1825-1925-2025

A hundred years is only the extreme length of a human life, and yet what a stage in the path of progress, what changes, what transformations in this period of a century!
In 1825, King Charles X had just ascended the throne. With him, reaction and clericalism triumphed. The Chamber of Deputies, elected by a very restricted suffrage, voted an indemnity of one billion for the emigrants, the reestablishment of women's convents, that of the right of primogeniture and the law of sacrilege punishing with the death penalty thefts committed in churches.
At that time, which seems very distant to us, we knew neither railways, nor gas lighting, nor any use of electricity. Our grandfathers travelled little, in heavy stagecoaches, and lit their way with smoky candles. Steam navigation was in its infancy. Telegraphy was practiced by the aerial system of the engineer Claude Chappe. People rarely bathed and at most in rivers, because sea bathing, considered dangerous, inspired a strong repugnance. The Duchess of Berry, daughter-in-law of Charles X, dared, first, to overcome this prejudice by bathing in Dieppe, dressed in a lougue skirt, and respectfully accompanied to the edge of the waves by the mayor wearing a top hat and patent leather pumps. Centenarians probably do not remember it because they were very young. What was Arcachon at that time? Solitudo, solitude of a pine forest where rare paths traced through an inextricable tangle of brambles, gorse, broom, ferns, strawberry trees, holly, heather, led to humble wooden huts inhabited by resin collectors living miserably in profound ignorance. The modest chapel of the hermit Thomas Illyricus saw them come on Sundays with their big clogs, their heads covered with a filthy beret. On the almost deserted basin passed from time to time pinnaces of Testerin fishermen. Today the terrestrial globe is crisscrossed by fast trains and luxurious liners; planes cross in the sky; airships cross the seas and oceans; the telephone and wireless telegraphy allow the pa. role and the thought of crossing the longest dietances almost instantly. If they saw this, our ancestors would be struck with stupor.
And what would be the astonishment of the brave resin collectors of yesteryear if they could look at the current Arcachon, become a city of luxury and business, a city of health, rest and pleasure, with its boulevards lined with magnificent shops, its picturesque chalets, its theaters, its two casinos, its concerts, its balls, its brilliant festivals?
No less great would be our astonishment if we returned to this planet in a hundred years. What will Arcachon be like in a century? We can predict it by induction.
In the year 2025, when we will all have been sleeping eternally for more or less a long time, La Teste and Arcachon will be joined by wide roads decorated with three-story houses; the forest will no longer exist; the beach, from the tip of the Aiguillon to the Grand Hôtel, will have disappeared; the Péreire park, fragmented, will contain splendid villas; the Abatilles, the Moulleau and Pyla-sur-mer will offer bathers their fashionable beaches; the gushing spring will attract the sick from all over France; the sands, having invaded the passes, will make them difficult to cross, but no one will worry about it, steam navigation, as well as horses, railways and automobiles finding themselves relegated to the old stuff of the past. Aerial locomotion will reign alone as sovereign mistress; alone it will serve to transport goods and men. The latter, equipped with a light electric motor driving their wings, will fly in the azure like butterflies and birds. Alas! we will not see this marvelous spectacle, having had the misfortune to be born too early. Let us resign ourselves, and confident in the incessant progress of humanity, let us envisage without jealousy the miracles of future centuries.

Albert CHICHÈ.
Former deputy of Bordeaux