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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men
+by Francois Arago
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men
+
+Author: Francois Arago
+
+Translator: W. H. Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant
+
+Release Date: September 30, 2005 [EBook #16775]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Martin Pettit and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHIES
+
+OF
+
+DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN.
+
+BY FRANÇOIS ARAGO,
+
+MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE.
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+ADMIRAL W.H. SMYTH, D.C.L., F.R.S., &c.
+
+THE REV. BADEN POWELL, M.A., F.R.S., &c.
+
+AND
+
+ROBERT GRANT, Esq., M.A., F.R.A.S.
+
+FIRST SERIES.
+
+BOSTON:
+
+TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
+
+M DCCC LIX.
+
+
+
+
+RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
+
+PRINTED BY H.O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATORS' PREFACE.
+
+
+The present volume of the series of English translations of M. Arago's
+works consists of his own autobiography and a selection of some of his
+memoirs of eminent scientific men, both continental and British.
+
+It does not distinctly appear at what period of his life Arago composed
+the autobiography, but it bears throughout the characteristic stamp of
+his ardent and energetic disposition. The reader will, perhaps, hardly
+suppress a smile at the indications of self-satisfaction with which
+several of the incidents are brought forward, while the air of romance
+which invests some of the adventures may possibly give rise to some
+suspicion of occasional embellishment; on these points, however, we
+leave each reader to judge for himself. In relation to the history of
+science, this memoir gives some interesting particulars, which disclose
+to us much of the interior spirit of the Academy of Sciences, not always
+of a kind the most creditable to some of Arago's former contemporaries.
+
+But a far higher interest will be found to belong to those eloquent
+memoirs, or éloges of eminent departed men of science, who had attained
+the distinction of being members of the Academy.
+
+In these the reader will find a luminous, eminently simple, and popular
+account of the discoveries of each of those distinguished individuals,
+of a kind constituting in fact a brief history of the particular branch
+of science to which he was devoted. And in the selection included in the
+present volume, which constitutes but a portion of the entire series, we
+have comprised the accounts of men of such varied pursuits as to convey
+no inadequate impression of the progress of discovery throughout a
+considerable range of the whole field of the physical sciences within
+the last half century.
+
+The account given by the author, of the principal discoveries made by
+the illustrious subjects of his memoirs, is in general very luminous,
+but at the same time presupposes a familiarity with some parts of
+science which may not really be possessed by all readers. For the sake
+of a considerable class, then, we have taken occasion, wherever the use
+of new technical terms or other like circumstances seemed to require it,
+to introduce original notes and commentaries, sometimes of considerable
+extent, by the aid of which we trust the scientific principles adverted
+to in the text will be rendered easily intelligible to the general
+reader.
+
+In some few instances also we have found ourselves called upon to adopt
+a more critical tone; where we were disposed to dissent from the view
+taken by the author on particular questions of a controversial kind, or
+when he is arguing in support, or in refutation, of opposing theories on
+some points of science not yet satisfactorily cleared up.
+
+We could have wished that our duty as translators and editors had not
+extended beyond such mere occasional scientific or literary criticism.
+But there unfortunately seemed to be one or two points where, in
+pronouncing on the claims of distinguished individuals, or criticizing
+their inventions, a doubt could not but be felt as to the perfect
+_fairness_ of Arago's judgment, and in which we were constrained to
+express an unfavourable opinion on the manner in which the relative
+pretensions of men of the highest eminence seemed to be decided,
+involving what might sometimes be fairly regarded as undue prejudice,
+or possibly a feeling of personal or even national jealousy. Much as we
+should deprecate the excitement of any feeling of hostility of this
+kind, yet we could not, in our editorial capacity, shrink from the plain
+duty of endeavouring to advocate what appeared to us right and true; and
+we trust that whatever opinion may be entertained as to the
+_conclusions_ to which we have come on such points, we shall not have
+given ground for any complaint that we have violated any due courtesy or
+propriety in our _mode_ of expressing those conclusions, or the reasons
+on which they are founded.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+THE HISTORY OF MY YOUTH.
