THE MORNING LIST
Understand the rhythmic ballet of the subways, hear the clicking of nails, follow the process of making a perfume, be blown by the crystal or electrified by the power of the tides: here are five places, in France, where to take the measure of sometimes ancient know-how.
Dive into the bowels of the metro
As long as you suffer the metro-work-sleep every day, you might as well understand the underground scenes of the RATP. This time, without the crowd! The Paris metro opens its bowels to allow its users to understand how it works. Thus the La Courneuve terminus, on line 7, makes it possible to monitor the operations of maneuvering and maintenance centres. Who starts a train? How do we block the following in the event of an incident? The curious can even take a look at the progress of the work to extend line 11, which will open five new stations, including one called “Serge-Gainsbourg”. Even if no one makes small holes anymore…
Have a drink at the Saint-Louis crystal factory
Since 1586, the Saint-Louis crystal factory, the oldest in France, now owned by the Hermès group, has stood in Moselle in the Bitche region, a land where wood, silica sand, ferns and water, all necessary for the art of glass. In 1767, it became a royal glassworks. The reason for this promotion? The discovery by its former director Mr. de Beaufort of the composition of a crystal as fine and transparent as that produced by England, that old rival. The revolutionary turmoil that followed did not cause us to forget this know-how, which reappeared in the 19e century and still active.
To realize this, a path laid out in the factory overlooks the workshops and allows you to watch the workers at work. Each gesture is explained there, fascinating by the precision it demands. The gaze plunges into the ovens. Nothing is mechanized. The molten crystal is blown, always an extremely spectacular operation, then moulded. Verifiers then eliminate the parts with the smallest defect. One out of two is thus sacrificed. Do not miss, just next door, the pretty museum which exhibits two thousand works: from the chandelier to the stemmed glass through carafes and champagne buckets, it is an explosion of shimmering colors and lines of incredible finesse. .
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