Emile Cheysson

Emile Cheysson Director of "Forges du Creusot" from 1871 to 1875

From 1836 to 1966 the Schneider company, which bought the forges du Creusot, as the status of a joint stock company. Capital is brought by sponsorship shareholders but they do not participate in management. The Manager, responsible for his property, has power. In these conditions, the function of director, occupied by Emile Cheysson, can only be that of a second

le creusot en 1860

le creusot - villedieu

In 1869 Cheysson published a brochure: "Le Creusot, condition matérielle, intellectuelle et morale de la population". It was undoubtedly this social orientation that did it choose the day after the strikes of 1869-1870 and the insurrection of the "Commune de Paris".

On August 15, 1871, Émile Cheysson was committed as director, But he is led to abandon his functions in early 1875 and he returned to the department of civil engeneering.

Philippe Bouillet, the secretary of Eugène Schneider, transmits the latter's thoughts and advice to Henri Schneider, his son who will succeed him:

Mr. Schneider was very impressed of one thing is that after having carefully reflected, and after failure that we suffered in the Cheysson test, he returned exactly to everything he had stopped to the organization of the Creusot when he had taken Cheysson. He thinks that his failure was rather due to defects of character of Cheysson and in circumstances on which he does not want to come back, only to vices of the organization itself. To summarize his thought by a word, he says that we failed with a director to whom the title had been given without the functions, and that this time you have to succeed with a collaborator to which we will give the functions without the title ..." (May 20, 1875)

"For your father, Cheysson did not have a failure, and if he has shown fault defects which justify its exit from the factory, It cannot be said, according to your father, that he failed. It was well, according to your father, the things that he was charged, and although it was not supported by the confidence of any member of the family, he had taken an ascendant on all the staff true, and he lost it until the day the employees saw that his departure was decided. Your father does not think so that there was failure on this side." (June 24, 1875).

According to a study by Antoine de Badereau in bulletin n ° 2 of January 2001 (download)
See l'académie François Bourdon - Patrimoines industriels -

See website "l'Ecomusée du Creusot"