PARIS. Action de Jouissance. brown, green, yellow. #800000. No 1119064. One of the great names in French railway history. The company was formed in 1857 by the fusion of the Cie du Chemin de Fer de Paris à Lyon, and the Cie du Chemin de Fer de Lyon à la Méditerranée. The Paris/Lyon itself dates from 1852, and in 1854 took over the Cie du Chemin de Fer de Dijon à Besançon. The Lyon/Méditerranée was originally formed in 1852 as the Cie de Lyon à Avignon, and then acquired the Chemin de Fer de Marseille à Avignon, the Chemin de Fer d'Alais à Beaucaire et d'Alais aux Minesde Grand' Combe, the Chemin de Fer de Montpellier à Cette, and the Chemin de Fer de Montpellier à Nîmes. The P.L.M. soon acquired the Cie de Lyon à Genève. The certificate has a fine design of a locomotive leaving the Gare St.Charles, Marseille, with a view of Marseille in the background. The border is made up of the arms of Paris, Grenoble, Nîmes, Besançon, Marseille, Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, Nice, Dijon and Montpellier. The coupons show a modern (at that time) streamlined loco. The PLM company is very important today in the French hotel and restaurant industry. The design is by Henri Bellery-Desfontaines, painter and lithographer, born in Paris in 1867, and died in 1910. He was a pupil of Galland and J.-P.Laurens, and worked with him on paintings at the Panthéon and the Hôtel de Ville. Engraving is by Pierre Gusman, painter and engraver, who was born in Paris in 1862. He was a pupil of his father, Adolphe Gusman, and of Cormon. He produced many engravings in the styles of Hals and Rembrandt, and series of paintings of Italy, especially of Pompeii and of Venice. He also worked with various artistic pubmlications in Paris. Part of the fame of the P.L.M. comes from the glamour of the luxury expresses taking the rich to their playgrounds on the Côte d'Azur in the early decades of this century.