364 
PAEIS UNIVEESAL 
riousness, but rather with reluctance, and far more in the hope 
that a full knowledge of the facts may have some influence in 
preventing like errors on the part of the State, in the future, 
than as an act of justice to the Commission, to which, under 
the circumstances, that higher degree of success for which it 
labored was thus rendered impossible. 
THE EXPOSITION—CONDITION AT DATE OF OPENING. 
Arriving at Paris on the 31st day of March—the day pre¬ 
vious to the great day of inauguration—I proceeded at once to 
the scene of preparation on the Champ de Mars. 
Was it an augury of the final end of war and the early com¬ 
ing of the reign of peace, this gathering of the products of the 
industrial arts, and this proposed intermingling of the repre¬ 
sentatives of all lands on the field of Mars ? and was it so de¬ 
signed by the imperial Napoleon? The hope of the philan¬ 
thropist should not be over sanguine. The first national indus¬ 
trial exhibition ever held in the world was held on this same 
field, dedicated to the God of War. It was in the year 1798. 
France had but just emerged from one of the bloodiest revolu¬ 
tions recorded in history. The enthusiastic people of the new 
Eepublic had seen the star of liberty descend and rest upon the 
brow of Napoleon, who was to lead them to a destiny the glory 
of which they had but dimly conceived. And so, to them, it 
seemed fitting that in the opening dawn of the national pros¬ 
perity, this field should be planted with flowers. But who 
does not know that after that, and very soon thereafter, all 
Europe resounded with the roar of artillery, and was rocked 
by the heavy tread of millions of armed men—^that Marengo, 
Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Wagram and Waterloo followed, like 
reverberations of one continuous roll of thunder, and that, 
since the “ permanent peace ” then established, nay, since the 
inauguration of the universal exhibitions of industry, the con¬ 
tinent has been revolutionized and re-mapped over and over 
again! 
Still, it is well that mankind should cherish the hope of the 
better day to come, “ when the nations shall learn war no 
