wn to
that time, almost exclusively from Alicante in Spain; and the chemist
Leblanc hit upon a process for extracting soda on a great scale from
sea-salt. Of this invention the managers of St.-Gobain promptly availed
themselves; and, after a brief and unsatisfactory experiment at a place
called Charlesfontaine, they established at Chauny some soda-works,
which have since been developed into the most extensive chemical works
in France.

Taken in conjunction with the glassworks also now established here,
these works extend over an area of some thirty hectares, fourteen of
which are occupied by buildings. Numerous canals fed from the Oise
traverse this immense area, some of them supplying water-power, others
serving as waterways. The place, in short, is an industrial Amsterdam or
Rotterdam in miniature, lying between the river Oise, the Canal de
St.-Quentin, and the Canal de St.-Lazare. The Cite Ouvriere, built for
the workmen by the company, lies beyond the Canal de St.-Lazare and on
the road from Chateau Thierry in Champagne (the birthplace of La
Fontaine) to Bethune in Artois.

The streets and areas within the works are most appropriately baptized
by the names of the eminent men of science to whom the company is
indebted for great services either directly or indirectly: the Cour
Lavoisier, the Rue Pelouze, the Rue Guyton de Morvaux, the Rue Leblanc,
the Rue Gay-Lussac, the Cour Scheele, the Rue Hely d'Oisset.

Besides the dwellings put up for the benefit of the workmen at Chauny,
the company has built here a chapel, established a free dispensary, and
organised excellent schools for the children of both sexes, under the
supervision of the devoted Sisters, who have not yet been 'converted'
out of Chauny.

'What is the feeling of the people here on this question of clerical
teaching?' I asked an acquaintance of mine, who formerly filled an
important post in the local administration of this region, and who now
devotes himself to his flowers and his library in a charming old house
of the eighteenth century, the high-walled courtyard of which is
tapestried with luxuriant vines and creepers.

'All the sensible people in Chauny,' he said--'and there are many
sensible people in Chauny, though in the old times our neighbours used
to speak of us as "the monkies of Chauny"--are quite disgusted with all
this newfangled nonsense, and with these incessant attacks on the
clergy. The troublesome element here in Chauny is not to be