Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/553

NAVY.] F II A N C E .517 LE MANS Eurc-ct-Loir, Mayennc, Orne, Sail he, part of Seine-et- Oisc, and Seine. LILLE Nord, Pas-de-Calais. I.IMOCES Chaiente, Correze, Creusc, Durdogne, Haute- Vienne. MARSEILLES Basses-Alpes, Alpes-Muritiincs, Corse, Bouches-du- Klioini, Gard, Ardeclic, Var, Vaucluse. MONTPEI.I.IKK Aude, Aveyron, Herault, Lozerc, Tarn, Pyre nc es- Orientales. NANTKS I- inistcre, Loirc-Infdrieure, Morbihan, Vendde. OIM.EAX.S Loiret, Loir-ct-Cher, Scinc-et-Marne, Yonne, part of Seine-c t-Oise and of Seine. KKNNF.S Cotes-du-Nord, Manche, Ille-et-Vilaino. HOUEN Calvados, Eure, Seiue-infdrieure, part of Seine-et-0i. v c and of Seine. TOULOUSE Aridge, Haute-Garonnc, G<srs, Lot, Lot-et-Garonne, Turn-ct-Garonne. TOURS Mainc-ct-Loiru, Indre-et-Loire, Deux-Sevres, Vlenne. onal The national guard no longer exists ; one of the first d- measures of the Government of M. Thiers, after crusliing the Parisian insurrection of 1871, was to suppress it. Some institutions must be mentioned here as attached to the war department, and completing the military organi- hles zation of France. The Hotel des Invalides was founded ides, by Louis XIV. as a house of refuge for old infirm soldiers of all grades ; but the number of the inmates is always decreasing, as old soldiers now generally prefer to live at home on their pensions and private resources, rather than to live in common apart from their families and under military discipline. In 1875 the Invalides numbered only 64:! ; but the same year the maintenance of the Hotel cost mofthe state 1,123,053 francs. The order of the Legion of ur - Honour, founded by Bonaparte in 1802, embraces both soldiers and civilians among its members. It is composed of knights (chevaliers), officers, commanders, grand-officers, and grand-crosses. The chief of the government of France has the title of grand master, and is the head of the order, which is managed by a grand chancellor and a council, the members of which are appointed by the president of the republic, as well as all the legionnaires, whose number is now about 38,500. A military medal, with a yearly pen sion of 100 francs, has been awarded, since 1852, to private soldiers and non-commissioned officers who have distinguished themselves in the service or on the field. Under the minister of the navy and the control office at Paris, which employs 260 officials, there are five maritime prefects, one in each of the maritime arrondissements of France. These are -Cherbourg, with the subdivisions of Dunkirk and Le Havre; Brest, with St Servan; Lorient, with Nantes; Rochefort, with Bordeaux; and Toulon, with Marseilles, Nice, and Bastia. The naval officers in active service are 2 admirals, 18 vice-admirals, 30 rear-admirals, 343 captains of ships or frigates, and about 1377 lieutenants and officers of inferior rank. There are besides 14 vice-admirals and 20 rear- admirals on the rolls of the reserve. The recruiting of sailors for the navy is secured by the inscription maritime, established by Colbert in 1681, and regulated since by various decrees and laws. Accord ing to the law as it now stands, all fishermen and men em ployed on board merchant ships must have their names inscribed in a special register, and are bound to give, whenever required, a minimum of three years service in the navy. In 1873 this register contained 151,830 names. A special body of ordnance, called artillerie de marine, is com posed of 243 officers and 4216 soldiers, part of whom are in garrison in the colonies. The general staff of the naval ordnance at Paris is composed of a general of division, 2 generals of brigade in active service and 2 in the reserve, 1 colonel, 2 lieutenant-colonels, and a few subaltern officers. The administration is divided into 6 directions, the seats of which are Cherbourg, Brest, Rochefort, Toulon, Lorient, and La Yilleneuve. The marines in the fleet number about 15,000, divided into 4 regiments with 780 officers, and a staff consisting of 2 generals of division, 4 generals of brigade, 1 chief of battalion, and 3 aides-de-camp. The fleet consisted in 1876 of 110 vessels of all sizes (10 of them irou-clads of first and second rank), armed with 529 guns, and of a reserve comprising 18 iron-clads and 60 other vessels. X. Roads. Railways. Navigable Rivers and Canals. Harbours. Before referring to the state of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce in France, it is important to have an idea of the means of communication by which the different pro ductive districts are connected with one another. The minis ter of public works has the superintendence of all roads and ways, natural or artificial, by land or by water. A special department, called Administration des Fonts d Chaussees, assisted by a council with the minister us its president, is charged with the management of that important branch of public business; 569 engineers and inspectors, and 2153 inferior officials form the administrative staff. Roads are either national, departmental, military, or Roads. vicinal (cross roads). National roads are kept up entirely at the expense of the public treasury. The departments have to provide for departmental roads and a portion of the military roads, the rest being charged on the state. As to cross roads, or chemins vicinaux, they depend, by an awkward anomaly, on the ministry of the interior, and are kept up by the communes, or, when of a higher importance, by the departments. At the end of 1811 229 roads were classified as imperial roads. They ex tended over a length of 46,500 kilometres (28,894 miies). In 1815, after the territory of France had been brought back to its ancient limits, the length was only 27,200 kilo metres (16,901 miles); in 1873 there were 223 na tional roads, giving a total of 37,304 kilometres (23,180 miles), 2627 kilometres (1632 miles) of which are still paved like a street. The average breadth of that class of road is 16 metres (52 feet 6 inches), 6 metres for the cause way, 6 for the sideways, and 4 for the ditches and embank ment. Although the great extension of railways has some what reduced the importance of high roads, it has been calculated that the traffic has changed very little during the last twenty years. The departmental roads are not quite so wide as the national ones, their average breadth being 12 metres (39 feet). In 1872 their length was 46,939 kilometres (29,167 miles). Military roads were made in the west of France, after the last insurrection of Vendee. They are 28 in number, distributed in the departments of Charente-Infe rieure, Ille-et-Vilaine, Loire-Infe rieure, Mainc- et-Loire, Mayenne, Sarthe, Deux-Sevres, and Vendde, and extend to a length of about 1500 kilometres (932 miles). A sum of nearly 34 millions of francs is spent yearly for the purpose of making new roads or repairing old ones. The chemins vicinanx, or cross roads establishing a communi cation between rural places not far distant from each other, are managed by a special branch of the department of the minister of the interior; about 3000 agents-voyers and 42,000 cantonniers or workmen are specially charged with the duty of keeping them in repair. In 1872 these roads, divided into three classes according to their importance, were 544,390 kilometres (338,273 miles) in length, and covered a surface of about 370,000 hectares (915,000 acres). To the very considerable resources which the com munes must apply to the extension and repair of their rural roads the Government used to add a yearly grant of 11,500,000 francs; but this sum has been reduced to 5,750,000 francs since 1873. The Annales of the adminis tration of the Fonts et Chaussces mention 1982 large bridges, of which 79 are cast iron. The chief are the bridge over the Gironde at Bordeaux, which has 17 arches, is 501 metres (1643 feet) in length, and cost 6,850,000 francs; the bridge of Cubzac, over the river Dordogne ; the turn-