Étienne Mimard (1862 in

Sens Sens () is a Communes of France, commune in the Yonne Departments of France, department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in north-central France, 120 km from Paris. Sens is a Subprefectures in France, sub-prefecture and the second city of the d ...

– 1944) was a French

arms manufacturer The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and servi ...

who, with Pierre Blachon, another arms manufacturer, founded the Manufacture Française d'Armes et Cycles de Saint-Étienne, which became

Manufrance Manufrance was the trade name of ''Manufacture Francaise d'Armes et Cycles de St.Etienne'' ("French Arms and Cycle Factory of St. Etienne"), a French mail order company which was situated in the manufacturing town of St. Etienne since 1888. P ...

in 1947. Some years after buying the Martinier-Collin company, Mimard and Blachon settled on the site in the Cours Fauriel, built by the architect Lamaizière. The list of their innovations is important: they created a large factory, a centre of technical innovation, a novel system of mail order sales (printing of the Manufrance catalogue reached a million copies), a print centre (''

Le Chasseur français ''Le Chasseur français'' ( French: ''The French Hunter'') is a monthly magazine on hunting and nature published in France. Launched in 1885 it is one of the earliest magazines in this category. History and profile ''Le Chasseur français'' was ...

'' magazine) and made renowned rifles (Robust, Ideal, Simplex, etc.).

Anecdotes

According to legend, Mimard would have wanted to be buried standing up opposite his firm. He was a typical entrepreneur and ''

ideal type Ideal type (german: Idealtypus), also known as pure type, is a typological term most closely associated with sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). For Weber, the conduct of social science depends upon the construction of abstract, hypothetical co ...

'' of the 19th century. From his office he had a view over all of his factories, and he had modified the keyboards of the firm's typewriters so that typists trained there could not work elsewhere.

Bibliography

* N. Besse, J.-P. Burdy and M. Zancarini, « L’usine modèle de Monsieur Mimard, 1885-1938 », in ''L’industrie du cycle à Saint-Etienne : mythes et réalités : aspects économiques, techniques, culturels et sociaux'', Saint-Etienne, Musée d’art et d’industrie, mission du patrimoine ethnologique, 1984 * Monique Luirard, « Économie et politique nationales : Étienne Mimard et la France de son temps », in ''Bulletin du Centre d'Histoire Régionale/Université'', n° 2, St-Etienne, 1984 1862 births 1944 deaths French industrialists Saint-Étienne {{France-business-bio-stub