Montée de la Grande-Côte

Grande-Côte literally means Great Slope. This steep street was the main route between the workshops of Croix-Rousse and the lower town, where the silk merchants were based. But at the house that now bears the number ninety-five, the Canuts once tried to change a very different kind of trade altogether—the purchase of bread, butter, and other everyday goods.

After the uprising of eighteen thirty-one, the promised wage scale was abolished. Even a working family could easily fall into debt to a shopkeeper who supplied food on credit and set the price himself. Michel-Marie Derrion, a silk-fabric manufacturer, decided to free them from this dependence on ordinary merchants. His ally was Joseph Reynier, the owner of a weaving workshop: he wanted customers to receive a share of the shop's income and to be able to inspect its accounts.

First, they announced a subscription drive. About two hundred supporters came forward, but the Canuts contributed only a few francs each—this was not enough for a shop. Derrion then invested his own capital, and Reynier gave all his savings, about three and a half thousand francs. On June twenty-fourth, eighteen thirty-five, the shop Commerce véridique et social opened here, in the house with the former number six.

Truthfulness meant open books: the members could see the purchase price, revenue, and profit. That profit was divided into four equal parts. One went to the investors, another to the shop employees, a third was returned to customers in proportion to their purchases, and the fourth went into a common relief fund. In this way, a customer became a member of the enterprise. That is why the shop is considered France's first consumer cooperative.

The beginning was successful: other outlets appeared after the grocery shop, including a bakery and a butcher's shop. Then came the crisis of eighteen thirty-seven. The Canuts became so poor that they could no longer support even a shop created for inexpensive goods. By eighteen thirty-eight, the enterprise had gone bankrupt, Reynier's savings had been lost, and Derrion had left Lyon.

Not a counter or a sign remains of the shop. A plaque bearing the names of Derrion and Reynier hangs on the facade of the present-day house number ninety-five. It marks the exact place where the Canuts' through street became the address of their own shop for three years.