- The
Great Cat Massacre
- Robert Darnton tells the story of a French print shop and its workers in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, Vintage Books - 1984.
The curious title is taken from the chapter dealing with an incident in a Paris print shop in pre-Revolutionary France. It was in the late 1730's. The injustices and economic disparity of the classes was beginning to cause a strain. It would lead to the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and the Reign of Terror of 1793 and 1794.
The original apprenticeship system was established in Europe to train young workers in the skills of the shop. Eventually, they would rise to the rank of journeymen. The diligent and industrious journeyman could aspire to become a master printer, owning a shop and providing employment for others. It was a system regulating both education and labor.
In the desperate period prior to the revolution, the system became flawed. Upward mobility was stifled and a great economic rift grew between the workers and the shop owners. The masters aspired to live the soft bourgeois life. One symbol of bourgeois status was the ownership of pet cats. Workers who could barely feed their families would not own cats.
The shop cats enjoyed a status and lifestyle higher than some of the workers. The apprentices envied the regular meals of scraps from the master's table. The lazy cats might have been the nighttime mouse catchers, but like the masters, did no work in the worker's presence.
The period of preindustrial craft workers has been idealized by some. The common picture is that of an extended family of workers and master working side-by-side. If this was ever true, it was certainly not true in France at this time. Large printing businesses bought out the small shops. The opportunity to advance was extremely limited. Finally, the number of masters was frozen by an edict in 1686 and the title became a privilege of birth passed from father to son. This gave the journeymen no chance to advance and they faced daily competition for employment from rising apprentices.
In addition to the apprentices, an increasing number of "allous" or non-apprenticed, cheaply paid workers were hired. This also threatened the stability of the system. These workers were degraded by the very name allous (worker for hire) as compared to the "compagnons" (journeymen) which at one time implied a partnership with the master.
Workers usually remained employed only a few months. If a worker stayed for a year he was known as an "ancien." Compositors were hired by the job and would be dismissed when the work ran out. Usually a pressman was fired as well to balance the employees of the "casse" (typesetters) against the employees of the "presse" (pressroom). It was as common to hire and fire workers as to order paper. Unemployed workers had no rights or benefits.
Excluded from the bourgeois world of the master, both in material goods and rights, the workmen formed their own government. The journeymen united as equal members of a fraternal association which they called the "chapelle" or chapel. The chapel charged special dues and monetary penalties. The amount was used to pay for special feasts and drinking parties. The tendency to find excuses for drinking and getting drunk was common.
However, the rites of passage of a printer were solemn and serious occasions. The first was la prize de tablier or the taking of the apron. This was the day when a young boy entered his apprenticeship. He was given a seat of honor at a dinner and his career toasted. Later at work, the honor was forgotten. Rough jokes and insults were heaped upon the newcomers. A strong willed youth would retaliate with "copies" and "joberies" (pranks and jokes) of his own. The best pranks were reserved to be played on the master. This earned the apprentice a little relief from the taunts of the other workmen.
The final rite of passage was the most important day for the printer. On the "compagnonnage" or the day he was made a journeyman and would no longer be addressed by his first name, but as Monsieur. In a solemn speech from the foreman, he was admonished to maintain the wage rate. Faithfulness to the brotherhood was expected. Treason would be met with expulsion from the shop and blacklisting among all printing workers in the area. But there were privileges allowed as well. Excessive drinking is considered a good quality. Debauchery, irreverent acts, and indebtedness was encouraged.
It is no wonder that the masters treated the unruly and crude workmen with much disdain. The workers also had plenty of anger towards the masters. The gulf of class widened in the context of pre-Revolutionary France. The cat became the hated symbol of the master.
In Darnton's book, a great prank is played on the master. The printers in one shop killed all of the master's cats. After mock trials, with the cats as stand-ins for the master, hangings and beheadings took place. The master was none the wiser of what the prank symbolized. In the years before the French Revolution, he also did not see the ominous forewarnings that this cruel ritual had for his future and the future of a flawed system.
Copyright (C) 1999 by Frank Granger
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