141 
THE FIELD TELEGRAPH. 
By A. HILLIARD ATTERIDGE. 
[PLATE CVIII.] 
I N the year 1802, when Napoleon was First Consul, there 
arrived in Paris two artisans of Poitiers. One of these 
men, Jean Alexandre, had invented a rudimentary form of the 
electric telegraph, and, with his friend Beauvais, he had left 
the little country town full of high hopes to submit his dis- 
covery to the great soldier who was then guiding the destinies 
of France. He requested a personal interview with the First 
Consul, refusing to communicate his secret to anyone else. He 
was referred to the astronomer Delambre, whom he succeeded 
in convincing of the value of his invention ; still, however, 
declining to reveal the way in which the electric signals were 
transmitted, unless to Napoleon himself. But the latter 
refused to grant the required interview, saying he had no time 
to trouble himself with such matters ; and Alexandre and 
Beauvais went back to Poitiers in bitter disappointment.* 
Had Napoleon listened to the proposals of Alexandre, the 
■course of history might have been changed ; for had he been 
able to secure the exclusive possession of the electric telegraph, 
it is easy to imagine the effect it would have had upon his 
campaigns, and how difficult it would have been for even the 
allied armies of all Europe to contend against a great com- 
mander, who, by some secret means unknown to them, could 
obtain accurate and instantaneous information from every 
point of the theatre of war, and flash his orders to corps-cParmee 
divided from him and each other by miles of country, while his 
opponents had only to trust to horses and couriers to carry 
their orders and despatches. 
A very little study of the wars of the French Revolution, in 
comparison with those of our own time, will be sufficient to 
show what an advantage the telegraph is to the modern com- 
* Villefranche. La Telegraphic Frangqise, Etude Historique. 
