How the mechanical telegraph shaped the history of france | thearticle

France had a revolution in 1789. Like all revolutions, it led to chaos. In the course of the next five years, power moved steadily from moderates to radicals to extremists, and then,

suddenly, to philistines. The kings of Europe looked on with sympathy and some foreboding at the predicament of Louis XVI. The Emperor Leopold (it was the last avatar of the Holy Roman

Empire, a fairly ineffectual body at the best of times) and the King of Prussia expressed their concern in the form of a declaration at Pillnitz. They declared themselves for monarchy and

against disorder. The basic inclination of the Parisian sans-culottes was just the opposite: against the monarchy and for disorder. War started in 1792 between France and the so-called First

coalition that consisted of England, Holland, Austria, Prussia , Spain and Sardinia. The war started badly for the French, but a little later they not only managed to repel the invaders but

were able to occupy enemy territory. On the home front, having devoured some children of the revolution, the extremists ruled. This was the political atmosphere when Claude Chappe applied

for a government grant to build a communication system that could, in principle, transmit any information from Paris to any corner of France. He sent his application to the Legislative

Assembly that held the purse strings at the time. The Assembly appointed a referee in the person of Lakanal, a scientist of some repute. On 26th July 1793 he reported to the Convention (the

successor of the Legislative Assembly). He started his speech by telling the distinguished audience about the greatness of science, and of France – and that the greatest inventions ever

made, the balloon and the telegraph, were invented by Frenchmen. He finished his speech in similar pompous style, saying, “I hope you will make good use of the present opportunity to

encourage the useful sciences. If you would ever abandon them fanaticism would rule and slavery would cover the earth. Nothing works so strongly in the interests of tyranny than ignorance.”

This was a strong recommendation. Nobody in the Convention wanted to support tyranny and ignorance. Claude Chappe got his grant. So what was his proposal? How did he code the information he

wanted to transmit? It consisted of a regulator and of two indicators attached to the end of the regulator. All three could rotate. Considering that the regulator had four different

positions and the indicators could be rotated into seven different positions, the total number of possible combinations was 196. Any one of the combinations could represent a letter or a

word. The device was to be planted on the top of towers, existing or to be built. The mechanical telegraph perched on the tower of the St Pierre de Monmartre church is also shown. The system

worked by first coding the relevant information in Paris then transmitting it from station to station (tower to tower) to its eventual destination. The display at one tower could be read by

the staff at the next tower by using a telescope, conveniently invented nearly two centuries earlier (actually by a Dutchman). The first line, from Paris to Lille, was inaugurated in the

middle of August 1794, not much after the fall of Robespierre. The first news carried by the line was the recapture of Conde-sur-Lescaut. Slowly, but steadily, French engineers extended the

lines independently of who ruled France. By 1846 the country was criss-crossed by mechanical telegraphs. 534 stations covered about 5000 km of line. Napoleon used the telegraph widely, both

for conducting affairs of state and for directing troop movements. The rules that only information useful to the authorities can be carried was relaxed for only one item of public interest,

the national lottery. In return the lottery contributed to the cost of maintaining the telegraph lines. On 18 June 1815 the Lille-Paris line carried the wishful message that Napoleon had

defeated Wellington at Waterloo, but a correction was given two days later. On the 23 June all lines transmitted the message that both Chambers had recognised the infant Napoleon II as

successor to his father, followed shortly by the news of the return of the Bourbons. On 31 July the reporting of the winning lottery numbers was resumed. Things returned to normal. Alas,

technical progress sounded the death of the mechanical telegraph. It could not compete with its electrical counterpart. By the end of 1856 all French mechanical telegraphs stopped waving

their arms. Their demise was mourned by the poet Gustave Nadaud in a long poem. I shall end with the seventh, most sentimental, verse: Moi, je suis un pauvre trouvere, Ami de la douce

liqueur: Des chantes joyeux sont dans mon verre: J’ai des chantes d’amour dans le coeur. Mais a notre epoque inquiet Qu’importent l’amour et le vin? Vieux telegraph, vieux poete, Vous vous

agiteriez en vain. I am just a poor minstrel, A friend of the sweet liqueur: The songs of joy are in my glass And the songs of love in my heart But in our uncertain times Who cares about

love and wine? Old telegraph, old poet, You trouble yourself in vain.