+
+An Autobiography of Francis Arago                                    1
+
+
+BAILLY.
+
+Introduction                                                        91
+
+Infancy of Bailly.--His Youth.--His Literary Essays.--His
+Mathematical Studies                                                93
+
+Bailly becomes the Pupil of Lacaille.--He is associated
+with him in his Astronomical Labours                                97
+
+Bailly a Member of the Academy of Sciences.--His Researches
+on Jupiter's Satellites                                            103
+
+Bailly's Literary Works.--His Biographies of Charles V.--of
+Leibnitz--of Peter Corneille--of Molière                           106
+
+Debates relative to the Post of Perpetual Secretary of
+the Academy of Sciences                                            110
+
+History of Astronomy.--Letters on the Atlantis of Plato
+and on the Ancient History of Asia                                 114
+
+First Interview of Bailly with Franklin.--His Entrance
+into the French Academy in 1783.--His Reception.--Discourse.--His
+Rupture with Buffon                                                121
+
+Report on Animal Magnetism                                         127
+
+Election of Bailly into the Academy of Inscriptions                155
+
+Report on the Hospitals                                            157
+
+Report on the Slaughter-Houses                                     165
+
+Biographies of Cook and of Gresset                                 167
+
+Assembly of the Notables.--Bailly is named First Deputy
+of Paris; and soon after Dean or Senior of the Deputies
+of the Communes                                                    169
+
+Bailly becomes Mayor of Paris.--Scarcity.--Marat declares
+himself inimical to the Mayor.--Events of the 6th of October       179
+
+A Glance at the Posthumous Memoir of Bailly                        193
+
+Examination of Bailly's Administration as Mayor                    195
+
+The King's Flight.--Events on the Champ de Mars                    206
+
+Bailly quits the Mayoralty the 12th of November, 1791.--The
+Eschevins.--Examination of the Reproaches that might be
+addressed to the Mayor                                             211
+
+Bailly's Journey from Paris to Nantes, and then from Nantes to
+Mélun.--His Arrest in this last Town.--He is transferred to Paris  217
+
+Bailly is called as a Witness in the Trial of the Queen.--His own
+Trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal.--His Condemnation to
+Death.--His Execution.--Imaginary Details added by ill-informed
+Historians to what that odious and frightful Event already
+presented                                                          225
+
+Portrait of Bailly.--His Wife                                      250
+
+
+HERSCHEL.
+
+Personal History                                                   258
+
+Chronological Table of the Memoirs of William Herschel             266
+
+Improvements in the Means of Observation                           271
+
+Labours in Sidereal Astronomy                                      285
+
+Labours relative to the Solar System                               289
+
+Optical Labours                                                    301
+
+
+LAPLACE.
+
+Preliminary Notice                                                 303
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+    (A.) Brief Notice of some other interesting Results
+         of the Researches of Laplace which have not
+         been mentioned in the Text                                368
+
+    (B.) The Mécanique Céleste                                     372
+
+
+JOSEPH FOURIER.
+
+Preliminary Notice                                                 374
+
+Birth of Fourier.--His Youth                                       377
+
+Memoir on the Resolution of Numerical Equations                    380
+
+Part played by Fourier in our Revolution.--His Entrance
+into the Corps of Professors of the Normal School and
+the Polytechnic School.--Expedition to Egypt                       384
+
+Fourier Prefect of L'Isère                                         405
+
+Mathematical Theory of Heat                                        408
+
+Central Heat of the Terrestrial Globe                              419
+
+Return of Napoleon from Elba.--Fourier Prefect of the
+Rhone.--His Nomination to the Office of Director of the
+Board of Statistics of the Seine                                   430
+
+Entrance of Fourier into the Academy of Sciences.--His
+Election to the Office of Perpetual Secretary.--His Admission
+to the French Academy                                              437
+
+Character of Fourier.--His Death                                   438
+
+
+
+
+LIVES
+
+OF
+
+DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF MY YOUTH:
+
+AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO.
