Writer 1879: Solitary Journey in France

Chapter 592 A Night to Remember! (Bonus Chapter 5)

July 5, 1883, Paris. The summer afternoon heat had not yet completely dissipated when Maupassant received an invitation from Lionel.

Inside was a simple white card with only a few lines of text:
Guy de Maupassant:
We cordially invite you to join us for a small salon at 7 Linden Path, Vernev-Lagarenne, at 9:00 PM on July 14th.

Looking forward to spending a memorable night with you.

Your sincere,

Lionel Sorel

September 1883, 7]

Maupassant stared at the card for several seconds. The invitation itself wasn't unusual; what was unusual was the time—nine o'clock in the evening.

This is much later than the usual salon start time. And the location is in Vernef; has Lionel's new villa already been completed?
However, it has been a year and a half since construction began, which is fast but also reasonable.

"A night to remember?" Maupassant murmured to himself. After the "elephant execution" in London, Lionel seemed to have vanished from Parisian social circles.

So he was busy renovating the villa? Does he completely disregard Thomas Edison's provocation?

Similar doubts arose in the minds of all the friends who received the invitations, including Zola, Daudet, Émile Perrin, Charpentier, and Paul Pigut.

This list also includes U.S. Ambassador to France Levi Morton and Jean-Baptiste Laval, Director of the Public Lighting Department of the Paris City Hall;
And other media heavyweights such as Albert Millot, a senior journalist for Le Figaro, and Louis Leroy, a columnist for Le Temps.

Of course, there was also Lady Eleonore de Rothschild and her husband, James Mayer de Rothschild.

Time flies, and July 14th arrived quickly, which is also France's National Day.

At 8:40, carriages from all over Paris began to arrive at No. 7 Linden Avenue, Lionel's villa.

When the guests got off the bus, it wasn't completely dark yet; the sunset was still hanging on the horizon, enough to make them see the surrounding scenery clearly.

The villa before them surprised everyone who visited.

This is a typical country villa, without elaborate decorations or ornate colonnades; its exterior is simple and dignified.

The dark gray, steeply sloping stone roof and the light-colored limestone walls gleamed softly in the twilight.

The most striking feature is the tall, wide windows that almost completely cover the south-facing wall.

The garden in front of the villa was not meticulously maintained; the lawn and shrubs were simply trimmed into a few basic geometric shapes, and a gravel path led to the main gate.

But at this moment, the interior of the villa was pitch black. There was no light from the gas lamps shining through the windows, nor the flickering of candlelight.

The entire building stood silently in the deepening twilight, like a sleeping giant.

Zola noticed the wooden pillars standing outside the villa. They were cedar poles about six meters high, with the lower half buried in the ground and the upper half fixed with several horizontal bars.

Several dark, thin lines were laid parallel between the horizontal bars, almost invisible in the twilight.

Wooden pillars extend along the road, one after another, spaced ten to twenty meters apart, until they reach the end of the road.

The nearest one is outside the villa's wall, and the black line on it extends into the villa's interior.

"What is Lionel up to?" Maupassant whispered to Zola.

Zola did not answer; his gaze fell again on the villa's exterior wall near the eaves.

There were several small, brass lamps with simple designs, and nothing behind the glass shades—no wicks, no flames.

Guests gradually gathered in the garden. They greeted each other, and their conversations were clearly audible in the quiet suburban night.

There were no servants coming and going to serve wine and food, nor was there a band playing enchanting tunes, but no one was angry.

They knew that Lionel hadn't summoned them for food and drink, or to discuss some abstract literary theories.

Ambassador Levi Morton said to Director Jean-Baptiste Laval, “It looks like our hosts are preparing to give us a surprise.”

Director Laval nodded; he probably knew what Lionel was going to show, but his expression remained serious: "I hope it's a 'real surprise'."

The Rothschilds also arrived in their own luxurious carriage.

After James Rothschild got out of the car, he immediately noticed the wooden posts and black lines erected along the road.

He looked up and observed for a while, then said to his wife, "I had only seen them on drawings before, I never thought Sorel would actually make them."

Mrs. Rothschild smiled slightly: "He never does anything he's not sure of."

John Morgan Jr. was the last to arrive. He rode alone in an ordinary horse-drawn carriage and looked like an ordinary businessman.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries with Ambassador Levi Morton, he stood quietly at the edge of the crowd, observing the villa and its novel facilities.

It was nearly nine o'clock. The sky was beginning to darken, the stars were gradually appearing denser in the deep blue dome, and a crescent moon hung in the sky.

The villa remained completely dark. There was no lighting in the garden either; the guests could only recognize each other by starlight and the occasional match they struck.

"Lionel isn't going to make us stand in the dark all night, is he?" Daudet said half-jokingly.

As soon as he finished speaking, the villa's main gate opened, and a figure leaning on a cane walked out. Lionel bowed slightly: "Good evening, friends, please forgive my slackness! There are just too many things to prepare, and I have to keep you all waiting."

