Under these conditions, the initiative in reconstituting the syndicats was taken by a republican journalist, Barberet.[41] Barberet was prompted to undertake this "honorable task" by the desire to do away with strikes. He had observed the strike movement for some years, and had come to the conclusion that strikes were fatal to the workingmen and dangerous to the political institutions of the country. His observations had convinced him that the Second Empire had fallen largely in consequence of the strike movement during 1868-70, and he was anxious to preserve the Republic from similar troubles. As he expressed it, strikes were "a crime of _lèse-democratie_"[42] which it was necessary to prevent by all means. [41] Barberet was afterwards appointed chief of the Bureau of Trade Unions, which was constituted as part of the Dept. of the Interior. [42] J. Barberet, _Monographies Professionelles_ (Paris, 1886), vol. i, p. 16. Barberet outlined the following program for the syndicats. They were to watch over the loyal fulfilment of contracts of apprenticeship; to organize employment bureaus; to create boards of conciliation composed of an equal number of delegates from employers and from workingmen for the peaceful solution of trade disputes; to found libraries and courses in technical education; to utilize their funds not to "foment strikes", but to buy raw materials and instruments of labor; and finally, "to crown these various preparatory steps" by the creation of co-operative workshops "which alone would give groups of workingmen the normal access to industry and to commerce" and which would in time equalize wealth.[43] [43] Barberet, _op. cit._, pp. 20-25. Under Barberet's influence and with his assistance syndicats were reconstituted in a few trades in Paris during 1872. These syndicats felt the necessity of uniting into a larger body, and in August of the same year they founded the _Cercle de l'Union Ouvrière_, which was to form a counter-balance to the employers' organization _L'Union Nationale du Commerce et de l'Industrie_. The _Cercle_ insisted on its peaceful intentions; it declared that its aim was "to realize concord and justice through study" and to convince public opinion "of the moderation with which the workingmen claim their rights."[44] The _Cercle_ was nevertheless dissolved by the government. [44] Fernand Pelloutier, _Histoire des Bourses du Travail_ (Paris, 1902), p. 35. The syndicats, however, were left alone. They slowly increased in numbers and spread to new trades. There were about 135 in Paris in 1875. Following the example of the syndicats of the Second Empire, they organized delegations of workingmen to the Exhibitions of Vienna in 1873 and of Philadelphia in 1876. But their supreme effort was the organization of the first French Labor Congress in Paris in 1876.