+
+
+I have not the foolish vanity to imagine that any one, even a short time
+hence, will have the curiosity to find out how my first education was
+given, and how my mind was developed; but some biographers, writing off
+hand and without authority, having given details on this subject utterly
+incorrect, and of a nature to imply negligence on the part of my
+parents, I consider myself bound to put them right.
+
+I was born on the 26th of February, 1786, in the commune of Estagel, an
+ancient province of Roussillon (department of the Eastern Pyrenees). My
+father, a licentiate in law, had some little property in arable land, in
+vineyards, and in plantations of olive-trees, the income from which
+supported his numerous family.
+
+I was thus three years old in 1789, four years old in 1790, five years
+in 1791, six years in 1792, and seven years old in 1793, &c.
+
+The reader has now himself the means of judging whether, as has been
+said, and even stated in print, I had a hand in the excesses of our
+first revolution.
+
+My parents sent me to the primary school in Estagel, where I learnt the
+rudiments of reading and writing. I received, besides, in my father's
+house, some private lessons in vocal music. I was not otherwise either
+more or less advanced than other children of my age. I enter into these
+details merely to show how much mistaken are those who have printed that
+at the age of fourteen or fifteen years I had not yet learnt to read.
+
+Estagel was a halting-place for a portion of the troops who, coming from
+the interior, either went on to Perpignan, or repaired direct to the
+army of the Pyrenees. My parents' house was therefore constantly full of
+officers and soldiers. This, joined to the lively excitement which the
+Spanish invasion had produced within me, inspired me with such decided
+military tastes, that my family was obliged to have me narrowly watched
+to prevent my joining by stealth the soldiers who left Estagel. It often
+happened that they caught me at a league's distance from the village,
+already on my way with the troops.
+
+On one occasion these warlike tastes had nearly cost me dear. It was the
+night of the battle of Peires-Tortes. The Spanish troops in their
+retreat had partly mistaken their road. I was in the square of the
+village before daybreak; I saw a brigadier and five troopers come up,
+who, at the sight of the tree of liberty, called out, "_Somos
+perdidos!_" I ran immediately to the house to arm myself with a lance
+which had been left there by a soldier of the _levée en masse_, and
+placing myself in ambush at the corner of a street, I struck with a blow
+of this weapon the brigadier placed at the head of the party. The wound
+was not dangerous; a cut of the sabre, however, was descending to punish
+my hardihood, when some countrymen came to my aid, and, armed with
+forks, overturned the five cavaliers from their saddles, and made them
+prisoners. I was then seven years old.[1]
+
+My father having gone to reside at Perpignan, as treasurer of the mint,
+all the family quitted Estagel to follow him there. I was then placed as
+an out-door pupil at the municipal college of the town, where I occupied
+myself almost exclusively with my literary studies. Our classic authors
+had become the objects of my favourite reading. But the direction of my
+ideas became changed all at once by a singular circumstance which I will
+relate.
+
+Walking one day on the ramparts of the town, I saw an officer of
+engineers who was directing the execution of the repairs. This officer,
+M. Cressac, was very young; I had the hardihood to approach him, and to
+ask him how he had succeeded in so soon wearing an epaulette. "I come
+from the Polytechnic School," he answered. "What school is that?" "It is
+a school which one enters by an examination." "Is much expected of the
+candidates?" "You will see it in the programme which the Government
+sends every year to the departmental administration; you will find it
+moreover in the numbers of the journal of the school, which are in the
+library of the central school."
+
+I ran at once to the library, and there, for the first time, I read the
+programme of the knowledge required in the candidates.
+
+From this moment I abandoned the classes of the central school, where I
+was taught to admire Corneille, Racine, La Fontaine, Molière, and
+attended only the mathematical course. This course was entrusted to a
+retired ecclesiastic, the Abbé Verdier, a very respectable man, but
+whose knowledge went no further than the elementary course of La Caille.
