Britain and the Channel Tunnel Government

Official History Series 1st Edition T.R.

Gourvish pdf download

https://ebookgate.com/product/britain-and-the-channel-tunnel-
government-official-history-series-1st-edition-t-r-gourvish/

Get the full ebook with Bonus Features for a Better Reading Experience on ebookgate.com
Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

The Official History of Privatisation Vol I The formative

years 1970 1987 Government Official History Series 1st
Edition David Parker
https://ebookgate.com/product/the-official-history-of-privatisation-
vol-i-the-formative-years-1970-1987-government-official-history-
series-1st-edition-david-parker/
ebookgate.com

Corruption Party and Government in Britain 1702 1713 1st

Edition Aaron Graham

https://ebookgate.com/product/corruption-party-and-government-in-
britain-1702-1713-1st-edition-aaron-graham/

ebookgate.com

The Praxis Series Official Guide 1st Edition Educational

Testing Service

https://ebookgate.com/product/the-praxis-series-official-guide-1st-
edition-educational-testing-service/

ebookgate.com

Microsoft Office System 2007 Microsoft Official Academic

Course Series Microsoft Official Academic Course

https://ebookgate.com/product/microsoft-office-system-2007-microsoft-
official-academic-course-series-microsoft-official-academic-course/

ebookgate.com
Engineering Plastics 1st Edition Crompton T.R.

https://ebookgate.com/product/engineering-plastics-1st-edition-
crompton-t-r/

ebookgate.com

Government the Railways and the Modernization of Britain

Beeching s Last Trains British Politics and Society 1st
Edition Charles Loft
https://ebookgate.com/product/government-the-railways-and-the-
modernization-of-britain-beeching-s-last-trains-british-politics-and-
society-1st-edition-charles-loft/
ebookgate.com

Environmental Biotechnology 1st Ed. Edition T.R. Srinivas

https://ebookgate.com/product/environmental-biotechnology-1st-ed-
edition-t-r-srinivas/

ebookgate.com

Plastics Reinforcement and Industrial Applications 1st

Edition T.R. Crompton (Author)

https://ebookgate.com/product/plastics-reinforcement-and-industrial-
applications-1st-edition-t-r-crompton-author/

ebookgate.com

Tunnel Syndromes 3rd Edition Marko M. Pecina

https://ebookgate.com/product/tunnel-syndromes-3rd-edition-marko-m-
pecina/

ebookgate.com
 THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN
AND THE CHANNEL TUNNEL

This authoritative volume presents the first official history of the British
Government’s evolving relationship with the Channel Tunnel project from the
early nineteenth century to 2005.
The building of the Channel Tunnel has been one of Europe’s major projects
and a testimony to British-French and public-private sector collaboration.
However, Eurotunnel’s current financial crisis provides a sobering backcloth for
an examination of the British Government’s long-term flirtation with the project,
and in particular, the earlier Tunnel project in the 1960s and early 1970s, which
was abandoned in 1975. Commissioned by the Cabinet Office and using hitherto
untapped British Government records, this book presents an in-depth analysis of
the successful project of 1986–94. It provides a vivid portrayal of the complexities
of quadripartite decision-making (in two countries, with both public and private
sectors), revealing new insights into the role of the British and French
Governments in the process.

Written by Terry Gourvish, Britain’s leading transport historian, this book will
be essential reading for general readers and specialists with an interest in business
history, international relations, public policy and project management.
 WHITEHALL HISTORIES: GOVERNMENT
OFFICIAL HISTORY SERIES
ISSN: 1474–8398

The Government Official History series began in 1919 with wartime histories,
and the peacetime series was inaugurated in 1966 by Harold Wilson. The aim of
the series is to produce major histories in their own right, compiled by historians
eminent in the field, who are afforded free access to all relevant material in the
official archives. The Histories also provide a trusted secondary source for other
historians and researchers while the official records are not in the public domain.
The main criteria for selection of topics are that the Histories should record
important episodes or themes of British history while the official records can still
be supplemented by the recollections of key players; and that they should be of
general interest, and, preferably, involve the records of more than one government
department.

THE UNITED KINGDOM AND

THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
Vol. I: The Rise and Fall of a National Strategy, 1945–1963
Alan S. Milward

SECRET FLOTILLAS
Vol. I: Clandestine Sea Operations to Brittany, 1940–1944
Vol. II: Clandestine Sea Operations in the Mediterranean, North Africa
and the Adriatic, 1940–1944
Brooks Richards

SOE IN FRANCE
M.R.D. Foot

THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE FALKLANDS CAMPAIGN

Vol. I: The Origins of the Falklands War
Vol. II: War and Diplomacy
Lawrence Freedman

THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN AND

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL
Terry Gourvish
THE OFFICIAL HISTORY
OF BRITAIN AND THE
CHANNEL TUNNEL

Terry Gourvish

Research: Mike Anson

 First published 2006
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abington, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2006 Crown Copyright

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN10: 0–415–39183–0 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–39183–2 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0–203–96949–9 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–96949–6 (ebk)

The author has been given full access to official documents. The data and factual information in the
report is based on these documents. The interpretation of the documents and the views expressed are
those of the author.
 There was a young lady of Rye
Who said, with a smile in her eye
‘If a tunnel they bore
From France to our Shore
Goodbye, little basin goodbye’*

*Quoted in Claude Boillot–TSI, 23 December 1959, TSI Archive, Vol. 60, HBS.
 CONTENTS

List of figures ix
List of cartoons x
List of tables xi
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xvi
Abbreviations and acronyms xvii

1 Beginnings, 1802–1945 1

2 New aspirations: the Channel Tunnel project, 1945–64 16

3 Another false start: the Wilson Governments and

the Tunnel, 1964–70 46

4 The Heath Government and the Tunnel: reaching

agreement, 1970–2 79

5 The Heath Government and the Tunnel: taking

the project forward, 1972–4 107

6 Abandonment, 1974–5 134

7 Keeping hopes alive, 1975–81 171

8 The Thatcher Governments and the Tunnel: from

hope to eternity, 1981–4 207

9 The Thatcher Governments and the Tunnel: choosing

a promoter, 1984–6 247

vii
 CONTENTS

10 Eurotunnel: finance and construction, 1986–90 285

11 From Tunnel to transport facility, 1988–94 322

12 The Channel Tunnel: postscript, 1994–2005 364

Notes 386
Index 511

viii
 FIGURES

1.1 Sartiaux-Fox Channel Tunnel scheme with strategic

viaduct, 1906 8
1.2 Channel Tunnel Co. scheme, 1929–30 12
2.1 CTSG scheme, 1960: proposed alignment 27
3.1 Options for Channel Tunnel terminals, 1968 75
5.1 The 1970s Tunnel 110
6.1 Route of proposed Channel Tunnel Rail Link, 1973 150
7.1 The Channel Tunnel circle 205
9.1 Thatcher and Mitterand’s signed announcement to
proceed with a Channel Tunnel, 20 January 1986 278
10.1 Channel Tunnel organisational chart 288
11.1a Channel Tunnel Rail Link: British Rail’s four route
options, 1988 332
11.1b British Rail’s four route options, 1988: London termini 333
11.2 Channel Tunnel Rail Link: options, 1989–94 338
12.1 The ‘Eurotunnel System’, 1994 367

ix
 CARTOONS

1 Channel Tunnel phobia, 1907 9

2 Anglo-French differences, 1963 39
3 Cynicial about project management, 1966 61
4 Abandonment, 1975 166
5 The illusive Tunnel dream, 1981 208
6 Thatcher and Ridley encounter opposition, 1985 259
7 Alastair Morton accuses TML, 1989 320
8 Escalating costs and financial crisis, 1991 353
9 The Tunnel opens, 1994 365
10 The banks’ continuing anxieties, 1996 374
11 Eurotunnel wins a Concession extension, 1997 375
12 The Channel Tunnel Rail Link’s financing problems, 1998 379

x
 TABLES

1.1 Select list of early proposals for a fixed channel link, 1803–89 2
2.1 Channel Tunnel Study Group Report, March 1960: estimated
construction costs, and prospects for a rail-only tunnel 28
2.2 Channel Tunnel Study Group, estimate of the Channel
Tunnel’s ‘economic benefits’, July 1960 32
2.3 Tunnel v. Bridge: Joint working party’s 1963 traffic forecasts
for 1980 36
2.4 Tunnel v. Bridge: Joint working party’s 1963 assessment
of economic and financial returns 37
3.1 The 1963 and 1966 estimates of economic and financial
returns 55
3.2 Traffic forecasts: revisions of April and August 1966,
compared with Anglo-French report, 1963 57
3.3 Shortlisted consortia for Channel Tunnel, May 1967 65
3.4 Channel Tunnel terminal facilities: options, 1959–69 76
4.1 The Channel Tunnel consortium, July 1970 82
4.2 ‘Interim’ study results, 1972, compared with 1963, 1966
and 1969 96
4.3 Participation in the private consortium, October 1972 105
5.1 The 1973 studies: estimated financial return 113
5.2 Channel Tunnel, 1973: cost-benefit analysis
for the United Kingdom 113
5.3 Traffic forecasts, 1973, compared with those in 1963
and 1966 114
5.4 Suggested remuneration proposals (based on lower growth
estimate), July 1973 120
5.5 Agreed remuneration package, September 1973 126
6.1 Channel Tunnel Rail Link: analysis of increases in cost
between June 1973 and August 1974 159
7.1 Cross-channel passenger and freight traffic: actual, 1962–73,
and Cairncross Report forecast, 1980–90 180

xi
 TABLES

7.2 Cairncross Report estimate of Tunnel costs and benefits

(UK share), 1975–2030 182
7.3 Cairncross Report estimate of rail investment costs and
benefits (UK share), 1975–2030 183
7.4 BRB and SNCF single-track rail tunnel: estimate of capital
investment, 1978 191
8.1 Channel Fixed Link options, December 1981 215
8.2 Cross-channel traffic forecasts, 1980–2000 229
8.3 Channel Fixed Link: estimated rates of return and resource
costs, April 1982 230
9.1 Evaluation of Channel Link options by Banking Report, 1984 248
9.2 Competing bids for the Channel Fixed Link concession,
October 1985 262
9.3 Comparison of promoters’ capital cost and revenue estimates,
December 1985 269
10.1 Toll payments agreed under the Railway Usage Contract,
July 1987 304
10.2 Progress with tunnelling, 1987–91 311
10.3 Increases in Channel Tunnel construction and project costs,
1985–90 320
11.1 British Rail’s four options for new route capacity, July 1988 331
11.2 Eurotunnel’s estimate of cost consequences of IGC and
Governments’ interventions, November 1993 361
12.1 Channel Tunnel outturn, 6 May 1994, compared with
November 1987 forecast 368
12.2 Channel Tunnel traffic, 1994–2004 370
12.3 Eurotunnel operating results and profit and loss, 1994–2004 372

xii
 PREFACE

In 2001 I was appointed by Prime Minister Tony Blair to write a history of the
Channel Tunnel as part of the programme of official histories run by the Cabinet
Office. My broad remit was to analyse in some depth the involvement of the British
Government, its ministers, civil servants and advisers, in the project management
of this, one of the largest, if not the largest, infrastructure mega-projects in Europe.
It is important at the outset to explain what this book deals with and what it does
not. While I was asked to cover events from the beginning, that is, from the early
nineteenth century, the initial efforts to build a Channel crossing have naturally
attracted the attention of generations of historians. Furthermore, when the Tunnel
became a reality in the late 1980s, it stimulated a mini-boom in publications. Some
of the books were written by those who, like Michael Bonavia, Donald Hunt and
Colin Kirkland, had been actively involved in its history; others dealt at length with
the construction phase, again from the perspective of the expert. With no previously
unexploited archives to trawl, there was little point in going over much of the same
ground in detail. I therefore decided to concentrate upon the periods which had not
been covered in depth before, that is, the full story of the 1970s Tunnel and its aban-
donment in 1975, and of course, the successful promotion of the mid-1980s. The
book does not attempt to provide a rounded Anglo-French analysis of this great
joint venture, nor does it attempt to write from the perspective of the numerous
private sector corporations which were engaged in lobbying, promoting, construct-
ing and operating the Tunnel. This is not to say that the role of French ministers,
officials and companies is neglected, nor indeed that of bodies such as Eurotunnel,
TML (Transmanche-Link), and the numerous financial institutions involved in the
capital investment in the Tunnel. Rather it is concerned with the complexity of
project management, where more than one country is involved, and a multiplicity
of actors is involved. The security aspects relating to defence, terrorism and
immigration were not examined in depth in the contemporary period.
The book therefore reflects the privileges I enjoyed in being permitted to
consult the archives of the British Government, before the complexities
introduced by the Freedom of Information Act (my contract with the Cabinet
Office terminated in January 2005). Although there were some exceptions, in
general this privileged access was not extended elsewhere. However, I must

