LONDON, Nov. 1, 1833.
While railroads are talked of at Paris, they are made here. That
from London to Birmingham is already begun; it will be 112 miles in
length, and all the stock, to the amount of 12,000,000 dollars, has
been taken up by subscription; this road will be continued by another
of nearly the same length, from Birmingham to Liverpool, and in five
years Liverpool and London will be only eight hours apart. Whilst
the English capitalists are executing these great undertakings, the
Parisian capitalists look on, but do not stir; they do not even form
projects. Not one of them seems to have seriously considered, that even
in the present state of things, there is more than twice the number of
travellers between Paris and Versailles, than between Liverpool and
Manchester, although the railroad between the last named places has
been opened three years. In London, therefore, they count little upon
the aid of French capitalists in the construction of a railroad from
that city to Paris; they desire it, they would be glad to be able to
go from one capital to the other in fifteen hours, and at trifling
expense; all classes are delighted with the idea of such a thing. But
they feel that such a work is neither expedient nor feasible, without
the joint action of both nations; and as they dare not hope for the
co-operation of France, little is said about it as a serious affair.
Among all the acquisitions, which, since the end of the last century,
have enriched the domain of science, none has opened a wider field than
Volta's discoveries relative to the motion of electricity, and its
development by contact. The phenomena resulting from the two poles
of the Voltaic battery offer an inexhaustible mine to the physical
philosopher; there is no fact in science more general in its nature,
for if any two bodies whatsoever touch each other, they form at once,
by their mutual action and reaction, a Voltaic pile of greater or less
energy. This physical fact has its counterpart in the moral order of
things; if you bring together two men who have hitherto been separated
from each other, in however slight a degree they may have any striking
quality, their friction will certainly produce a spark. If instead of
two men, the two poles of your battery are two nations, the result
is greater in the proportion of a nation to an individual. If these
two nations are England and France, that is to say, the two most
enlightened and most powerful people in the world, this sort of Voltaic
phenomenon then acquires a prodigious intensity; it involves nothing
less than the safety of an old or the creation of a new civilization.
The predominant qualities, good or bad, of France and England, may be
arranged in a series of parallels, the corresponding terms in each
of which will be complements of each other. England is pre-eminent
in affairs, and the qualities which belong to them, coolness,
economy, precision, method, perseverance; taste and genius for the
fine arts, with the enthusiasm, the recklessness, the caprice, the
irregular habits, the wastefulness, at least in time and words, which
characterise the artist, have fallen to the lot of France. On one
side, is reason, cautious and sober, but sure-footed, good sense,
creeping along the ground; on the other, imagination with her brilliant
audacity, but also with her ignorance of things and method, her starts
and trips. Here, an admirable energy in struggling against nature
and metamorphosing the physical features of the globe; there, an
unequalled intellectual activity, and the gift of warming the heart of
mankind with its fires. In England, treasures of industry and heaps
of gold; in France, treasures of thought, wells of science, torrents
of inspiration. In proud Albion, staid, but cheerless manners, reserve
pushed to a chilling excess; in our fair France, easiness of manners
carried to licentiousness, the old Gaulish gaiety, often savoring
somewhat of the camp, a something of the free and easy bordering on the
promiscuous (_un sans-façon expansif qui frise la promiscuité_). On
both sides a large dose of pride; among our neighbors, a calculating,
ambitious pride; the pride of the statesman and the merchant, which
feeds only on power and wealth; which for the country desires
conquests, vast colonies, all the Gibraltars and St. Helenas, eagle's
nests by which all seas and all shores are commanded; and which for
oneself pants for riches, an aristocratic park, a seat in the House
of Lords, a tomb in Westminster Abbey. Amongst us, a vain-glorious
pride, which longs for the unreal, for ideal pleasures; a thirst after
applause for self, after glory for our country; a pride, which, for
France, would be satisfied with the admiration of the world, for self,
with castles in the air, a riband, an epaulet, a line of Béranger as a
funeral oration; the pride of the actor on the stage, of the knight in
the lists. On the north of the Channel, prevail religion and positive
faith; on the south, scepticism, mingled with enthusiasm. There a
deep sentiment of order and respect for rank, combined with a haughty
feeling of the dignity of man; here, a people eager for equality,
excitable, restless, turbulent, yet docile, often even to weakness,
confiding, even to credulity, easily cajoled by its flatterers,
submitting to be trampled under foot like a carcase, during the period
of its lethargy, and at times given over to the most courtier-like
obsequiousness. Among the English the reverence for tradition, among
the French the passion for novelty, predominates; among the former
respect for the law, and obedience to man, on condition that his
supreme rule shall be the law; among the latter, the worship of great
men, and submission to the laws if they are defended by the sword of
Cæsar. On one side the ruler of the seas, on the other the arbiter of
the continent, rousing the world at their pleasure, the one by its
lever of gold, the other by the sound of its voice alone. Surely from
the reciprocal influences of two nations thus constituted and thus
situated on the globe, the most important effects should result, not
only on the general cause of civilization, but on their own mutual
improvement.
