France and the Republic | Page 3

into power--The mayor and the prefect control the
accounts--Immense expenditure on scholastic palaces--Estimated
annual increase in France since 1880 of local indebtedness, 10,000,000l.

sterling--M. Goblet on the growth of young men's monarchical
clubs--History of the octroi--General prosperity of Picardy--Rural ideas
of aristocracy--Land ownership in Ireland and France--'Land-grabbing'
in Picardy a hundred years ago--The corvée abolished before the
Revolution, but it still exists under the Republic, as a prestation en
nature--Public education in Picardy two centuries ago--Small tenants as
numerous under Edward II. in Picardy as small proprietors now
are--Home rule needed in France--'The opinion of a man's legs' 95-124
CHAPTER VII
IN THE AISNE
St.-Gobain--Paris and the Ile-de-France--Reclamation of the
commons--Mischievous haste in the Revolutionary transfer of
lands--The evolution of property and order in France and England--The
flower gardens of France--The home counties around London
compared with the departments around Paris--Superiority of the French
fruit and vegetable markets--The military city of La Fère--A local
cabbage-leaf--French farmers and the Treaties of Commerce--Arthur
Young at St.-Gobain--The largest mirror in the world--The great
French glassworks--'An industrial flower on a seignorial stalk,
springing from a feudal root'--Evolution without Revolution--Two
centuries and a half of industrial progress--Labour in the Middle
Ages--The Irish apostle of North-eastern France--The forests of
France--A factory in a château--A centenarian royal porter--The
Duchesse de Berri and the Empress Eugénie--A co-operative
association of consumers--A great manufacturing company working on
lines laid down under Louis XIV.--Glass-working, Venetian and
French--A jointstock company of the 18th century--The old and new
school of factory discipline--French industry and the Terror--'Two
aristocrats' called in to save a confiscated property--St.-Gobain and the
Eiffel Tower--Royal luxuries in 1673, popular necessaries of life in
1889--How great mirrors are cast--Beauty of the processes--The
coming age of glass--Glass pavements and roofs--The hereditary
principle among the working classes--Practical co-operation of capital
and labour--Schools, asylums, workmen's houses and gardens, social

clubs, and savings-banks--Co-operative pension funds--A great
economic family--Of 2,650 workpeople more than 50 per cent.
employed for more than ten years--A subterranean lake--The crypts of
St.-Gobain and the Cisterns of Constantinople--A spectral gondolier--A
Venetian promenade with coloured lanterns underground 125-161
CHAPTER VIII
IN THE AISNE--(continued)
Laon, Chauny, and St.-Gobain--The French Revolution and Spanish
soda--The most extensive chemical works in France--A miniature
Rotterdam--A Cité Ouvrière--The religious war in Chauny--Local and
immigrant labour--M. Allain-Targé on Boulanger, the High Court of
Justice, common sense and common honesty---French elections,
matters of bargain and sale--'The blackguardocracy'--Sketches by a
Republican minister--French freemasonry a persecuting sect--Their
power in the Government--Utterly unlike the freemasonry of England,
Germany, or America--The war against Christianity in France and
Spanish America--1867 and the industrial progress of France--Extent of
the chemical works of France--Retiring pensions for workmen--Chauny
in the olden time--How the honest burghers freed their city in 1432--A
contrast with the rioters of the Bastille in 1789--Henri IV. and La Belle
Gabrielle--Chauny and the Revolution--The murder of
d'Estaing--Chauny acclaims the Restoration, and gives a gold medal to
the Prussian commandant--Public charity and public education in the
12th century--Benevolent foundations pillaged in 1793--Law and order
under the ancien régime--A canal in the law courts--An enterprising
American turns rubbish into indiarubber at Chauny 162-185
CHAPTER IX
IN THE AISNE--(continued)
Laon--A feudal fortress home--Chauny and the green monkeys of
Rabelais--The festival of the jongleurs and the learned dogs--A damsel
of Chauny on English good sense and Queen Victoria--A region of

parks and châteaux--The cradle of the French Monarchy--How the
Revolution robbed France--The rural reign of pillage and
murder--Horrors committed in the provinces during 1789--Arthur
Young and Gouverneur Morris on the general depravation and
lawlessness--The National Assembly a mere noisy 'mob'--The outbreak
of crime which preceded the Terror--The truth about Madame
Roland--Her hatred of Marie Antoinette and her thirst for blood--The
legend of the Gironde--Brissot de Warville on robbery as a virtuous
action--The relations of the French Revolution to property--France
more free before 1789 than after it--The laws against emigrants--Girls
of fourteen condemned to death--Emigration made a crime, that
property might be pillaged--How Irène de Tencin defended the family
estate--The story of the Saporta family--The Laonnais in the 18th
century--Wide-spread ruin of its churches, convents, and
châteaux--Destruction of accumulated capital--How syndicates of
rogues stole bronzes, brasswork, and monuments--The story of two
châteaux--The bishop's château at Anizy--The burghers and the
seigneurs in the 16th century--The local 'directory' in 1790--Wreck,
ruin, and robbery--The Château of Pinon--Once the property of a
granddaughter of Edward III. of England--A domain of the Duc
d'Orléans--A tragedy of love and murder--Death of the Marquis
d'Albret--How Pinon passed to the family of De Courvals--The present
owner an American lady--The finest château in the Laonnais--What has
the Laonnais gained from the ruin of the Anizy? 186-225
CHAPTER X.
IN THE AISNE--(continued)
Laon--The ruins of Coucy-le-Château--A rural inn in France--The
sugar crisis--The birthplace of César de Vendóme--The bell which tolls
and is heard by the dying alone--The hanging of boys for killing
rabbits--Game laws,