Paris in the Twentieth Century (15 page)

"Perfect.
Leviathan IV
has
just docked, and we can have a look at this marvel. "

The
little group went out into the street, Michel offered his arm to the young
lady, and everyone headed for the railroad station.

This
famous project of a Paris seaport had at last been realized; for a long while
it had not raised much interest; many visited the canal site and were loud in
their derision, dismissing the entire venture as a folly. But in the last
decade, the incredulous had been obliged to yield to the facts.

Already
the capital seemed likely to become something like a Liverpool in the heart of
France; a long series of canals and wet docks dug in the vast plains of
Grenelle and Issy could accommodate a thousand high-tonnage vessels. In this
herculean task, industry seemed to have achieved the extreme limits of the possible.

Frequently
during previous centuries—under Louis XIV, under Louis Philippe—this notion of
digging a canal from Paris to the sea had been broached. In 1863, a company was
authorized to prepare plans, at its own expense, linking Paris to Creil,
Beauvais, or Dieppe; but the elevations necessitated many locks and
considerable waterways in order to realize such a project; the Oise and the B
é
thune,
the only available rivers in this area, were soon judged inadequate, and the
company abandoned its endeavor.

Sixty-five
years later, the State returned to the notion, favoring a system already
proposed in the last century, a system whose logic and simplicity had caused it
to be summarily dismissed at the time; it involved using the Seine, the
natural artery between Paris and the Atlantic.

In
less than fifteen years, a civil engineer named Montanet cut a canal which,
starting on the Plaine de Grenelle, ended just above Rouen, measuring a hundred
and forty kilometers in length, seventy meters in width, and twenty meters in
depth; this operation produced a bed containing about a hundred and ninety
million cubic meters; such a canal would never be in danger of running dry, for
the fifty thousand liters per second the Seine produces amply sufficed to fill
it. Excavations in the bed of the lower part of the river had opened the canal
to the biggest ships. Thus navigation from Le Havre to Paris no longer raised
any difficulties.

There
existed in France at the time, according to the Dupeyrat Project, a railway
network on the tow- paths of all canals. Powerful locomotives towed the tugs
and transport vessels with no difficulty. This system, greatly enlarged, had
been applied to the Rouen canal, and it may readily be imagined how rapidly commercial
vessels as well as government shipping sailed up to Paris. The new port had
been magnificently constructed, and soon Uncle Huguenin and his guests were
strolling on the granite quays, amid a considerable crowd.

There
were eighteen wet docks, only two of which were reserved for the government
ships assigned to protect the fisheries and the French colonies. Here, as well,
were reproductions of armored frigates of the nineteenth century, which the
archaeologists admired without quite understanding.

These
war machines had ultimately assumed incredible though readily explainable
proportions; for a period of some fifty years, there had been an absurd duel
between armor and cannonballs, as to which would resist and which would
penetrate. Cast-iron hulls became so thick, and cannon so heavy, that ships
ended by sinking under their burden, and this result brought to a close this
noble rivalry just when cannon- balls were about to triumph over armor.

"This
was how they fought back then, " observed Uncle Huguenin, pointing to one
of these iron monsters pacifically moored at the rear of the basin. "Men
shut themselves up in these floating fortresses, and then they had to sink the
others or be sunk themselves. "

"But
individual courage didn't have much to do in such machines, " protested
Michel.

"Courage
was outdated, like the cannons, " Uncle Huguenin commented with a smile.
"Machines fought, not men; hence the impulse to put an end to wars, which
had become ridiculous. I could still conceive of battle, in the days when you
stood man to man, and when you killed your adversary with your own hands—"

"How
bloodthirsty you are, Monsieur Huguenin!" exclaimed Lucy.

