HISTORICAL NOTICE. 



The manufacture of beet root sugar, one of the 

 finest and most important inventions of modern 

 times, is a project of the nineteenth century, so 

 fertile in great discoveries. Although the presence 

 of sugar in the beet had already been known, it 

 remained for this age to commence its extraction as 

 a manufacturing industry, and it was reserved to 

 France, the agricultural country par excellence, to be 

 the first to commence this new industry." 



The establishment of beet root sugar factories 

 arose entirely from political causes. In 1806 the 

 Napoleonic sway had reached its highest. By his suc- 

 cessive conquests he had acquired a formidable 

 empire, of which the other states, Spain, Prussia, 

 Austria and even Russia were only as it were the 

 satellites ; one power alone counterbalanced that of 

 the great emperor and seemed to defy him, even in the 

 midst of his unheard of glory; the English govern- 

 ment was the irreconcilable enemy of the glorious 

 continental despot. Often had Napoleon gathered 

 formidable armies together to carry the war into 

 the territory of his uassailable enemy, whose in- 

 fluence he everywhere felt, but his enerny always 

 baffled his efforts. The emperor understood that he 

 could not conquer her. except by attacking her in 



