The _compagnonnages_ persisted in several trades during the larger part of the nineteenth century. After 1830, however, their influence declined. The new industrial conditions reduced the significance of the personal skill of the workingmen, shifted the boundaries of the ancient trades, and entirely transformed most of them. The rapid development of the modern means of communication made the _tour de France_ in its old form an anachronism. The spread of democratic and secular ideas brought the medieval usages and ideas of the _compagnonnages_ into disrepute and ridicule. Several attempts to reform the _compagnonnages_ and to bring them into harmony with the new conditions of life were made by members of the organization, but with no results.[17] [17] On the _compagnonnage_ see, J. Connay, _Le Compagnonnage_, 1909; E. Martin St. Leon, _Le Compagnonnage_, 1901; Agricol Perdiguier, _Le Livre du Compagnonnage_, 1841. While the _compagnonnages_ were reconstituting themselves during the Consulate and the First Empire, another form of organization began to develop among the workingmen. This was the friendly or benevolent society for mutual aid especially in cases of sickness, accident or death. Several such societies had existed before the Revolution and the law Le Chapelier was directed also against them. "It is the business of the nation," was the opinion of Le Chapelier, accepted by the Constituent Assembly, "it is the business of the public officials in the name of the nation to furnish employment to those in need of it and assistance to the infirm".[18] Friendly societies, however, continued to form themselves during the nineteenth century. They were formed generally along trade lines, embracing members of the same trade. In a general way the government did not hinder their development. [18] _Les Assoc. Profess._, vol. i, p. 193. Mrs. Beatrice Webb and Mr. Sidney Webb have shown that a friendly society has often been the nucleus of a trade union in England. In France the friendly societies for a long time played the part of trade unions. The charge of promoting strikes and of interfering with industrial matters was often brought against them.[19] There were 132 such trade organizations in Paris in 1823 with 11,000 members, and their numbers increased during the following years. [19] _Ibid._, p. 199. The form of organization called into being by the new economic conditions was the _société de résistance_, an organization primarily designed for the purpose of exercising control over conditions of employment. These societies of resistance assumed various names. They usually had no benefit features or passed them over lightly in their statutes. They emphasized the purpose of obtaining collective contracts, scales of wages, and general improvements in conditions of employment. These societies were all secret, but free from the religious and ceremonial characteristics of the _compagnonnages_.