Excerpt from L'Orfèvrerie Française aux Xviiie Et Xixe Siècles (1700-1900) Ne nous batons pas de medire de notre temps. Assurement, il faut deplorer que, dans le bouleversement des idees et des choses, l'art et les metiers aient ete violemment separes par un divorce dont les consequences ont ete si facheuses. Mais quand on fait la part des causes superieures, et pour ainsi dire fatales, qui ont amene la transformation des conditions du travail, on comprend que des dirce tions nouvelles s'imposaient a l'industrie qui devait forcement changer de carac tere et d'objectif pour repondre a des necessites sociales completement nou velles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.