xiii
 PREFACE

express my thanks to the following, who allowed me to consult material dealing

with the Tunnel: the Bank of England Archive (Chief Cashier’s papers,
1959–63); Centre des Archives du Monde du Travail, Roubaix (Rothschild,
Chemin de fer du Nord papers); Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge (Channel
Tunnel Co., Bonavia and Churchill papers); Glasgow University Archive
Services (Cairncross papers); Harvard Business School’s Baker Library, Boston
(Technical Studies Inc. papers); HSBC Archive, London (Midland Bank’s
Channel Tunnel papers, mid-1980s); ING Bank, London (Baring Partners
papers, 1957–76); London Business School Library; Modern Records Centre,
University of Warwick (TUC and TGWU papers); Lady Parker (Sir Peter
Parker’s papers); Rio Tinto plc (RTZ, RTZ-DE papers); Rothschild Archive,
London (N.M. Rothschild & Sons papers, 19th century); Royal Archives,
Windsor (Queen Victoria’s papers); Strategic Rail Authority (British Railways
Board’s Channel Tunnel papers, 1970s–94).
I benefited greatly from the assistance offered by those who agreed to be inter-
viewed, or shared their experience of the Tunnel with me. Of the British politicians
the following were particularly helpful: Sir Edward Heath, Prime Minister when
the 1970s Tunnel was promoted, and Lord Peyton, his Transport Minister; Sir
David Mitchell, junior minister to Nicholas Ridley in the critical period in the mid-
1980s; and Lord Heseltine, Environment Secretary. Among the civil servants,
I owe a particular debt to John Noulton, who was actively involved in the project
first at the DTp, then at TML and finally at Eurotunnel as Director of Public
Affairs. John not only agreed to be interviewed on a number of occasions, but also
hosted a visit to Eurotunnel’s control centre and the service tunnel, allowing me to
view the crossing point with Sir Edward Watkin’s tunnel of the 1880s, and the
‘public sector’ section bored in 1975. Also extremely helpful were Lord
Armstrong, Guy Braibant, Brig. John Constant, Lady Harrop (Margaret Elliott-
Binns), Sir Peter Kemp, Andrew Lyall, Sir David Serpell and Sir Edward Tomkins.
I enjoyed the help of Alan Bennett, Andy Heslop and David Williams, from British
Rail and its successors; Graham Corbett, Jean-Loup Dherse, Patrick Ponsolle and
Peter Ratzer from Eurotunnel; Pen Kent, from the Bank of England; Lady Jill
Parker, who helped me to unearth some of Sir Peter Parker’s missing papers; and
Frank P. Davidson, former President of Technical Studies Inc. and tunnel promoter
extraordinaire. I was also able to draw on interview material collected for my
earlier book on British Rail with Sir Peter Baldwin, David Blake, Richard Edgley,
Sir Norman Fowler, Gil Howarth, Lord Howell, Lord Kelvedon, David Kirby, Lord
MacGregor, John Palmer, Sir Peter Parker, Lord Parkinson, John Prideaux, Sir
Robert Reid (Bob Reid I), Sir Robert Reid (Bob Reid II), Malcolm Southgate, Sir
Alan Walters, and John Welsby. I also received invaluable help from Professors
Stefan Szymanski and Roger Vickerman, who very generously shared their Tunnel
archives with me. Preliminary thoughts were presented to conferences in Athens,
Canterbury and Gothenberg, where valuable comments were received. I should
also like to thank Melanie Aspey, Laurent Bonnaud, Camilla Brautaset, Frances
Cairncross, Sonia Copeland, Gerald Crompton, Stephen Freeth, Patrick Fridenson,

xiv
 PREFACE

Henry Gillett, Edwin Green, John Jenkins, John Kelsey, Alex Kemp, James King,
Pierre Longuemar, Fiona Maccoll, Alan Milward, Mary Morgan, John Orbell,
Leslie and Sheila Pressnell, Lesley Richmond and Peter Trewin.
I was assisted in my work by the support offered by a Project Board chaired by
Tessa Stirling, Head of the Histories, Openness and Records Unit at the Cabinet
Office. Most of its members had had direct experience of the Tunnel in their
professional lives. I was therefore extremely grateful for the wisdom of Peter
Thomas, John Henes and Deborah Phelan (DTp), Irene Ripley (Treasury), Richard
Edgley (ex-BRB, EPS), Rosemary Jeffreys (Treasury Solicitor), and Heather
Yasamee (FCO). I should also like to thank the staff at the Cabinet Office, and in
particular, Tessa, for her unfailing support, Richard Ponman, whose birthday
proved to be a critical element in the project’s administration, and Sally Falk.
Valuable assistance was provided at the Cabinet Office by Deb Neal, Joan Davies,
Norman Rainnie, Chris Grindall, Naomi Tobi, at the DTp by John Sheard, and at
the DTI by David Tookey. The figures were drawn most professionally by Mark
Lacey of Picture This. The search for cartoons was once again aided by Jane
Newton and the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature at the University
of Kent, and the British Library at Colindale.
In preparing the book my greatest debt was to my researcher on the project,
Mike Anson. Mike not only showed an unflagging and seemingly limitless appetite
for processing the voluminous and often challenging files of government, but
exhibited a strong sense of the contemporary period and its political economy, and
was able to steer me away from some (but not all) of my well-known idiosyn-
crasies. Our working relationship was also influenced by the fact that the fortunes
of his football teams – Exeter City and Stafford Rangers – invited comparisons
with Eurotunnel’s at several points. Mike’s wife Jo, crossword puzzler par
excellence, was, as ever, a wonderful proof-reader. Last, and certainly not least, my
family were supportive whenever I retreated into the world of tunnels and
tunnelling. Sue made valuable comments on the last chapter and was sufficiently
inspired to travel on Eurostar for the first time, thereby taking actual numbers a
little bit closer to the optimistic forecasts. Like the Tunnel itself, this book has been
a collaborative effort and I thank all who helped me to produce it. Responsibility
for the text is of course, mine alone.

TRG
London, June 2005

xv
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author and the publishers wish to thank the following for kind permission to
reproduce material.

Cartoons
Jane Newton and the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, University
of Kent for locating and providing prints for Cartoons 1–3 and 6; Derek Alder and
News International for Cartoon 4; Steve Bell and the Guardian for Cartoon 12;
Peter Brookes and News International for Cartoon 8; Daily Mirror for Cartoon 1;
Evening Standard for Cartoon 2; Nicholas Garland and the Daily Telegraph for
Cartoon 6; News International for Cartoon 3; Plantu and Le Monde for Cartoon 10;
Private Eye Magazine for its cover, reproduced as Cartoon 9;. Varney and
Building for Cartoon 5; Kipper Williams and the Guardian for Cartoon 11; and
Richard Wilson and News International for Cartoon 7.

Figures
Cabinet Office for Figure 9.1. Figures 1.1 and 1.2 were drawn from original
material in the Cabinet Office, Figures 2.1, 3.1, 5.1, 6.1 and 11.2 from material
provided by the Department for Transport and its predecessors, Figure 11.1 from
a British Railways Board Report, and Figure 12.1 from a Eurotunnel original.

xvi
 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

ACTG Anglo Channel Tunnel Group

AF63 MT, Proposals for a Fixed Channel Link, September 1963,
Cmnd.2137
AF66 MT, Joint Report by British and French officials on the construction
and operation of the Channel Tunnel, August 1966
AF82 DTp, Report of Anglo/French Study Group, April 1982 (published
version: DTp, Fixed Channel Link. Report of UK/French Study
Group, June 1982, Cmnd.8561)
AMD Aviation and Maritime Department (FCO)
APS Assistant Private Secretary
APT Advanced Passenger Train
ASLEF Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen
Asst Assistant
BAA British Airports Authority
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BC Borough Council
BCTC British Channel Tunnel Company
BICC British Insulated Callenders Cables
BOAC British Overseas Airways Corporation
BOE Bank of England
BoT Board of Trade
BP British Petroleum
BR British Rail
BRB British Railways Board
BSC British Steel Corporation
BTC British Transport Commission
BTR British Tyre and Rubber
CAB Cabinet Office
CBI Confederation of British Industry
CE Channel Expressway
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CFL Channel Fixed Link (Divn, DTp)

xvii
 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

CGE Compagnie Générale d’Electricité

CGE-DE CGE-Développement
CID Committee of Imperial Defence
Co. Co. County Council
CPRS Central Policy Review Staff
CT Channel Tunnel
CTA Channel Tunnel Administration (MT)
CTAG Channel Tunnel Advisory Group (Cairncross)
CTAWP Channel Tunnel Agreement No. 2 Working Party (DOE)
CTD Channel Tunnel Developments (1981) Ltd
CTE Channel Tunnel Engineering (MT)
CTG Channel Tunnel Group (MT)
CTG Channel Tunnel Group (company)
CTG-FM Channel Tunnel Group/France-Manche
CTIC Interdepartmental Committee on the Channel Tunnel (DOE)
CTPC Channel Tunnel Parliamentary Committee
CTRL Channel Tunnel Rail Link
CTSG Channel Tunnel Study Group
CTSU Channel Tunnel Studies Unit (DOE)
CTU Channel Tunnel Unit (DTp)
DCF Discounted Cash Flow
DEA Department of Economic Affairs
Dep Deputy
Dept Department
DETR Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions
DG Director General
DHB Dover Harbour Board
Divn Division
DOE Department of the Environment
DoT Department of Trade
DSIR Department of Scientific and Industrial Research
DTI Department of Trade and Industry
DTp Department of Transport
E Cabinet Ministerial Committee on Economic Strategy
E(A) Cabinet Sub-Committee on Economic Affairs
EC European Community
ECD European Community Department (FCO)
ECTG European Channel Tunnel Group
ECU European Currency Unit
ED(O) Cabinet Economic Development (Official) Committee
EDC Cabinet Ministerial Committee on Economic Development
EEC European Economic Community
EFL External Financing Limit
EFTA European Free Trade Association

xviii
 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

EIA Environmental Impact Analysis

EIB European Investment Bank
EP European Parliament
EPC Cabinet Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy
EPS European Passenger Services
EWS English Welsh and Scottish Railway
FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office
FM France-Manche
FO Foreign Office
FTI Finance Transport Industries (Divn, DTp)
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GEC General Electric Company
GLC Greater London Council
GM General Manager
GNP Gross National Product
GoCo Government-owned Company
H&LG Housing and Local Government
HBS Harvard Business School
HC House of Commons
HGV Heavy Goods Vehicle
HL House of Lords
HO Home Office
HSBC Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
ICI Imperial Chemical Industries
IFR Investment and Financing Review
IGC Channel Tunnel Intergovernmental Commission
IND Immigration and Nationality Department (Home Office)
IRA Irish Republican Army
IT International Transport (Divn, DTp)
ITN Independent Television News
JEXIM Export-Import Bank of Japan
Jnc. Junction
L&H Livesey and Henderson
LCR London and Continental Railways
LP of C Lord President of the Council
LSE London School of Economics
LUL London Underground Ltd
MAED Maritime, Aviation and Environment Department (FCO)
MD Managing Director
MdO Maître d’Oeuvre
MEP Member of the European Parliament
MHLG Ministry of Health and Local Government
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MMC Monopolies and Mergers Commission

xix
 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

MoD Ministry of Defence

MP Member of Parliament
MPA Major Projects Association
MT Ministry of Transport
MTCA Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation
MUC Minimum Usage Charge
MVA Martin Vorhees Associates
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NatWest National Westminster (Bank)
NEDC National Economic Development Council
NEDO National Economic Development Office
NPV Net Present Value
NUR National Union of Railwaymen
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OFT Office of Fair Trading
OPEC Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
PAC Public Accounts Committee (HC)
P&O Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company
Parl. Parliamentary
Parl.Deb. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)
PBKA Paris-Brussels-Köln-Amsterdam (rail network)
PCA Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
PE Public Enterprises (Group, Treasury)
PESC Public Expenditure Survey Committee
PFI Private Finance Initiative
PID Project Implementation Division (Eurotunnel)
PM Prime Minister
PP Parliamentary Papers
PPP Public–Private Partnership
PPS Principal Private Secretary
PQ Parliamentary Question
PREM Prime Minister’s Office
PRO Public Record Office (now The National Archive)
PS Private Secretary
PTR Public Transport and Research (DTp)
PUSS Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
RACHEL Rainham to Channel Tunnel
RE Railway Executive (BRB)
REC Railway Executive Committee (BRB)
RfD Railfreight Distribution
RIBA Royal Institute of British Architects
Rlys Railways
RT Rio Tinto
RTZ Rio Tinto-Zinc