+I saw at a glance that M. Verdier's lessons would not be sufficient to
+secure my admission to the Polytechnic School; I therefore decided on
+studying by myself the newest works, which I sent for from Paris. These
+were those of Legendre, Lacroix, and Garnier. In going through these
+works I often met with difficulties which exceeded my powers; happily,
+strange though it be, and perhaps without example in all the rest of
+France, there was a proprietor at Estagel, M. Raynal, who made the study
+of the higher mathematics his recreation. It was in his kitchen, whilst
+giving orders to numerous domestics for the labours of the next day,
+that M. Raynal read with advantage the "Hydraulic Architecture" of
+Prony, the "Mécanique Analytique," and the "Mécanique Céleste." This
+excellent man often gave me useful advice; but I must say that I found
+my real master in the cover of M. Garnier's "Treatise on Algebra." This
+cover consisted of a printed leaf, on the outside of which blue paper
+was pasted. The reading of the page not covered made me desirous to know
+what the blue paper hid from me. I took off this paper carefully, having
+first damped it, and was able to read underneath it the advice given by
+d'Alembert to a young man who communicated to him the difficulties which
+he met with in his studies: "Go on, sir, go on, and conviction will come
+to you."
+
+This gave me a gleam of light; instead of persisting in attempts to
+comprehend at first sight the propositions before me, I admitted their
+truth provisionally; I went on further, and was quite surprised, on the
+morrow, that I comprehended perfectly what overnight appeared to me to
+be encompassed with thick clouds.
+
+I thus made myself master, in a year and a half, of all the subjects
+contained in the programme for admission, and I went to Montpellier to
+undergo the examination. I was then sixteen years of age. M. Monge,
+junior, the examiner, was detained at Toulouse by indisposition, and
+wrote to the candidates assembled at Montpellier that he would examine
+them in Paris. I was myself too unwell to undertake so long a journey,
+and I returned to Perpignan.
+
+There I listened for a moment to the solicitations of my family, who
+pressed me to renounce the prospects which the Polytechnic School
+opened. But my taste for mathematical studies soon carried the day; I
+increased my library with Euler's "Introduction à l'Analyse
+Infinitésimale," with the "Résolution des Equations Numériques," with
+Lagrange's "Théorie des Fonctions Analytiques," and "Mécanique
+Analytique," and finally with Laplace's "Mécanique Céleste." I gave
+myself up with great ardour to the study of these books. From the
+journal of the Polytechnic School containing such investigations as
+those of M. Poisson on Elimination, I imagined that all the pupils were
+as much advanced as this geometer, and that it would be necessary to
+rise to this height to succeed.
+
+From this moment, I prepared myself for the artillery service,--the aim
+of my ambition; and as I had heard that an officer ought to understand
+music, fencing, and dancing, I devoted the first hours of each day to
+the cultivation of these accomplishments.
+
+The rest of the time I was seen walking in the moats of the citadel of
+Perpignan, seeking by more or less forced transitions to pass from one
+question to another, so as to be sure of being able to show the examiner
+how far my studies had been carried.[2]
+
+At last the moment of examination arrived, and I went to Toulouse in
+company with a candidate who had studied at the public college. It was
+the first time that pupils from Perpignan had appeared at the
+competition. My intimidated comrade was completely discomfited. When I
+repaired after him to the board, a very singular conversation took
+place between M. Monge (the examiner) and me.
+
+"If you are going to answer like your comrade, it is useless for me to
+question you."
+
+"Sir, my comrade knows much more than he has shown; I hope I shall be
+more fortunate than he; but what you have just said to me might well
+intimidate me and deprive me of all my powers."
+
+"Timidity is always the excuse of the ignorant; it is to save you from
+the shame of a defeat that I make you the proposal of not examining
+you."
+
+"I know of no greater shame than that which you now inflict upon me.
+Will you be so good as to question me? It is your duty."
+
+"You carry yourself very high, sir! We shall see presently whether this
+be a legitimate pride."
+
+"Proceed, sir; I wait for you."
+
+M. Monge then put to me a geometrical question, which I answered in such
+a way as to diminish his prejudices. From this he passed on to a
+question in algebra, then the resolution of a numerical equation. I had
+the work of Lagrange at my fingers' ends; I analyzed all the known
+methods, pointing out their advantages and effects; Newton's method, the
+method of recurring series, the method of depression, the method of
+continued fractions,--all were passed in review; the answer had lasted
+an entire hour. Monge, brought over now to feelings of great kindness,
+said to me, "I could, from this moment, consider the examination at an
+end. I will, however, for my own pleasure, ask you two more questions.
