinction

throughout

the

eighteenth century.93

For

some,

the

principal

benefits of

this privileged perch were

cash

subsidies

and

cap-

tive markets; for others, the main reward was exemption from the dic-

tates

of

custom and prescription.94And,

for

Reveillon,

the

right to place

the

royal insignia above the "principal doorways"

of Courtalin and

Titonville would confirm that he had arrived. Reveillon knew precisely

what

he

wanted

from this

preferment

-freedom from the watchful

eyes

and

noisy trespass

of the

guilds.

He dreamed

of

closing

his

doors,

with-

out

trembling,

to the

gardes

and wardens

of the craft communities.

He

pursued

the

right

to

color, engrave, flock, paint,

and

print every

sort

of carton, cloth, leather, linen, paper, and skin, without interference.

Finally,

he

expected

to mark

his

products

with the

king's

armes.95Here

was

the one-time

outsider's vision

of insider

standing

-the

capacity

to

act

unilaterally

without

entanglement

in

the

prerogatives

of

others.

Well-placed

friends

helped

Reveillon

pull

the vital

strings.

For

example,

Lenoir

made

Reveillon's

case to

Blondel,

the

intendant

of

commerce. He ranged across Reveillon's achievements, from the dis-

covery

of

vdin

to the

number

"of

workers

of different

professions

that

91 AN,

F12 1477, "ER."

92 On the royal manufactories, see Pierre Deyon

and Philippe Guignet, "The Royal Manu-

factures

and

Economic

and

Technological Progress

in

France

before the Industrial

Revolution,"

Journal of EuropeanEconomicHistory

9

(1980): 611-32;

and Charles

Gillispie,

Scienceand

Polity

in

Franceat theEnd of the Old Regime Princeton, NJ., 1980), 388-478.

93

Deyon and Guignet, TheRoyal manufactures, assim.

94

For

the

advantages

associated

with the title

manufacture oyale and

of

privileged

manu-

facture

in

general), see Sonenscher,

Work

nd

Wages,216-18.

95

AN,

F12 1477, "ER."


20/31

JEAN-BAPTISTEREVEILLON: A MAN ON THE MAKE 499

he employs." Despite Reveillon's privileges, Lenoir explained that he

"has been exposed to various seizures [of his tools] by syndics of the

communities of arts et metiers." s an employer of hundreds in diverse

trades, Reveillon was merely pursuing "the means to avoid troubles

prejudicial

to his

industry."96

Lenoir

must have

been

convincing, since

another of Reveillon's allies confidently observed, "I knew that M. Le

Noir had procured [for Reveillon] the title of royal manufactory for

the handsome establishment in the faubourg Saint-Antoine."

97

Reveillon got what he wanted. The wallpaper works at Titonville

became a

royal manufactory

in

July

1783;

five months

later,

the

paper

mill at Courtalin was graced with the same distinction.98 He received

the liberty to market and manufacture the broad range of products he

desired,

with

the

craftsmen of

his

choice.

He

was free to

conduct

his

enterprise

as he

wished, without reception

in

any of

the

interested craft

communities.

He

would

no

longer

be

troubled

by guild inspections,

much less the confiscation of his stock and tools. He possessed the pre-

rogatives

of the

conventionally incorporated, without

the

constraints.

He was, finally, free to construct a new pattern of social relations in

his shops.99

Work

at

Titonville was

done

by

hand within

an

extensive division

of

labor, much like that of other Old Regime manufactories. Nor did

Reveillon

take pains to conceal his inventive turns. On the contrary,

he

thirsted

for acclaim

and,

marveled

the Council of

State, "opens

his

shops

to

anyone who wants to draw knowledge there."

100

Yet Reveillon's

technical advantages remained considerable. Among

the most

impor-

tant

were

the

high quality

of the

paper

and

ink he

manufactured, which

translated into clear printing and fixed colors. He had been quick to

adapt

to rolls

of previously assembled

sheets.

Recognizing

that the con-

ventional

practices

for

printing

dominoswould

not work with

long rolls,

he turned

to the

style

of

the

indienne-workers, rinting

his

wares

from

a

block

placed

on

top

of the

paper

and

transferring

the

design

with

taps

from a mallet. He hired

the best artists

and

engravers,

and

copied

the

work of

the best he did not

employ.

