Industrial and democratic progress
So far this section we have concentrated on the prime development of British industry. But Great Britain was so closely connected with the European Continent that the mechanized industrialization of the former was certain to affect the latter. Machines, such as water frames of the Arkwright type, were introduced sporadically into France and the Belgian Netherlands in the latter part of the eighteenth centufy.As early as 1781 an English iron master founded the famous metal and munitions works at Creusot north of Lyons and installed a steam engine there. Coke smelting was employed at Creusot in 1810 , and though the enterprise declined when munitions orders fell off at the close of the Napoleonic wars, it was later revivified by the Schneider family and became one of the most famous metal works in Europe.