The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Ida Minerva Tarbell

the Column Vendôme, the Madeleine, began the Bourse, built the Pont d’Austerlitz, and ordered, commenced, or finished, a number of minor works of great importance to the city. The markets interested him particularly. “Give all possible care to the construction of the markets and to their healthfulness, and to the beauty of the Halle-aux-blés and of the Halle-aux-vins. The people, too, must have their Louvre.”

      The works undertaken outside of Paris in France, and in the countries under her rule in the time that Napoleon was in power were of a variety and extent which would be incredible, if every traveller in Europe did not have the evidence of them still before his eyes. The mere enumeration of these works and of the industrial achievements of Napoleon, made by Las Cases, reads like a fairy story. “You wish to know the treasures of Napoleon? They are immense, it is true, but they are all exposed to light. They are the noble harbors of Antwerp and Flushing, which are capable of containing the largest fleets, and of protecting them against the ice from the sea; the hydraulic works at Dunkirk, Havre, and Nice; the immense harbor of Cherbourg; the maritime works at Venice; the beautiful roads from Antwerp to Amsterdam, from Mayence to Metz, from Bordeaux to Bayonne; the passes of the Simplon, of Mont Cenis, of Mount Genèvre, of the Corniche, which open a communication through the Alps in four different directions, and which exceed in grandeur, in boldness, and in skill of execution, all the works of the Romans (in that alone you will find eight hundred millions); the roads from the Pyrenees to the Alps, from Parma to Spezia, from Savona to Piedmont; the bridges of Jena, Austerlitz, Des Arts, Sèvres, Tours, Roanne, Lyons, Turin; of the Isère, of the Durance, of Bordeaux, of Rouen, etc.; the canal which connects the Rhine with the Rhone by the Doubs, and thus unites the North Sea with the Mediterranean; the canal which joins the Scheldt with the Somme, and thus joins Paris and Amsterdam; the canal which unites the Rance to the Vilaine; the canal of Arles; that of Pavia, and the canal of the Rhine; the draining of the marshes of Bourgoin, of the Cotentin, of Rochefort; the rebuilding of the greater part of the churches destroyed by the Revolution; the building of others: the institution of numerous establishments of industry for the suppression of mendicity; the gallery at the Louvre; the construction of public warehouses, of the Bank, of the canal of the Ourcq; the distribution of water in the city of Paris; the numerous drains, the quays, the embellishments, and the monuments of that large capital; the works for the embellishment of Rome; the reëstablishment of the manufactures of Lyons; the creation of many hundreds of manufactories of cotton, for spinning and for weaving, which employ several millions of workmen; funds accumulated to establish upwards of four hundred manufactories of sugar from beet-root, for the consumption of part of France, and which would have furnished sugar at the same price as the West Indies, if they had continued to receive encouragement for only four years longer; the substitution of woad for indigo, which would have been at last brought to a state of perfection in France, and obtained as good and as cheap as the indigo from the colonies; numerous manufactories for all kinds of objects of art, etc.; fifty millions expended in repairing and beautifying the palaces belonging to the Crown; sixty millions in furniture for the palaces belonging to the Crown in France, in Holland, at Turin, and at Rome; sixty millions of diamonds for the Crown, all purchased with Napoleon’s money; the Regent (the only diamond that was left belonging to the former diamonds of the Crown) withdrawn from the hands of the Jews at Berlin, in whose hands it had been left as a pledge for three millions. The Napoleon Museum, valued at upwards of four hundred millions, filled with objects legitimately acquired, either by moneys or by treaties of peace known to the whole world, by virtue of which the chefs-d’oeuvres, it contains were given in lieu of territory or of contributions. Several millions amassed to be applied to the encouragement of agriculture, which is the paramount consideration for the interest of France; the introduction into France of merino sheep, etc. These form a treasure of several thousand millions which will endure for ages.”

      MEDALLION OF BONAPARTE

      Napoleon himself looked on these achievements as his most enduring monument. “The allied powers cannot take from me hereafter,” he told O’Meara, “the great public works I have executed, the roads which I made over the Alps, and the seas which I have united. They cannot place their feet to improve where mine have not been before. They cannot take from me the code of laws which I formed, and which will go down to posterity.”

      MOREAU, ABOUT 1801.