The company used innovative pumping technology to support deep mining operations in the rich bituminous coalfield.

The work was dangerous and unhealthy, but the company paid the miners well compared to other industries, provided housing, welfare and pensions, and sponsored social activities.

The landscape has been partly restored but traces of mining such as slag heaps, ponds and railway cuttings remain, and a few heritage sites have been preserved.

The Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin extends for 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the Valenciennes region in the east past Douai and Lens to Béthune in the west.

The concessions granted to the Compagnie des mines d'Anzin lay in the east of this basin, named after the town of Anzin, to the north of Valenciennes.

Demand began to rise in the early 18th century due to population growth and limited wood supplies.

[2] The Viscount Jean-Jacques Desandrouin (1681–1761) bailli of Charleroi, had made a fortune at his seignurie of Lodelinsart from a coal mine, forges and glassworks.

In 1716 he began to explore the region of French Hainaut in the hope of finding a westward extension of the Mons-Charleroi deposit.

In 1720 Désandrouin and his research director Jacques Mathieu, with a team of twenty miners, found coal at Fresnes-sur-Escaut.

He struggled on with many setbacks and great loss of money, and finally found bituminous coal at the village of Anzin in 1734, when he was on the verge of ruin.

[3] When he learned of the discovery the Prince de Croÿ, lord of Valenciennes, asserted his rights to the deposit and a prolonged legal battle began.

On 14 January 1744 the king decreed that all minerals below the soil were the property of the crown, and could only be exploited by the landowner after a formal concession had been granted.

[7] The company introduced steam engines to operate pumps that removed water from the mines, which could reach a depth of 200 metres (660 ft).

To retain workers the company supported families after death or disability, and provided health services and pensions.

Typically the miner worked lying on his side since the veins of coal were rarely more than 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) thick.

[12] In addition to Désandrouin the new owners included the leading members of the East India Company including Pierre Desprez, Jean-Barthélémy Le Couteulx de Canteleu, Augustin-Jacques Perier, Guillaume Sabatier, the widows of the directors Pierre Bernier and Pourrat, Thieffries (the partner of Périer) and smaller shares held by the two legal advisers of the company, Berryer and Cambacérès.

The machine shops of Jacques-Constantin Périer at Chaillot supplied steam engines and equipment for mining from 1818.

[12] In 1823 Casimir Périer replaced his brother Scipion as head of the company, and initiated a thorough reorganization to improve profitability.

In 1826 he asked the general agent of the Anzin company "to arrange a kind of police that would inform him if the director, the under-director and the master foremen were doing their job.

[15][17] The company was quick to exploit steam-powered railways, and in 1834 built a line for coal trucks between Saint-Waast and Denain.

[1][a] The mining company was paternalistic, providing housing, clinics, schools, canteens and shops, paying relief and pensions, and sponsoring sports and social activities.

The outcome was the first collective labor agreement in France, the Convention of Arras, which established insurance funds and pensions.

During World War II (1939–45) the mines were occupied by the Germans in 1940 and ruthlessly exploited using laborers from Ukraine, Russia, Serbia and elsewhere.

[1] A decree of 13 December 1944 created the state-owned Houillères Nationales to acquire the privately held mining properties.

Efforts were made to restore the landscape as pits were closed, and a government program was launched in the late 1970s to clean up the main urban centers.