From a Dictionnaire raisonné de bibliologie by Gabriel Peignot, published in 1802, comes an article about telegraphy, before the electrical system of Morse began our communications revolution. At that time the most-used system was the one invented by Claude Chappe, which was used with great success by the French. It would be difficult to gain an accurate understanding of the Chappe system of telegraphy from this article; a more lucid description is at the Wikipedia article on “Optical telegraph.” But what this article does convey is the sense of wonder at the distance a message can cover in mere minutes. What an age of marvels we live in!
The present article is liberally pillaged by the article on télégraphie in a Dictionnaire des inventions from 1837, and we have used that article to correct some typographical errors in this one.
TELEGRAPHY. The art of corresponding at great distances and with rapidity by using signs that represent letters and words. The establishment may be called a telegraph, an aerial post, or a verbal post. The ancients made use of lighthouses, fires, smoke, torches, flags, standards, sentry posts, drums, and trumpets to communicate promptly and at a distance news or events foreseen in advance. Polybius and Julius Africanus mention in particular the use of Telegraphy among the Greeks and Romans. But the methods of those peoples, though simple, were imperfect, and could not express the letters and the modulations of discourse. Moreover, in those days, the lack of spyglasses must have made the distances between stations very short, and most of the signals were visible only by night. After the Greeks, the first telegraphic attempts were those of Athanasius Kircher, Kesler, Amontons, Rob-Hoock [probably Robert Hooke], someone of the name of Gautkey, Guyot, and Paulian. But their different methods, of varying ingenuity, could never have produced all the advantages of true telegraphy. It was left for Citizen Chappe to bring them together in the telegraph he invented. This telegraph is composed of a long frame furnished with blades after the Persian manner, turning on an axis and attached to a mast, which itself turns on a pivot, and is held up at the height of ten feet by strong legs, in such a manner as to render every movement of the machine visible. At the two ends of the frame are two moving wings half its length, which can be made to move in various ways. By the analysis of different inclinations of these three branches against the horizon or the vertical mast, and the positions they take relative to each other, one hundred perfect signals are available to represent figures or letters of determinate values. And we owe to Citizen Chappe’s careful efforts and meditations a method of tachygraphia [speed-writing] whose characters greatly resemble runic writing. The mechanism of the telegraph is such that the handling of it is done effortlessly and swiftly, by means of a double crank placed at a convenient height. With the help of good telescopes and pendulum clocks measuring seconds, observations can be made and news communicated from one extremity to the other, often without intermediate observers being able to penetrate the meaning of the message.
This discovery, which does honor to the French nation, dates from 1793; it was not merely an ingenious speculation; its results allowed no doubt of the literal transmission of news. It was clearly of the greatest utility in a host of circumstances, and especially in time of war, when prompt communications may have much influence on success. Thus the National Convention hastened to hail this discovery. It was on July 12, 1793, that the Convention’s Committee on Public Instruction, charged with examining the telegraph of Citizen Chappe, tested the invention. Success was complete; and it was recognized that in 13 minutes and 40 seconds, a dispatch could be transmitted a distance of 48 leagues. The first important piece of news transmitted to Paris by the telegraph was the surrender of Condé. At the session of the Convention of 13 Fructidor, Year 2, a telegraphic dispatch in these words was read: Condé is in the power of the Republic, and the garrison made prisoners of war. Thenceforth the telegraph always announced the most interesting events. It was placed along various lines that linked Paris with different points on the frontiers of the Republic. It is calculated that the establishment of one telegraph, including the apparatus for night use, costs 6000 pounds.
The fortunate invention of the telegraph has passed into the different nations of Europe, notably in Sweden, Ireland, and England: this last nation, which at first made a joke of its use, has ended up adopting it. M. Edecrantz, a Swede, has written a treatise on the telegraph; after having given the history of that discovery, he proposes a new establishment of this sort, for which he suggests various methods as simple as they are ingenious: his work is enriched with plates. Others have further sought to extend and perfect these establishments. We find in the British Library, January, 1796, details of a telegraph invented by two Irish gentlemen; and in the Bulletin of the Philomatic Society, No. 16, Year 6, the description and figure of the telegraph of Citizen Chappe, and those of the new telegraph presented, in the year 6, to the Institute by Citizens Breguet and Betancourt. It is for scientists, and still more for experience, to decide the superiority of this telegraph over that. Citizen Peytes-Montcambrier has imagined a marine telegraph or vigigraph, which is of simple construction and inexpensive; it could be set up in twenty-four hours and send a great number of signals with accuracy and celerity. A test was made with success at Rochefort. Telegraphy comes from two Greek words meaning far and writing. Vigigraphy comes from vigie, a marine term, meaning sentinel, and graphen, writing. To be en vigie is to be a sentinel.