Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ ɡɔbɛ̃]) is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris as the Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs, and today headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a mirror manufacturer, it also produces a variety of construction, high-performance, moderate-performance, lower-performance and other materials. Saint-Gobain is present in 76 countries and as of 2022 employs more than 170,000 people.
History
1665–1789: Manufacture royale Since the mid-17th century, luxury products such as silk textiles, lace, and mirrors were in high demand. In the 1660s, mirrors had become very popular among the upper classes of society: Italian cabinets, châteaux, ornate side tables, and pier-tables were decorated with these expensive and luxurious products. At the time, however, the French were not known for mirror technology; instead, the Republic of Venice was known as the world leader in glass manufacturing, controlling a technical and commercial monopoly of the glass and mirror business. As a result, French Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert wanted France to become completely self-sufficient in meeting domestic demand for luxury products, thereby strengthening the national economy. Colbert established, by letters patent, the public enterprise Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs (French pronunciation: [manyfaktyʁ ʁwajal də ɡlas də miʁwaʁ], Royal Mirror-Glass Factory) in October 1665. The company was created for a period of twenty years and would be financed in part by the state. The beneficiary and first director was the French financier Nicolas du Noyer, a receiver of taxes of Orléans, who was granted a monopoly of making glass and mirror-glass for twenty years. The company had the informal name Compagnie du Noyer.
To compete with the Italian mirror industry, Colbert commissioned several Venetian glassworkers he had enticed to Paris to work for the company. The first unblemished mirrors were produced in 1666. Soon the mirrors created in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, under the French company, began to rival those of Venice. The French company was capable of producing mirrors that were 40 to 45 inches long (1.0 to 1.1 m), which at the time, was considered impressive. Competition between France and the Venetians became so fierce that Venice considered it a crime for any glass artisan to leave and practice their trade elsewhere, especially in foreign territory. Nicolas du Noyer complained in writing that the Venetians were unwilling to impart the secrets of glassmaking to the French workers and that the company was hard-pressed to pay its expenses. Life in Paris proved distracting to the workers, and supplies of firewood to stoke the furnaces were dearer in the capital than elsewhere. In 1667, the glass-making was transferred to a small glass furnace already working at Tourlaville, near Cherbourg in Normandy, and the premises in Faubourg Saint-Antoine were devoted to glass-grinding and polishing the crude product. Though the Compagnie du Noyer was reduced at times to importing Venetian glass and finishing it in France, by September 1672 the royal French manufacturer was on a sufficiently sound footing for the importation of glass to be forbidden to any of Louis' subjects, under any conditions. In 1678, the company produced the glass for the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. In 1683, the company's financial arrangement with the State was renewed for another two decades. However, in 1688, a competitor in the form of the Compagnie Thévart was created, which was also partially financed by the French state. Compagnie Thévart used a new pouring process that allowed it to make plate glass mirrors measuring at least 60 by 40 inches wide (1.5 by 1.0 m), much bigger than the 40 inches (1.0 m) that the Compagnie du Noyer could create. The two companies competed for seven years, until 1695 when the economy slowed down and their technical and commercial rivalry became counterproductive. Under an order from the French government, the two companies were forced to merge, creating the Compagnie Plastier. A mirror factory in the village of Saint-Gobain in Picardie gave its name to the present company. In 1702, Compagnie Plastier declared bankruptcy. A group of Franco-Swiss Protestant bankers rescued the collapsing company, changing the name to Compagnie Dagincourt. At the same time, the company was provided royal patents which allowed it to maintain a legal monopoly in the glass-manufacturing industry up until the French Revolution (1789), despite fierce, sometimes violent, protests from free enterprise partisans.
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