Petition of the manufacturers of candles, waxlights, lamps, 
candlesticks, street lamps, snuffers, extinguishers, and of the 
producers of oil tallow, rosin, alcohol, and generally, of every-

thing connected with lighting.
 


To Messieurs the members of the Chamber of Deputies.


Gentlemen -- You are on the right road. You reject abstract 
theories, and have little consideration for cheapness and plenty. 
Your chief care is the interest of the producer. You desire to 
emancipate him from external competition, and reserve the natio-

nal market for national industry. 



We are about to offer you an admirable opportunity of applying 
your -- what shall we call it? your theory? No; nothing is more 
deceptive than theory; your doctrine? your system? your princi-
ple? but you dislike doctrines, you abhor systems, and as for 
principles, you deny that there are any in social economy: we 
shall say, then, your practice, your practice without theory and 

without principle. 



We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign 
rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to 
ours for the production of light, that he absolutely inundates 
our national market with it at a price fabulously reduced. The 

moment he shows himself, our trade leaves us -- all consumers 

apply to him; and a branch of native industry, having countless

ramifications, is all at once rendered completely stagnant. This 

rival...is no other than the Sun. 



What we pray for is, that it may please you to pass a law order-

ing the shutting up of all windows, sky-lights, dormerwindows, 

outside and inside shutters, curtains, blinds, bull's-eyes; in a 

word, of all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures, by or 

through which the light of the Sun has been in use to enter 

houses, to the prejudice of the meritorious manufacturers with 

which we flatter ourselves we have accommodated our country, -- a 

country which, in gratitude, ought not to abandon us now to a 

strife so unequal. 



If you shut up as much as possible all access to natural light, 

and create a demand for artificial light, which of our French 

manufacturers will not be encouraged by it? 



If more tallow is consumed, then there must be more oxen and 

sheep; and, consequently, we shall behold the multiplication of 

artificial meadows, meat, wool, hides, and, above all, manure, 

which is the basis and foundation of all agricultural wealth. 



The same remark applies to navigation. Thousands of vessels will 

proceed to the whale fishery; and, in a short time, we shall 

possess a navy capable of maintaining the honor of France, and 
gratifying the patriotic aspirations of your petitioners, the 
undersigned candlemakers and others. 

Only have the goodness to reflect, Gentlemen, and you will be 
convinced that there is, perhaps, no Frenchman, from the wealthy 
coalmaster to the humble vender of lucifer matches, whose lot 
will not be ameliorated by the success of our petition.