The glassworks Pointis - Mercenac
Michel Begon May 2009
This was once a land of forests and wolves. Its huge sandstone hills rendered inhospitable northern region of Saint-Girons, but do not welcomed least early in the seventeenth century, two dozen glass timber with the people who exploited them. Families Verbizier, composed of gentlemen from glass-the Lot Valley, manufactures, even before the années1600, bottles, cans and Porrona that hawkers sell in local markets. Then other gentlemen glassmakers, from the county of Foix, joined them, as the great forests of the place offered, firewood and work for all.
It seems that the Clovis Robert Falga was indirectly responsible for the first glassware Point, located on the parish in Mercenac Couserans (now owned by the Western Ariège). Born in the glass of Garils to Gabre, in the County of Foix, he left around 1680 for the regions wetter and more forested western Pyrenees. He founded the glassworks Mauvezin Holy Cross on the slopes of Mount Cabanère. Then, his son Robert farmed out of the woods and Viscount Pointis Betchat, further west again, to accommodate, too, Ovens glass. Without doubt he founded the hamlet of Point, where his posterity was large. However, he was soon joined by Robert Abel Lafregeyre, came about him Arfons glassworks in Black Mountain (now in the Tarn). He also made large strain.
These gentlemen glassmakers were Protestant, and their workers, and remained after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, even in the cruel test. Notably, the celebration in 1745 of several clandestine cults point draws near repression: it was punished several sentences to the galleys and the destruction all the glass and the Couserans Volvestre with the prohibition to rebuild. Many of these glass does it ever raised him, that of Poudelay for example, but soon resumed his Pointis activity concentrations several lines of gentlemen glassmakers and found prosperity for long.
the early nineteenth century, two distinct glass belonging to Verbizier and Robert, enlivened the little industrial hamlet. Their remains are still quite recognizable, despite the successive transformations. A Protestant church was also built there, we can see again, but converted to residential including Nicole Gaulaz (Verbizier Latreyte) is now owner. The ease acquired under the July Monarchy even allowed to glassmakers to build elegant homes of neo-classic that still exist. Among them, the house of Alexander Robert Bousquet (1814-1882), great-grandfather of the signer of this memo. Born in the Year II and died in 1878, Francis Robert Lafregeyre Mercenac was mayor.
The main glass was held by Robert Monner, who managed the family as a consortium. The desire to preserve the tradition of gentlemen glassmakers there was so strong that marriages are always knotted between the same three noble families and that perpetrators of glass with a commoner misalliance saw them eliminated. Then, by marriage, succession to the head of glassware passed to Robert de Lafregeyre.
However, many master glassmakers dwells not only for the winter season and stayed the summer Gabre (Ariege), which remained at the time of Robert the sanctuary. They had thus two houses at fifty miles away. This was particularly the case of Alexandre Robert-Bousquet which was divided between points and Comavère, or Theophilus of Robert Bousquet, who lived sometimes spikes and sometimes to Claux (in the town of La Bastide de Sérou). Matches that kept them show exchanges between young people, working in glass-Pointis Mercenac, and elders remained in old mansions or Gabre La Bastide. Sometimes they announce some terrible news: the sudden death of children, without which no longer knows who he was.
From the Second Empire and especially of 1882, the business just died. The country of Foix and Couserans is depopulated for cities, losing both their best workers and their local customers. Competition from coal-fired glass, located in cities, was hurting. And the economic crisis of 1882 emerged from a stock market speculation and a financial meltdown, led to the Great Depression, which took away much of Europe in small workshops. First we reduce staff, urging young people to go elsewhere. This was the case of Leopold-Robert Bousquet, Pointis born in 1846 and son of Alexander, who had to emigrate for the glassworks of Moussans in the Hérault. The glass of Robert Lafregeyre closed down in 1883, not without its co-owners have had them in trouble for the vesting of the assets. Leo Grenier-Lale Magnou was called to arbitrate, according to a letter that reveals Pointis found, a century later, in a Bible of Neuchatel.
Another letter, signed by Robert Alexander, dated March 6, 1881, tells us who commanded at the time the final large glassware. "I look forward," he wrote, whether Joel and Eugene were oven death. " These two characters would seem to be two brothers, namely François-Joel and Paul-Eugène Robert de Lafregeyre, both born in 1825, John Robert and Elizabeth Lafregeyre Grenier Niger.
Glassware of Verbizier-Latreyte persevered for some time to turn and disappeared before 1900. At its closing, the great-great-grandfather of the current president of the Awakened had to go blow glass in Bordeaux. Of all the descendants of the gentlemen-advanced glass, some glass remained for a time, others flocked to the public by becoming teachers or agents of the colonies. Some were converted to commercial glass, as the brothers Charles and Louis-Verbizier Latreyte, who held to Toulouse store medical glassware. This Verbizier Charles left a name in history by being the friend of Jean Jaures and rallying the French Communist Party congress in Tours in 1920.
Samuel Verbizier-Latreye, an official of the colonies, but died in points, was the father of Eugene Verbizier craftsman gilder in Paris, which has the following memories of his youth points system. But this is only a legend. The last of Robert Points, a teacher at Betchat, died in 2000. And last Verbizier Pointis now live in Paris or Toulouse. Nobody in the country no longer bears the names of great ancestors.
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