316 



FOULD, ACHILLE. 



FRANCE. 



per stamp duty. On questions of foreign policy 

 he supported the Guizot ministry, and generally 

 voted with the conservative majority. When the 

 revolution of February, 1848, occurred, M. 

 Fould frankly and cordially accepted the new 

 state of affairs, and freely offered the benefit 

 of his experience and advice to the Provisional 

 Government on financial matters. He was 

 elected to the Constitutional Assembly as one 

 of the representatives of the Department of the 

 Seine, in July, 1848, and soon after published 

 two pamphlets, " Pas (VAssignats " and " Opin- 

 ion de M. Fould sur les Assignats^ in which 

 he forcibly pointed out the danger of certain 

 theories in finance, which some of the ministers 

 of the day were understood to favor. His 

 speeches in the Assembly on Treasury bonds, 

 savings-banks, taxes on liquors, completion of 

 the Louvre, etc., gained for him the confidence 

 and sympathy of the majority of the Assembly. 

 He was elected reporter on the bill for the re- 

 imbursement of the forty-five centimes levied 

 under the Provisional Government, and was a 

 irtember of several commissions, including that 

 which was charged with examining the accounts 

 of the government. Under the presidency of 

 Louis Napoleon, he was four times Minister of 

 Finance, and used his best efforts to restore 

 confidence to capitalists. On several topics of 

 finance he differed widely from the Prince 

 President, but the latter had so much confi- 

 dence in his extraordinary abilities and integ- 

 rity, that on the day of the coup d'etat (De- 

 cember 2, 1851) he tendered him again the 

 portfolio of Finance, which he accepted,' but 

 opposed most energetically the decree con- 

 fiscating the property of the Orleans family, 

 and resigned office on the 25th of January, 

 1852, when that decree was promulgated. The 

 same day, however, his name appeared in the 

 list of Senators, and a few months later he 

 again entered the Imperial Cabinet as Minister 

 of State and of the Imperial Household. It 

 was while he held these two offices that he 

 directed the management of the Universal Ex- 

 position of 1855, the reorganization of the 

 opera, as administered by the state, and the 

 completion of the new Louvre. He was not a 

 favorite of the Empress, whose extravagance 

 he had more than once rebuked, and she 

 sought to have him removed from office. But 

 the Emperor prized too highly the financial 

 skill and integrity of his great finance minister 

 to be willing to have him long out of his cabi- 

 net. In the autumn of 1861 M. Fould, who 

 was then in private life, addressed to the Em- 

 peror that memorable letter on the state of the 

 finances, which decided his Majesty to relin- 

 quish the prerogative of opening supplemental 

 and extraordinary credits, and to restore to the 

 Corps Legislatif its " undoubted attributions." 

 In November of the same year he was invited 

 by the Emperor to resume once more the direc- 

 tion of the finances. He held office this time 

 for more than five years, and among his meas- 

 ures during this period may be mentioned his 



regulations concerning the public accounts, the 

 conversion of four and a half per cents., and the 

 new loan of three hundred million francs. He 

 resigned office in the ministerial crisis in the 

 beginning of 1867, and had since been living 

 in comparative retirement, spending much time 

 at his fine estate at Tarbes. M. Fould was a 

 man of courteous and genial manners, accessi- 

 ble to all, faithful in his friendships, and of a 

 noble, generous nature. His culture was both 

 extensive and profound, and amid the cares of 

 state, he never intermitted his interest in 

 literature and the fine arts. Possessed of an 

 immense fortune, he made a most generous use 

 of it, bestowing liberally, though always dis- 

 criminatingly, his charities to the poor, and 

 regarding himself as the party benefited in his 

 deeds of kindness. 



FRANCE, an empire in Europe. Emperor, 

 Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III.), born April 

 20, 1808, chosen hereditary Emperor by the 

 plebiscite of November 21 and November 22, 

 1852. Heir-apparent, Napoleon Eugene Louis 

 Jean Joseph, born March 16, 1856. The area 

 amounts to 207,232 square miles. The popu- 

 lation, according to the census of 1866, was 

 38,192,094. The population of the chief cities, 

 according to the census of 1866, was as fol- 

 lows : Paris, 1,825,274 ; Lyons, 323,954; Mar- 

 seilles, 300,131 ; Bordeaux, 194.241 ; Lille, 154,- 

 749; Toulouse, 126,936; Nantes, 111,956; 

 Eouen, 100,671. 



The movement of the population in France 

 presents some interesting features ; especially 

 when compared with that of England. It ap- 

 pears that, in the five years between 1831 and 

 1866, the population increased by 680,933, or 

 less than one- third (0.33) per cent, per annum. 

 In England and Wales the increase was one 

 and a quarter per cent. (1.23), or nearly four 

 times as rapid as in France. At its present 

 rate of increase, 183 years would be required 

 for the population of France to double itself. 

 But this is not all : of the 680,933 addition in 

 five years, 328,412, or nearly half, is town 

 population ; in 31 out of 89 departments there 

 was an actual decrease. The length of life in 

 France is improving, but the number of births 

 continues abnormally small no more now in a 

 population of 38,000,000 than in 1800, when 

 the population was only 27,000,000. The 

 birth rate in France is 1 in 38 ; in England it 

 is 1 in 29. The marriage rate is 1 in 127 in 

 France; in England 1 to 113. The death 

 rate appears to be nearly the same, or 1 in 44. 



The colonial possessions of France w r ere in- 

 creased in 1867 by the annexation of three 

 more provinces in Cochin China, which makes 

 the whole of Lower Cochin China French 

 territory. The present population of the colo- 

 nial possessions of France is reported as follows : 

 Asia, 1,729,057; Africa, 973,439; America, 

 306,912; Oceanica, 52.480; total colonial pos- 

 sessions, 3,061,888. But this total does not 

 include the population of the three provinces 

 in Cochin China which were annexed in 1867. 



