Time of emigration in Paris and Argentine

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> A Short History of Aveyron

Time of Emigration

The " Café du Métro" in Paris at the beginning of XX century

In the context of a time of massive redundancies and crisis the Aveyronnaise working class and their offspring from large families attracted the attention of unscrupulous recruiters for destinations with magical names like California and Argentina.
Many were indeed tempted by the ³American Adventure². For example in San Francisco they bought hotels and restaurants before returning to their own country. According to the works of Daniel Crozes and Danielle Magnes, dedicated to the Aveyronnais, in ³Les Editions du Rouergue², it was estimated that 120,000 people left Aveyron between 1850 and 1914. In rural parts the farms were not able to support the families.

Therefore one brother would hold small meetings, another would go to Paris and the third would stay in the country. From the XVIII century many Aveyronnaise had migrated seasonally; for instance loggers left for Catalonia every winter on contract. After one of these periods away they brought back the ³Navaja².

The hispanic curves of this Catalan knife inspired Pierre-Jean Camels, to create the ³Laguiole², the knife of Aveyron. When, during the Restoration, things went badly wrong in Spain with political unrest and epidemics, the Aveyronnaise looked for other goals. Those from the north of the department, Aubrac, Carladez, and the Lot valley went to Paris.

The early times were the worst. The immigrant seasonal workers stayed and became permanent, mostly becoming water carriers. The nature of the work constantly demanded climbing stairs; these tough unruly men were always at loggerheads with the authorities, including the police and the bourgeoisie.

These men often had to hang grimly on to their monopoly of the water sources of the town whose rights were always challenged by other users. Bit by bit the people of Auvergne amassed a small fortune by re-selling water at five times its cost up to the point when the price of water exceeded that of wine. Prosperity allowed the water carriers to deliver from a cart with a large tank with taps.

The most profitable were the ones delivering hot water. However, it was first necessary to deliver the bath to the correct floor and then buckets of boiling water to support the whims of the lady of the house. ³Please don¹t spill any water² was a frequent request.
The water carriers were forced to re-construct their businesses with the event of new mains water supplies and sewers built by Baron Georges Eugene Haussmann.

Dreams of the Argentinian Pampas

When the price of rye and a kilo of pork fell to below acceptable levels and there were redundancies in the mines in Decazeville, temptation to look for a better life elsewhere was high on the agenda. When by 1880 the depression hit all sectors of the economy, the stories of wide open spaces and fertile black soil became most enticing. The natives of Saint-Come d¹Olt heard of all the promises of the future. Clement Cabanettes was the first person to install a telephone line with Argentina and the Argentine government was grateful to him. Clement then organised large scale plans for colonisation of about 25,000 hectares. The land was irrigated by the Pigue stream which runs through this colony and gives it its name. Clement turned next to his countrymen. He offered to sell 125 hectare plots for Ffr 3,000 plus a share in the harvest for six years. In 1884 he returned to Rodez to recruit colonists, praising the rich and fertile soil in Argentina. As a result many families sold up in order to realise enough capital for this new life and venture. From then on, Pigue grew and prospered and a hundred years later had 12,000 inhabitants. Alas, the Aveyronnaise traditions have found difficulty in surviving, the younger generations now thinking of themselves firstly as Argentineans.

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