"Not
at all, my dear, I'm merely reasonable, insofar as reason has anything to do
with such things; war once had its raison
d’être
,
but since cannons have had a range of eight thousand meters, and a thirty-six-
millimeter cannonball at a hundred meters could pass through thirty-four horses
and sixty-eight men, you'll have to admit that individual courage had become a
luxury. "

"Indeed,
" Michel commented, "machines have killed bravery, and soldiers have
become mechanics. "

During
this archaeological discussion, the four visitors continued their promenade
through the wonders of the commercial docks. Around them rose an entire town of
taverns where sailors ate their meals and smoked their pipes. These brave
fellows felt quite at home in this mercantile port in the very center of the

Plaine
de Grenelle, and they were free to make all the racket they liked. They formed,
moreover, a distinct population, not mingling with the inhabitants of the other
suburbs, and quite unsociable. It was a kind of Havre separated from Paris by
no more than the width of the Seine.

The
commercial waterways were connected by cantilever bridges operated at fixed
hours by means of the Catacomb Company's compressed-air machines. The water
vanished beneath the ships' hulls; most advanced by means of carbonic-acid
vapor; not a three- master, a brig, a schooner, a lugger, a coasting vessel
which was not fitted with its propeller; wind was no longer a source of energy;
it was no longer in use, no longer sought, and old Aeolus, scorned, hid shamefaced
in his bag.

It
is easy to imagine how cutting through the isthmuses of Suez and Panama had
increased long-distance commercial navigation; maritime operations, delivered
from monopolies and from the shackles of ministerial brokers, enormously
increased; ships multiplied in all forms. Certainly it was a magnificent
spectacle, these steamers of all sizes and all nationalities whose flags spread
their thousand colors on the breeze; huge wharves, enormous warehouses
protected the merchandise which was unloaded by means of the most ingenious
machines; some prepared packing materials, others weighed them, some labeled
them, still others stowed them onboard; ships towed by locomotives slid along
the granite walls; bales of cotton and wool, sacks of sugar and coffee, crates
of tea, all the products of the four quarters of the world were heaped up in
towering mountains of commerce; many-colored panels announced the ships
departing for every point on the globe, and all the languages of the earth were
spoken in this Port de Grenelle, the busiest in the world.

The
sight of this vast basin from the heights of Arcueil or Meudon was really
splendid; as far as the eye could see extended a forest of flag-studded masts;
a tide-signal tower stood at the entrance to the port, while at the rear an
electric lighthouse, no longer much used, rose into the sky to a height of 152
meters. This was the highest monument in the world, and its lights could be
seen, forty leagues away, from the towers of Rouen Cathedral. The entire
spectacle deserved to be admired.

"This
is all really splendid, " said Uncle Huguenin.

"Pulchre
[60]
sight," echoed the professor.

"If
we have neither water nor sea wind, " continued Monsieur Huguenin,
"here at least are the ships which water bears and the wind drives!"

But
where the crowd clustered most thickly, so that it became really difficult to
pass through, was on the quays of the largest basin, which could scarcely accommodate
the recently docked gigantic
Leviathan IV;
the last
century's
Great Eastern
[61]
would not have been worthy to be her launch; her home berth was New York, and
the Americans could boast of having defeated the British; the ship had thirty
masts and fifteen chimneys; of her thirty thousand horsepower, twenty thousand
was for the drive wheels and ten thousand for the propeller; railroad tracks
made it possible to circulate swiftly from one end of her decks to the other,
and in the space between the masts could be admired several squares planted
with huge trees, whose shade spread over flowerbeds and lawns; here the elegant
passengers could ride horseback down winding bridle paths; soil spread to a
depth of three meters over the main deck had produced these floating parks.
This ship was a world, and her crossings achieved prodigious results; she came
from New York to Southampton in three days; sixty-one meters wide, her length
may be judged by the following fact: when
Leviathan
IV
docked
prow foremost at the quay, rear-deck passengers still had to walk a quarter of
a league before they reached terra firma.

"Soon,
" Uncle Huguenin said, strolling under the oaks, rowans, and acacias of
the promenade deck, "soon they'll manage to construct that fantastic Dutch
ship whose bowsprit was already at Mauritius when its helm was still in the
harbor of Brest!"

Were
Michel and Lucy admiring this enormous machine like the rest of this astonished
crowd? I cannot say for certain, but they strolled about, speaking in low
voices, or saying nothing at all, and staring into each other's eyes; they
returned to Uncle Huguenin's lodgings without having seen much, or anything,
of the wonders of the Port de Grenelle!