great commercial undertakings, the
French are very slow and cautious, yet they are progressing visibly;
there are now thirty-four coal mines at work in various parts of France,
belonging to different public companies more or less flourishing,
besides private enterprises, 16 more in agitation where coal has been
found, and societies formed but not yet in active operation, and 15 now
working in Belgium, of which the sharers are principally French. There
are twenty Asphalte and Bitumen companies. Thirty-five Assurance
companies, between twenty and thirty railway ditto, about the same
number for canals and nearly as many for steam boats, and for bridges
projected about 20, for gas, 14, for the bringing into cultivation the
marshes and waste lands, 7, for markets, bazaars, and depots, 10, and
for manufactures of glass, earthenware, soap and a variety of other
things, there are about forty more public companies. These are such as
now still offer their shares for sale; there are many others which have
been for a length of time established, which no longer issue either
advertisement or prospectus, but when enterprises of this kind are
undertaken in France they generally succeed.

CHAPTER XI.

The Literature of the time being, principal authors. Music; its
ancient date in France, performers, and singers.

Of the present state of literature in France, it is not possible to draw
a very flattering picture; there is a good deal of moderate talent but
certainly none that is transcendental, which remark may be applied to
statesmen, orators, authors, artists, etc.; as to poetry there appears
at present so little taste for it, and writers seem so thoroughly aware
of its being the case, that they have too much good sense to attempt to
obtrude it upon the public, and those who had obtained a certain
reputation as poets seem to write no more. The works of de Lamartine
certainly have many admirers, displaying a pleasing style of
versification fraught with beautiful imagery, a happy arrangement of
ideas enwreathed within the flowers of language, but little or no
originality. As if himself conscious of that circumstance, he brought
forth his Chute d'un Ange (the fall of an angel), which caused his own
_fall_ at the same time; if his sole desire was to attain originality,
he gained his point, but at the price of common sense; the majority of
the public appear to have been of this opinion, and M. de Lamartine
seems to have