Small, but mighty.

I'm going to skip over a few fairs (all French, my they love a good fair) and jump to the early 1800's when not one, nor two but three fairs were held in Paris. Dubbed the THE NAPOLEONIC EXPOSITIONS, they were held in 1801, 02 and 06 respectively. They actually fell on the heals of the industrial fair of 1798 and quite honestly all four of them could be lumped together. France had been eyeing England's fairs and were concerned that they were in England's shadow when it came to industrialization and modernization.

So here we find Napoleon doing a jolly good job of kicking butt and France feeling pretty cocky and what better way to strut your stuff then have a national exposition.

What is truly amazing about these fairs is that they included a little of what you would expect like manufacturing processes and art and more than a good dose of other stuff. Furniture, clock and watchmaking, agriculture were all represented.

On the dull practical side, but none the less amazing, we have Joseph Jacquard and his loom, winner of a bronze medal at the exposition. The fame it brought Jacquard was not all positive. His life was threatened by mill workers thrown out of work as a result of his labour saving, speedy device. The government stepped in and saved his hide. Their vigorous endorsement gave skeptics a chance to see how much more fabric could be produced and in patterns hitherto unattainable.

France's dominance as a producer of quality textiles was a theme revisited in subsequent expositions. Signs of equality were everywhere. There were displays of cloth woven by blind weavers and a special section devoted to cloth spun by convicts.