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