Oh No not another question on Begum's millions
quentin skrabec
Possible models for France-Ville—any ideas
1. France-Ville represents France in general, or French steel towns like Cresset – although French industrial paternalism dominated the larger industry
2. Royal saltworks at Arc-et-Semans
3. Hausmann’s vision of Paris
4. Classic literary utopias such as Thomas More
5. Palmanova of Italy
6. My favorite is a type of “tale of two cities” based on Alfred Krupp’s 1877 letter to his employees, comparing the struggle between socialism and paternal capitalism.
7. Robert Owen Welsh community and his American movement
8. The Rappites (or Harmony Society) towns of Harmony (Indiana) and Economy ( in Pennsylvania) -- that mixed health, work, religion and outside capitalism – they became the principal owner of the Pennsylvania railroad
9. Fourierist movement of the 1840s
10. Other 19th utopian and successful such a The Shakers, Zoarites, and Oneidas
11. other?
John Lamb
Dear Quentin,
I have just read Begum’s Millions (1879) and I have only a few observations to make regarding the possible model for France-ville.
There are elements in France-ville which are repeated 16 years later in Verne’s Milliard City in A Floating Island (1895), and I know Milliard was definitely modelled on Birkenhead. I will post this assertion re Birkenhead as a separate thread as your question has opened it up and see whether this is all dismissed as ‘coincidence’ too.
Firstly, this sentence about France-ville regarding its layout from Begum’s millions.
“The plan of the town is essentially simple and regular, the roads crossing at right angles, at equal distances, of a uniform width, planted with trees and numbered.”
Jules Verne The Begum’s Millions (1879)
…is very similar to…
The city was built on a regular plan. The avenues and roads, provided with verandahs above the footways, crossed each other at right angles, forming a sort of chessboard.
It was remarkable that the trees, of recent planting, no doubt, were none of them fully grown. So, it was with the squares at the intersection of the chief arteries of the city, carpeted with lawns of freshness quite English.
Jules Verne A Floating Island (1895)
This is what I meant when I said about the ‘rhythmic pulse’ of Jules Verne, as he mentions in Begum’s Millions all of the following …. Liverpool / Birkenhead (where the planners of France-ville sailed from Liverpool), Gordon Bennett, The New York Herald, The American Civil War, telegraphic cables, ciphers, torpedoes (Maury’s sea mines). All these are included in Begum’s Millions and of course many other Verne novels.
The health of the inhabitants and planning of houses also has some similarities with Milliard perhaps suggesting a common model / group of models.
Just as a brief aside, another example of Verne ‘repeating himself’ in town planning is this…
The tall tower of the Town Hall, where look out men kept watch, dominated this collection of streets and avenues cutting each other at right angles, with green squares spreading out….. Certain streets had splendid shops, displaying goods from the whole world. Prominent amongst them was Montgomery Street, the local Regent Street, Boulevard des Italiens, or Broadway.
Jules Verne Description of San Francisco in Around the World in Eighty Days (1874)
Calistus Munbar said, “Here we are in Third Avenue, and there are thirty in the town. This is the most business one, it is our Broadway, our Regent Street, our Boulevard des Italiens. In the stores and bazaars, you find the superfluous and the necessary, all that can be asked for by the requirements of the modern comfort.
Jules Verne A Floating Island (1895)
Notice how Verne just rearranges the order of the three distinct streets Regent St, Boulevard des Italiens and Broadway. He knows he is copying himself, possibly from one of his 20,000 index cards!
Returning to Begum’s Millions I see it is Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald that ‘saves the day’ for France -Ville by warning them of the imminent danger of attack (almost like modern product placement given the Herald’s appearance in so many Verne novels) and it is the retired Civil War commander Colonel Hendon who arranges the town’s defences.
The only other possible link France-ville and Birkenhead seems to be in Verne’s last descriptive sentence.
“The founders of France-ville may clear the ground, and elucidate some special points: not, however on this spot in America, but on the borders of Syria, shall we one day see the true model city arise.”
Birkenhead was a model town laid out in a grid pattern of which former Prime Minister Disraeli once famously said this;
As yet, the disciples of progress have not been able exactly to match this instance of Damascus, but it is said that they have great faith in the future of BIRKENHEAD.” (Benjamin Disraeli 1847)
In conclusion I can only say that Birkenhead may have influenced Verne’s description of France-ville but equally it may not (and this despite me knowing that Verne based Milliard in A Floating Island on Birkenhead).
For me personally this is useful because France-ville represents a Verne model town that I compared to Birkenhead but it falls short to come up with anything conclusive…it is thus a useful ‘control model’ for my other comparisons between Birkenhead and Milliard in A Floating Island (which include illustrations of course) which I dealt with briefly in my article in the International Review of Science Fiction (2025).