+What are the relations of a curved line to the straight line that is a
+tangent to it?" I looked upon this question as a particular case of the
+theory of osculations which I had studied in Legrange's "Fonctions
+Analytiques." "Finally," said the examiner to me, "how do you determine
+the tension of the various cords of which a funicular machine is
+composed?" I treated this problem according to the method expounded in
+the "Mécanique Analytique." It was clear that Lagrange had supplied all
+the resources of my examination.
+
+I had been two hours and a quarter at the board. M. Monge, going from
+one extreme to the other, got up, came and embraced me, and solemnly
+declared that I should occupy the first place on his list. Shall I
+confess it? During the examination of my comrade I had heard the
+Toulousian candidates uttering not very favourable sarcasms on the
+pupils from Perpignan; and it was principally for the sake of reparation
+to my native town that M. Monge's behaviour and declaration transported
+me with joy.
+
+Having entered the Polytechnic School, at the end of 1803, I was placed
+in the excessively boisterous brigade of the Gascons and Britons. I
+should have much liked to study thoroughly physics and chemistry, of
+which I did not even know the first rudiments; but the behaviour of my
+companions rarely left me any time for it. As for analysis, I had
+already, before entering the Polytechnic School, learnt much more than
+was required for leaving it.
+
+I have just related the strange words which M. Monge, junior, addressed
+to me at Toulouse in commencing my examination for admission. Something
+analogous occurred at the opening of my examination in mathematics for
+passing from one division of the school to another. The examiner, this
+time, was the illustrious geometer Legendre, of whom, a few years after,
+I had the honour of becoming the colleague and the friend.
+
+I entered his study at the moment when M. T----, who was to undergo his
+examination before me, having fainted away, was being carried out in the
+arms of two servants. I thought that this circumstance would have moved
+and softened M. Legendre; but it had no such effect "What is your name,"
+he said to me sharply. "Arago," I answered. "You are not French then?"
+"If I was not French I should not be before you; for I have never heard
+of any one being admitted into the school unless his nationality had
+been proved." "I maintain that he is not French whose name is Arago." "I
+maintain, on my side, that I am French, and a very good Frenchman too,
+however strange my name may appear to you." "Very well; we will not
+discuss the point farther; go to the board."
+
+I had scarcely taken up the chalk, when M. Legendre, returning to the
+first subject of his preoccupations, said to me: "You were born in one
+of the departments recently united to France?" "No, sir; I was born in
+the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, at the foot of the Pyrenees."
+"Oh! why did you not tell me that at once? all is now explained. You are
+of Spanish origin, are you not?" "Possibly; but in my humble family
+there are no authentic documents preserved which could enable me to
+trace back the civil position of my ancestors; each one there is the
+child of his own deeds. I declare to you again that I am French, and
+that ought to be sufficient for you."
+
+The vivacity of this last answer had not disposed M. Legendre in my
+favour. I saw this very soon; for, having put a question to me which
+required the use of double integrals, he stopped me, saying: "The method
+which you are following was not given to you by the professor. Whence
+did you get it?" "From one of your papers." "Why did you choose it? was
+it to bribe me?" "No; nothing was farther from my thoughts. I only
+adopted it because it appeared to me preferable." "If you are unable to
+explain to me the reasons for your preference, I declare to you that you
+shall receive a bad mark, at least as to character."
+
+I then entered upon the details which established, as I thought, that
+the method of double integrals was in all points more clear and more
+rational than that which Lacroix had expounded to us in the
+amphitheatre. From this moment Legendre appeared to me to be satisfied,
+and to relent.
