his guard to close about him. "I was standing in one of the apartments through which he had to pass," says Paine, "and could not avoid reflecting how wretched is the condition of a disrespected man." Evidently no bridges to be built here at present. It would be better to try in England, Paine thought, and in September crossed to London. Sir Joseph Banks, a great scientific authority, thought well of his model, and recommended the construction of one on a larger scale. The different parts of the new bridge were cast in a Yorkshire foundry belonging to Thomas Walker, a Whig friend of the inventor, brought by sea to London, and erected in an open field at Faddington, where the structure was inspected by great numbers of people. After standing there a year, it was taken down, and the materials used in building a bridge over the river Wear at Sunderland, of two hundred and thirty-six feet span, with a rise of thirty-four feet. This bridge is still in use.[1] [Footnote 1: Stephenson says, in rather bad English, (we quote from the _Quarterly_),--"If we are to consider Paine as its author, his daring in engineering certainly does full justice to the fervor of his political career; for, successful as the result has undoubtedly proved, want of experience and consequent ignorance of the risk could alone have induced so bold an experiment; and we are rather led to wonder at than to admire a structure which, as regards its proportions and the small quantity of material employed in its construction, will probably remain unrivalled,"--thus resembling the spider's web, which furnished; the original suggestion. In 1801, when Paine had exhausted his theory of human rights in France, he offered his plan to Chaptal, the Minister of the Interior, who proposed to build an iron bridge over the Seine. Two years later, after his return to America, he addressed a memorial to Congress on the same subject, offering the nation the invention as a free gift, and his own services to superintend the structure; but neither Chaptal nor Congress thought fit to accept his offer.] Paine had forgotten his bridge long before it was taken down. His soul was engrossed by the contemplation of the wonderful event which was daily developing itself in France. Bankruptcy had brought on the crisis. In August, 1788, the interest was not paid on the national debt, and Brienne resigned. The States-General met in May of the next year; in June they declared themselves a national assembly, and commenced work upon a constitution under the direction of Sièyes, who well merited the epithet, "indefatigable constitution-grinder," applied to Paine by Cobbett. Not long after, the attempted _coup d'état_ of Louis XVI. failed, the Bastille was demolished, and the political Saturnalia of the French people began.