Hopefully it may also point towards some common themes in explaining Verne’s model for Franceville.
Best John
Don Sample
“The whole town was laid out in rectangles, crossed with parallel streets in the English fashion. Nothing could be simpler, or less attractive. As the town grew, they lengthened the streets as you lengthen the trousers of a growing child, and thus the primitive symmetry remains undisturbed.”
“But this would be long enough to traverse the regular squares of this chessboard which is called Cape Town, on which thirty thousand inhabitants, some white and others black, play the role of kings, queens , knights, pawns, and perhaps fools.”
On Sep 28, 2025, at 7:24 PM, John Lamb <cads...@gmail.com> wrote:
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quentin skrabec
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quentin skrabec
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Jean-Louis Trudel
First, let's be clear. Urban grid patterns go back thousands of
years, as in the Harappan cities of the Mohenjo Daro civilization in
India. (See this map for the shaping of the city around two major
thoroughfares crossing at right angles:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/397301998371598107/.) The Romans were
also fans, as seen in their camps and some of their new cities. I'm
recalling Cemelanum near Nice, but the grid pattern was quite
standard.
Verne cites English reformer Benjamin Ward Richardson, who wrote
Hygeia, A City of Health a few years before Bégum, and includes this
description of the ideal healthy city:
"The acreage of our model city allows room for three wide main streets
or boulevards, which run from east to west, and which are the main
thoroughfares. Beneath each of these is a railway along which the
heavy traffic of the city is carried on. The streets from north to
south which cross the main thoroughfares at right angles, and the
minor streets which run parallel, are all wide, and, owing to the
lowness of the houses, are thoroughly ventilated, and in the day are
filled with sunlight. They are planted on each side of the pathways
with trees, and in many places with shrubs and evergreens. All the
interspaces between the backs of houses are gardens. The churches,
hospitals, theatres, banks, lecture-rooms, and other public buildings,
as well as some private buildings such as warehouses and stables,
stand alone, forming parts of streets, and occupying the position of
several houses. They are surrounded with garden space, and add not
only to the beauty but to the healthiness of the city. The large
houses of the wealthy are situated in a similar manner."
That book doesn't seem to have been translated into French until 2006,
but other writings by RIchardson may have endorsed the grid pattern.
Since Verne was setting France-Ville in the American West (or the
eastern Pacific, if we trust his coordinates landing France-Ville well
offshore from Coos Bay in Oregon), he may well have been aware that
many new settlements (such as Calgary in Canada) also followed grid
patterns.
In France. a neighbourhood of Le Creusot follows a grid pattern, but
that might have been due to Anglo-American bombings and post-WWII
rebuilding. Some historical research would be needed. Closer to
Verne's era, there's the planned suburb of Le Vésinet outside Paris,
where the downtown was initially intended to follow a grid pattern.
Other notes;
I've been to Arc et Sénans: I don't see any real points of
resemblance with France-Ville.
Haussmann's vision of Paris did not yield a lot of grids, but the star
pattern centered on the Place de l'Étoile recalls L'Enfant's plan for
Washington, DC, where the diagonal streets (also found in Barcelona's
Eixample) are combined with gridded neighbourhoods.
In short, I rather doubt Verne's inspiration was rooted in remote
times or locations. Industrial locations, such as Le Creusot or
Birkenhead, would not have fitted the novel's "tale of two cities"
because they would have been variations on Stahlstadt. We should look
for gridded city plans associated with good, healthy living
conditions.
Jean-Louis Trudel
Le sam. 27 sept. 2025, à 10 h 45, quentin skrabec
<qrsk...@gmail.com> a écrit :
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Jean-Louis Trudel
I'll add this essay by Hubner going into some of the possible examples
that might have been known to Verne, including one Fourierist attempt:
"Cité modèle et Cité guerrière : utopie et dystopie dans Les Cinq
cents millions de la Bégum de Jules Verne"
(https://journals.openedition.org/babel/6186).
Jean-Louis Trudel
Le dim. 28 sept. 2025, à 20 h 40, Jean-Louis Trudel
<trud...@gmail.com> a écrit :
John Lamb
Dear Don and Jean,
Thank you for your replies
I think France-ville may be perhaps an amalgamation of different towns. I applied the Birkenhead model to France-ville and it failed (although the final paragraph below may temper that slightly), however I have opened up another thread regarding Birkenhead and Milliard in The Floating Island and the links are of far great number (I quote 20) and more precise including Verne satirizing Nathanial Hawthorne’s description of Birkenhead Park from Hawthorne’s diaries. They also include illustration comparisons. Please read the attachment in the other thread, the Hawthorne satire I hope will show some members of this forum that all my posts are not based on coincidence and contextualize all the other links which I repeat are not coincidence.