He was

a

master

of the difficult

art of

hanging paper,

most

notably

of

integrating

it

with

the

complex

interior architecture of townhouses and chateaux.

The

breadth and

ordering

of

Reveillon's

work

force were

equally

distinctive.

His

shops

were

animated

by, among others,

indienne-

96 AN,

F12

1477,

Lenoir to

Blondel, 3

Dec.

1783.

97

AN,

F

12

1477,

Anisson-Duperron

to

Blondel,

10

Sept.

1783.

98

For the

dates, see

ibid., and AN,

F12

1477,

"ER."

99

AN, F12

1477,

"ER."

100

Ibid.


21/31

500 FRENCH

HISTORICAL STUDIES

printers, men pirated from the Gobelins works, and children reared

amidst the

faux

(nonguilded)

workers of the

faubourg Saint-Antoine.

Bertier's nightmare had come to life in Reveillon's shops, an un-

licensed crush

of

workers sharing customs,

experiences, and quirks.

Some, probably

the

chintz printers, were Protestant.101

All fit

into a

classificatory

scheme

designed by Reveillon

himself.

After

Michael Sonenscher's

work

on the market relations that

honeycombed the craftmasters' shops of Paris, it is

difficult

to

speak

of traditional bonds

within these ateliers.102 till, Reveillon had

clearly

made

a conscious decision to

forge new

sorts of links

with

his

workers.

He sought bonds that did not take long to form and yet could last a

lifetime

and ties that

could

be

measured

in

livres

and

sous rather than

in

rituals of adoption and feasts. He paid

his

engravers and

designers

at

a

notably high level, depicted

them

as

"without

doubt, my

collabora-

tors rather than

my wage

earners

[gagistes]," yet

dictated their

training

as

well as their niches

in

his shops.103

He

was, he

believed, enmeshing

his workers in his interests; and he did so by

engineering tasks and

roles that

distanced

them

from the Parisian craft

communities. Re-

veillon employed men and women, the old and the young, the skilled

and brute laborers. He

declared that more

than three

hundred

people

toiled at

Titonville,

with

others, mostly paperhangers, employed

"in

town."

104

He

classified

his

hands by age, skill, workshop responsibility,

and

years

of

service; interestingly,

he made no mention of

gender-

specific

tasks. He

rewarded

his

most

valuable

employees,

those who

provided

him

with

wallpaper patterns, fabulously: Reveillon

offered

three

thousand livres

a

year plus lodging

to one man and a

base

salary

of twelve hundred livres a year to three others. His designers and en-

gravers pocketed fifty

to

one

hundred sous a

day,

the latter

figure

equivalent

to a

goldsmith's daily earnings.

Printers and

carpenters

shared

the

going

rate

for

their

work, thirty

to

fifty

sous

per day,

while

the

unskilled received

twenty-five

to

thirty sous,

or

five

to ten

more

than

their

counterparts

in other

shops commonly

obtained.

Youngsters

of

twelve

to fifteen

added

eight

to fifteen sous each

day

to

the

family purse,

learned

a

trade,

and

matured

in

Reveillon's community

of craftsmen.

He bragged that he paid at least 200,000 livres each year in wages.105

101

Reveillon,


434.

102

Sonenscher,

Work nd Wages,

9-243.

103

Reveillon, "Expose

justificatif,"

433.

104Ibid.,

and n. 1.

105

For

the total

wages

Reveillon

paid

and the schedules for individual crafts and

children,

see

ibid., 433-34;

for the

goldsmiths,

see

Rude,

TheCrowd

n theFrench

Revolution,

appendix

vii,

251;

for the

carpenters, see

Michael

Sonenscher,

"Work

and

Wages

in

Paris

in

the

Eighteenth

Century,"

in

Manufacture

n Townand

Countrybefore

he

Factory,

ed.

Maxine

Berg,

Pat

Hudson,

and Michael


22/31


501

Skilled

Parisians,

like

craftsmen

everywhere

in

eighteenth-century

Europe, sometimes found work

and wages hard to come

by. They tight-

ened their belts, went hungry, and took to the road in search of a day

or two

of employment. Reveillon's

workers were spared this distress.

