Robinson.] ^" [May 7, 



So it was, that Mr. Chevalier and other distinguished pupils of the Poly- 

 technic School, and the Schools of Bridges and Highways, and Mines, be- 

 came in 1830 St. Sinionians, and he one of the leaders of the sect and 

 editor of the Olobe, its organ, until its suppression by the government in 

 1833, when Mr. Michel Chevalier as its Iiedacteur-e7i-C7ief, was condemned 

 to imprisonment for a j'ear, from which he was released at the expiration 

 of six months, and iuimediatel}" appointed by Mr. Thiers, then Minister of 

 Public Works (who had not forgotten in the St. Simonian, the young and 

 talented Engineer of Mines of the Department of the Nortli), to visit the 

 United States, to inquire minutely as to its canals and railroads, and the 

 financial and banking systems, both of the States and the General Govern- 

 ment. 



In this mission, including a visit of a few months to Mexico, Mr. Che- 

 valier occupied about two years in 1833, '34 and '35 ; and during his travels 

 in the United States, he addressed to the Journal Des Behats, from 

 different points on his route, frequent letters, beautifully written, exhibit- 

 ing large reflection, both on the subjects of his mission, and others of equal 

 interest, and indicating with great tact many industrial hindrances in his 

 native countr}^ which he considered burdensome. These letters, with 

 some slight changes, were published in 1836, in two octavo volumes, and 

 gained him immediately the spontaneous plaudits of eminent men of both 

 continents, and a high reputation among the writers and thinkers of Europe. 

 Mr. Gallatin said of them that they were the most graphic and truest view 

 of the social condition of the United States ; and the great Humboldt wrote 

 to him that his book might be considered a treatise on the civilization of 

 the people of the West. He was indebted to this work for an appointment 

 by the French government on a mission to England, in 1837, to study 

 there, the causes and eftects of the commercial crisis, which commencing in 

 the United States at the close of 1836 had extended to England in 1837. 

 This mission proved an unfortunate one for him. A few days after his ar- 

 rival in London, in returning from a session of Parliament with Mr. 

 Bourqueney, the then Charge d' Affaires of France to England, in tbe car- 

 riage of the latter, the horses ran away and upset the carriage. Mr. Bour- 

 queney was but slightly injured by the accident, but Mr. Chevalier 

 having fallen on his head, was taken at once Jo the house of the French 

 Minister, was for several days insensible, and his life for some weeks in 

 serious peril ; and it was only after passing several months in the south of 

 France, and at the Pyrenean Baths, that his health was sufliciently re-es. 

 tablished to admit of his resuming his labors. 



At the expiration of a year from his recovery, near the close of 1833, he 

 published his celebrated work, entitled " The. Material Interests of France, 

 its Boads, Canals, and Railroads.'" This work was, to a great extent, a 

 programme of ameliorations, many of them suggested by him, soon to take 

 place, and which made the France of 1850 scarcely recognizable by 

 travelers who had known well the France of 1840. 



Such had been the brilliant and useful career, and such was the position 