+
+Afterwards, he asked me to determine the centre of gravity of a
+spherical sector. "The question is easy," I said to him. "Very well;
+since you find it easy, I will complicate it: instead of supposing the
+density constant, I will suppose that it varies from the centre to the
+surface according to a determined function." I got through this
+calculation very happily; and from this moment I had entirely gained the
+favour of the examiner. Indeed, on my retiring, he addressed to me these
+words, which, coming from him, appeared to my comrades as a very
+favourable augury for my chance of promotion: "I see that you have
+employed your time well; go on in the same way the second year, and we
+shall part very good friends."
+
+In the mode of examination adopted at the Polytechnic School in 1804,
+which is always cited as being better than the present organization,
+room was allowed for the exercise of some unjustifiable caprices. Would
+it be believed, for example, that the old M. Barruel examined two pupils
+at a time in physics, and gave them, it is said, the same mark, which
+was the mean between the actual merits of the two? For my part, I was
+associated with a comrade full of intelligence, but who had not studied
+this branch of the course. We agreed that he should leave the answering
+to me, and we found the arrangement advantageous to both.
+
+As I have been led to speak of the school as it was in 1804, I will say
+that its faults were less those of organization than those of personal
+management; for many of the professors were much below their office, a
+fact which gave rise to somewhat ridiculous scenes. The pupils, for
+instance, having observed the insufficiency of M. Hassenfratz, made a
+demonstration of the dimensions of the rainbow, full of errors of
+calculation, but in which the one compensated the other so that the
+final result was true. The professor, who had only this result whereby
+to judge of the goodness of the answer, when he saw it appear on the
+board, did not hesitate to call out, "Good, good, perfectly good!" which
+excited shouts of laughter on all the benches of the amphitheatre.
+
+When a professor has lost consideration, without which it is impossible
+for him to do well, they allow themselves to insult him to an incredible
+extent. Of this I will cite a single specimen.
+
+A pupil, M. Leboullenger, met one evening in company this same M.
+Hassenfratz, and had a discussion with him. When he reëntered the school
+in the morning, he mentioned this circumstance to us. "Be on your
+guard," said one of our comrades to him; "you will be interrogated this
+evening. Play with caution, for the professor has certainly prepared
+some great difficulties so as to cause laughter at your expense."
+
+Our anticipations were not mistaken. Scarcely had the pupils arrived in
+the amphitheatre, when M. Hassenfratz called to M. Leboullenger, who
+came to the board.
+
+"M. Leboullenger," said the professor to him, "you have seen the moon?"
+"No, sir." "How, sir! you say that you have never seen the moon?" "I can
+only, repeat my answer--no, sir." Beside himself, and seeing his prey
+escape him, by means of this unexpected answer, M. Hassenfratz addressed
+himself to the inspector charged with the observance of order that day,
+and said to him, "Sir, there is M. Leboullenger, who pretends never to
+have seen the moon." "What would you wish me to do?" stoically replied
+M. Le Brun. Repulsed on this side, the professor turned once more
+towards M. Leboullenger, who remained calm and earnest in the midst of
+the unspeakable amusement of the whole amphitheatre, and cried out with
+undisguised anger, "You persist in maintaining that you have never seen
+the moon?" "Sir," returned the pupil, "I should deceive you if I told
+you that I had not heard it spoken of, but I have never seen it." "Sir,
+return to your place."
+
+After this scene, M. Hassenfratz was but a professor in name; his
+teaching could no longer be of any use.
+
+At the commencement of the second year, I was appointed "_chef de
+brigade_." Hatchette had been professor of hydrography at Collioure; his
+friends from Roussillon recommended me to him. He received me with great
+kindness, and even gave me a room in his lodgings. It was there that I
+had the pleasure of making Poisson's acquaintance, who lived next to us.
+Every evening the great geometer entered my room, and we passed entire
+hours in conversing on politics and mathematics, which is certainly not
+quite the same thing.
+
+In the course of 1804, the school was a prey to political passions, and
+that through the fault of the government.
+
+They wished forthwith to oblige the pupils to sign an address of
+congratulation on the discovery of the conspiracy in which Moreau was
+implicated. They refused to do so on the ground that it was not for them
+to pronounce on a cause which had been in the hands of justice. It must,
+however, be remarked, that Moreau had not yet dishonoured himself by
+taking service in the Russian army, which had come to attack the French
+under the walls of Dresden.