xx
 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

RTZDE RTZ Development Enterprises

S&O Systems and Operations
SC Select Committee
SCREG Société Chimique Routière et d’Entreprise Générale
Sec Secretary
SEPM Société d’Etude du Pont sur la Manche
SETCM Société d’Etude du Tunnel Complet routier et ferroviaire sous la
Manche
SETEC Société d’Etudes Techniques et Economiques
SFTM Société Française du Tunnel sous la Manche
SHAPE Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe
SNCB Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Belges
SNCF Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français
SOGEI Société Générale d’Exploitation Industrielle
SOLAS International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea
SoS Secretary of State
TALIS Thames Alternative Link International System
TBM Tunnel Boring Machine
TGV Train à Grande Vitesse
TGWU Transport and General Workers’ Union
TML Transmanche-Link
TPRU Transport Policy Research Unit (DTp)
TRRL Transport and Road Research Laboratory
TSG Tunnel Signalling Group
TSI Technical Studies Inc
TUC Trades Union Congress
UAC Unit of Account
UBS Union Bank of Switzerland
UIC Union International des Chemins de Fer
UMIST University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
U-Sec Under-Secretary
UWIST University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology
VP Vice President
WED Western European Dept (FCO)

xxi
 1
BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

1. The early possibilities

Interest in the idea of linking Britain to the continent of Europe and specifically
to France is usually identified as beginning in the early nineteenth century. In the
middle of the French Wars, a French mining engineer, Jacques-Joseph Mathieu-
Favier, apparently made the somewhat implausible suggestion that the time was
ripe to link countries who were then enemies. His proposal envisaged a two-
gallery tunnel from Cap Gris Nez to Folkestone, to be constructed from each side
to an artificial island on Varne bank in mid-channel. Services were to be provided
by horse-drawn coaches. It seems that during the brief peace of Amiens in 1802–3
Napoleon expressed an interest in the proposal, and in informal discussions with
Charles James Fox, a former foreign secretary, it was suggested that the scheme
was ambitious enough to require the two countries to undertake it jointly.
However, the resumption of war for a further decade and a half put paid to such
exploratory discussions.1
In the first half of the century the initiatives for a fixed link crossing came
mainly from the French. Bridges, bored tunnels, and immersed tubes were all sug-
gested. In the 1830s the mining engineer Thomé de Gamond began four decades
of investigation of the Channel strata, making a significant contribution by assert-
ing that the chalk strata were continuous.2 Another leading figure was Hector
Horeau, who advanced the idea of a submerged tube in 1851. However, the British
were never far behind, as the work of James Wylson, William Low and John
Hawkshaw demonstrates (Table 1.1). In 1855 Wylson proposed an ingenious if
somewhat implausible f loating tunnel, anchored by ties and buoys, costed at
£15 million. More importantly, it was the work of the British engineers Low and
Hawkshaw in the 1860s that had the most influence in engineering terms. Low
teamed up with de Gamond and another British engineer, John Brunlees, to
produce the first serious plan for a tunnel, between Dover’s South Foreland and
Sangatte, near Calais.3 Hawkshaw’s privately funded trial borings in 1865–7
convinced de Gamond to abandon the idea of using Varne bank for a more direct
route through the chalk between St. Margaret’s Bay, east of Dover, and Sangatte.
De Gamond was also encouraged to join an Anglo-French consortium led by

1
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

Table 1.1 Select list of early proposals for a fixed channel link, 1803–89

Date Proposer Country Mode

of origin

1803 Jacques–Joseph Mathieu–Favier France tunnel

1833–67 Louis Joseph Aimé Thomé France tube, bridge, tunnel
de Gamond
1843 Cyprien Tessié du Mottay France immersed tube
and Charles Franchot
1851 Hector Horeau France immersed tube
1855 James Wylson Britain immersed tube
1855 Léopold Favre France tunnel
1856 William Austin Britain tunnel
1865 John Hawkshaw and Britain trial borings
Hartsinck Day
1867 William Low et al. Britain tunnel
1869, 1875 A. Mottier France bridge
1872 Channel Tunnel Co. Britain tunnel: borings
1875 Chemin de Fer Sous-Marin France tunnel: borings
1881–2 South Eastern Railway/ Britain tunnel: borings
Submarine Continental Co.
1889 Hildevert Hersent et al./ France/ bridge
Schneider et Cie Britain

Source: Alphonse de Longuemar, ‘Tunnel sous-marin anglo-français’, Journal de la Vienne, 29

December 1857; Peter A. Keen, ‘The Channel Tunnel Project’, Journal of Transport History, III
(1957–8); Humphrey Slater and Correlli Barnett, The Channel Tunnel (1958); Thomas Whiteside, The
Tunnel under the Channel (1962); Mick Hamer, ‘La [sic] rêve de Napoleon . . . et al!’, in Bronwen
Jones (ed.), The Tunnel: The Channel and Beyond (Chichester, 1987); Donald Hunt, The Tunnel: The
Story of the Channel Tunnel 1802–1994 (Upton-upon-Severn, 1994); Keith Wilson, Channel Tunnel
Visions, 1850–1945: Dreams and Nightmares (1994); Bertrand Lemoine, Le Tunnel sous la Manche
(Paris, 1994); Richard Rogers, ‘England & the Channel Tunnel’, University of Amsterdam PhD
thesis, 1998.

Lord Richard Grosvenor, MP for Flintshire, and Michel Chevalier, the Inspector-
General of Mines in France, to take the project forward in a more commercial
sense.4
While the technical feasibility of such a tunnel may have seemed somewhat
remote at first, it is clear that by the early nineteenth century enthusiasts could
point to the success of a number of striking engineering feats, particularly in
British canal-building. Some of the tunnelling extended for over a mile, notably
James Brindley’s Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent & Mersey Canal in 1777,
2
13miles long, and the two-mile Sapperton Tunnel on the Thames & Severn of
1789. The biggest of all was the Standedge Tunnel traversing the Pennines on the
Huddersfield Canal, completed in 1811 and over three miles long.5 These were all
land-based projects, of course. The first under-river tunnel for public use was Marc
Isambard Brunel’s crossing of the Thames in London. His Thames Tunnel, from
Wapping to Rotherhithe, took 18 years to complete (1825–43) and encountered

2
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

serious problems of safety and financing as construction costs rose (the final
cost was £468,250). However, this was a major achievement in the science of
tunnelling, in demonstrating the feasibility of under-water tunnelling, and the
successful use of Brunel’s invention, the tunnelling shield.6
The introduction of railways provided further impetus to the art of the possible.
This revolutionary technology, the most important of the century, embraced
significant advances in civil engineering, and in difficult terrain bridges and
tunnels were critical elements of the new infrastructure. Thus, as early as 1832
officials of the newly opened Leicester & Swannington Railway invited discon-
certed passengers to enter Robert Stephenson’s impressive, even frightening
Glenfield Tunnel near Leicester, then Britain’s longest at just over a mile. Six
years later, the London & Greenwich Railway – London’s first – was operating
trains over nearly four miles of continuous viaduct.7 The Sheffield, Ashton-under-
Lyne & Manchester Railway’s Woodhead Tunnel was one of the wonders of the
world on its opening in 1845, though at 3 miles 22 yards its length was merely a
tenth of what was required for the crossing of the channel. The major railway tun-
nel of the late nineteenth century in Britain, Sir John Hawkshaw’s Severn Tunnel
of 1886, was over a mile longer at 4 miles 628 yards, and on the continent of
Europe the Mont Cenis (1871) and St. Gotthard (1882) tunnels were respectively,
8 miles 868 yards and 9 miles 562 yards long. These larger works were also
significant in engineering terms. They offered more instructive precedents for a
channel tunnel since they could not be constructed by traditional methods, that is
by connecting a series of ventilation shafts sunk from the surface, a method
adopted by most of the canal and railway tunnels. Instead they made use of
compressed air boring machines, a new technology.8 However, it was not until the
building of London’s underground railways that something approaching the
length of tunnel was actually attempted. In 1884 the Inner Circle line extended to
13 miles, though it was barely below ground, having been constructed on the ‘cut
and cover’ principle.9 The small-bore, ‘tube’ lines built in the early twentieth
century offered a closer approximation to the engineering challenge of a channel
crossing. When the Piccadilly line was opened in 1906 its tunnel length was
3
7 4 miles; by 1926, however, the City & South London/Hampstead (Northern)
line’s extensions had produced an unbroken tunnel from Morden to Highgate
(Archway) of over 16 miles in length.10 Building to the appropriate length was not
enough, of course. Cost and safety considerations were also critical, and here dif-
ficulties were experienced in all developed countries. Sceptics were able to point
to several examples of faulty forecasting, major cost over-runs, and, on some
occasions, to failures and disasters. The loss of life in constructing the Great
Western Railway’s Box Hill Tunnel between Chippenham and Bath in the late
1830s was particularly distressing. Half a century later the Severn Tunnel project
encountered numerous engineering problems and cost £1.8 million to build, about
£150 million in 2005 prices. The most spectacular disaster was, of course, the
collapse during a gale of the Tay Bridge in December 1879.11

3
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

2. The commercial possibilities: Lord Richard Grosvenor,

Sir Edward Watkin and the ‘Manchester to
Paris Railroad’
Early engineering effort and speculation gave way to more substantial proposals
in the 1870s. By this time free trade was gaining ground, the benefits of linking
Britain and France had been fully demonstrated by the submarine telegraph cable
constructed in 1851, while the domestic railway network in both countries
provided good communications with Folkestone, Dover, Boulogne and Calais.12
A fixed link was clearly consonant with the Liberal vision of free trade and
international co-operation espoused by Richard Cobden and John Bright.13 The
Anglo-French consortium met Napoleon III in 1868, and were given considerable
encouragement. The group included, on the British side, Grosvenor, and promi-
nent engineers such as Low, Hawkshaw, Brunlees and Thomas Brassey, and on
the French side, Chevalier, Paulin Talabot, the Chief Engineer of Roads and
Bridges, and de Gamond. While numerous schemes had surfaced for improving
transport links in the early 1870s, it was this consortium which first turned ideas
into tangible venture capitalist activity. By 1872 it had obtained declarations from
both the British and French Governments that they had no objection in principle
to the construction of a tunnel. The British were more cautious than the French,
however. There were fears of sanctioning a perpetual private monopoly, and the
personal objections of Queen Victoria.14 Nevertheless, these difficulties were
surmounted, and Benjamin Disraeli’s Government, having inherited the issue
from William Gladstone’s previous administration, joined with France in 1875 in
appointing a joint commission to examine the basis for a treaty. The commission’s
protocol of May 1876 provided the ground rules for a formal treaty by determin-
ing important points of principle, for example the boundary between the two
countries, each country’s rights to purchase the tunnel, suspend services, or
destroy it for security reasons, and the extent of the concessions to be granted. It
also recommended that a permanent international commission be set up to regulate
construction, operation and maintenance.15 At the same time steps were being
taken by commercial interests in the two countries to turn promotional intention
into corporate activity. In France a tunnel company, the Société du Chemin de Fer
Sous-Marin Entre la France et l’Angleterre, was formed in 1875, with Chevalier
as chairman. Enjoying the financial support of the Chemin de Fer du Nord and
the French house of Rothschilds, the company was granted a concession for
construction and went on to undertake preparatory geological investigations.16
After the renewal of its concession for a further three years in 1880, it contin-
ued with the boring of a pilot tunnel, which extended to about 1,840 metres
1
(c.14 miles) by March 1883. Further progress depended on the company reaching
agreement with a British counterpart, and it was here that difficulties arose.
In Britain two rival groups emerged. The interests headed by Grosvenor lost
no time in forming a company, the Channel Tunnel Co. Ltd, in 1872, with an
initial capital of £30,000.17 Like its counterpart in France it obtained legislation

4
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

in 1875, though in the British case the Act enabled it merely to purchase land at
St. Margaret’s Bay, in order to conduct experimental boring operations. However,
despite enjoying the blessing of the joint commission, the company was prevented
from proceeding by a lack of resources. An attempt to raise £80,000 with the help
of its bankers, the English house of Rothschilds,18 failed. No financial support was
provided by the two principal railway companies, the London Chatham & Dover,
led by James Staats Forbes, and the South Eastern, led by Sir Edward Watkin.
Their companies were not only short of cash but also locked in bitter rivalry. The
French promoters had hoped that their English counterparts would match their
investment of £80,000, and the Nord Railway hoped that the two British railway
companies would match its investment of £40,000. The South Eastern had agreed
to put up £20,000 if the London Chatham & Dover did the same, but there was
little prospect of the two companies agreeing, and the South Eastern refused to
co-operate while the Channel Tunnel Co. insisted on St. Margaret’s Bay as its
preferred site on the English side. A prospectus issued by the Channel Tunnel Co.
in 1876 stated that the London Chatham & Dover and N.M. Rothschild had each
agreed to put up £20,000, but the remaining £40,000 did not come from the
market. Progress was thus limited, and no Anglo-French treaty emerged.19
Watkin, a buccaneering entrepreneur, was determined to pursue his own ambi-
tions, a Manchester to Paris railroad created from the railway companies he con-
trolled, viz. the Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire (from 1897 the Great
Central), the Metropolitan in London, and the South Eastern.20 In 1874 he was
elected Liberal MP for Hythe in Kent and encouraged the South Eastern to include
in its Act for that year powers to undertake experimental works.21 First he sounded
out the leading members of the French company, Chevalier, his successor, Léon
Say, the President of the French Senate, the engineer Alexandre Lavalley, and
Fernand Raoul-Duval. Then, by 1880 he was ready to press for a tunnel route more
favourable to his own railway, that is starting from Abbot’s Cliff and Shakespeare
Cliff, between Dover and Folkestone. Under the direction of the South Eastern’s
engineer, Francis Brady, the South Eastern engaged Col. Frederick Beaumont and
others to employ the newly-patented Beaumont-English compressed-air boring
machine to drive pilot tunnels in the area. Work began in 1881, thanks to further
powers obtained in that year. After discussions with the French company, the
Submarine Continental Railway Co. was formed in December 1881 with a capital
of £250,000 to take over the South Eastern’s works. Initial shareholders included
the South Eastern Railway, and William Low, who had left Grosvenor’s group after
bitter arguments with Hawkshaw.22 By July 1883 the company had spent £56,000
in driving three tunnels through the lower chalk stratum, including 2,026 yards of
tunnel (diameter: 7ft.) out to sea from Shakespeare Cliff.23
There were limits to Watkin’s promotional zeal, however. It is clear that while he
accepted that the railway companies would build the connecting lines, neither the
South Eastern nor the London Chatham & Dover had the resources to finance half
a tunnel. In the 1870s he argued that given the project’s long gestation period the
private sector would be unwilling to take on the risk, and the two governments