The industrial development is not, indeed, the development of the whole
man, but since the beginning of the nineteenth century, no people can
be allowed to reckon itself in the first rank of nations, if it is not
advanced in the industrial career, if it cannot labor and produce. No
people will be powerful that is not rich, and there is now no other way
of growing rich but by work. In regard to production and labor, we have
much to learn from England, and it is a lesson which is to be learned
by the eyes rather than by the ears, by observation better than by
reading. If, then, there were a railroad between London and Paris, the
French, who have now little knowledge of business, would go to London,
where the instinct of method is in the blood, to learn. Our speculators
would go to see how simply, promptly, and plainly great enterprises are
carried on; our shop-keepers and buyers have to learn from England that
to overcharge and to haggle have no connexion with buying and selling
advantageously; our capitalists and merchants, that there can be no
durable commercial prosperity nor security for capital, where there
is no system of credit; they would see the operations of the Bank of
England with its branches and the private banks, and perhaps they might
be incited to bring home, with the needful modification, institutions
and practices so profitable at once to the share holders and to
the public. They would here imbibe the spirit of association, which
in London sweats at every pore.[A] All of us might here see in what
consists and how is realised, that comfort, that care of the person, so
essential to the peace and quiet of one's life, and Paris might perhaps
be led to free itself from the filth of centuries, which formerly
gave it its name, and against which eighteen hundred years later,
Voltaire, whom the ancient monarchy and the faith of our fathers could
not withstand, warred in vain. As we are full of self-love, we should
return from England ashamed of the wretched state of our agriculture,
our roads, and our elementary schools, humbled at the insignificance of
our foreign commerce, and solicitous to vie with our neighbors. I need
not stop to point out what the English might come to seek among us,
they are already converts in this matter, they swarm in Paris, while
it would be easy to count up the Frenchmen who have been in London.
Without saying what the English would get in Paris, I may affirm that
they would leave plenty of sovereigns there. To Paris, the city of
pleasures, the terrestrial paradise of strangers, the railroad would be
a gold mine, and the English, getting familiar with France, would find
profitable investments for their capital among us, which would give
life and energy to useful enterprises.
The railroad from London to Paris would be a commercial enterprise of
the first importance; it would also be a political instrument, a strong
bond of union between England and France. But it is more especially as
a means of education, that it should be most highly recommended, for
there is no fear that the other points of view will be overlooked. The
industrial arts, I said before, are learned chiefly through the eyes;
this is particularly true in regard to the operatives, for in them,
owing to their manner of life, the world of sensation prevails over
the world of ideas. Now the progress of the mechanical arts depends
not less on the workmen than on the foremen and superintendents of
the works; it would be expedient, therefore, to send a certain number
of picked operatives to pass a suitable time in England, just as the
Board of Public Works (_Ponts et Chaussées_) is now in the habit of
sending a few engineers thither. The railroad, by reducing the expense
and trouble of the journey, would probably furnish an opportunity of
despatching companies of artisans selected from among those most worthy
of the privilege. According to the plan of a merchant of Lyons, a
very sensible man, this might be done on a large scale and at little
expense; and he further proposed a system of reciprocity, by which
English workmen should be employed in France and French operatives in
England. It is not impossible that this project may one day be made the
basis of a new law, designed to further the views of our excellent law
of primary education; but the railroad between London and Paris must
first be constructed.
Of the small number of Frenchmen who have visited England,[B] very
few have been led by motives of business. Most have undertaken the
voyage from vague feelings of curiosity, or merely for pleasure; and
the objects of their notice have been the picturesque, the poetical.
They have visited the Gothic ruins of the monasteries and castles,
the cave of Fingal, and the lakes of Scotland, admired the costume of
the Highlanders, the horses and jockeys of the great lords, and the
blooming complexion of the women. They have walked through one or two
parks, visited the hot-houses where all the plants of the world are
collected, braving, behind the glass, the cloudy sky of Great Britain.
They have been through the dockyards and military arsenals, when
they could get leave, under the escort of a sergeant, seen the young
beauties of Almacks and the old curiosities of the Tower, and travelled
over England, just as they would make the tour of Italy or Switzerland.
If the subject of industry has occupied their attention a moment, it
is only in reference to the fashion of some opera decoration. They
have, to be sure, stood amazed at the thousands of vessels whose masts
stretch out of sight along the Thames or in the docks;[C] they have
been delighted with the extent of the great manufacturing towns, the
magnitude of the manufactories, and the height of their chimneys, with
the magical brilliancy of the gas-lights, with the daring bridges of
stone or iron, and with the fantastical appearance of the forge-fires
in the night. But they have never asked, how came England to have
such a vast number of ships, how has she multiplied and extended her
manufactures to such an amazing degree, and how created these towns,
so simple in their architecture, but so fastidiously neat in their
spacious streets; they have not thought to ask the causes of all this
wealth and prosperity.
