orps as
colonels are in the artillery, where the battery is the essential
thing. The engineer-in-ordinary, like the captain of artillery,
knows the whole science. He ought not to have any one over him
except an administrative head to whom no more than eighty-six
engineers should report,--for one engineer, with two assistants is
enough for a department.

The present hierarchy in these bodies results in the subordination
of active energetic capacities to the worn-out capacities of old
men, who, thinking they know best, alter or nullify the plans
submitted by their subordinates,--perhaps with the sole aim of
making their existence felt; for that seems to me the only
influence exercised over the public works of France by the
Council-general of the _Ponts et Chaussees_.

Suppose, however, that I become, between thirty and forty years of
age, an engineer of the first-class and an engineer-in-chief
before I am fifty. Alas! I see my future; it is written before my
eyes. Here is a forecast of it:--

My present engineer-in-chief is sixty years old; he issued with
honors, as I did, from the famous Ecole; he has turned gray doing
in two departments what I am doing now, and he has become the most
ordinary man it is possible to imagine; he has fallen from the
height to which he had really risen; far worse, he is no longer on
the level of scientific knowledge; science has progressed, he has
stayed where he was. The man who came forth ready for life at
twenty-two years of age, with every sign of superiority, has
nothing left to-day but the reputation of it. In the beginning,
with his mind specially turned to the exact sciences and
mathematics by his education, he neglected everything that was not
his specialty; and you can hardly imagine his present dulness in
all other branches of human knowledge. I hardly dare confide even
to you the secrets of his incapacity sheltered by the fact that he
was educated at the Ecole Polytechnique. With that label attached
to him and on the faith of that prestige, no one dreams of
doubting his ability. To you alone do I dare reveal the fact that
the dulling of all his talents has led him to spend a million on a
single matter which ought not to have cost the administration more
than two hundred thousand francs. I wished to protest, and was
about to inform the prefect; but an engineer I know very well
reminded me of one of