5
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

should therefore provide a financial guarantee. When tunnelling began in the

1880s he tried to persuade Joseph Chamberlain, then President of the Board of
Trade, that the tunnel itself should be undertaken as a public investment. Neither
proposal was palatable.24 There were other difficulties, too. In 1882 the Board of
Trade asserted that the South Eastern had acted ultra vires in tunnelling beyond the
low-water mark without its permission and further work was halted after a refer-
ence to the High Court.25 Watkin’s abrasive style hindered agreement between the
main parties, as is evident from his correspondence with Grosvenor and Say.
Furthermore, Sir Nathaniel and Alfred de Rothschild were upset by the failure of
Watkin and Forbes to reach an understanding, and finding Watkin’s methods of
doing business particularly unappealing, they quickly lost interest in the project.26
Efforts by the two competing tunnel companies to obtain further powers in
1882–3, the Channel Tunnel Co. in association with the London Chatham &
Dover, and the Submarine Continental with the South Eastern, were then frustrated
by a groundswell of opposition which emerged within Britain’s ruling circles.
Work on both sides of the channel then ceased. The French were particularly
resentful, having invested £80,000 in their tunnelling (1,825 yards).27
If in the 1870s the rivalry of the competing railway companies had proved a
barrier to progress, in the following decade military objections were paramount.
The Government’s action in halting the works was clearly driven by military advice
which emphasised the threat to Britain from an invasion. This became clear during
Gladstone’s next administration. In response to Watkin’s announcements of
success with the tunnel boring machine, the Board of Trade, War Office and
Admiralty established a departmental committee to examine the issue in 1881–2.
The committee, consisting of Thomas Farrer, Vice-Admiral Phillimore and Col.
J.H. Smith, was immediately presented with entirely opposite views. On the one
hand, Lt.-General Sir John Adye, Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, referred to
the commercial advantages of a tunnel and expressed little fear of any danger to
the integrity of Britain. On the other hand, Lt.-General Sir Garnet Wolseley, the
Adjutant-General, carried most support with a highly emotive memorandum.
He argued passionately that a tunnel would destroy all the strategic advantages of
the channel for a major naval power. It would be difficult, he contended, to prevent
the tunnel being used as a springboard for invasion, in which case Britain’s
comparatively small standing army would be at a distinct disadvantage. Invoking
both Wellington and Napoleon, he claimed that the tunnel would be ‘a constant
inducement to the unscrupulous foreigner to make war upon us . . . Surely, John
Bull will not endanger his birth-right, his liberty, his property . . . simply in order
that men and women may cross to and fro between Britain and France without
running the risk of sea-sickness.’28 Wolseley’s view received sympathetic support
from the Admiralty, and from Foreign Office officials. Lord Tenterden and Sir
Charles Dilke, permanent under-secretaries in the Foreign Office, also raised the
spectre of French or German soldiers disguised as civilians seizing the tunnel in
peacetime, and emphasised the commercial waste involved in destroying the
tunnel in the event of either a war with France or another Franco-German conflict

6
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

to follow the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1.29 With the committee unable to

reach a firm decision, the issue of military safeguards passed to a special ‘scientific’
committee appointed by the War Office to advise it on ways of making the tunnel
useless to an enemy.30 The process helped to produce more staunch opponents,
notably Hugh Childers, Secretary of State for War until December 1882 and then
Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-Chief of the
British Army, and outside government, petitioners such as Cardinal Manning, Lord
Tennyson, Herbert Spencer and the Governor of the Bank of England, Henry
Grenfell. A much smaller group of enthusiasts included John Bright, MP, Colonel
Sir Andrew Clarke, the Inspector-General of Fortifications, and representatives of
the working class, notably the London Trades Council.31 The debate culminated in
the appointment in 1883 of a joint parliamentary select committee chaired by
Lord Lansdowne, a future foreign secretary. While Lord Lansdowne himself was
enthusiastic about the commercial prospects of a tunnel and felt the military appre-
hensions to be exaggerated, his colleagues were bitterly divided. Only three of his
nine colleagues were prepared to sign his report, and in the end the committee was
only able to express the opinion, by a majority of six to four, that parliamentary
sanction should not be given.32 The Foreign Office was also hostile. Its anxiety
about a long-term commitment to France, given numerous disagreements (e.g.,
over Egypt and the Sudan, culminating in the Fashoda Crisis of 1898) and the
abundant evidence of its political instability, proved to be another enduring
element.33 As time went on, Anglo-German rivalry intensified, providing further
ammunition for the tunnel sceptics.34
There the matter rested. Subsequent co-operation among the competing com-
mercial interests provided some hope for supporters of a tunnel, who included (in
later life) William Gladstone. The Submarine Continental purchased the Channel
Tunnel Co. in 1886 following an increase of capital to £275,000 and adopted the
latter’s name in 1887. All this made little difference in practice, however. While
several bills and motions were introduced in parliament, in fact on eleven further
occasions to 1895,35 all foundered on the rock of military objection, fed from
time to time by reports raising the spectre of invasion and by efforts to ward off
cuts in defence spending.36 More determined efforts were made to revive the
scheme in the Edwardian period, when the Liberals were returned to power. Inter-
railway rivalry had been dissipated with the merger of the South Eastern and
London Chatham & Dover companies in 1899. Electric traction now offered a
more practical solution to the problems of steep gradients and ventilation in a
long tunnel. There was also enthusiastic support in France, notably from Albert
Sartiaux, General Manager of the Nord railway, who with Sir Francis Fox (of Sir
Douglas Fox & Partners) prepared a tunnel scheme in 1904–6 costed at £16 million.
An attempt was made to allay military fears by proposing that a viaduct be built
over the sea close to the tunnel’s mouth to make it easier to disable if circum-
stances demanded it (Figure 1.1).37 Serious consideration was given to the issue
within government in 1906–7 and again in 1913–14. On both occasions the
recently-formed Committee of Imperial Defence provided the principal forum for

7
 u e
rq
n ke
Du
Tunnel alignment
Ramsgate
Calais
Tunnel approaches
Lille
Existing railways

St Margaret
England
Sangatte
Canterbury France
L. C. & D. rai Mouth of tunnel
lway Dover Viaduct

Mouth of tunnel
Shakespeare Cliff Wissant

Marquise
Sangatte
y Folkestone
railw a Cap Gris-Nez
S. E.

d on
Lon

Escalles

Mouth of tunnel

Viaduct Boulogne

Wissant

Figure 1.1 Sartiaux-Fox Channel Tunnel scheme with strategic viaduct, 1906.
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

debate within government circles. In 1906–7, Sir George Clarke (subsequently

Lord Sydenham), the Secretary to the Committee, argued strongly for the tunnel,
in the wake of the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale of 1904. He asserted his long-
held view that the military arguments about Britain’s vulnerability to attack were
largely specious.38 Opinion within the Board of Trade, on the other hand, was
rather lukewarm. The commercial impact was uncertain, it was argued, but the
likelihood was that imports from France and neighbouring countries would rise.
Sir Herbert Llewellyn Smith’s revealing view was that whatever the reality of the
military risks, the danger of popular panic, and the encouragement this would
give to an increase in military spending, provided the biggest single argument
against the tunnel. The Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman,

Cartoon 1 Channel Tunnel phobia: military fears about the Tunnel, W.K. Haselden, Daily
Mirror, 18 February 1907 [Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature].

9
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

confined the debate to the narrow military aspects, helping to ensure that, given
the opposition of the Admiralty and General Staff, the proposal was rejected.39
In 1913–14 pressure exerted by Arthur Fell, Conservative MP for Great
Yarmouth and Chairman of the newly-formed House of Commons Channel Tunnel
Committee, led to a re-examination of the issue. Fell’s committee, which had the
backing of a large number of MPs, formed a deputation which met the Prime
Minister, Herbert Asquith, in August 1913, and extracted a promise that the
Committee of Imperial Defence would conduct another review. Here the military
interest was seriously split for the first time. Within the army Sir John French, the
Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and General Sir Henry Wilson, Director of
Military Operations, were now stressing the value of a tunnel to assist Britain in
operations on the continent in alliance with France, though critics pointed to the
associated and self-serving emphasis on the need for a larger standing army. French
went so far as to argue that submarines and aircraft had subverted the defence
offered by the sea, and that a tunnel would be militarily advantageous in the event
of a war with Germany. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was
also in favour of a tunnel. However, views like these were resisted, with the help of
Maurice Hankey, now secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, who
exploited the various differences of opinion, notably the inconsistent stance of the
Admiralty, and the position of Asquith, who was characteristically equivocal.40
Thus, in 1914, as in 1907, military and naval objections, fed by a sentimental appeal
to insularity pervasive among opinion formers, proved dominant.41

3. The inter-war years

After the First World War the mood changed again and the Government exhibited
less hostility to the idea of a link. Wartime experience, and shipping losses in
particular, had led to popular belief, set out at length in several newspapers, that the
tunnel would have been beneficial to the war effort. Pressure to build it was exerted
by Fell, Sir Francis Dent and Sir Percy Tempest of the South Eastern & Chatham
Railway, and Baron Emile d’Erlanger, now Chairman of the Channel Tunnel Co.42
The climate was encouraging enough for the Channel Tunnel Co. to try out a
new tunnelling machine designed by Douglas Whitaker of Leicester.43 Military
opposition had eased a little too, with Marshal Foch, the Commander-in-Chief of
the French armies, going so far as to assert that a tunnel would have helped Britain
to defeat Germany and shortened the war by two years.44 Moreover, during the Paris
Peace Conference of 1919 the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, revealed that he
regarded the construction of a Channel Tunnel as an important element in any
Anglo-American guarantee of support for France against Germany.45 In France
lobbying increased after 1921, when the Comité Français du Tunnel sous la Manche
was created by Paul Cambon.46 In Britain Parliament returned to the subject in
1919–20 and in 1924. Once again the public records indicate the continuing
strength of scepticism within Whitehall, typified by Sir Maurice Hankey, and the
armed services, which won the day once the post-war diplomatic euphoria had

10
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

evaporated.47 On the latter occasion a deputation led by Sir William Bull, Fell’s
successor as Chairman of the Channel Tunnel Committee, met the Prime Minister,
Ramsay MacDonald, who again referred the proposal, a twin-bore tunnel costed at
£29 million, to the Committee of Imperial Defence.48 On this occasion, thanks to
Hankey, the committee’s membership was strengthened by the presence of four
former Prime Ministers (Balfour, Asquith, Lloyd George and Baldwin). Its advice,
apparently arrived at after only forty minutes of deliberation, was accepted by the
Government. It was argued that the commercial advantages of a tunnel were
outweighed by the disadvantages in terms of security. Although some of the more
extreme fears of invasion had eased somewhat, the majority opinion was that a
tunnel would lead to significant demands for additional defence spending to protect
it.49 There was dismay among supporters. In a trenchant article for the Weekly
Dispatch Winston Churchill asked: ‘Should Strategists Veto the Tunnel?’ He went
on: ‘In forty minutes five ex- or future-ex Prime Ministers dismissed with an
imperial gesture the important and complicated scheme for a Channel Tunnel . . .
One spasm of mental concentration enables these five super-men, who have spent
their lives in proving each other incapable and misguided on every other object, to
arrive at a unanimous conclusion’.50
Further lobbying by enthusiasts, including Gordon Selfridge, the department
store magnate,51 accompanied by supportive noises from the French,52 built up to
such an extent that Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative Government was moved in
April 1929 to appoint a Channel Tunnel Committee to examine the ‘economic
aspects of proposals for the construction of a Channel Tunnel or other new form
of cross-Channel communication’. The Committee, chaired by Edward Peacock,
a Director of the Bank of England, concluded, in its report in March 1930, that
notwithstanding the need to verify the feasibility of construction through the
lower chalk, a tunnel, which should be built by the private sector without subsidy,
would be economically beneficial. Two serious proposals had been examined: the
first presented by the d’Erlangers’ Channel Tunnel Co.; the second advanced by
another erstwhile campaigner, William Collard, of the woollen merchants Collard
Parsons & Co. Collard, Chairman of London and Paris Railway Promoters Ltd,
dusted off an ambitious and expensive scheme first conceived in 1895. He
proposed to build the tunnel together with a new, broad-gauge (7ft) railway from
London to Paris, and sought legitimacy by engaging the services of the noted
railway manager Philip Burtt, former Deputy General Manager of the North
Eastern Railway and lecturer in railway economics at the London School of
Economics. Construction costs were estimated at £189 million.53 The Channel
Tunnel Co. developed a more realistic and much cheaper scheme in association
with the Southern Railway (a company created in 1923 with the merger of the
South Eastern & Chatham, London & South Western and London Brighton & South
Coast railways). Its 36 miles of twin tunnel (diameter: 18.5 ft) would take eight
years to build and cost about £30.45 million. Additional infrastructure would be
required at each end of the tunnel, but there would be no new, high-speed railway
(Figure 1.2).54 The Committee favoured the latter scheme but was not unanimous

11
 Tunnel alignment
Calais
Tunnel approaches

Existing railways
England
Roads
Martin Mill
Canterbury
Sangatte
Pumping shaft
Shepherds Well
7'0" dia. drainage heading
France

Experimental
heading 7'0" dia. Dover Pihen

Canterbury Hervelinghen
Existing shaft

Elham

Lyminge Marquise
Folkestone Mouth of Rinxent
Cap Gris-Nez
tunnel

Sandling Hythe Beuvrequen

Junction Sandgate

don Westenhanger
Lon
The Varne

The Colbart Wimereux

Boulogne

Figure 1.2 Channel Tunnel Co. scheme, 1929–30.

