Railroads and Revolution
Before the Dijon water system was completed, Henry was faced with a new and larger challenge; the Paris-Lyon railroad. Several rail routes connecting Paris and Lyon had be proposed over the years 1832 to 1844. Most, but not all passed through Dijon. Their principal obstacle were the mountains separating the Seine and the Rhone that are from 500 to 700 m high. Grades steeper than about 5% and tunnels of any length were considered unacceptable. Thus, most proposed routes made significant detours to minimize steep portions and keep tunnels short. No plan pleased everyone. In March of 1843 a commission chair by Count Daru, reviewed all proposed routes and recommended an alignment that bypassed Dijon to the west. Obviously, it was critical for Dijon's future to be on the main line connecting Paris to the largest industrial city to the south and the Mediterranean. The Dijon Municipal Council called on Darcy to defend the alignments that passed through the city. Instead, he developed a new plan.
After several months site surveying, Darcy designed a short, straight alignment made possible by a four kilometer tunnel at Blaizy. The tunnel would be a substantial feat for the day and drew considerable criticism. However, Henry had enlisted the aid of the geologist Elie de Beaumont (1798-1874) and a mining engineer to evaluate the tunnel site. Darcy and the mining engineer dug several test trenches and found favorable rock and no water; ideal conditions for tunneling. He had conceived the best engineering solution by rejecting the old general assumption about tunnel length and instead looked at the problem from a site specific basis. In other words, he engineered; he didn't tinker. In December 1843 his design was accepted and construction was ordered to begin in January 1845. The plan's adoption brought praise in Dijon, and criticism from individuals and other towns whose interests were elsewhere. Darcy was attacked personally and his judgment questioned. Additional challenges were made and the issue was not finally settled until July 1845. Never-the-less, the construction proceeded. Henry personally supervised the start of the tunnel and had it about one-third completed by April of 1846. At that time construction was taken over by the private company formed to run the line. Darcy was offered a position in the company, (which ultimately became P.L.M.) but turned it down to remain in civil service. He did however remain at the tunnel site until July of that year.
In the late 1840's the economy in France started to experience severe problems, and with it renewed social unrest. Between 1840 and 1847 numerous jobs had been created by industrialization. However, starting in 1845 three events combined to produce dramatic unemployment. First, there was a cyclical crisis in the textile industry, which lead to tens of thousands of layoffs and riots in the north. Next, an agricultural failure produced food shortages, which in some cases lead to bread riots. Finally, the many privately financed railway construction projects began failing due to the bad economy and poor management. The net result of these events was an unemployment rate that reached 50% in Paris and other urban areas. In the French fashion, a revolution began with disjointed events lead by radical Republicans. They still carried a grudge about their loss of power after the 1830 revolt, and in the mean time had acquired a new socialist element. The socialist trend was well demonstrated by a series of Luddite riots. In Lyon workers attacked factories with modern equipment and on May 13 in Jurjurieux, in the Rhône, mechanical textile frames were burned.
The government of Louis Phillipe reacted slowly and inadequately to the crisis. In February of 1848 he abdicated and was replaced by a provisional government that was a mix of monarchists, bourgeois republicans and socialists. The new government attempted several make-work measures to solve the unemployment crisis. One action of interest to Darcy would have been their attempts to reopen railway construction sites by state appropriation of the private companies. The most notable of these lines was the Paris to Lyon route, which the Government took over in August. Darcy had of course played a pivotal role in its design and initiation. However, his efforts may have associated him with an enterprise that angered the investors who lost money and workers who lost jobs. (No good deed goes unpunished.)
The provisional government's make-work projects brought hundred of thousands of the unemployed into the large cities, which produced a backlash from the political right. In June the workhouses were closed, which precipitated the "June Days" revolt in Paris. Their protest over loss of work were answered with artillery. In three days, 1,500 rebels were killed, 12,000 arrested and many ultimately exiled to Algeria. The radical movement was decapitated, and work began on a democratic constitution. On December 20, 1848 the Second Republic was created, and Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte elected President.
Sometime after February, 1848, Darcy was suspended from duties by the new Commissioner of the provisional government assigned to the Côte-d'Or (Paul Darcy, 1957). He was considered "dangerous for the new state of things". Modern writers have assumed the socialists opposed him because of his links with the Louis-Phillippe government during the construction of the Dijon water supply and the Paris-Lyon railroad, which well may have been the case. However, it is just as likely that the rightists were responsible due to their opposition to the government jobs programs, such as the Paris-Lyons rail line. Frankly, France was in a state of confusion, and he may have been replaced for reasons unrelated to his own actions and beyond his control.
The Dijon Municipal Council, the Corps of
Ponts et Chausséess, and L'Ecole Polytechnique protested
Darcy's removal, but all it accomplished was an appointment to
Bourges to work on the Berry Canal (Paul Darcy, 1957). However,
his "exile" was soon ended with a call to Paris.
Go to Next Section