The Fundamental Law for the construction of French Railways, and for the subsequent administrative surveillance of them by the Government, was passed on the 11th of June, 1842. By this law France was to possess seven main arterial lines of railway, all of which were to start from Paris as the concentric point. The first was to take the direction towards Belgium, so as to meet the railways then opened in that kingdom, approaching the French frontier. The second, part of which was to be in common with the first, was to proceed towards Calais or Dunkirk; Calais was selected as the most convenient for traffic with England, and the line to Dunkirk, twenty-five miles long, which branches off at Hazebrouck, was not constructed for several years after the main line had been completed. We remember Hazebrouck, a mere road-side stopping place, but it has of late become a first-class junction station, for in addition to the Dunkirk line diverging here, it is also the junction (_bifurcation_) at which the line leading to Lille, and to Brussels separates from those that run to Amiens, one _viâ_ Douai (the old road), and the other, _viâ_ Bethune, constructed to shorten the distance between Paris and Calais by twenty miles, and also to give railway access to the recently-opened collieries in the vicinity of Bethune, Nœux, Chocques, &c. The third arterial line was to run towards the ports on the Bay of Biscay, from the Loire to the Gironde. The fourth was to extend to Bayonne and thence, eventually, to the Spanish frontier. The fifth was to be common to the fourth, and then to follow a course tending towards the Mediterranean, passing through Toulouse and finally arriving at Perpignan, close to the Spanish frontier, and at the foot of the Pyrenees, not much farther removed from the Mediterranean than Bayonne is from the Bay of Biscay. It is but within the last few months that this line has been completed in its entire extent; the line to Perpignan having only been opened for traffic in September last. The sixth was the great and important arterial line from Paris through Dijon, Chalons, Macon, Lyons, and Avignon, to Marseilles. The seventh, or last, was the important strategic and commercial line that was to connect Paris with Strasburg and the Rhine. Of course, since the first conception of these seven arterial lines, modifications in the exact direction of several of them have taken place, but in the main they follow the courses originally proposed and afterwards decided upon. It will be unnecessary to record the various difficulties, financial and administrative, which attended the construction of the first net-work of French railways. Suffice it, therefore, to say, that by the end of 1847, 1,750 miles had been completed, and that by 1853, the essential parts of the whole system were finished. These have been followed by the “new” net-work, and the total mileage of French railways at present is 14,382 kilometres, or, 8,989 English miles.