 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

in its enthusiasm for the project. A minute of dissent recorded by Lord Ebbisham,
a recently-appointed director of the Southern Railway and former Conservative
MP for Epsom, opposed the tunnel on economic grounds. Ebbisham considered
the traffic projections to be inflated, and argued that the most predictable effects
were likely to be an adverse impact on British shipping and agriculture.55
It was evident that opposition within Whitehall was still entrenched. A state-
ment by the Government, now a Labour administration led by Ramsay
MacDonald, in June 1930, poured cold water on the Committee’s Report.
MacDonald’s stance was assisted on the one hand by Hankey’s continuing machi-
nations and on the other by the scepticism of Philip Snowden, the Chancellor, and
the Treasury.56 The latter’s views were given additional force by the recommen-
dations of a special policy committee which included Sir Andrew Duncan
(chairman), John Maynard Keynes and Ernest Bevin among its members.57 This
committee was briefed by a single Treasury paper heavily critical of the presented
case for a tunnel. Unsurprisingly, then, its principal recommendation was that
should the private sector fail to produce the required financial support, the advan-
tages of a tunnel as presented appeared insufficient to justify either construction
by the public sector or financial assistance from the Government. The committee
also cocked a snook at the Channel Tunnel Committee for failing to bring forth
the necessary information on expected revenue and traffic generation. However,
in a parting shot the committee gave some comfort to tunnel supporters. Should
the tunnel be shown to be in the national interest, it argued, there was a ‘strong
case’ for government participation, either in whole or in part.58 The Government’s
statement saw no promise of gains in the national interest, however. It emphasised
the engineering and economic risks, encouraged by equivocal reactions from the
Board of Trade, which challenged the freight traffic benefits, noted the ‘luke-
warm’ response from British industry and agriculture, and contended that defence
costs would rise substantially, a view which continued to be expressed by the
Committee of Imperial Defence.59 Some Foreign Office officials were more
enthusiastic, but their views were not shared by either their Minister, Austen
Chamberlain, or their Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Ronald Lindsay.60 There
was no consensus in railway circles either. The cause was scarcely helped by the
somewhat detached evidence presented to the Committee of Sir Herbert Walker,
General Manager of the Southern Railway (see below). And the railway press
included expressions of scepticism about the traffic forecasts supplied by the
promoters, notably a paper given by E. Godfrey, to the Great Western Railway
(London) Lecture and Debating Society in January 1930.61 Supporters were
therefore unable to reverse a half-century of opposition to the tunnel. A Commons
motion in support was presented by Ernest Thurtle as a private member on
30 June 1930. In the event the free vote was very close, the motion being defeated
by just seven votes (179–172).62
Three times a Channel Tunnel project had emerged – in 1883, 1913 and 1930,
and three times it failed to obtain the support of government. Throughout
the period from 1880 to 1945 military objections of various kinds remained

13
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

a sticking point, reinforced by the opinions of those who preferred the status quo
to radical change. The tunnel was thought unlikely to offer an expeditionary force
an advantage over sea transport, while the commercial tunnel operations would
have an adverse effect on channel steamer services at ports such as Folkestone and
Newhaven, which the military might wish to use in the event of war.63 Furthermore,
the railway companies had invested in alternatives, operating a large fleet of
steamships and developing the train-ferry. The ferry concept was first employed
by the London & North Eastern Railway’s freight-only Harwich-Zeebrugge
service in 1924. In 1936 the Southern Railway introduced a train-ferry service
from Dover to Dunkerque for both freight and passengers, the latter travelling by
the much-vaunted ‘Night Ferry’.64
In fact, the attitude of the Southern was not entirely helpful in the inter-war
years. Committed to an ambitious electrification programme, but strapped for
cash, as all the ‘Big Four’ companies were, it could only emphasise the financial
burden it would face in providing railway works should the tunnel be built. When
representatives of the Channel Tunnel Co. met with those of the Southern in April
1929, it was agreed that a large station would have to be built near the tunnel
entrance at Sandling Jnc., and that the continental or ‘Berne’ loading gauge
should be adopted for the line to London. The total cost was put at a challenging
£10–12 million, and on top of this, the Southern wanted compensation for the loss
of shipping revenue (about £0.5 million a year) and for liabilities relating to cap-
ital expenditure at the channel ports.65 It is true that the costs were scaled down
when the General Manager, Walker, first appeared before the Committee in July.
In the intervening three months he had been informed by the Nord Railway Co.
that the continental railways would be prepared to receive (and even build)
rolling stock to the smaller, English loading gauge. This concession would
reduce the capital burden facing the Southern to something nearer £3 million.66
Nevertheless, Walker’s overall lack of enthusiasm did not go unnoticed. He
maintained that the Southern would incur a net loss of £450,000 in the first year
of the tunnel’s operation, and there was a lively debate with one of the Committee
members, the banker Sir Henry Strakosch, about the traffic forecasts which the
railway manager favoured. Strakosch observed rather pointedly that while a
survey of trends since 1850 suggested that cross-channel traffic had been grow-
ing by over 4 per cent, Walker’s more limited projections suggested a growth of
under 2 per cent.67 The promoters’ cause was scarcely helped by such joustings.
Not for the first (nor the last) time, the railways’ attitude to the tunnel scheme
played a part in its rejection.68
However, it is clear that the appeal to military risks dominated the arguments
against a tunnel. And the backcloth to the debate was a widely-held view that
Britain derived advantages, social and otherwise, from its physical separation
from the rest of Europe. Ebbisham hinted at this in his dissenting minute,
referring to the advisability, ‘in the case of an island people such as ourselves’, of
keeping ‘open all possible channels of communication’. Hostility to the idea was
often cloaked in emotional reactions to perceived social dangers. Many within

14
 BEGINNINGS, 1802–1945

Britain’s ruling elite exhibited a profound insularity, nursing varying degrees of

xenophobia about the likely effect of a physical connection with continental
Europe upon the ‘British way of life’. Rarely articulated publicly, such views
came to the surface, for example in the evidence given by the Earl of Crawford to
the Channel Tunnel Committee in 1929. Educated at Eton and Magdalen College
Oxford, Lord Crawford (1871–1940) had been Conservative MP for Chorley,
1895–1913, was a former chief whip and wartime minister and had served as
Chancellor of Manchester University since 1923. He explained that a tunnel
would expose Britain to a torrent of criminality, homosexuality, pornography and
drug trafficking – elements which, he claimed, were the particular preserve of
foreigners. Such views, which as many scholars have shown, have a long prove-
nance, were not to be underestimated when MPs came to vote.69 Campbell-
Bannerman’s personal opinion of the tunnel was characteristic of so many Prime
Ministers when in power over the 70 years to 1945: ‘I have never thought much
of the so-called military objections or seen actual danger in the proposed tunnel;
but undoubtedly it would cause great uneasiness and might lead to panic . . .
Besides, I doubt its commercial advantages to this country.’ Unwilling to take on
the military, sceptical about the commercial prospects and wider economic
benefits of a tunnel, successive governments were, above all, determined to avoid
making a substantial financial commitment to the project. For justification they
fell back on the more emotional appeal to ‘Britishness’ and the protection offered
by the ‘silver streak’ or the ‘moat defensive’ in keeping Britain ‘virgo intacta’.70
The onset of the Second World War did not prevent discussion on the tunnel.
In the months before hostilities began, the French were actively promoting a new
scheme. André Basdevant’s ambitious single-bore tunnel, which incorporated a
four-lane motorway and, above it, a double-track railway, had been presented at
the International Exhibition of 1937. It was then sponsored in the French
Chamber of Deputies by Marcel Boucher.71 On the British side parliamentary
lobbyists pressed Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain for his support, but
without success. When the War began, the French Minister of Public Works,
Anatole de Monzie, made a statement advocating the construction of a tunnel
after the War, but this too fell on Chamberlain’s deaf ears.72 After the Dunkirk
evacuation in 1940 the Cabinet’s Scientific Advisory Committee was drawn into
the investigation of rumours that the Germans were secretly constructing a tunnel
as the precursor to an invasion; once again Hankey attempted to exploit the
occasion to maintain an anti-tunnel stance.73 However, in one thing the War
provided a positive stimulus to this much-debated project. The transformation of
military technology which it produced – aircraft, rockets, and finally the atomic
bomb – made the idea of barriers redundant, producing a major chink in the
military objections to a tunnel in the post-war period. From this point the barriers
to progress were other than military.

15
 2
NEW ASPIRATIONS
The Channel Tunnel project, 1945–64

1. The Military threat recedes, but economic

scepticism resurfaces
After the Second World War the military objections to the tunnel became
progressively weaker.1 Initially, however, opposition in Whitehall was still
entrenched. Thus, when in May 1949 the Cabinet agreed to define its present
attitude ‘in case the matter should be raised by European Governments, either in the
Council of Europe or otherwise’, the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, asked the
interested departments to submit their views in writing. The exercise, reviewed by
the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Hugh Dalton, revealed not only that
ministers were unanimous in opposing the early construction of a tunnel, but also
that many of them opposed it in the longer-term. Sir Stafford Cripps, the
Chancellor, was particularly hostile: ‘This seems a vast waste of time’, he noted.2
The Chiefs of Staff noted that developments in military technology, for example
the atomic bomb, more effective bombing by aircraft and rockets, advances in
mining and submarine warfare, the use of aircraft for moving troops, and the
increased weight of military equipment, strengthened the case for a tunnel, though
they continued to argue that the military advantages were outweighed by the
military disadvantages.3 And inside the Foreign Office, the archives revealed that
‘opinion . . . both official and ministerial, has always been heavily against the
tunnel’. There were dangers: ‘It is quite on the cards that France may fail to
recover spiritually, economically, politically and militarily; and that she will
succumb to Communism’. Lord Balfour’s observation was repeated – ‘As long as
the ocean remains our friend, do not let us deliberately destroy its power to help
us’. Finally, those familiar ‘psychological’ objections resurfaced. ‘There is still an
obvious significance, for the British people, in inhabiting an island having no
land communication with its neighbours’, the memorandum to Cabinet observed.
‘An important element in the character of our national life would be altered by the
creation of a land connection . . . one effect might for example be the weakening
of that unquestioning sense of superiority over the peoples of the continent which
forms an essential element in British self-confidence.’4
On the other hand, it was clear that by 1949 the Chiefs of Staff were ready to
concede that ‘the military considerations are of minor importance relative to any

