The means of having iron, steel, saltpetre, powder, and arms, had been created during the reign of terror. The following were the results of this grand movement at the beginning of the third year of the Republic.
Twelve millions of pounds of saltpetre extracted from the soil of France in the space of nine months. Formerly, scarcely one million was drawn from it.
Fifteen founderies at work for the casting of brass cannon. Their annual produce increased to 7000 pieces. There existed in France but two establishments of this description before the revolution.
Thirty founderies for iron ordnance, yielding 13,000 pieces per year. At the breaking out of the war, there were but four, which yielded annually 900 pieces of cannon.
The buildings for the manufacture of shells, shot, and all the implements of artillery, multiplied in the same proportion.
Twenty new manufactories for side-arms, directed by a new process. Before the war, there existed but one.
An immense manufactory of fire-arms established all at once in Paris, and yielding 140,000 muskets per year, that is, more than all the old manufactories together. Several establishments of this nature formed on the same plan in the different departments of the Republic.
One hundred and eighty-eight workshops for repairing arms of every description. Before the war, there existed but six.
The establishment of a manufactory of carbines, the making of which was till then unknown in France.
The art of renewing the touch-hole of cannon discovered, and carried immediately to a perfection which admits of its being exercised in the midst of camps.