Compensation during downtime was common

throughout European

papermaking,

since the

workers kept their ranks thin and

threatened

to move

on

the

moment a frozen creek or a broken

millwheel disrupted

production. Reveillon retained his workers "without

exception" and

paid

their

full wages,

he

wrote, when the harsh

winter of 1788-89

pre-

vented the

coloring of

his

wares.106That invaluable

snoop, the book-

seller Simeon-Prosper Hardy, heard that elsewhere Reveillon claimed

to

have

paid

a

reduced rate of fifteen

sous per day to more than

two

hundred

of his

workers

during

this

trying

winter.)107

Reveillon

delighted

in the

public

esteem

generated by

this "act

of

charity."

108

His benevolence,

however, had more than one

purpose. At

most

paper

mills,

the

fabricant

discharged

his

workers when the paper-

making

season

closed.

Such

turnover did not

suit Reveillon's

plans

for

a

loyal

work

force;

most of his

workers,

he

gloated,

grew

old in his

shops. They stayed to obtain the annual bonuses that Reveillon be-

stowed

on the

basis

of

their stations

and

"zeal."

They

remained

because

"[e]ach

worker ... is

certain

of his advancement in

proportion

to his

intelligence and his zeal."

They lingered, Reveillon

believed,

secure in

the

knowledge

that he

would

care for

them

in

times

of

need and dis-

ability.109

is

firm, paternal

hand

knew no restraints. He

was

careful to

provide

his

youngest

workers with time for

religious

instruction,

and

he

allowed

Protestant workers to toil on feast

days.

Of

course,

he had

not neglected his own shopfloor concerns: "I knew how to establish

the

best

order and the most exact

discipline

in

the class

of

working

people,"

he

boasted. He

accomplished this,

he

professed,

without di-

minishing

his

workers'

"devotion" to him.110His

workers,

he

concluded,

had much to savor:

they

shared his contentment and "were fond of

me."

ll

His

world,

as he

depicted

it,

was

rich and

orderly.

The

years

before the Revolution were indeed sweet for

Reveillon.

Among

his

workers,

he

crowed,

there was no trace of

scandal, quarrels,

Sonenscher

(Cambridge, 1983),

152; and,

for

the

printers,

see Robert

Darnton,

The

Business

of

Enlightenment:A

PublishingHistoryof

the

Encyclopedie,

775-1800

(Cambridge,

Mass., 1979),

219.

106

Reveillon,

"Expose

justificatif," 434-35.

107

BN, MS. fr. 6687,

Simeon-Prosper

Hardy, "Mes loisirs, ou

journal

d'&v6nements

tels

qu'ils parviennent a

ma

connaissance,"

fol.

298,

27

Apr.

1789.

108

Reveillon,

"Exposejustificatif," 435.

109

On

stability

and its sources

in

Reveillon's

policies,

see

ibid.,

433-35.

110

bid.,

434.

111

bid.,

430.


23/31


indecency, or misconduct.112

He received a gold medal in 1785 from

the king

for his contribution to the

useful

arts,

a

parvenu's

dream.113

He had showrooms on the tony rue du Carrousel and at Titonville.114

(At

the

latter,

he

apparently

sold cheap

knockoffs as

well, which,

like

Wedgwood's "Queensware,"

benefitted from their connection to the

first

ranks of

society.)

His

only child,

a

daughter,

had married

in

1775

(the

contract

was

signed by

the

keeper

of the

seals, Miromesnil),

but

died after giving birth

to

Reveillon's granddaughter.115

His

son-in-law,

the offspring of a

negociant

from

Rouen, went unmentioned in both the

"Expose justificatif" and the

Council of State report. Instead,

Reveil-

lon rained attention on the sons of the widow La Garde, the mistress of

Courtalin. He was clearly pleased

with the supervision

of

his interests

there, and in La Garde's younger son Reveillon had found an estimable

heir. He had sent the young man

on a grand tour of the paper mills of

France and

Holland,

and

now

it gave him "great satisfaction" to think

of this well-schooled intimate becoming the proprietaireof Courtalin.116

Above all, Reveillon had received the title of royal manufactory

for

both his principal works for fifteen

years.117With the award of this

dis-

tinction, he recalled wistfully in 1789, "I really tasted happiness." He

was not

indifferent to "the

species

of

glory"

that

accompanied

"useful

works."

His

was

the

joy

of

"an

upright,

industrious

man

who cre

Juan Batista

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