14 



million, of which exportation 72 million were gold and 

 silver and 163 million of unmanufactured cotton, neither 

 of which, to any extent, was exported by France, leav- 

 ing only 206 million as the product of our agricultural 

 nnd manufjicturing industry for export, after what is 

 consumed by our people, against 581 million, which is 

 the surplus of her agricultural and manufacturing indus- 

 try exported after maintaining her own people. And 

 although we boast of our cotton and tobacco as- sources 

 of wealth, yet she has her wines, brandies and sugars, of 

 which latter France exported in 1868 six million dollars,, 

 and w^e imported sixty millions. 



The common idea in this country that wealth is not 

 diffused in France as with us, l)ut is only in the hands 

 of a few rich nobles, is another mistake quite as illusory 

 as any of the misunderstandings of the agricultural and 

 industrial condition of our ancient ally. While the na- 

 tional debt of France at the beginning of the present 

 year was almost precisely the same as ours — being 2700 

 million ; yet, instead of being as ours is, 1500 million 

 owed to foreigners, to say nothing of State and County 

 debts which are things unheard of in the departments of 

 France, it is divided among and held l)y more than dcvcii 

 hundred thousand Frenchmen, giving a share of a])out 

 2500 dollars to each. The actual diffusion of wealth 

 among the middling and industrial classes is evident, 

 because when a loan of 90 million of dollars was offered 

 by the Emperor to the people, an actual suljscription ol 

 3152 million, or more than 35 times the sum asked for, 

 was made by 781 thousand different persons (all French 

 men, and generally in small sums) because the pro^i- 

 dence of their government, differing from ours, gives to 