Yet he who expects to return satisfied from England should visit her
as the Queen of industry; he should see the city rather than Regent's
Park, the East India House rather than Windsor Castle, seek out the
Bank before St. Paul's, the Clearing House before Somerset House,
take more interest in the docks and Commercial House, than in the
armor preserved in the Tower. He should go to the warehouses, the
counting-houses, the workshops, in pursuit of the genius of Great
Britain. He must tear himself from the magnificent hospitality of
the English country seats, and give up his time to the mines and the
forges, which furnish industry with its daily bread, its coal and iron.
(Notes 1 and 2 at the end of the volume.) He must mingle with the stout
and active workmen, quite as much as with the more refined society in
the saloons of the nobility. For myself, I have found nothing in London
which has struck me as more original, and given me greater pleasure,
than a shop in Old Change, whose ware-rooms contain twenty times as
many goods as the largest warehouse in Paris, and whose business
transactions amount to two millions sterling a year, and the great
brewery of Barclay, Perkins & Co. near London Bridge, the order and
arrangement of which are still more striking than its vast extent.
As I stood in this brewery, on a floor on which, distributed in
different rooms, there were ninetynine vats, some of them holding
500,000 or 600,000 bottles, I thought of the famous Heidelberg tun
which I had seen some years ago. It is the only object in a tolerable
state of preservation in the delicious chateau of the Palatine
counts, and it is faithfully visited by all travellers who go to see
that fine ruin, perhaps the finest relic of the feudal times. What a
difference now between the old chateau of Heidelberg with its tun, and
the colossal establishment of the English brewer with its regiment of
tuns! The old castle crumbles to pieces; the rich Gothic sculptures are
wearing away. In vain has a French artist (and, strange coincidence!
that artist himself another relic of the feudal age, an _émigré_, who
with a praiseworthy zeal has been for a long time the self-constituted
guardian of this fine old monument,) in vain has he urged the
government of Baden, to whom the castle belongs, to take some measures
for its preservation. Each year some new dilapidation is caused by the
frosts of winter and the storms of autumn; the old chateau will soon
become a shapeless mass, the very stones will probably be sold, and
nothing will remain, but the drawings of M. de Graimbert, to show what
it has been. The Knights' Hall is stripped of its roof--the arches,
which support the superb terrace whence the eye wanders over the lovely
vale of the Neckar and its beautiful heights,--those arches, rent by
the powder of Louvois,--will some day sink. Meanwhile, the brewery
is enriched one day with a new building, and the next, with a new
steam-engine; and in case of any damage by fire, as recently happened,
the loss is immediately repaired; in the place of the building
destroyed by the flames, rises one more splendid, in which the free use
of iron will be a protection against new ravages.
The statues of the Palatine electors are overthrown in their niches;
no son of their vassals will set them up again; but at the brewery
everything is in perfect order; each tool hangs on its nail, each
kettle is kept well-rubbed and bright. The stables of the noble prince
are a heap of ruins; in the stables of the brewer, rivalling those
of Chantilly, where the great Condé entertained kings, one hundred
and fifty horses, fit steeds for Goliath, are objects of as careful
attention, as those, perhaps, which surrounded the persons of the first
Electors and their gallant knights. The old tun has been empty for a
century and a half; the curious may enter it, and take its measure;
once only has M. de Graimbert seen it spout wine; it was in 1813,
in honour of the emperor Alexander and his allies, the sovereigns
of Austria and Prussia. Even then it was only a pious fraud, the old
tun was not full, the wine flowed from a base barrel which had been
stuck in it the night before. The ninetynine vats of Barclay, Perkins
& Co. are always full of beer; that which is daily drawn off, and
sent all over the United Kingdom and North America, and finds its way
even to the East Indies, would fill the classical tun of the Palatine
Casimir.[D] The secret of this contrast may easily be explained; the
great feudal tun could only be filled by the produce of the feudal
impositions, whilst the vats of the brewery are filled by the voluntary
co-operation of three hundred men, sure of gathering daily the fruits
of their industry; the Heidelberg tun was emptied only to administer
to the pleasures of the prince or his favorites, while the vats of the
brewer quench the thirst of a numerous population, which works hard,
receives good pay, and pays its providers well.
The silence and desolation of the old castle, contrasted with the
bustle and prosperity of the English brewery, are a striking emblem of
the feudal system compared with the modern power of peace and creative
industry. All nations, in proportion as they have the power to change
the warlike qualities of the feudal age into the useful qualities of
the labourer, or as they want the capacity thus to re-cast themselves,
may read their own destiny, either in the state of the flourishing
manufactory, or in that of the deserted and crumbling castle. Happy the
people, who, like France and England, have had strength to shake off
the past, and who, in the quiet enjoyment of their liberties, have only
to concern themselves about the future! Woe to that people, which will
not, or cannot, tear itself away from the past! That people is worn
out; it will die of consumption, and will leave behind nothing but
ruins, poetical, perhaps, but still none the less ruins, that is, death
and desolation: unless indeed a new blood be infused into its veins, or
in other words, unless it be conquered like unhappy Poland.