88 Travels in France 



ten French feet wide and twelve high, hewn entirely out of the 

 chalk rock, embedded in which are many flints — no masonry. 

 There is only a small part finished of ten toises long for a pattern, 

 twenty feet broad and twenty high. Five thousand toises are 

 already done in the manner of that part which I viewed ; and the 

 whole distance under ground, when the tunnel will be complete, 

 is 7020 toises (each six feet) or about nine miles. It has already 

 cost 1,200,000 li\Tes (£52,500) and there wants 2,500,000 li\Tes 

 (£109,375) to complete it; so that the total estimate is near four 

 millions. It is executed by shafts. At present there is not 

 above five or six inches of water in it. This great work has 

 stood still entirely since the administration of the Archbishop 

 of Toulouse. When we see such works stand still for want of 

 money we shall reasonably be inclined to ask. What are the 

 services that continue supplied ? and to conclude that amongst 

 kings, and ministers, and nations, economy is the first virtue: 

 — without it genius is a meteor, victory a sound, and all courtly 

 splendour a public robbery. 



At Cambray, view the manufacture. These frontier towns 

 of Flanders are built in the old style, but the streets broad, hand- 

 some, well paved, and lighted. I need not observe that all are 

 fortified, and that every step in this country has been rendered 

 famous or infamous, according to the feelings of the spectator, 

 by many of the bloodiest wars that have disgraced and exhausted 

 Christendom. At the hotel de Bourbon I was well lodged, fed, 

 and attended: an excellent inn. — 22 miles. 



2nd. Pass Bouchaine to Valenciennes, another old town 

 which, like the rest of the Flemish ones, manifests more the 

 wealth of former than of present times. — 18 miles. 



2,rd. To Orchees ; and the 4th to Lisle, which is surrounded 

 by more windmills for expressing the oil of coleseed than are to> 

 be seen anywhere else I suppose in the world. Pass fewer draw- 

 bridges and works of fortification here than at Calais ; the great 

 strength of this place is in its mines, and other souteraines. In 

 the evening to the play. 



The cry here for a war with England amazed me. Every one- 

 I talked with said it was beyond a doubt the English had called 

 the Prussian army into Holland ; and that the motives in France 

 for a war were numerous and manifest. It is easy enough to- 

 discover that the origin of all this violence is the commercial 

 treatv, which is execrated here as the most fatal stroke to their 

 manufactures they ever experienced. These people have the- 

 true monopolising ideas; they would involve four-and-twenty 