16
 NEW ASPIRATIONS, 1945–64

strong political and economic arguments for or against the project, always
provided adequate means of putting the tunnel out of action are incorporated in its
construction’. There were glimmers of opposition. In July 1954 Lance Mallalieu,
joint chairman of the Channel Tunnel Parliamentary Committee, pressed Alan
Lennox-Boyd, the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, about the long-standing
objections. The Minister replied: ‘I could not say that the old objections have been
all removed’. At the same time wartime sceptics, such as Lord Montgomery,
continued to echo Wolseley with their references to the benefits of ‘our island
home’. However, such arguments enjoyed less support in the late 1940s and 1950s
than they had in the 1880s and 1920s.5 In the post-NATO world, the western
military establishment seemed to be more positive than negative. For example, in
1952 Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe [SHAPE] had spent some
time evaluating the advantages of André Basdevant’s scheme for a large road-rail
tunnel.6 In the following year a report by the Ministry of Defence’s Joint
Administrative Planning Staff concluded that a tunnel might offer ‘logistic
advantages’ in maintaining the line of command from Britain to the continent,
though it would be vulnerable to attack in wartime, and its cost, together with the
length of time it would take to build, scarcely made it an attractive proposition.7
In the more public arena, most commentators agree that 16 February 1955 was a
defining moment. In the Commons Mallalieu asked the Minister of Defence,
Harold Macmillan, ‘to what extent strategical objections still prevent the
construction of a road-rail tunnel under the Channel from England to France’.
Macmillan’s pithy response was: ‘Scarcely at all’.8 By 1959 the British Chief of
the Defence Staff was able to brief his Minister that ‘the military advantages of a
Channel tunnel now slightly outweigh the disadvantages . . . Subject to the incor-
poration of means of putting the tunnel out of action in an emergency, there are
no valid military objections to the project’.9
The major stumbling blocks now were political and economic. The major
change in post-war Britain was the Labour Government’s nationalisation of the
basic industrial infrastructure. Britain’s private sector railway companies now
joined their French counterparts (nationalised in 1937) in the public sector, with
the establishment of the British Transport Commission in 1947. This meant that
from the standpoint of central government the consideration of the project moved
from that of sanctioning and regulating a private sector venture to that of having
to fund it within what later became known as the ‘public sector borrowing
requirement’. With Britain’s railways nationalised, Whitehall assumed initially
that the tunnel would have to be undertaken by the British Transport Commission,
in partnership with the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français [SNCF].
As the MP Christopher Shawcross, founder of the revived Channel Tunnel
Parliamentary Committee (see below), put it in a note to Churchill in 1949: ‘It is
agreed by all parties that the ownership and maintenance of the Tunnel could
not now be, as originally proposed, in the hands of private enterprise’.10 And in
the climate of post-war austerity this was a remote prospect in 1945, or even in the
early 1950s. The departmental memoranda circulated inside the Cabinet in 1949

17
 NEW ASPIRATIONS, 1945–64

make this clear. Both the Treasury and Board of Trade felt that such a large public
investment – put at £90–100 million – would have a ‘crowding-out’ effect at a time
when the post-war economic crisis was producing severe constraints upon capital
investment in transport.11 The latter found the economic case fragile. The tunnel
was unlikely to either produce a significant reduction in transport costs – ‘There
is no sense in spending a fortune to save a bagatelle’ – or, given the development
of air transport, attract large amounts of additional traffic. The Ministry of
Transport’s view was that there were many transport schemes ‘which would make
a far higher economic return . . . The maintenance of the present shipping routes
and particularly the improvement and development of the train ferry services (at
an infinitely less cost than a tunnel) are probably the right policy for us to
pursue’.12 In this way, economic considerations replaced military objections as
the principal obstacle.
Negative views persisted within the Ministry of Transport into the 1950s. After
lobbying from the French at a conference of European ministers of transport in
October 1954, the department re-examined the idea, but saw no reason to change
its mind as a letter to the Foreign Office in February 1955 made clear. Its con-
clusion was that: ‘having regard to the present facilities already provided by rail-
ferries, ships and air services across the Channel and to the future development
of air transport, there is no place for the Channel Tunnel in our transport system.
Moreover, whatever economic grounds may at one time have been advanced,
these are progressively disappearing. The project could only be undertaken at
great capital expense and would be unremunerative’.13 Eighteen months later,
support for closer co-operation with the French inside the Foreign Office pro-
duced a memorandum in September 1956 suggesting that the tunnel be revived as
part of the possibilities. However, there was no enthusiasm for this at Cabinet
level and therefore no minuted discussion.14

2. Enthusiasm reasserted: the Channel Tunnel Company and

the Channel Tunnel Study Group
As military and civil service objections became less effective, the lobbyists took
up the challenge with renewed vigour after the War. The long-established Channel
Tunnel Company awoke after several decades in the doldrums. Essentially a
speculative fiefdom of the d’Erlanger banking family, it had reduced its capital to
£91,351 in 1897; paid-up capital in 1900 amounted to just under £80,000; the
remainder was called up in 1907. Annual general meetings were sparsely
attended; capital expenditure crept up slowly, reaching £73,000 in 1918, and
£89,000 in 1938.15 In 1931 William Collard of London and Paris Railway
Promoters Ltd had suggested to the d’Erlangers that the two companies should
merge and proposed an alliance of the d’Erlangers, the Rothschilds and an
American house. However, given the depressed circumstances of the time the
proposal was clearly a kite-flyer and was not taken seriously.16 The future of the
company was put in doubt following the death of the Chairman, Emile d’Erlanger,

18
 NEW ASPIRATIONS, 1945–64

in 1939, and the loss of the shareholders’ registers, along with other key
documentation, in the blitz in 1941. However, rescue came from within the
controlling interest, the d’Erlangers, with about 24 per cent of the capital, and
the Southern Railway, with 26 per cent. In 1940 Leo d’Erlanger and Sir Herbert
Walker, now a Southern director, were co-opted onto the Board, and Walker took
the chair in 1941. On his death in 1949 he was succeeded by Leo d’Erlanger. The
latter’s enthusiasm for the tunnel, notwithstanding his interest in airlines, and
Walker’s change of heart were critical to the survival of the company. Walker’s
conversion at the age of 72, prompted in part by a seat on the board of United
Steel, echoed that of Prime Minister Gladstone in the nineteenth century – and
others who opposed in youth, but supported in old age. Under this new leadership
the Channel Tunnel Co. took a decisive step in encouraging the revival of the
Channel Tunnel Parliamentary Committee and the creation of a Channel Tunnel
Study Group.17
In January 1947, at a dinner attended by members of both houses of parlia-
ment, Sir Herbert Walker, Gerard d’Erlanger, Harold Carvalho (Manager of the
Channel Tunnel Co. since 1929) and others, Christopher Shawcross, the Labour
MP for Widnes, revived the Channel Tunnel Parliamentary Committee.
Shawcross made the suggestion that it should take the form of a small study
group which would draw up a considered case for the tunnel. A group of 34 MPs
was then established, with Shawcross as chairman, Capt. Malcolm Bullock and
George Hicks as joint vice-chairmen, the inter-war campaigner Ernest Thurtle as
treasurer, and other notables as members, among them Ernest Davies, Arthur
Lewis and Francis Noel-Baker.18 Its initial report, produced in July 1947,
repeated the case for a twin-bore rail tunnel and put the cost at £45–65 million,
depending on the choice of lining material.19 Advice was then taken from
consulting engineers, and liaison was made with a similar group established in
France. Walker provided revised estimates of revenues, costs and returns in 1948,
and the Basdevant road-rail alternative was dismissed, with the help of George
Ellson, who had succeeded Sir Percy Tempest as engineer to the Channel Tunnel
Co. in 1927.20
Revival in Britain was matched in France, where a parliamentary group was
also set up and, notwithstanding the disappointments of the previous 70 years, a
fresh wave of enthusiasm emerged. However, it was to be almost a decade after
the initial expression of support in the two countries in 1947–8 before anything
very tangible emerged. By this time there were a number of supportive and
dynamic individuals in prominent positions in France. They included Réné
Mayer, President of the Council and a former Vice-President of the Nord Railway,
Louis Armand, Director-General of the SNCF, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, Minister
of Transport, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, economic adviser at the French embassy in
London, and Joseph Laniel, related to the Fougerolles, developers in the 1920s of
an innovative, slurrying method of waste extraction. In England, too, there was a
change of personnel. Shawcross left the Commons in 1950 and the chairmanship
of the Parliamentary Committee passed to William (later Sir William) Teeling,

19
 NEW ASPIRATIONS, 1945–64

Conservative MP for Brighton (Pavilion). The two sides then came together. In
1955–6 Leroy-Beaulieu, a director of the Chemin de Fer Sous-marin and grandson
of its first chairman, Michel Chevalier, met Leo d’Erlanger, grandson of
Frederick d’Erlanger, a chairman of the British company. They agreed that a more
concerted effort should be made to progress the project by enlisting the support of
the Suez Canal Company (Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez),
whose concession was due to run out in 1968.21 In fact, Colonel Nasser’s seizure
of the Canal in July 1956 encouraged the Suez Co., then led by Jacques Georges-
Picot as Director-General, to contemplate new opportunities more rapidly than had
been expected, though direct participation was hindered initially by the existence
of a disputed claim for compensation from the Egyptian Government.22
At the same time, there was a promise of support from the United States, the
result of an apparent case of contingency theory. A New York lawyer, Frank
P. Davidson, and his French wife, Izaline, made a trip to Europe in 1956 and
encountered bad weather on the channel crossing. They then got together with a
number of influential members of their family and friends to ‘do something’
about a tunnel. The most important were Mrs Davidson’s brother-in-law, Comte
Arnaud de Vitry d’Avaucourt, a senior executive with Socony Mobil Oil;
Professor Cyril J. Means, Jr., former arbitration director of the New York Stock
Exchange; William Buchan, a well-connected British public relations consultant;
Claude Arnal, an engineer; and Davidson’s brothers, Alfred and John.23 In
December 1956 Davidson wrote to the British and French tunnel companies to
offer them the prospect of ‘dollar funds’.24 Then in February Means was sent to
Europe to make contact with the tunnel and Suez companies and offer American
backing. This was the first of a number of visits. Later on, accompanied by
Buchan, he spoke to officials in the Foreign Office, the British Embassy in Paris,
and the French Ministry of Public Works. Additional lobbying was conducted in
Britain by the consulting engineer, Brian Colquhoun.25 The outcome was that
Davidson and de Vitry established Technical Studies Inc., with backing from
Dillon Read, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley, to provide American finance for a
full technical investigation.26 The move was followed, in July, by the creation of a
more substantial Channel Tunnel Study Group (CTSG). The new Group was oper-
ated as a financial syndicate, putting up an initial sum of £100,000, later raised to
£255,000. Stakes were held by the old British and French tunnel companies
(30 per cent each), the Suez Co. (30 per cent), and Technical Studies (10 per cent).
The Group was administered by a supervisory board led by René Massigli,
former French Ambassador in London, as chairman, and subsequently by
Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, former Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office,
as co-chairman.27 This was able to draw upon the services of some particularly
influential managers, including: Louis Armand of the SNCF, which was a major
shareholder in the French Channel Tunnel Co.; Baron Charles de Wouters
d’Oplinter, President of the International Road Federation (Paris), a minority
shareholder in the French group; and Alec Valentine, representing the British
Transport Commission, which had acquired the Southern Railway’s stake in the

20
 NEW ASPIRATIONS, 1945–64

British Co. in 1947.28 The new Group was no less assertive than Watkin and his
colleagues had been three-quarters of a century before; and, like its predecessors, it
was to experience a long and frustrating period of ‘stop-go’ in its relations with
government – in this instance for some 18 years.29
Blissfully unaware of the way history was about to repeat itself, the Channel
Tunnel Study Group lost no time in undertaking work of its own. A preliminary
report from Brian Colquhoun & Partners, commissioned by Technical Studies Inc.
and the Channel Tunnel Parliamentary Committee, was produced in April 1957. It
provided an historical resumé and made numerous recommendations as to how the
promoters might pursue the necessary investigations. Although Colquhoun noted
that existing knowledge of the strata between the coasts was ‘almost entirely
conjectural’, he reaffirmed the opinion of the Victorian engineers that the lower
chalk offered the best prospects for tunnelling, and followed the position adopted
by William Low, and later by Sir Francis Fox, that the Folkestone-Sangatte route
was to be preferred.30 The Colquhoun report acted as the basis for further research,
presided over by the engineering consultants René Malcor, Ingénieur en Chef des
Ponts et Chaussées, and Harold Harding, Vice-president of the Institution of Civil
Engineers. Work was commissioned on five fronts: traffic forecasting; geological;
civil engineering; finance; and legal. It gave every impression of being a most
thorough exercise. Preliminary technical advice was provided by a small commit-
tee led by Léon Migaux, President of the Compagnie Générale de Geophysique in
Paris. Evaluations of the economic prospects were made using the firms Société
d’Etudes Techniques et Economiques [SETEC], the Economist Intelligence Unit
and de Leuw, Cather & Co. of Chicago. Geological work was progressed by two
advisers, Professor J.M. Bruckshaw of Imperial College, London, and Professor
Jean Goguel, Ingénieur Général des Mines, together with Dr William Smith,
seconded to CTSG from the United States Geological Survey,31 and a number of
specialist firms, including Richard Costain and George Wimpey.32 Civil engineer-
ing was commissioned from four consulting firms: Société Générale
d’Exploitations Industrielles [SOGEI]; Sir William Halcrow & Partners; Livesey
& Henderson; and Rendel Palmer & Tritton.33 Financial advice was provided by
an impressive array of banking associates, including de Rothschild Frères, Banque
de l’Union Parisienne, Erlangers, and Morgan Grenfell.34 In all, the Group and its
constituent companies spent over £500,000 in preparing what was in effect a
preliminary prospectus.35 The culmination of its efforts was the publication on
28 March 1960 of a 30-page report, which was presented to both the British and
French Governments. It was followed on 25 July by a more considered statement of
the economic benefits. The Group’s work was the most comprehensive evaluation
of the prospects for a tunnel yet produced.36

