The UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE for AUGUST, 1796. 73 Some Account of the City of ORLEANS, and its Environs: With a beautiful Perspective View of the Chapel of ST. MESME, on the Banks of the River LOIRE. T nued to be an epifcopal fee, fuffragan to the archbishopric of Paris; and it has a society of natural philosophy, natural history, &c. and a public library. The environs of this city are very pleasant; particularly the fauxbourg or fuburb of Olivet, which is on the left side of the Loire, and has a communication with the city by a bridge, the boldness and lightness of which are equally admired. It was built by Lewis the fiftee th, and confifts of nine arches, of which the centre one is one hundred feet wide. On this bridge was placed the statue of the unfortunate Joan of Arc (with boots and spurs like a knight) on her knees before the Virgin Mary, who has Jesus Christ in her arms, as if going to lay him in his tomb; and, opposite to Joan, in the fame posture, is king Charles the seventh. These figures (the fuperftition and execution of which are equally contemptible) were taken from the old demolished bridge. At a distance, the mall, and other trees planted in various places along the rampart, give to Orleans the appearance of a city half inclosed by verdant walls. HE celebrated city of Orleans, one of the most ancient, opulent, and confiderable in France, is the capital of the department of the Loiret, which, during the existence of the monarchy, was styled the province of Orleanois. It is feated on the right bank of the river Loire, thirty miles northeast of Blois, and fixty fouth-southwest of Paris. It is built in the form of an oval, and is supposed to contain forty thousand fouls. Under the fons of king Clovis, it was the capital of a kingdom. It has stood two memorable fieges; the first, in the year 451, against the formidable Attila; the second, in 1428, against the English, which last was raised by the celebrated Joan of Arc, called the Maid of Orleans, whose history and tragical end display, in fuch horrid colours, the ignorance, fuperftition, and cruelty of that age. The principal church of Orleans, in that part of it which is finished, exhibits a noble specimen of the Gothic architecture. During the reign of fuperftition, Jesus Christ was confidered as the first canon of its late chapter, and, as fuch, had a double share in all the distributions, which was given to the Hotel Dieu. The ftreets of Orleans are spacious, neat, and pleasant: that of the fauxbourg of Paris is of a prodigious length. The commerce of Orleans consists in wine, brandy, corn, grocery, and particularly fugar, which is brought coarfe from Nantes and Rochelle. One year with another, one hundred thousand cwts. of loaf-fugar are sent from the sugar-bakers in Orleans; a great part of which is purchased by the merchants of Paris. Sheep-skins, and stockings (both knit and woven) form also a confiderable article of sant existed, and what entitled him to trade. After the new geographical division of France into departments, inftead of provinces, Orleans contiVOL. XCIX. About nine miles southwest of Orleans, is the village of Clery, once famous for the pilgrimage to our Lady of Clery. Here is the tomb of that monster, Lewis the eleventh of France, who appears on his knees, in white marble, with figures emblematic both of the faint and of the patriot king. : In the environs of Orleans, there are likewise many places remarkable for picturesque and beautiful scenery. One of these, on the banks of the Loire, is the ancient chapel of St. Meímé, a perspective view of which is annexed. When and where this canonization, we cannot ascertain; and, perhaps, the question is not very material. The reign of fuperftition K is now destroyed in France; and although the contrary extreme, the fanaticism and bigotry of infidelity, may triumph for a time, we trust that candid and impartial, as well as free and unfettered inquiry, will at length produce the happiest effects. Chriftianity, ftripped of all the falfe and adventitious ornaments with which Superftition had decked it, will rise again, we hope, from the ruins of indifcriminating destruction, and appear to admiring nations in all its native purity and excellence-the hope and consolation of the afflicted, the joy `and animating spirit of the happy! The environs of Orleans are famous also for its noble canal and extensive forest. The canal commences at the river Loire, about two leagues above the city, croffes the foreft of Orleans, joins the river Loing near Montargis, and, paffing by Nemours, enters the river Seine. It was finished in 1682, and has thirty locks in its course, which is about eighteen leagues in extent. -The forest, which is near the city, contains one hundred thousand acres planted with oak and other valuable trees. It is one of the most confiderable forests in France; and the fales of its timber and underwood produce annually one hundred thousand livres. OBSERVATIONS on the ORIGIN and Use of NAVAL SIGNALS. W HEN we read at our fire-fide the account of an engagement, or other interesting operation of an army, our attention is generally fo much engaged by the refults, that we give but little attention to the movements which led to them, and produced them, and we feldom form to ourselves any diftinct notion of the conduct of the day. But a profeffional man, or one accustomed to reflection, and who is not fatisfied with the mere indulgence of eager curiofity, follows every regiment in its movements, endeavours to see their connexion, and the influence which they have had on the fate of the day, and even to form to himfelf a general notion of the whole scene of action at its different interesting periods. He looks with the eye of the general, and fees his orders succeed or fail. 