DUFAUEE, JULES A. S. 



DYNAMITE MANUFACTURE. 223 



her of the Council of State in 1836, but resigned 

 in the following year and became one of the 

 most active of the Opposition members. In 

 May, 1839, he entered the Passy-Villemain 

 Cabinet as Minister of Public Works. The 

 Thiers Cabinet succeeded, the folio wring year, 

 which was followed by that of Guizot, in which 

 Dufaure refused a place, and joined the Oppo- 

 sition, although most of his colleagues remained 

 in office. He opposed the fortification of Paris 

 and the compact with England regarding the 

 right of search, over which was raised a cry 

 against " perfidious Albion." He spoke in 

 favor of the expropriation law, and in 1842 

 advocated the railway law. He became the 

 leader of the famous " third party," which 

 many of the chief liberals joined. After the 

 Revolution of February Dufaure declared him- 

 self in favor of the republic, and took part in 

 the Constituent Assembly as one of the leaders 

 of the Moderate Democracy. Cavaignac called 

 him to his Cabinet, October 13, 1848, as Min- 

 ister of the Interior, and he had the direction 

 of the official preparations for the election of a 

 president of the republic. He favored the can- 

 didature of Cavaignac as being " a man and not 

 an empty name." On December 20th he re- 

 signed from the ministry and resumed his seat 

 in the Constituent and in the Legislative As- 

 sembly. On June 2, 1849, Louis Napoleon 

 offered him the portfolio of the Interior again, 

 which he accepted from patriotic motives, 

 without ceasing to denounce the National 

 Guards and the political meetings. He was 

 dismissed October 31st, and took his stand as 

 one of the most vigorous opponents of the 

 personal politics of Louis Napoleon, of the 

 revision of the Constitution, and of illegal 

 re-election of the President. After the coup 

 d'etat he resumed practice at the Paris bar. 

 After the German War and the fall of the sec- 

 ond empire he was again elected a deputy from 

 the department of Charente-Inferieure, and 

 was chosen Minister of Justice under Thiers, 

 and then became Vice-President of the Coun- 

 cil. On May 19, 1873, he resigned office, and 

 took a stand as leader of the Left Center against 

 prolonging the extraordinary powers intrusted 

 to MacMahon, and in favor of the adoption as 

 a whole of the constitutional laws. He entered 

 the Buffet Cabinet as Minister of Justice, and 

 through this impolitic step lost his election as 

 candidate for the Senate in January, 1876. He 

 was then elected a deputy, and on March 9th 

 was chosen President of the Council. He en- 

 tered the Senate after the death of Casimir 

 Perier. Dufaure by his shrewd and deter- 

 mined course contributed materially to the fall 

 of MacMahon and the election of Gre" vy to the 

 presidency. Dufaure was a minister in seven 

 different cabinets and under five different 

 rulers. He never enjoyed any great measure 

 of popularity. He was too often in the Oppo- 

 sition and too rigid in his principles to win 



popular admiration. He never courted it, nor 

 planned combinations to secure his own ad- 

 vancement, nor connived in any of the acts of 

 illegality or usurpation which have marked the 

 course of French history in the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. He was the obstinate defender of the 

 principle of legality at every juncture, but re- 

 fused his services to no government so long as 

 it kept within the strict limits of what he con- 

 sidered constitutional action. Always follow- 

 ing patriotic aims with single-minded purpose, 

 he was a shrewd and crafty political tactician. 

 As an orator, in the tribune or at the bar, he 

 was remarkably clear and forcible in his state- 

 ments, and was counted one of the most effect- 

 ive speakers, although his delivery was not 

 attractive, and his speeches were devoid of wit 

 or passion, but did not lack biting sarcasms on 

 occasion. As a minister in the various depart- 

 ments which he filled he displayed the highest 

 order of practical ability and judgment. The 

 French railway system was developed accord- 

 ing to his plans. Throughout his public life, 

 even to the day of his death in extreme old 

 age, Dufaure's counsels had more weight in 

 critical junctures of public affairs than those 

 of almost any of his contemporaries, and more 

 than one grave national disaster was averted 

 through his wisdom. 



DYNAMITE MANUFACTURE. The 

 French Academy of Sciences has recently 

 awarded a prize of twenty-five hundred francs 

 to Messrs. Boutmy and Foucher for introduc- 

 ing new modes of producing nitro- glycerine in 

 quantity, by means of which the manufacture 

 of dynamite has been rendered much safer than 

 heretofore. The old method, in which fuming 

 nitric acid, or a mixture of that substance and 

 sulphuric acid, was made to act on glycerine, 

 and the mass was suddenly immersed in water, 

 often resulted in the production of enough heat 

 to decompose a part of the nitro-glycerine and 

 occasion a violent explosion in spite of the 

 best refrigerating processes that could be em- 

 ployed. The principle of the new process, for 

 which the prize has been conferred, consists in 

 obviating the greater part of the heat by first 

 engaging the glycerine in a combination with 

 sulphuric acid, which forms a sulpho-gly eerie 

 acid, and then destroying this compound slowly, 

 by means of nitric acid. Two liquors are pre- 

 pared in advance a sulpho-glyceric and a sul- 

 pho-nitric liquor, the latter with equal weights 

 of sulphuric and nitric acids. These disengage 

 a considerable amount of heat; they are al- 

 lowed to cool, and are then combined in such 

 proportions that the reaction takes place slow- 

 ly. In the old method the nitro-glycerine is 

 separated almost instantaneously, and rises in 

 part to the surface, rendering washing difficult ; 

 in the new method it forms in about twenty 

 hours, with a regularity which prevents dan- 

 ger, and goes to the bottom of the vessel, so 

 that it can be washed rapidly. 