3. The Government’s response, 1957–60

While the Study Group went about its work the British Government necessarily
retained an interest in its activities. First of all, the Government was in essence

21
 NEW ASPIRATIONS, 1945–64

one of the promoters. Its public corporation for transport, the British Transport
Commission, held a 26 per cent stake in the British Channel Tunnel Co., and it
retained a substantial (44 per cent) shareholding in the Suez Co. (though without
commensurate control).37 Second, its attitude to the tunnel was shaped by the
changing political and economic environment that emerged with the post-war
recovery of France and West Germany, and the establishment of a ‘Common
Market’ bloc following the Treaty of Rome. Thus, while the promoters’ height-
ened activity in 1956–7 obviously attracted the attention of Whitehall, it was
Britain’s decision to participate in a European free trade area, and support for
closer economic ties with France, which encouraged the Cabinet to re-examine
the issue in May 1957. By this time the Foreign Office had become more bullish,
in marked contrast with its stance over the previous 70 years. In January the
British Minister in Paris, Sir George Young, had suggested that a positive
announcement about the Tunnel might be made at the time of the Queen’s visit to
Paris in April. Once again, a rough sea crossing served to concentrate the mind:
‘In the course of a recent hellish crossing on the Night Ferry’, he remarked, ‘my
thoughts inevitably turned, as so often before, to the Channel Tunnel’.38 Inside the
Foreign Office, civil servants did not regard the Ministry of Transport’s sceptical
position as unassailable. The participation of American financial interests from
1956 raised the possibility that private sector financing might be feasible. As a
percipient minute by C.M. Anderson, Assistant to the Head of the Western
Department, noted: ‘The project would clearly be very costly, but there is no
evidence that full consideration has ever been given to (a) raising the capital
privately and/or recovering the cost by means of tolls; (b) distributing the cost in
such a way that the British share of it was small . . . ; (c) relating the cost of the
project itself to the likely increase in revenue to the economy as a whole from an
increased tourist trade and other possible benefits’.39 Furthermore, the potential
participation of the Americans was an attraction to some inside the Treasury. Lord
Harcourt of Morgan Grenfell, who was in Washington as head of the Treasury
delegation, had formed the opinion that about two-thirds of the $300 million
required might be raised in the United States and Canada. Such an investment
would be a welcome relief to dollar-starved Britain and France, and the episode
was reported by Sir Herbert Brittain, Second Secretary to the Treasury, in a letter
canvassing departmental opinion in April 1957.40
On the other hand, for others the prospect of American participation was prob-
lematic. There was a case for excluding American finance in order to retain the
‘essentially European’ character of the project. Concern about the bona fides of
some of the promoters was also evident.41 More importantly, there was a fair
amount of scepticism inside Whitehall about the economic case for a tunnel, and
the voices of the doubters became louder the closer one got to the departments
with a more direct interest in it, viz. the Ministry of Transport and the Board of
Trade. The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, Harold Watkinson, raised the
matter both in the Cabinet’s Economic Policy Committee and in the full Cabinet,
but his initial proposals, to highlight the issue by announcing a re-evaluation in

22
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Le thé chez
Miranda
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Le thé chez Miranda

Author: Jean Moréas

Paul Adam

Release date: September 10, 2020 [eBook #63167]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: French

Credits: Produced by Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LE THÉ CHEZ

MIRANDA ***
 JEAN MORÉAS ET PAUL ADAM

LE THÉ
CHEZ
MIRANDA

PARIS
TRESSE ET STOCK, LIBRAIRES-ÉDITEURS
8, 9, 10, 11, Galerie du Théâtre-Français
PALAIS-ROYAL

1886
Tous droits réservés

Les auteurs et les éditeurs déclarent réserver leurs droits de

traduction et de reproduction.
Ce volume a été déposé au Ministère de l'Intérieur (section de la
librairie) en Juillet 1886.

OUVRAGES DE JEAN MORÉAS:

LES SYRTES.
LES CANTILÈNES.
 OUVRAGES DE PAUL ADAM:

CHAIR MOLLE.
SOI.

Pour paraître prochainement:

LES DEMOISELLES GOUBERT

MŒURS DE PARIS
par
JEAN MORÉAS ET PAUL ADAM

3694.—ABBEVILLE, TYP. ET STÉR. A. RETAUX.—1886.

Il a été tiré de cet ouvrage sur papier de Hollande dix

exemplaires numérotés à la presse.
Première Soirée
 C'est l'hiémale nuit et ses buées et leurs doux comas.
Quartier Malesherbes.
Boudoir oblong.
En la profondeur violâtre du tapis, des cycloïdes bigarrures.
En les froncis des tentures, l'inflexion des voix s'apitoie; en les
froncis des tentures lourdes, sombres, à plumetis.
C'est l'hiémale nuit et ses buées et leurs doux comas.
Dehors, la blancheur pacifiante des neiges.
Au foyer, la flamme s'allonge, s'allonge et se recroqueville,
s'aplatit et se renfle,—facétieuse.
Et des émanations défaillent par le boudoir oblong, des
émanations comme d'une guimpe attiédie, d'une guimpe attiédie au
contact du derme.
Le jour froid des lampes filtre et se réfracte. Le jour des lampes
se réfracte en la profondeur violâtre du tapis aux cycloïdes
bigarrures; il se réfracte contre les tentures sombres, à plumetis.
Au-dessus du sofa brodé de lames, dans son cadre d'or bruni, un
PAYSAGE: Perse stagne la mare; les joncs flexueux où des
engoulevents volètent, la ceignent. A gauche, des peupliers que le
cadre étronçonne, et tout au fond, par les ciels dégradés, dans la
grivelure argentée de leurs ailes éployées, un vol tumultueux de
grèbes.
En face du sofa brodé de lames, sur un meuble bas, pentagone,
que des télamons supportent, de hautes feuilles de parchemins
vêtues de poult-de-soie blanc, aux agrafes d'un métal précieusement
oxydé, s'étalent.
Et ce sont là devis et contes, devis et contes futiles et
sentencieux, écrits pour l'agrément de la Dame par ses deux
sigisbées.
 C'est l'hiémale nuit et ses buées et leurs doux comas.
Dehors, la blancheur pacifiante des neiges.
Au foyer, la flamme s'allonge, s'allonge et se recroqueville,
s'aplatit et se renfle,—facétieuse.
… Miranda, toute droite, à l'aise en une sorte de canezou d'escot
aux passements de jais et de soie écarlate, verse du thé de ses
mains bien fardées.
 AMOURETTE

Aux Tuileries, contre la terrasse qui longe la Seine, elle se tient

assise, en brodant. Et se détache à peine sa toilette sobre sur le vert
noir du lierre.
Paul Doriaste est revenu là pour lui découvrir les imperfections
peu visibles, mais décevantes, qu'elle doit avoir. Ainsi espère-t-il
esquiver la hantise d'elle. Chose bête: il a soumis plusieurs jours son
tympan aux cacophonies des musiques militaires afin de la voir.
Cette élégance de dame à médiocres revenus, la plus discrète et
délicate des élégances, le charme. En paysanne, en grande
mondaine, en mystérieuse courtisane, en bourgeoise lettrée, il l'a
décrite déjà, au cours de plusieurs nouvelles qu'il fit pour son
journal, le Sphinx. Elle accapare son esprit; il la désire, et il ne l'aura
point.
Cela se devine tout de suite qu'il ne l'aura point. Elle est honnête
fatalement par sa blondeur tendre d'anémique, la matité du teint
pur, la tendance à rester clapie très longtemps dans la même
attitude.
Elle le regarde venir. Sur l'orbe de son œil levé une nacrure luit,
humide, puis se voile des cils baissés vite. Et cette luisance le
pénètre, se darde par ses entrailles qui frémissent. Il la veut. Sans
doute elle n'osera se livrer; mais ce geste du regard est
certainement un aveu d'amour. Ou non, peut-être. Aux sourires des
gens semblent bizarres son costume de sportsman, ses bottines
pointues et ses culottes collantes; à elle aussi pourquoi ne paraîtrait-
il point ridicule. Une simple curiosité peut-être incita la moqueuse à
l'examiner. Et tout désir se dissipe en lui. Il se résout à rentrer.
Intimement un spleen l'abat.
Le possède depuis quelque temps un besoin de femme, pas un
besoin charnel, mais une envie de frôler des jupes, de laisser, en une
infiniment douce caresse, ses lèvres effleurer l'odorant duveteux
d'un épiderme de blonde, de sentir sous ses doigts l'incurve et
plastique roideur du corset, à travers la soie.
Le manque de cette satisfaction le rend veule, presque malade.
Davantage l'obsède son scepticisme. Il s'échafaude en la cervelle des
plaidoiries également probantes pour des principes contradictoires.
Des dégoûts lui affluent. Il prévoit tout à l'heure, chez Sylvain,
devant l'absinthe, ses camarades nantis de raisonnements pareils.
On déversera sans trêve de pessimistes radotages. Et puis il
regagnera son logis en discutant le suicide; ou bien, dans quelque
boudoir public, il ira s'anuiter et accroître, par le contact de chairs
urbaines, la regrettance du rêve féminin qu'il veut oublier. Rien autre
en but. Lassitude d'être.
Au reste, pourquoi ne point tenter cette aventure,—distrayante,
qui sait? S'arrêterait-il à la crainte d'échouer? Non. L'insuccès dans
ce genre de tentative indique seulement une erreur sur la minute
propice, une inaptitude à graduer ses paroles selon l'inintelligence de
la femme. Aurait-il honte de ne pas réussir là où triomphe la bêtise
suprême des lieutenants et des coiffeurs?… Le dépit s'en offrirait
bizarre à étudier sur soi.
Et Paul Doriaste repasse devant elle. Un autre regard le trouble
encore. Une bestiale envie d'étreindre le surexcite… Il se décide. La
pâleur lui resserre la peau, son cœur bat; mais comme il s'estime
brave de l'effort qui l'amène près elle! Il s'assied; et, bien qu'elle
feigne une complète indifférence, il espère.
Elle demeure toujours immobile, comme malicieuse dans sa pose
énigmatique. Elle pense,—devine-t-il: S'il se montre impertinent je le
remettrai à sa place; et s'il n'ose pas c'est un sot. Ce le tracasse fort
de comprendre cette pensée. Il remarque les dessins de la broderie
qu'elle achève: une fleur, une étoile, une rosace dans un cercle, et
puis une fleur, une étoile…; ça recommence ainsi indéfiniment. Un
bout de jupon frais qui dépasse la robe laisse évoquer le linge de
dessous et le corps. Oh! si ce teint se retrouve sur la poitrine autour
des pointes roses, et entrevu par les vides de la guipure!… Et l'odeur
chaude qui émanera, nourrissante presque. Son minuscule soulier
vernis tout plat semble ne rien contenir jusque la bouffette de
rubans qui lace. Par-dessus se courbe un renflement gras, linéaire
dans un bas uni et violâtre.
Et les lois conventionnelles qui entravent la sincère et brusque
manifestation de l'amour?… Quels imbéciles préjugés!…
Une balle crasseuse roule vers la chaise de Doriaste. Apparaît le
propriétaire: un baby, un gnôme bouffi, chancelant, hâve, chevelu
de jaune clair, et qui fixe le chroniqueur de ses gros yeux
lactescents. Doriaste ramasse le jouet, car la voisine, tout de suite, a
coulé l'œil vers l'enfant. Lui le caresse et lui parle, sûr que l'instinct
de maternité la tiendra forcément attentive à leur mimique et à leurs
dires. Il tarabuste l'enfant lourd, ballonné d'étoffe blanche, et dont la
laideur l'irrite. Il lui serine des inepties que le petit répète en
bégayant et bavant. Tout à coup le mioche de pleurer à sanglots.
—«Monsieur, prie-t-elle, mais laissez-le donc;… viens, va! mon petit
garçon.»
Elle a chanté, cette voix, sur une inflexion parisienne impérieuse,
donnant la sensation d'avoir été perçue lors de querelles. Et,
cependant qu'il conduit à la dame le pleurnicheur, il ne trouve rien
de spirituel à énoncer, tant l'absorbe la désillusion de son ouïe. Au
hasard, il lâche, avec un espoir de pitoyante réponse:—«Madame,
vous aurez sans doute plus de chance que moi! je fais pleurer tous
ceux que je veux aimer…»
Elle sourit, moqueuse.
C'est une grue, juge Doriaste. Le subit intérêt pris à ses paroles
dénonce l'envie de se livrer; et la façon rapide dont elle l'exprime
décèle que cette envie lui est coutumière. Il s'enhardit avec, déjà, la
prévision d'un souper, d'une baignoire de petit théâtre. Justement il
garde en poche les vingt louis de ses derniers articles. Et, tout en
calculant la dépense probable de cette fredaine, il conte à la jeune
femme l'histoire d'une maîtresse suicidée, bien convaincu qu'elle n'y
veut croire, mais pensant la flatter par la peine qu'il se donne.
Silencieuse, elle essuie de son fin mouchoir les joues de l'enfant,
puis elle l'embrasse. Doriaste pousse alors un profond soupir tout en
s'avouant à lui-même cette comédie ridicule. Elle hausse les épaules.
Ce qui le froisse: elle l'ennuie à la fin avec ses manières! Il débite
des sottises, soit; mais les femmes sont si nulles. Pour varier il la
complimente. Il lui déclare comment sa toilette, harmonisée par un
art dilettante, la désigne l'amie de goût que l'on rêve. Il décline sa
position sociale, comptant sur ce titre d'homme de lettres pour la
fasciner. Elle, pâlie un peu, se lève, s'en va.
Ne point s'opposer à son départ? le jeune homme estime
excellente cette tactique. A la regarder filant parmi la foule badaude,
avec sa taille svelte qui s'érige hors le gonflement de la jupe, il la
trouve plus désirable encore et son esprit s'opiniâtre à imaginer tout
ce corps sans robe, sur un lit. La lumière qui se filtre par la verdure
tendre des marronniers s'en vient voluter autour de ses formes que
la marche ondule. Et l'œil de Doriaste longtemps vise l'épaisse
torsade blonde où se contourne toute la chevelure qui monte dans le
faîtage du chapeau.
Il la suit. Bientôt il marche à côté d'elle et il prie qu'on l'excuse,
et il proteste que seule une attirance mystérieuse et invincible
l'attache à elle. Comme elle ne répond, gardant l'immutable
indifférence de ses yeux froids, l'impassibilité de sa peau mate,
Doriaste cite son nom bien connu et interroge si elle lit quelquefois
le Sphinx: les cinq derniers articles, il les a consacrés à décrire
l'image d'elle.
Et elle s'étonne d'entendre sa voix chevroter pendant qu'il dit
cela. Et ce chevrotement la pénètre, lui secoue le cœur. Subitement,
elle stationne et déclame cette phrase qu'elle a vue quelque part:
—Donnez-moi votre parole d'honneur que vous ne serez que mon
ami, rien que mon ami.
 Au désir d'héroïne dramatique il accède, devenu stupide de
bonheur parce qu'il la flaire, parce qu'il calque du regard ses formes
proches, elle consentante. Il ajoute à son serment:
—Jusqu'au jour où vous-même m'en relèverez.
—Jamais, cela.
La face du chroniqueur s'étire en un sourire triste, amer,
incrédule. Vers la grille elle reprend sa route. Lui, à mots émus,
confesse sa présente extase. Muette, elle l'écoute, la bouche gaie,
pourtant.
A l'appel de sa main, un cocher blanc dirige près elle son fiacre.
Et Doriaste:
—Laissez-moi vous accompagner.
—Non, je ne suis pas libre… je suis mariée.
—Quand vous reverrai-je.
—Vous avez bien su me trouver; vous le saurez encore, à moins
que l'oubli…
—Oh! non. Me direz-vous comment vous vous appelez, afin que…
—Supposez que je m'appelle… Marceline…; oui, Marceline…
Du fiacre où elle s'installe en tapotant ses jupons, elle a pour
Doriaste un franc regard, très long.
Et la voiture cahote, jaune, par les rosâtres grisailles de la
vesprée.
En vain le journaliste espère-t-il qu'elle soulèvera le voile
capitonné qui ferme le judas dans le panneau du fiacre… Rien.
Marceline? Marceline! songe-t-il, prénom cher à la littérature
bourgeoise. Le père, il l'imagine ingénieur, ou sous-chef, ou
magistrat, honnête homme certes, grand lecteur du Temps et des
discours académiques, et croyant aux destinées du pays. Sans doute
il psalmodiait le soir, sous la lueur cuivreuse de la lampe, les phrases
sentimentales de George Sand, devant sa femme, et, par-dessus la
nappe, ils se serraient la main. A la suite d'une telle lecture
Marceline a dû être conçue dans un lit d'acajou linceulé de cretonne
bleue.

