The master glovers, on their side, shared in the social discontent, and participated in the long drawn-out struggle between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie to determine which of these should predominate in the local tribunals. The glovers of Grenoble contended that they, as an organized body of people, no longer merely having a trade, but enjoying also a social position encroaching on the importance of the man of the robe, the magistrate and the attorney, should have the largest voice in the making of the laws. Their product, they argued, was bringing money into France from England, Germany, Switzerland, and other northern countries, where more than one-half of their gloves were sold. In 1775, it is stated, out of 100,000 dozen pairs of gloves made in Grenoble, 60,000 were on commission for the foreigner. Naturally enough these manufacturers and merchants felt that over an idle, and even vicious, aristocracy, their opinions and practical needs should lead in shaping public legislation. Further, bitter contention involved the business men of Grenoble with the lawyers of that city, for the latter persisted in looking down upon plain citizens not bred in their profession, and in excluding them from public affairs. In 1789 all glovers were shut out of the city council. In view of the fact that they “gave work daily to more than eight thousand persons, and thus enabled to live one-third of the population of Grenoble,” the glovers resented bitterly this deliberate indignity from “les hommes du robe.” It only fired them the more to throw themselves into the great conflict ahead; to prove that, even if they could not discourse so eloquently upon public matters as those who had insulted them, “at least they knew how to talk less, act more, and give all they possessed” to the cause of justice. Thus, with the greatest crisis, perhaps, of modern times approaching, the glovers found themselves, workmen and masters alike, drawn almost before they knew it, into the very heart of the maelstrom. Industry itself was at a standstill. Nay, it was slipping backward; for in the midst of such internal suppression of terrible passions, such scorching hatreds, and ideals to set the world on fire, what footing could there be for the arts of peace? And then the black cloud burst. Grenoble was drained of men whom the actual eruption of the Revolution forced to flee its walls. It was emptied of soldiers departing for the centre of action. The Revolution put out of business many of those following religious vocations, whose offices now were enlisted in grimmer callings; it wiped out of existence the gentlemen of leisure. There had been many of these latter in the beautiful, old city of the Dauphiné.