146 LEGISLATION OS TORRENTS. 



ened with dissolution. Particulars are given in the Annates foresliers, of 

 December 1848 and January 1849. 



This, however, proved but a passing storm. On the establishment of the 

 empire the Forest Administration, promptly re-constituted, shared after 

 1852 the great impulse which was given to public works. 



There are decrees dated 17th and 27th March, and laws of the 12th 

 April 1853, of 5th May 1855, of 28th July 1860, and of 8th June 1864, 

 which have authorised alienations or extensive fellings of the State forests. 

 These may be considered comparatively unimportant operations, and the 

 proceeds of them were to be employed in works of reproduction. But when, in 

 1865, the Government proposed the alienation of forest domains to the 

 extent of 100,000,000 of francs, to be applied to the commencement and 

 prosecution of public works, public opinion was roused, and, alarmed 

 by the proposal, publicists of every shade, politicians, savants, littera- 

 teurs, &c., combined their efforts and raised a crusade against the prcget de 

 loi, which made it necessary to withdraw it. 



Meanwhile another inundation, or the cotemporaneous occurrence of a num- 

 ber of inundations, had given a new direction to men's thoughts on the subject. 



In the month of May 1856 violent and almost uninterrupted rains fell 

 throughout France, and most of the river-basins of the country were 

 inundated to an extraordinary extent. In the valleys of the Loire and its 

 affluents about a million of acres, including many towns and villages, were 

 laid under water, and the amount of the pecuniary damage was almost 

 incalculable. 



The flood was not less destructive in the valley of the Ehone, and an 

 invasion by a hostile army, it was said, could hardly have been more 

 disastrous to the inhabitants of the plains than was this terrible deluge. 



" In the fifteen years between these two great floods," says Marsh, " the 

 population and the rural improvements of the river valleys had much 

 increased. Common roads, bridges, and railways had been multiplied and 

 extended ; telegraph lines had been constructed, — all of which shared in 

 the general ruin, and hence greater and more diversified interests were 

 affected by the catastrophe of 1856 than by any former like calamity. The 

 great flood of 1840 had excited the attention and roused the sympathies of 

 the French people, and the subject was invested with new interest by the 

 still more formidable character of the inundations of 1856. It was felt that 

 these scourges had ceased to be a matter of merely local concern, for, 

 although they bpre most heavily on those whose homes and fields were 

 situated within the immediate reach of the swelling waters, yet they 

 frequently destroyed harvests valuable enough to be a matter of national 

 interest, endangered the personal security of the population of important 

 political centres, interrupted communication for days and even weeks 

 together on great lines of traffic and travel, thus severing, as it were, all 

 South- Western France from the rest of the empire, and finally threatening 

 to produce great and permanent geographical changes. The well-being of 

 the whole commonwealth was seen to be involved in preventing the 

 recurrence and in limiting the range of such devastations." 



" The inundations of 1846, and more especially those of 1856," wrote 

 C6zanne, " compelled attention to be given to the conservation of the forests. 

 In proportion to the greatness of the prosperity which prevailed, and the 

 profound feeling of security which had lulled so many to sleep, the more 

 severe and the more unexpected seemed the disasters thus occasioned," 



