Le Sentier des Fileuses

The "Carré de soie" (Silk Square) interpretation trail in Colognac follows part of the old draille linking Colognac to Lasalle. It was via "Le sentier des fileuses" that young girls used to travel to Lasalle to work in the spinning mills.
Route with 9 interpretation stations between Colognac and Lassalle. START: parking lot at the entrance to the village, at the intersection of the D185 from Le Rédares and the D153 from Lasalle.

HARD WORK
The working day goes from "day to day", from dawn to night, and follows the rhythm of the seasons. Shorter in winter, it can reach sixteen to eighteen hours a day
a day in summer. It's hard, repetitive work, in the hum of machines, humid heat and heavy smell. Wages were very low throughout the
throughout the nineteenth century: 1.50 francs a day, but they represented a much-needed addition to the meager budgets of rural families.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC IMPACT OF SERICULTURE
Silk spinning generated a veritable industrial boom throughout the Cévennes Piedmont. In 1841, eight spinning mills were processing silk in the commune of Lasalle.
of Lasalle, whose population had doubled in fifty years, reaching 2,500 by 1850. The staff were housed on site or came from the surrounding
and hamlets in the surrounding mountains.

1 - La soie. une histoire vue par les femmes.

2 - A journey through the life of a silk spinner. The magnarelle "incubates" her magnan seeds.

3 - A path through the life of a spinner. The magnarelle "mothers" her magnans.

4 - Silk. A family affair: decocking takes place at home.

5 - The hardness of silk, from yesterday to today...

6 - Silk spinners make history. The spinner strike in Ganges in 1906.

7 - "Fairies" on the cradle of silk.

8 - Life in the Lasalle spinning mills.

9 - Life in the Lasalle mills.