Regarding your quote
We should look for gridded city plans associated with good, healthy living conditions.
I agree.
One writer who may have influenced Verne was Frederick Law Olmsted, the celebrated American town planner, who visited Birkenhead in 1851 to view the first public park in the world. Olmsted based his design for Central Park, New York on Sir Joseph Paxton’s Birkenhead Park, and his writings are a good a source as any to gain an outsider’s view of this, the ‘City of the Future’.
‘All about the town, lands, which a few years ago were almost worthless wastes, have become of priceless value; where no sound was heard but the bleating of goats, and braying of asses complaining of the pasturage; there is now the hasty click and clatter of a hundred busy trowels and hammers. You may drive through wide and thronged streets of stately edifices, where there were only a few scattered huts surrounded by quagmires. Docks of unequalled size and grandeur are building, and a forest of masts grows along the shore; and there is no doubt that this young town is to be not only remarkable as a most agreeable and healthy place of residence but that it will soon be distinguished for extensive and profitable commerce. It seems to me to be the only town I ever saw that has been really built at all in accordance with the advanced science, taste and enterprising spirit that are supposed to distinguish the nineteenth century.’
Walks and Talks of an American farmer in England. Frederick Law Olmsted 1852.
Best John
James D. Keeline
In 1888 he entered politics and was elected town councillor of Amiens, where he championed several improvements and served for fifteen years.
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John Lamb
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John Lamb
Dear Quentin,
Just a general overview re Begum’s Millions and the idea that Verne foresaw the later military threat from Germany which may or may not find its way into your write up.
This military threat from the east was a concern for Charles Dickens too, as early as 1852.
Charles Dickens wrote this in a letter to Margaret Cropper in Liverpool on 20th December 1852, in some ways anticipating the Crimean War, Franco Prussian War, WW1 and WW2.
Further than this, I apprehend there will soon be a War in Europe. The only natural alliance for England then, is with America.
Dickens ascertained that he had to strike the right balance in criticizing the Americans over slavery and still keep a country he loved ‘on side’. This I believe could also sum up the attitude of Jules Verne.
Margaret Cropper was a leading abolitionist in the fight to free American slaves as part of the Cropper dynasty in Liverpool. The Croppers led the campaign to promote Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Europe and were the major initiators of the abolition of slavery in 1833 in the British Empire (more than Wilberforce).
They were secretly referenced by the author Elizabeth Gaskell (Dicken's great friend) in her novel Mary Barton (1849) who refers to the abolitionist John Cropper by naming a ship after him. The Croppers are also included in the poetry of Edward Lear, the letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe (who stayed at the Croppers). They represent the best Victorian writer / politician / abolitionist interface I have come across (see my Wikipedia write up below). Crucially I also ascertain that they are alluded to by Jules Verne's and Robert Louis Stevenson and this is why I put so much effort in writing up their Wikipedia page. The poet Matthew Arnold also married into the Cropper family.
I wrote most of their Wikipedia page and you can find it here.
James Cropper (abolitionist) - Wikipedia
The slavery, Civil War, technology interface is far more important in the early works of Jules Verne than most scholars of Verne realise, they simply list the references without trying to find an overall meaning behind them.
Verne had the hindsight of the Franco Prussian war to appreciate the political threat from the east but we know he admired Charles Dickens greatly and perhaps shared some of the same views regarding the evils of slavery, European instability and the need for a strong American in future years, including after the Civil War.
Gaskell, Verne and Stevenson all give secret literary references to the Croppers in their novels.
Best John
quentin skrabec
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John Lamb
times or locations. Industrial locations, such as Le Creusot or
Birkenhead, would not have fitted the novel's "tale of two cities"
because they would have been variations on Stahlstadt. We should look
for gridded city plans associated with good, healthy living
conditions.
Jean-Louis Trudel
James Wilson provided free meals, education, religious instruction and free summer excursions for child employees – this was seen as revolutionary at the time and James Wilson composed a report on Price’s Village and factory. James Wilson’s report came to the attention of two novelists who will go on to play a much greater role in our story.
According to Kate Teltscher (2012).
The novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who was greatly concerned with factory conditions, was much taken with the report, and proposed to Dickens that she write an article on Price’s for Household Words. Dickens encouraged her but Wilson (who Gaskell knew) did not want the factory to become a show place, so Gaskell dropped the idea. The following year, however, Gaskell visited the works in the company of the American abolitionist and author Harriet Beecher Stowe (who had recently published Uncle Tom’s Cabin). The example of Wilson’s regime at Price’s, the critic Stephen Gill has argued, influenced Gaskell in the composition of her great Novel North and South (1854-55).
Kate Teltscher Palace of Palms: Tropical Dreams and the Making of Kew (2012).