The location
The site of Montcenis is chosen because of the presence of the Charbonnière, where the coal is renowned for its excellent quality and adequate for the new English procedures. In addition to that, there are small iron mines existing in its proximity (Antully, Chalencey…). And the geographic position of Montcenis, also near to the Saône River and the Loire River had to be also determining. For a foundry for cannons for the navy, it is important to be able to serve also towards the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. This situation was still confirmed by the opening of the Canal du Centre in 1793. "You will not be able to name, in Europe, another factory which is as advantageously situated for the facility and as cheap for the importation of the raw materials and the exportation of the materials produced as this one."
M. de La METHERIE, 1787.
For the architecture of the buildings, the symmetries of the whole, the foundry was built like a castle. The architect, Pierre Toufaire, could not, of course, refer to any other model existing of this importance. Thus he integrated the programme for a factory in a place composed and aligned of the image of the castles from the 17th and 18th centuries; the resting room of the master becoming the foundry hall, the aisles becoming the workshops, the common rooms becoming the quarters of the workers, the foundry assuming thus the functions of a town which did not exist yet (habitat).
On the eve of the French Revolution, the technicians such as de Wendel and Wilkinson left France, and on the other hand, the products were not of a good enough quality anymore. However, this first coke foundry stayed a visiting place obligatory to the knowing of the epoch. Monge and Lavoisier came there to make their experiences, Daubenton described it as "a wonder of the world", Baudot finds himself carried "to the entry of the admiral's foundry", and Guyton saw a "new Mount Etna" there…
The reality was totally different, the technical problems and the financial difficulties were the reasons for the foundry to go from bankruptcy to bankruptcy. Some important productions, however, were carried at the beginning of the 19th century as the truss of the granary in Paris and the fountain in Bondy.