situated in private houses, and in some of them artistic work is made; but most of them are located in special houses) where the necessary Power is hired by the owner of the workshop. You see here “a fantastic activity” — the word is M. Dumazet’s; the division of labour is very great, and everywhere they invent new machine-tools.
Finally, in the villages of the Vermandois district (department of the Aisne), we find a considerable number of hand-looms (more than 3,000) upon which mixed stuffs made of cotton, wool and silk are Woven.146
Of course, it must be recognised that, as a rule, in northern France, Where cottons are fabricated on a large scale in factory towns, hand-weaving in the villages is nearly gone. But, as is seen already from the preceding, new small industries have grown up instead, and this is also the case in many other parts of France.
Taking the region situated between Rouen in the north-east, Orleans in the south-east, Rennes in the north-west, and Nantes in the south-west —