a typical
Revolutionary personage, who bore the not very attractive name of
Charles Cochon. He was one of the 'patriots' of 1792, and having vowed
irreconcilable hatred to all kings and emperors, he was selected to go
as a Commissary to the Army of the North after Dumouriez had delivered
up Camus and his companions with Beurnonville to the Austrians. After
the advent of Napoleon, this incorruptible Republican became one of the
most serviceable servants of the new master of France, and ended his
career as an Imperial senator, with the queer title of Comte de
Lapparent!

I wisely availed myself of my first morning in Valenciennes to visit
these collections in the Hotel de Ville, for in the afternoon M. Guary,
the son of the distinguished director of the great coal mines of Anzin,
which I especially desired to see, kindly drove into my comfortable old
hotel and most hospitably insisted on carrying me off to the mines.

At the beginning of the last century there was but a single house in all
the territory now known as the Commune of Anzin. It is now the seat of
a busy and growing town, a suburb, or--to speak more exactly--an
extension beyond the walls of the city of Valenciennes. This town has
been called into existence during the last century and a quarter by the
operations of the Anzin Company, the largest coal-mining company in
France. The concessions held and worked by this company cover an area of
28,054 hectares.

Six years ago, when what is known as the great strike at Anzin attracted
to this important region the attention of all persons interested in that
question of labour, which the excellent M. Doumer tells us the 'true
Republic' has been 'studying' in vain for ten years, the Anzin Company
employed 14,035 workmen, of whom 2,180 were at work on the surface and
11,855 were employed on the subterranean work of the mines. The coal
extracted, which had reached 1,677,366 tons in 1862, amounted in 1883 to
2,210,702 tons, being one-tenth part of all the coal-production of
France. The coal-mining of Anzin is carried on now in the face of a
great and increasing competition almost at its very doors. To the north
and east lie the great coal-fields of Belgium, which in 1882 sent into
France 4,064,625 tons of coal, and in 1883, 4,217,933 tons. On the north
and west lie the great French coal-fields of the Pas-de-Calais, where,
at Lens and other points, great discontent has shown itself during the
current year among the miner