the first contractor of public works in the world, lived for a long time
in lumber yards. The years that so many other better instructed but less
learned persons, who were afterward to gladly accept his authority, had
given up to their studies, Favre had passed in the humble shop of his
father, a carpenter at Chêne, a small village at a half league from
Geneva. It soon becoming somewhat irksome for him in the village, he
left the paternal workbench to start on what is called the "tour of
France." He was then eighteen years of age. Three years afterward, he
was undertaking small works. It was not long ere he was remarked by the
engineers conducting the latter, and he was soon called to give his
advice on all difficult questions. Between times, Favre had courageously
studied the principal bases of such sciences as were to be useful to
him. In the evening, he made up at the public school what was lacking in
his early instruction; not that he hoped to make a complete study for an
engineer, but only to learn the indispensable. He was, before all
things, a practical man, who made up for the enforced insufficiency of
his technical knowledge by a _coup d'oeil_ of surprising accuracy.
Here it may be said to me that the piercing of the great St. Gothard
Tunnel was accompanied by considerable loss. That is true, but it must
be recalled also that this colossal work was accomplished amid the most
insurmountable difficulties which ever presented themselves. In spite of
this, the cost of the tunnel per running foot was also a third less than
that of the great Mont Cenis Tunnel.

When Favre undertook the St. Gothard, he already reckoned to his credit
numerous victories in the domain of public works, especially in the
construction of subterranean ones. The majority of tunnels of any length
which, since the beginning of the establishment of railways, have been
considered as works of some proportions (the Blaisy Tunnel, for
instance), were executed by him, in addition to other open air works. So