* * * * * During the last few years a complete restoration of the lighthouse of Cordouan has been carried out, with the view of replacing the stones—and they were numerous—injured by the weather, and of renewing the sculptures, which it was difficult to trace, they were so worn and abraded. All the buildings which at different times had been erected against the platform-wall to supply the insufficiency of dwelling-apartments in the lighthouse, have been reconstructed. And in 1854 arrangements were made to distinguish it from neighbouring lights; it has now a revolving light, white and red, with a range of twenty-seven miles. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE CORDOVA LIGHTHOUSE.] The introduction of the dioptric apparatus into the Cordouan lighthouse took place long ago; it belongs, in fact, to the earliest experiments of Fresnel, for it is a peculiarity worth notice in the annals of this patriarch of pharoses, that attention has always been directed to it when any question has arisen of testing a new invention. It was one of the first which saw the inconvenient and unsatisfactory _chauffer_ replaced, as a means of lightage, by oil lamps. In 1782 it was provided with at least eighty of these, each accompanied by a reflector. A few years later, when Teulère had furnished Borda with the elements of the catoptric system, the largest apparatus was immediately installed at Cordouan (1790). Finally, when Augustin Fresnel, in his turn, invented the lenticular system, it was at Cordouan that experiments were first made with the most important model. Considering, then, the numerous and valuable services which Cordouan has rendered, we ask ourselves, says M. Rénard,[52] whether, among the numerous monuments raised by the pride and daring of man, there are many of so much respectability as this “Patriarch of the Lighthouses!” We cannot acknowledge that any one of them is so justly deserving of our reverent admiration. Nobler, far nobler, and of infinitely greater utility, than the trophies by which the conqueror has tracked his bloody path, or the pompous boundary-stones erected by nations at each stage of their history, it will also be of a more permanent character. For these belong only to individuals or peoples: Cordouan belongs to the whole human race. [52] Rénard, “Les Phares,” pp. 145-158. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER II. THE LIGHTHOUSES OF CAPE LA HEVE. A.D. 1774. Doux feux qui protégez et Thétis et la Seine, Sûrs et brillants rivaux des deux frères d’Hélène, Phares, je vous salue; assurez à jamais Le commerce opulent de l’heureuse Neustrie; Fixez dans ma patrie L’abondance, les arts, tous les fruits de la paix. Casimir Delavigne.