h
they give," said the lieutenant of police, M. de Sartines, "forbids us
to believe that anything better can ever be found." The introduction of
gas excited much opposition, as late as 1830; the householders feared to
be asphyxiated by sulphuretted hydrogen and adopted the new method with
much hesitation. Philippe Lebon was assassinated on the Champs-Elysees
on the evening of the coronation of Napoleon I, and his invention, "as
is usually the case, made the tour of Europe before returning to benefit
France,--the first companies that undertook to work his invention were
managed by foreigners, Winsor, Pauwel, and Manley-Wilson." The five or
six rival companies that furnished gas to the city, united in 1855 in
one corporation, the _Compagnie parisienne d'eclairage et de chauffage
par le gaz_. At present, the _Compagnie du Gaz_ delivers it to private
houses within the city at an average price of thirty centimes the cubic
metre, and at varying prices in the suburbs. It cannot refuse to furnish
it to any subscriber, but it has the right of demanding that payments be
made in advance.

Much apprehension was at first excited in the neighborhood of the
companies' works by the enormous metal tanks, or reservoirs, until, as
is related, an Englishman, named Clegg, one day went up to one of these
huge gasometers, drove a hole through the side, and applied a lighted
candle to the aperture. The escaping gas burned in a steady jet, as from
a burner, but did not explode. At the opening of the siege of Paris,
General Trochu was alarmed at the possibility of one of these gasometers
in the suburbs being exploded by a German shell and destroying the
ramparts in its vicinity; the Conseil de Defense, having communicated
these apprehensions to the gas company, were assured by the latter that
the reservoirs would not explode, even though pierced by a projectile.
This statement was soon verified; at the works at Ivry, one of the
enemy's shells fell through one of the iron _cloches_,--a long sheaf of
fire rose in the air, and was extinguished within a few minutes. At La
Villette, a shell burst inside the tank, but the gas escaped without any
further damage. It was the latter usine that furnished the means of
inflating the balloons that, for so long a time, constituted the city's
only method of communication with the outside world.

If the municipality was somewhat slow in adopting the use of gas for its
streets, it claims to be the first to have