He walked down the porch steps into the garden and stood before the guests.

“I know that in the past few weeks, many people have been talking about alternating current. Talking about how dangerous it is, talking about how it takes lives. Mr. Thomas Edison’s ‘scientific experiment’ has made many people fearful.”

"But I always believe that the value of technology lies in how we use it. A knife can kill, or it can slice bread; fire can burn down a house, or it can warm a home. The same is true of electricity."

"Electricity should be used to create light and hope, not to kill lives."

The words echoed in the night sky. Everyone present remained silent, waiting for what was to come.

Lionel turned to face the dark villa, raised his right hand, and snapped his fingers.

Immediately afterwards—

"Om..."

A deep, continuous sound came from the air, like some huge machine starting up in the distance.

In an instant, the villa awoke!

The first lights to illuminate were the wall lamps on either side of the porch. Inside the glass shades of the brass lamps, the filaments suddenly turned a bright orange-yellow, illuminating the porch area clearly.

The light from the electric lamps was so even and bright, without the flickering and swaying of the gas lamps, that even Zola and the others, who had already seen it before, still let out a soft gasp of amazement.

But this is just the beginning—

Through those large windows, you can see the lights inside gradually turning on. Living room, dining room, hallway... one light after another is lit.

Light spilled from the windows, illuminating the lawn in the garden and outlining the villa from the darkness.

These lights are either hanging from the ceiling, mounted on the walls, or placed on tables... making the entire villa as bright as day!
No, it's even more uniform than during the day, because there are almost no large, dark corners here!

“God…” someone murmured.

Lionel turned around, smiling, and gestured for him to come in: "Please come in."

The guests walked up the steps and entered the villa.

In the foyer, a chandelier hangs in the center of the ceiling, with twelve bulbs emitting a steady glow that illuminates every corner clearly.

The light-colored walls, the dark wooden floors, the few small paintings on the walls... all are clearly visible.

The living room is the most spacious room in the entire villa, with a high ceiling and a full south-facing wall of windows. At this moment, the windows are closed, but the air inside is fresh and cool.

The living room lighting was even more spectacular. A large chandelier made up of sixteen light bulbs, arranged in two concentric circles, hung from the ceiling, shining as brightly as the sun!

There were wall lamps in each of the four corners, a floor lamp next to the sofa, and a desk lamp on the desk. All the lights were on at the same time, but the room didn't get too hot.

You should know that if you were to use a gas lamp to achieve the same brightness, it would turn this room into an oven in the sweltering heat of July!
Even the well-informed Director Jean-Baptiste Laval was astonished: "These lights... are all powered by those 'wires' outside?"

It wasn't that he had never seen an electric light before. On the contrary, because of his position, he was probably the most knowledgeable government official about electric lights in all of France.

He knows everything about both the blindingly bright arc lamps and the carbon filament lamps that "Edison Electric Light Company in Paris" has been selling in the last two years.

To his surprise, he wondered what kind of power supply system and wiring layout could drive so many lights simultaneously in such a small space while maintaining stable brightness.

It is important to know that the direct current used by the "Edison Electric Light Company of Paris" not only has a short distance, but also becomes unstable when there are too many or too densely packed lights.

Sometimes, the lights that are a little far from the generator can only emit a dim red light, looking like chunks of carbon spat out of the devil's mouth.

Therefore, he has always disagreed with the contracting of the city's public lighting to the "Edison Lighting Company of Paris".

According to his preliminary estimate, there are at least a hundred electric lights installed in this villa today, both upstairs and downstairs, inside and outside, while a typical household would only have two or three.

He walked over to a wall lamp and examined it closely. The bulb was a pear-shaped, transparent glass bulb with a thin filament inside, emitting a steady orange-yellow light.

The lamp holder is made of brass and is connected to an electrical wire extending from the wall, which has a black insulating layer.

Lionel walked over to him: "Yes, they are all powered by 'electrical wires'. There are 105 lights installed in the entire villa, and each one is powered by the same source."

John Morgan Jr. asked curiously, "Where is the power source? I only see wires."

Lionel smiled slightly: "Twenty-five kilometers away."

The moment the number was mentioned, the room fell silent.

(Third update, please vote with monthly tickets)

　The first demonstrative long-distance (34 km, 21 mi) AC line was built at the 1884 Turin International Exhibition in Italy. It was powered by a 2 kV, 130 Hz Siemens-Halsk AC generator, equipped with several Gorar secondary generators whose primary windings were connected in series to power incandescent lamps.

　　In May 1885, at the Hungarian National Exhibition in Budapest, Djerid, Blasz, and Ziprovski gave a large-scale demonstration that is widely regarded as the prototype of the modern AC lighting system. Their system used 75 transformers connected in parallel, which powered 1,067 Edison incandescent lamps from an AC generator providing 1,350 volts.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)