ABSTRACT
The Industrial Revolution as it is usually characterized – the increased mechanization of work, the greater use of coal, the development of steam-power – came to French iron and steel production only in the 1820s. The British model was obviously of paramount importance in the first French ironworks to use coal and coke. Soon after Waterloo, French engineers and industrialists began to hasten across the Channel again, anxious to catch up on lost time. François de Wendel brought experienced British workers to Lorraine to set up the puddling processes with which the local workers were totally unfamiliar. In August 1837, at Fourchambault, for example, there was a revolt directed against certain English foundry-workers who had recently been hired for a new method of work: the French workers claimed to be perfectly capable of introducing this new method themselves.