'But few trouble themselves farther about the narration. The movement is ordered; it is performed; and the fortune of the day is determined. Few think how all this is brought about; and when they are told that during the whole of the battle of Custrin, Frederic the Great was in the upper room of a country inn, from whence he could view the whole field, while his aides-de-camp, on horseback, waited his orders in the yard below, they are struck with wonder, and can hardly conceive how it can be done: but, on reflection, they fee the possibility of the thing. Their imagination accompanies the messenger from the innyard to the scene of action; they hear the general's orders delivered, and they expect its execution. But when we think for a moment on the situation of the commander of a fleet, confined on board one ship, and this ship as much, or more closely, engaged, than any other of the fleet; and when we reflect that here are no messengers ready to carry his or ders to ships of the squadron at the distance of miles from him, and to deliver them with precision and diftinctness; and that even if this were possible by sending small ships or boats, the vicissitudes of wind and weather may render the communication so tedious that the favourable moment may be irretrievably loft before the order can be conveyed when we think, I say, of all these circumstances, our thoughts are bewildered, and we areready to imagine that a fea-battle is nothing but the unconnected struggle of individual ships; and that when the admiral has once 'cried havoc, and let flip the dogs of war,' he has done all that his situation empowers him to do, and must leave the fate of the after their perilous voyage, forgot to hoist the concerted fignal. The anxious father was every day expecting the ship which should bring back his darling fon, and had gone to the shore to look out for her. He faw her, but without the signal agreed on. On which the old man threw himself into the sea. We find, too, in the history of the Punic wars by Polybius, frequent allusions to such a mode of communication; and Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of the speculatores and vexillarii, who were on board the ships in the Adriatic. The coins both of Greece and Rome exhibit both flags day to the bravery and skill of his had fignals by which they directed the captains and failors. movements of their fleets. We read, Yet it is in this fituation, apparently that when Ægeus fent his fon Theseus the most unfavourable, that the orders to Crete, it was agreed on, that if of the commander can be conveyed, the ship should bring the young prince with a dispatch that is not attainable back in safety, a white flag should be in the operations of a land army. displayed. But those on board, in The scene of action is unincumbered, their joy on revifiting their country fo that the eye of the admiral can be hold the whole without interruption. The movements which it is possible to execute are few, and they are precife. A few words are fufficient to order them, and then the mere fighting the ships must always be left to their respective commanders. This simplicity in the duty to be performed has enabled us to frame a language fully adequate to the business in hand, by which a correspondence can be kept up as far as the eye can fee. This is the language of fignals, a language by writing, addressed to the eye, and which he that runneth may read. As in common writing certain arbitrary and streamers. In short, we cannot marks are agreed on to express cer- doubt of the ancients having practised tain sounds used in speech, or rather, this hieroglyphical language. It is as in hieroglyphics certain arbitrary fomewhat surprising that lord Dudley, marks are agreed on to express certain in his 'Arcano del Mare,' in which thoughts, or the subjects of these he makes an oftentatious display of thoughts; fo here certain exhibitions his knowledge of every thing connectare made, which are agreed on to express certain movements to be executed by the commander to whom they are addressed, and all are enjoined to keep their eyes fixed on the ship of the conductor of the fleet, that they may learn his will. ed with the fea service, makes no express mention of this very effential piece of knowledge, although he must, by his long refidence in Italy, have known the marine difcipline of the Venetians and Genoese, the greatest maritime powers then in Europe. In the naval occurrences of modern Europe, mention is frequently made of fignals. Indeed, as we have already observed, it seems impossible It is scarcely possible for any number of ships to act in concert, without fome fuch mode of communication between the admiral and the commanders of private ships. We have no direct for a number of ships to act in any information of this circumstance in the naval tactics of the ancient nations, the Greeks and Romans; yet the neceffity of the thing is so apparent, that we cannot suppose it to have been omitted by the most ingenious and the most cultivated people who have appeared on the great theatre of the world; and we are perfuaded that Themistocles, Conon, and other renowned fea commanders of Athens, kind of concert, without fome method of communication. Numberless situations must occur, when it would be impossible to convey orders or information by messengers from one ship to another, and coast and alarm signals had long been practised by every nation. The idea was, therefore, familiar. We find, in particular, that queen Elizabeth, on occafion of the expedition to Cadiz, or |