roved keenly to and fro between the Banker
and the clerk.

A thunder-cloud of a man.

MADAME DE CORNEILLAN.

The Moniteur of the 10th of May, 1810,
published a decree, signed by Napoleon I., Emperor
of the French, offering a prize of a million of
francs (forty thousand pounds) to the inventor
of the best machine for spinning flax. The
decree, moreover, was ordered to be translated
into every language, and to be sent to the French
ambassadors, ministers, and consuls in foreign
countries.

A few days afterwards, a French gentleman,
Philippe de Girard, then five-and-thirty years of
age, was on a visit to his father at Lourmarin.
During the family breakfast, the servant brought
in the journal which contained this magnificent
challenge to inventive genius, without excluding
the people of any country, not even the Esquimaux
and the Hottentots. M. de Girard senior
handed the paper to his son, saying, "Philippe,
this is your affair."

After breakfast, Philippe took a solitary walk,
with the determination of solving the problem.
As yet, he had never turned his attention to
anything connected with the manufacture in
question. He asked himself whether he ought
not first to study every previous attempt relating
to it; but he soon concluded that the offer
of a million proved that nothing satisfactory had
been hitherto attained. He determined to
remain in ignorance, to keep his mind unbiased and
independent. He returned to the house; carried
to his chamber some flax, some thread, some
water, and a lens. Alternately regarding the
flax and the thread, he said to himself, "With
this, I am required to make that."

First, he examined the flax with the lens;
then he steeped it in the water, and again
examined it. Next morning, at breakfast, he said
to his father, "The million is mine." He took
a few strips of flax, decomposed them by the
action of the water, separating them into their
elementary fibres, made them slide one over the
other so as to form a thread of extreme
fineness, and added, "I have now to perform
with a machine what I am performing with
my fingers and flax-spinning by machinery is
invented!"

It was so, in reality, for him. The germ of
the discovery had sprouted in his brain. But
what patient efforts, what ingenious experiments
had to be made, before he could practically
execute what he had instantaneously imagined!
Two months afterwards, he obtained his first
patent, which contained all the essential
principles of mechanical flax-spinning. After devoting
two years to the perfecting of his machinery,
he established, in 1813, a flax-mill in the Rue
Meslay, Paris. The conditions of the imperial
programme were fulfilled. The imperial promise
would have been so likewise, but for the
invasion of France, and the fall of Napoleon. The
Restoration was little disposed to pay the debts
of the Empire; and the inventor could only
obtain from the Bourbon government a loan, of
eight thousand francs.

M. de Girard had spent all his private
fortune, and had nothing but ruin before him.
Whilst he was confined in prison for debt, two
scoundrels stole from one of his friends who
had them in charge, the plans and descriptions
of his machinery, and sold them in
England for a sum amounting, it was said, to
twenty thousand pounds. In consequence of
this theft, a patent, taken out in London,
reproduced, under a British name, the
processes of the unfortunate French inventor. If
Philippe de Girard had attempted to gain a
livelihood in Great Britain out of his own
discoveries, he would have been prosecuted as an
infringer of other people's vested rights.

In 1826, he was invited to Warsaw by the
Emperor of Russia. In Poland, he organised
mechanical flax-spinning on a large scale.
Around the establishment there soon uprose a
little town which took the name of Girardow,
and which figures on maps of Poland
subsequently published. He afterwards accepted the
office of chief engineer to the Polish mines,
expressly reserving, in his oath of fidelity to the
Russian emperor, his quality of French
subject, and the temporary character of his engagement.

Returning to France in 1844, he addressed a
Memoire to the Chambers, demanding a
recompense which should prove, in a manner worthy
of France, that the grand problem proposed by
Napoleon had been resolved by a Frenchman—
and which should also place his latter days and
his nearest relations out of the reach of straitened
circumstances. Arago and Guizot warmly
supported his claim; but the delay in making it
had been too long. An inexplicable opposition
arose, which poisoned the close of his life, and
prevented the Cross of Honour from being placed
on his bier. French Industry was more just to
him. The Society of Inventors and Mechanical
Spinners offered him a sort of civil list, which
amounted to as much as six thousand francs
(two hundred and forty pounds); but he did not
live to enjoy it long. He died at the age of
seventy-one, leaving to his family no other
inheritance than his name.

In 1853, a commission was appointed to
examine a project of law conferring, as a
national recompense, pensions on the heirs of
the late Philippe de Girard, the inventor of
flax-spinning by machinery. It reported to
the Senate that, of the three brothers de
Girard, the youngest, Philippe, and the second,
Frederic, were no longer in existence. The sole
survivor was more than ninety years of age.
Philippe had died without issue. The only
remaining representatives of the family were an
orphan daughter of the second son, Frederic,
and a fatherless daughter of that same lady.
The project of law therefore recorded, by way
of a national recompense: first, to the Sieur
Joseph de Girard, brother of Philippe de Girard,