Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-x5cpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-29T08:39:18.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How the First French Railways Were Planned

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Arthur L. Dunham
Arthur L. Dunham
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

France is often described as the country that planned its network of railroads with the greatest care, wisely arranging for private construction and operation under control of the Government. She deserves criticism, it has been said, only because it took ten years to make these excellent arrangements. Yet most of the writers who have painted this rather attractive picture have not looked beyond the well-known books of Audiganne and Kaufmann, studies based chiefly upon collections of French statutes and legislative debates as well as the best known contemporary newspapers and literary reviews. Little attention has been paid to the Corps des ponts et chaussées, whose activities were far more important than the speeches of its director in the Chambers. Little concern has been given to the vital problem of obtaining the very large amounts of capital that were needed, or to the influence of the serious depression that began in 1837.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , May 1941 , pp. 12 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1941

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Audiganne, Armand, Les Chemins de fer aujourd'hui et dans cent ans ches tons les peuples; Économie financière et industrielle, politique et morale des voies ferrées (Paris, 1858)Google Scholar.

de Kaufmann, Richard, La Politique française en matière de chetnin de fer (Paris, 1900)Google Scholar.

2 Dunham, Arthur Louis, The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of 1860 and the Progress of the Industrial Revolution in France (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1930), 30–33Google Scholar.

See also Audiganne, I, 333, and Wallon, Maurice: Les Saints-Simoniens et les chemins de fer (Paris, 1908), 45Google Scholar.

3 Audiganne, I, 336.

4 Wallon, 62, 73–75; Audiganne, I, 365–372.

5 Journal des économistes, XVI, 381; and Napoléon Chaix, Annuaire officiel des chemins de fer, 18.

6 Chaix, 99, and Audiganne, I, 375–376.

7 Legoyt, Alfred: Le Livre des chemins de fer construits, en construction, et projetés ou statistique générate de ces voies de communication en France et à l'étranger (Paris, 1845), 145–147Google Scholar.

8 Marion, Marcel, Histoire financière de la France depuis 1715 (Paris), V, 198Google Scholar.

9 Lefranc, Georges, “The French Railroads 1823–1842,” Journal of Economic and Business History, II, No. 2, 311Google Scholar.

10 Journal de l'industriel et du capitaliste, VII, 28–30.

11 Séguin, Jules, Chemins de fer. De leur exécution par l'industrie particulière (Lyon, 1844), 1–3Google Scholar.

12 Devey, Joseph, Life of Joseph Locke, Civil Engineer (London, 1852), 156–158Google Scholar.

13 Journal de l'industriel et du capitaliste, VIII, 345.

14 Audiganne, I, 385; and René Crozet, “Contribution à l'histoire de la voie ferrée de Paris à Toulouse,” Revue de l'histoire moderne, XIV. 242–243.

15 Audiganne, I. 387.

16 Boiteau, Paul, Fortune publique et finances de la France (Paris, 1866), I, 387Google Scholar.

17 Audigannc, I, 252–329; Kaufmann, 19–24; Comtc Daru, Napoleon, Des chemins de fer et de l'application de la loi du 11 juin 1842 (1843), 4–7Google Scholar; Ferrette, Henry, Étude historique sur l'intervention financière de l'étal dans l'établisscment des lignes de chemin de fer (Paris, 1896), 23–26Google Scholar; Blaise, Adolphe, “Les chemins de fer et le crédit,” Journal des économistes, XVIII, 44–53Google Scholar.