XXVI
THE CONSERVATORY OF ARTS AND MACHINES
The ravages of the Revolution completely laid waste the whole of France intellectually, as well as morally, and the labours of eminent artists and inventors were either suspended or transferred to foreign countries.
The murderers of Lavoisier could scarcely be expected to patronise either arts or useful sciences.
In the short space of ten years more injury has been done to the useful arts in France than by all the Alarics and Omars of antiquity.
However, the Revolutionists had not proceeded very far in the route of devastation, when a few enlightened men, who perceived the extent of the mischief threatened to be entailed upon posterity, courageously opposed their further progress, and adopted the most provident precautions to stop the fury of the evil.
Through the indefatigable exertions of Bishop Grégoire the National Convention on October 11, 1794, decreed the establishment of a Conservatory of Arts, whose object was to collect machines, utensils, designs, descriptions and experiments, relating to the improvement of industry, so as to diffuse some knowledge of them throughout the Republic.
But it was one thing to decree and another to execute. By a studied remissness the law was suspended for three years. National edifices were granted by dint of favour to useless projectors, but the Conservatory of Arts could find no place to display its riches and means of instruction. At length a decree, passed on May 7, appropriated a portion of the former Abbey of St. Martin des Champs to this object, and the inadequate sum of 56,000 livres, or £2240 sterling, was voted for the reparations of the building, the purchase of the land and the indemnity accorded to the renter.
Thus finally organised, the Conservatory of Arts presents a splendid accumulation of useful machines, always open for the inspection and improvement of the public. The machines, which Pajot d’Ozemberg gave to the ancient Academy of Sciences, and the greater part of the beautiful models which composed the celebrated gallery of mechanical arts belonging to the late Duke of Orleans, are now in this Conservatory. Also the 500 machines bequeathed to the Government by the celebrated Vaucouson, to whom the French nation is as much indebted as to Olivier des Serres and Bernard Palissy.
In addition to these collections there is an infinite number of machines relative to agricultural labours, such as draining, irrigation, preparation of oil, &c.
The Conservatory also contains machines for twisting tobacco, taken from on board an English vessel, as well as a very important chart of North America, executed by order of our Government. It has been greatly enriched by the “discoveries” of certain French savans, those learned robbers of the National Institute who followed the victorious march of the Republican armies in Holland and Italy. Whole waggon loads of instruments of science have been filched from their proprietors and transmitted to this National reservoir by those industrious, indefatigable and erudite thieves, Citizens Thonin, Fanjos, Leblond, Bertholet, Barthélémy, Monge, Moitte and De Wailly.
The object of the Conservatory is not only to secure to the public the knowledge of those inventions for which the Government has conferred rewards or granted patents, but also to become the common depot of all inventions. Thus it is for the useful arts what the Louvre is for sculpture or painting.
Upon the whole this Conservatoire d’Arts is one of the most beneficial and laudable establishments in France. It has a direct tendency to encourage industry and stimulate genius. Some persons who have not sufficiently examined the matter object to it on the plea, that by rendering handicrafts more simple by mechanical force, a multitude of workmen will be deprived of the means of subsistence.
Such arguments were used by the watermen of London when Westminster Bridge was built.
But the world possesses more scope for labour than it possesses hands, and the powers of mechanism by simplifying the process of manufacture also diminish the price of the article, bringing it thereby into general circulation and opening a more lucrative commerce to a nation by underselling the produce of foreign countries and so putting an end to all competition.
The true principle of public economy begins to be studied in every part of Europe, and we are making a slow but certain progress in improvement.
But if the rash spirit of innovation takes possession of the minds of those who govern mankind, if they will insist on bringing all things within a punctilious system of rules, they must not be surprised if their fondness for precision should terminate in a similar anarchy to that which has oppressed and ruined France.