THE ECONOMIC LIFE OF FRANCE. 295 



passes to the west down the Garonne Valley to Bordeaux From Bor- 

 deaux a route passes northward, to the west of the highlands, and along 

 the coast to the city of Tours. At Tours this stream of trade is joined 

 by that from the southern and western seas, and is carried inland to 

 Paris. The great capital receives these streams from the south and 

 feeds, and is in turn fed, from the fan-shaped network of commercial 

 highways which branch out in every direction over the plains of the 

 north. The chief of these bring Paris into close communication with 

 Belgium and the coast. 



Paris is situated in the center of the largest habitable plain of 

 France. It is at the place where the road from the Mediterranean 

 crosses the overland route from Spain to the low countries. The capi- 

 tal is near enough to the most important disputed boundaries to be able 

 to throw the power of the nation into their protection, yet it is far 

 enough inland from the channel to be safe from naval attack. The 

 latitude gives Paris a climate which permits of continuous labor, and 

 does not unduly complicate municipal sanitary problems. The me- 

 tropolis is surrounded by regions which supplement one another in a 

 beautiful manner in ministering to her necessities. On the northeast 

 is a group of large cities devoted to the textile industries. In the south- 

 east are the chalk plains, famous for wine. From the southwest comes 

 grain. Due west are the Percheron and Norman hills furnishing their 

 celebrated breeds of horses, while from further away, Brittany sends 

 butter and eggs, honey and fish. Along the shores in the north and 

 west are the ports of Dunkerque, Calais, Dieppe and Le Havre, for 

 communication, while the lover of surf bathing finds the beach of 

 Trouville not far away. The immediate environs have had not a little 

 to do with the prosperity of the city. The merits of these are abundant 

 artesian water and fine building- stone, a fertile surrounding soil able 

 to assist in provisioning a metropolis, and romantic beauty of land- 

 scape, able, in the days of a monarchy, to attract a king to erect palaces 

 and, in those of a republic, to stimulate a matter-of-fact bourgeois, and 

 refresh an exhausted ouvrier on a holiday outing. 



