Meiiiuir of M. D^ Aubuii^son ile Voisins. 207 



vvei'e individual proprietors, so to speak, each prosecuting his 

 own portion of the work : rights acquired by centuries of 

 usage could not be obliterated by a stroke of the pen ; one 

 could not run counter to all the habitudes of this mining 

 population, brought up, as it were, to govern themselves ; it 

 could not be done, at least, without the risk of putting a stop 

 to the works, and the forges which depended on them. It 

 was expedient, therefore, to combine the diverse elements of 

 the administration in such a manner as to give to the State 

 only a surveillance of the whole, — a kind of invisible protec- 

 tion, depriving it of the embarrassment and responsibility of 

 an invidious individual inspection. This was done by the 

 maintenance of a kind of elective magistracy, that oi jurats, 

 who had been long employed in this kind of subteri'anean 

 city as an interior police. By preserving this kind of muni- 

 cipality, but under the control of the administration, and 

 reserving to the engineers the direction of the works of art 

 and the research, this turbulent population of workers were 

 managed and protected, without being conscious, so to speak, 

 that they were under the government of others, and without 

 perceiving the change from their former to their new con- 

 dition. Those who knew M. D'Aubuisson intimately, will 

 easily recognise in this one of the traits of his character, 

 namely, his respect for things long established. Most ardent 

 and persevering for necessary reform, or an improvement in 

 the arrangement of things, he had no liking for simple inno- 

 vations in form, nor for sudden shocks in the habits and or- 

 ganisation of the people ; his own sad experience had shewn 

 him the evil of this. As a man of science, he was well ac- 

 (juainted with the disastrous effects of sudden shocks in 

 wheel-mechanism ; and it was by this knowledge that he was 

 influenced in judging of the movements of social organisation. 

 Notwithstanding the mildness of the reforms introduced 

 into the mines of Rancic, M. D'Aubuisson had sometimes to 

 struggle against the turbulence of the miners, and he did it 

 witii that firmness which was peculiar to him. At other times 

 lie had also to contend, which he did with no less firmness, 

 against enci'oaehments of another kind, directed against the 

 rights and authority of the engineers. But in all tliis he Avas 



