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Planning the French Canals: The “Becquey Plan” of 1820–1822

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Reed Geiger
Reed Geiger
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19711
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Abstract

France's canal age was largely the outgrowth of the plan proposed by François Becquey, the state administrator who orchestrated a successful campaign to convince influential Frenchmen that a nationwide canal network was one of the essential tasks of their generation. As Becquey originally conceived his plan, canal building would directly contribute to economic growth and help foster a spirit of business enterprise. In the end he had to settle for a scheme under which the government paid a steep price to a handful of financial consortia for the right to assume all the risks and costs of building and operating the system itself.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Third Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 329 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1984

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References

1 See, for example, Freedeman, Charles E., Joint Stock Enterprise in France, 1807–1867 (Chapel Hill, 1979);Google ScholarSmith, Michael S., Tariff Reform in France, 1860–1900 (Ithaca, 1980);Google ScholarKuisel, Richard F., Capitalism and the State in Modern France (New York, 1981).Google Scholar

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4 For a recent assessment and bibliography see Cameron, Rondo and Freedeman, Charles E., “French Economic Growth: A Radical Revision”, Social Science History, 7 (Winter, 1983), 3–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 There is no modern history of the French canals. For basic information see France, Ministère des Travaux Publics, Starisrique de la navigation intérieure (1898);Google ScholarToutain, J. C., Les Transports en France de 1830 à 1965 (Paris, 1967), pp. 73–138;Google ScholarGrangez, Ernest, Précis historique et statislique des voies navigables de la France (Paris, 1855).Google Scholar

6 In this paper I have ignored the fact that under the Restoration the state mining engineers were placed under the same General Director “of bridges and roads and of mines”.Google Scholar

7 The heroes of the past, after Julius Caesar and Charlemagne, included Francis I, Henry IV and Sully, Louis XIV, Colbert and Riquet (the one exception), Vauban, Turgot, Perronet, and the Trudaines. For French canals and the Bureau of Bridges and Roads in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see de Lalande, J., Des canaux de navigation, et spécialement du Canal de Languedoc (Paris, 1778);Google ScholarParsons, William Barclay, Engineers and Engineering in the Renaissance, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968), pp. 421–59;Google ScholarAllen, Turner W., “The Highway and Canal System in Eighteenth-Century France” (Ph.D. diss., University of Kentucky, 1953);Google ScholarPetot, Jean, Histoire de l'administration des Ponts et Chaussées, 1599–1815 (Paris, 1958), pp. 1–336.Google Scholar For the Revolution and Empire, see Petot, Ponts et Chaussées, pp. 337–491.Google Scholar

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16 Ibid., p. 132.

17 Ibid., pp. 175–77, 260–79; Charle, Les hauts fonctionnaires, pp. 14, 77.

18 Becquey, Rapport, pp. 13–14; Beugnot, Becquey, pp. 177–79.Google Scholar

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21 Beugnot, Becquey, pp. 174–75.Google Scholar

22 Richelieu, Louis XVIII's chief minister, wrote to a colleague just after the passage of the first canal bill that the cabinet's strategy for the parliamentary session of 1822 should be “to present the fewest possible [proposals that would be] likely to excite the passions; canals, a rural code, local roads, des choses d'administration et d'utilité publique.” (Charléty, Sébastien, La Restauration [Paris, 1921], p. 165.)Google Scholar

23 This was a common argument among opponents of prohibitively high tariffs. See Becquey, Rapport, p. 6.Google Scholar

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26 Ibid., pp. 27–70.

27 Ibid., pp. 10–26.

28 Becquey, speaking for the 1822 canal bill, 8 July 1822, A.P., vol. 37, p. 263. The words “capitaliste” and “spéculateur” had then a neutral or even benign connotation.Google Scholar

29 Becquey, Rapport, pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 22.

31 Becquey was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1815 and served continuously until 1831, always supporting the government like most of the other government officials who made up one of the largest occupational groups in the Chamber between 1815 and 1848. See Beck, Thomas D., French Legislators, 1800–1834 (Berkeley, 1974), pp. 166–87;Google ScholarCharle, Les hauts foncrionnaires, pp. 247–50. For Becquey's one important speech during these debates see A.P., vol. 37, pp. 260–69.Google Scholar

32 For the text of the introduction of the 1821 bill, the committee report and the debate, see A.P., vol. 31, PP. 617–49; vol. 32, pp. 94–103, 491–94, 499–555. For 1822 see A.P., vol. 36, pp. 140–60, 366–69, 689–91, 725–31; vol. 37, pp. 192–212, 252–339.Google Scholar For accounts of the debates from two different viewpoints see Hannaway, John Joseph. “The Canal of Burgundy, 1720–1853: A Study of a Mixed Enterprise” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1971), pp. 60–87;Google ScholarPonteil, Félix, Un type de grand bourgeois sous la Monarchie parlemenraire, Georges Humann, 1780–1842 (Paris, 1978), pp. 34–41.Google Scholar

33 The other side of Sherman's “contradictory” officials can perhaps be found in Becquey also. In retirement he had bitter words for the political pressures that had been brought to bear on him by “the cupidity of companies… It is the job of public men to struggle constantly against the efforts of greedy people who put on every possible mask, and especially that of warm friends of the country, in order to do their business at its expense”. Becquey to Legrand, 2 Oct. 1833 (Beugnot, Becquey, pp. 290–91).Google Scholar

34 See Becquey's disappointed and impolitic words in 1822 about the “naturally timid” nature of French investors in A.P., vol. 37, p. 264.Google Scholar

35 As late as 1837, Becquey's successor, Legrand, would tell the Chamber of Deputies that “roads are principally intended for the needs of agriculture, canals and rivers for commercial needs, [but] railroads are ‘les voies de la puissance, des lumières et de la civilisation.’ The speed and comfort of passengers comes first.” (Baudot, Marcel, “L'obstruction parlementaire a la construction des chemins de fer français [1833–1838],” in “Les transports de 1610 à nos jours,” Section d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, Tome I, Actes du 104e Congrès nailonal des sociétés savanres, Bordeaux, 1979 [Paris, 1980], p. 246 and passim).Google Scholar

36 For the Becquey-Legrand relationship see Beugnot, Becquey, pp. 271–72, 289–91.Google Scholar