Gendering the Memory of Work
Bureau of the lingères’ union in Paris, founded in 1716, © Maria Tamboukou
All Parisians who have traversed the quartier des Halles have surely seen in the old small street Courtalon, a pretty maisonette, whose façade has been sculpted in the 18th century architectural taste surmounted by a very artistic stone cartridge with the following inscription and date: ‘Office of Lingères Merchants, 1716.’ This last historical monument of the corporations that used to meet around les Halles is going to disappear. They are preparing to demolish the stylish little house where the matrons lingères would discuss the launch of new fashions and provided batistes of linen and lace […] The city of Paris does not care to preserve the building of such an important corporation, which in 1750 had more than 657 matrons.
(Jeanne Bouvier, La lingerie et les lingères, 180)
In writing microhistories of the lingerie and the lingères, Bouvier marked the address of the offices of the lingères’ first corporation at 3 rue Courtalon, noting how the Parisians were upset by its demolition in 1900. We have here a rare trace of ‘an archaeological site’ in the memory of work being erased, as well as the reactions of its contemporaries against it. Bouvier noted how regrettable it was that this historical house was finally demolished, but she also noted that at least the Commission of Vieux Paris saved its façade: ‘It was transported stone by stone […] in the Saint-Innocents Square, where it is today’ she wrote (181). A contemporary blog of old Paris has traced a genealogy of displacements of this historical façade, which can be found today at 22 Rue Quicampoix.