In 1856, the connection between Paris and Marseilles was opened and used to bring the soldiers back from Sebastopol. As Napoleon III intervened in Italy on behalf of the Piemontese against the Habsburg Empire in 1859, the railway enabled the conveyance of more than two hundred and twenty thousand men and thirty-six thousand horses in three months, which was six times as quick as with roads.
La voie Paris-Rouen est équipée en 1845 10 .