The course and direction of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean, of the Orleans, and of the London and North-Western Companies, are, as there can be no doubt, sufficiently known to our readers to render description of them unnecessary. The great port of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean is Marseilles, the Liverpool of the Mediterranean, 537 miles from Paris, and 833 from London. The chief port of the Orleans Company is Bordeaux, 366 miles from Paris, 662 from London. Before proceeding farther, let us refer, very briefly, to the early history of railways in France. Neither the French Government nor the French people seemed to feel much interest about their construction until long subsequent to the opening of several hundred miles of them, both in Belgium and in Germany. The nation, was not, however, altogether ignorant of their existence, for tramways had been used in the Mineral Districts of St. Etienne, and near to the Banks of the Loire, for many years previously. They were, for the most part, worked by horses, but in some few cases by locomotives of the rudest construction, just as happened in our own coal districts in the North of England, previous to the epoch of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Dr. Lardner, in his Railway Economy, says that “to M. Emile Pereire is due the honour of having first impressed upon his countrymen the advantages which must arise from the adoption of this mode of transport.” With much difficulty he succeeded in forming a Company for making the short line between Paris and St. Germain. The Act for its construction was obtained in July 1835, and it was opened for traffic in December 1837. It was originally, in part, worked as a locomotive line, and partly on what was known as the atmospheric system, but for the last five or six years the traffic is carried exclusively by means of the locomotive. Its length is thirteen miles, and it now forms one of the “_Lignes de Banlieue_,” of the Western of France Railway Company. (_Chemin de Fer de l’Ouest._) But it was not until 1837 that the importance of France having a net-work throughout the Kingdom was appreciated. In that year a Royal Commission Avas appointed, which made its report in 1838, but owing to internal jealousies and other causes, the recommendations of the report were not adopted, and the Government of the day had to submit to defeat upon them. In 1838, what is now the Great Orleans Company obtained its first concession, which was for a Railway to extend from Paris to Orleans. Powerful and elongated as the Company now is, it had, in its early career, to undergo much financial difficulty and embarrassment, and it was only owing to the Government coming to its aid, by guaranteeing four per cent. on its capital, that the Company was able to complete and to open the railway for traffic. A concession was given to the Paris and Rouen Company in 1841. The line was opened for traffic on the 9th of May, 1843.