FRENCH IRON-CLAD SQUADRON. " 205 



guns. I still firmly believe that the gnns "with which our iron-clads are armed, are 

 superior to those employed in auy other navy, but I am sorry to see that for two 

 years past we do not hear of any process recorded as having been made in marine 

 artillery, and I am still much more sorry to hear that we are departing from the 

 fruitful path we were treading with so much profit to ourselves. It is said that 

 we are quitting this path in order to throw ourselves upon guns of such weight and 

 calibre that no engineer at present, I believe, could construct them except indeed 

 as experimental studies, devoid of practical value. I feel a very strong current 

 which is carrying us in this direction and which threatens to paralyse completely 

 the progress we had made in following the only course which in this class of facts 

 can conduct us to sure results. "Within a very short time, by proceeding at each 

 step from the known to the unknown, we had successively given to the navy tha 

 rifled cannon, the grain de lumiere which preserves the piece indefiuitely, the 

 hooped cannon which allows an immense economy of material; and the loading at 

 the breech, which has undergone the test of more than 20,000 shots with but one 

 accident, and that arose from inexperienced gunners forgetting to close the breech; 

 and lastly we had the real piece for power in the Marie-Jeanne which with 30 

 calibre and a weight of only 5800 chilogrammes, pierced without fail plates 12 

 centimetres thick at 1000 metres distance. Up to the present time no other gun 

 has effected this, and after firing 300 shots she is not yet the worse for it to a de- 

 gree worth mentioning. 



This was the point we had reached in August, 1861, but there we appear to 

 have stopped, and it is now proposed to abandon all this in order to learn from 

 the Americans and English how to make at the first jump guns weiging 15 or 20 

 tons, or even more. Foreign example is exercising on our lively imaginations 

 an influence which threatens to destroy our equilibrium. The large figures that 

 are quoted to us are turning a number of heads who forget to ask what serious re- 

 sult these large figures have produced. I know of only one, and that is our 

 proved incapacity for making guns of 20 tons which shall be actual weapons of war, 

 just as we are also incapable as yet of building ships of 20000 tons which shall 

 practically succeed. Ought not, for instance, what has passed at the siege of 

 Charleston to open everybody's eyes, and disabuse the most darkened understand- 

 ing? Is there no lesson in the figui-e of 440 pounds given as the weight of pro- 

 jectiles which bombarded for 150 days the old fort Sumpter without rendering 

 it untenable by the Confederates? Is it in France that we ought to be discussing 

 such things— in France, where we saw at Fort Liedot some light but powerful 

 pieces of the modest calibre of 24, at 1300 metres distance, and in 260 strokes, 

 open a breach in a rampart of masonry, which they could not even see, because 

 it was hidden from view by the glacis having been elevated iiearly to the height 

 of the crest of the pars pet ? Or ought we to allow ourselves to be turned out of our 

 progressive course by the alleged 300 and even 600 pounders which Sir W. Arm- 

 strong constructs by manipulation in profound secrecy, when we see that in Eng- 

 land his 11 0-pounder, corresponding to our calibre ;-6, is declared at the least 

 "suspect" in the most solemn investigations, and that, in their own despite, the 

 English navy is reduced to arm its frigates with tlie old smooth-bore 68 pounder ? 

 The English government has published on this question two enormous volumes of 



