Vol. 65, No. 4 winter 2020 318


11. Current state of the Rochefort rope factory. Author’s photograph.


were ropemakers. In 1834, the Navy tested iron cables, whose mechanical resistance was almost eight times that of hemp rope. By around 1880, only the dockyard of Brest continued to make hemp rope for the entire Navy. In the meantime, steel wire had practically supplanted hemp. Without going into the details of the changes in use, port by port, mechanized workshops were sometimes located in the old rope factories. In Toulon, the Naval Museum was transferred there in 1860. T e offi ces of the naval prefecture also were installed there in 1917-1918 in the eastern part of the central wing.


T e naval rope factories were not spared the accidents of history, whether of a fortuitous or warlike nature. A fi re devastated the rope factory in Dunkirk in 1868. It did not recover and disappeared from the port landscape, then undergoing rapid change. T e Toulon rope factory saw its roof and attic completely ruined by a hemp fi re in 1873. T e whole was rebuilt shortly aſt er, using new techniques (cast iron columns, vaults on a metal frame). T e building was again aff ected by fi re in 1907, which caused it to collapse for some 40 meters (130 feet).


It was World War II that caused the most damage. T e Rochefort rope factory was burnt down by the Germans when they evacuated the city in August 1944. Only the facades remain. T e siege of Brest by the Allies in September 1944 completed the destruction resulting from the bombardments of the city during its occupation. In the dockyard, there was hardly a stone leſt on a stone, except for a few ghostly facades. T e two rope factories were quickly reduced to nothing. T e Toulon rope factory received several bomb hits; the premises of the naval prefecture were hit hard.


T e rope factories, a national maritime heritage


Aſt er the war, revival only benefi ted the rope factories of Rochefort and Toulon. T e fi rst was saved thanks to Admiral Maurice Dupont, commander of


the


navy at Rochefort, who in 1964 took the ingenious initiative of replacing the weekly sports day for sailors by clearing the brush that inexorably absorbed the ruins. At the turn of the 1980s, the restoration of the building (listed as a historic monument in 1967)


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100