II

Premier rendez-vous au concert.

Sur la scène, un violoniste enlève les symphonies de Max Bruch,
du coude, de la tête, avec des mouvements de lutteur agile; et le
gaz crûment inonde son habit noir, ses cheveux noirs.
Paul Doriaste se mélancolise à percevoir ces sonorités fuyantes,
et qui, lentement, reviennent. A son côté, Marceline se serre parmi
l'entassement d'un public nombreux. Et il la sent très loin de lui
comme une impassible vision. La rectitude de cette pose où pas une
flexion ne s'affaisse, le vague de ce regard qui flotte par le lustre, et
se fixe aux pendeloques que les feux décomposés teintent de lueurs
joaillières, tout cela semble cacher une âme mystérieuse, intangible.
Il lui en veut d'avoir accepté ces relations platoniques. Une comédie
qu'elle joue là; une comédie qui, lui, l'absorbe et l'agace. Voici qu'il
n'entend même plus Max Bruch. Elle finira, cette femme, par lui tuer
le sens artistique.
Derrière leurs pupitres, les musiciens s'étagent en face, adossés
au décor: figures communes, épanouies dans l'évasement des faux-
cols; corps tassés dans les fracs larges, dans les bosselures des
plastrons blancs. En bas, les choristes femelles avec les taches
claires de leurs collerettes sur la terneur minable des corsages. Dans
le haut, tout à fait, le timbalier s'amplifie en allures pontifiantes,
tandis que le cymbalier ne cesse de faire reluire son binocle et le
replacer sur sa face qui sue. Et ce monde s'encastre entre les cuivres
énormes, s'accoude à l'acajou de contrebasses, s'enrage sous les
cordes des harpes monumentales. Des toiles peintes et défraîchies,
du plafond que traverse une ligne d'usure, les torchères saillent, le
lustre pend. Seules dorures.
Vibre une note isolément, comme le pleur prolongé d'une vierge,
et Doriaste conquis ne remarque plus rien. La mesure s'active, et
s'alanguit tout à coup, râle. Comme un sanglot alors, et puis de
cristallines notes ruissellent, et des notes, et encore. Il en sourd des
soupirs, des étirances lamentantes, de spasmatiques arpèges. Tantôt
l'harmonie se pâme humide, s'expire. Puis elle s'élance avec de
déterminés vouloirs, des violences de rut. Les cordes des violons
craquent comme des soieries et hocquètent comme des gorges
jouissantes. D'une accalmie douce, murmurée, surgit une sautillante
phrase qui croît. Elle domine, triomphe en une impudique danse. De
lentes ondulations l'enserrent par une spirale qui monte et s'évase.
Les dièzes reluisent comme des gemmes, des gemmes qui parent
une chevelure longue, une chevelure qui se dénoue et flotte dans un
aboutement de gammes. Et s'évoque la toute-puissante femme. Il
est une mugissante mesure pour le fauve des aisselles, une mesure
plane pour le front pur, une note coulée pour la gouttelante
améthyste qui pendeloque sur le front, deux mesures ronflantes
pour les seins arrondis; ensuite une rapide infinité de sons qui disent
tout, décrivent tout et le clament: ce sont les cassures de gaze d'or
autour des hanches, et le galbe recourbé des bras sur la tête qui se
renverse, et le poli du ventre avec les mystiques profondeurs du
nombril, et les yeux, pastilles d'encens où fulgure une minuscule
étincelle. Le rythme s'exaspère. La Salomé bondit avec un éclat de
trilles et un scintillement de pierreries. Les croches se dardent
comme des diamants et se fluidifient en collier comme une rivière
d'ambre sur la poitrine. Deux notes brèves saillissent comme les
escarboucles des seins.
Et Paul Doriaste ne perçoit plus que les multiples voluptés d'un
corps féminin harmonique en danse harmonieuse. Il y voit la nudité
de Marceline; il se retient pour ne pas l'étreindre. Et, par la salle, les
bravos croulent, rebondissant sur les banquettes écarlates.
—C'est délicieux, émet-elle: toutes ces notes s'épanouissent
comme les fleurs d'un jardin féerique.
Elle a dû composer cette sentence avec un extrême soin,
pendant toute une moitié du morceau. Le chroniqueur s'enrage à
l'entendre, il se contente d'affirmer:
—Parfaitement, madame.
 Lamoureux, le chef d'orchestre, gravit l'estrade. Il inspecte le
public à travers la luisance de son binocle, avec un lent
tournoiement de sa carrure pesante. Levant l'archet, il fait signe.
Du Wagner: le premier acte de Tristan et Yseult. La gigantesque
rumeur d'un océan enfle par les cordes, hurle dans les cuivres, se
lamente dans les contrebasses, s'écroule avec le choc grave de la
grosse caisse, avec l'éclatante sonorité des cymbales. Et, par un
moutonnement de notes minimes, la vague rétrogradante bruisse.
Les tonalités énormes et balbutiantes de la grande mer s'épanchent
dans l'ampleur de cette phrase musicale toujours reprise, toujours
elle-même et jamais identique. Cela institue d'immenses
perspectives d'eau verte montuant sous un ciel froid, quelque chose
de terrifiant et de squameux; et l'inopinée chanson du mousse se
déverse des hunes pâles: sensation de l'humain infime perdu dans
l'immensité du large.
Doriaste, très empoigné, abandonne sa rancune contre le
béotisme de Marceline. Un instant, à peine, le gagne un dédain pour
l'écrivaillerie sentimentale dont elle copie les piteuses héroïnes.
Ailleurs l'emporte un rythme.
Fatiguée de s'être tenue si longtemps roide, Marceline fléchit vers
le dossier de son fauteuil, et un reflet rouge, le reflet d'une tenture
de loge se pose dans sa pupille bleue. A la contempler, Doriaste
ressent un nouvel afflux de désirs. Une chaleur parfumée l'imprègne
et affadit sa rage. Marceline s'affaisse toujours en courbes molles. Il
a bientôt de sa jupe dans les jambes. Entre sa taille et le dossier du
fauteuil il glisse la main. Ce lui procure une sensation d'exquis
énervement effleurer le tissu un peu rêche du corsage. Elle ne
bouge, elle ne parle, elle ne se meut. Vaniteuse joie du jeune
homme qui suppose acquiescente cette immobilité. Mais à la fin du
morceau, levée brusquement, elle profère:
—Adieu, par votre faute.
C'est comme un soufflet sur la joue de Doriaste, une leçon qu'elle
donne. Et tout son mépris pour cette bécasse platonique s'exhale en
une populacière injure murmurée, qu'il entendit naguère sur le
boulevard et dont la gouailleuse intonation l'obsède:
—Hé va donc, morue!
Jusque la dernière note du concert, il se soûle d'harmonie. Il
s'avoue soulagé de ne l'avoir plus là, elle.

III

Au Sphinx, dans la salle de rédaction, Paul Doriaste narre en

plaisantant son duel du matin.
—Mais pas du tout; je sais à peine comment cela se fit. Vergex
s'est reculé: il avait une grande égratignure là, au biceps. Alors j'ai
abaissé mon épée.
—Et en refrain, une gibelotte délicieuse.
—Où ça?
—A la Cascade, parbleu. Le patron m'a dit qu'il allait faire
installer une salle de pansement entre la cuisine et les closets. J'ai
vu le plan.
—Il est fumiste ce Doriaste! Et vous êtes amis tout de même.
—Je ne pense pas. Nous ne nous saluons plus.
Un monsieur très chauve s'exclame en déposant un journal sur la
table drapée de vert.
—Eh bien, il va être content Caufières.
—Le témoin de Vergex? interroge Doriaste.
—Lui-même. Je ne sais si c'est une coquille ou une méchanceté
de Macette, dans le compte rendu de l'Éclair on a supprimé l'a de
son nom. Voyez.
—Cufières, Cufières, ça fait Cu-fier. Elle est mauvaise celle-là.
—Du coup, sa maîtresse va le lâcher.
—Il a une maîtresse?
—Oui, la baronne de Terse. Elle ne lui pardonnera pas ce ridicule.
Welcome to Our Bookstore - The Ultimate Destination for Book Lovers
Are you passionate about books and eager to explore new worlds of
knowledge? At our website, we offer a vast collection of books that
cater to every interest and age group. From classic literature to
specialized publications, self-help books, and children’s stories, we
have it all! Each book is a gateway to new adventures, helping you
expand your knowledge and nourish your soul
Experience Convenient and Enjoyable Book Shopping Our website is more
than just an online bookstore—it’s a bridge connecting readers to the
timeless values of culture and wisdom. With a sleek and user-friendly
interface and a smart search system, you can find your favorite books
quickly and easily. Enjoy special promotions, fast home delivery, and
a seamless shopping experience that saves you time and enhances your
love for reading.
Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and
personal growth!

ebookgate.com