+
+The pupils were invited to make a manifestation in favour of the
+institution of the Legion of Honour. This again they refused. They knew
+well that the cross, given without inquiry and without control, would
+be, in most cases, the recompense of charlatanism, and not of true
+merit.
+
+The transformation of the Consular into the Imperial Government gave
+rise to very animated discussions in the interior of the school.
+
+Many pupils refused to add their felicitations to the mean adulations of
+the constituted bodies.
+
+General Lacuée, who was appointed governor of the school, reported this
+opposition to the Emperor.
+
+"M. Lacuée," cried Napoleon, in the midst of a group of courtiers, who
+applauded with speech and gesture, "you cannot retain at the school
+those pupils who have shown such ardent Republicanism; you will send
+them away." Then, collecting himself, he added, "I will first know their
+names and their stages of promotion." Seeing the list the next day, he
+did not proceed further than the first name, which was the first in the
+artillery. "I will not drive away the first men in advancement," said
+he. "Ah! if they had been at the bottom of the list! M. Lacuée, leave
+them alone."
+
+Nothing was more curious than the _séance_ to which General Lacuée came
+to receive the oath of obedience from the pupils. In the vast
+amphitheatre which contained them, one could not discern a trace of the
+gravity which such a ceremony should inspire. The greater part, instead
+of answering, at the call of their names, "I swear it," cried out,
+"Present."
+
+All at once the monotony of this scene was interrupted by a pupil, son
+of the Conventionalist Brissot, who called out in a stentorian voice, "I
+will not take the oath of obedience to the Emperor." Lacuée, pale and
+with little presence of mind, ordered a detachment of armed pupils
+placed behind him to go and arrest the recusant. The detachment, of
+which I was at the head, refused to obey. Brissot, addressing himself to
+the General, with the greatest calmness said to him, "Point out the
+place to which you wish me to go; do not force the pupils to dishonour
+themselves by laying hands on a comrade who has no desire to resist."
+
+The next morning Brissot was expelled.
+
+About this time, M. Méchain, who had been sent to Spain to prolong the
+meridional line as far as Formentera, died at Castellon de la Plana. His
+son, Secretary at the Observatory, immediately gave in his resignation.
+Poisson offered me the situation. I declined his first proposal. I did
+not wish to renounce the military career,--the object of all my
+predilections, and in which, moreover, I was assured of the protection
+of Marshal Lannes,--a friend of my father's. Nevertheless I accepted, on
+trial, the position offered me in the Observatory, after a visit which I
+made to M. de Laplace in company with M. Poisson, under the express
+condition that I could re-enter the Artillery if that should suit me. It
+was from this cause that my name remained inscribed on the list of the
+pupils of the school. I was only detached to the Observatory on a
+special service.
+
+I entered this establishment, then, on the nomination of Poisson, my
+friend, and through the intervention of Laplace. The latter loaded me
+with civilities. I was happy and proud when I dined in the Rue de
+Tournon with the great geometer. My mind and my heart were much disposed
+to admire all, to respect all, that was connected with him who had
+discovered the cause of the secular equation of the moon, had found in
+the movement of this planet the means of calculating the ellipticity of
+the earth, had traced to the laws of attraction the long inequalities of
+Jupiter and of Saturn, &c. &c. But what was my disenchantment, when one
+day I heard Madame de Laplace, approaching her husband, say to him,
+"Will you entrust to me the key of the sugar?"
+
+Some days afterwards, a second incident affected me still more vividly.
+M. de Laplace's son was preparing for the examinations of the
+Polytechnic School. He came sometimes to see me at the Observatory. In
+one of his visits I explained to him the method of continued fractions,
+by help of which Lagrange obtains the roots of numerical equations. The
+young man spoke of it to his father with admiration. I shall never
+forget the rage which followed the words of Emile de Laplace, and the
+severity of the reproaches which were addressed to me, for having
+patronized a mode of proceeding which may be very long in theory, but
+which evidently can in no way be found fault with on the score of its
+elegance and precision. Never had a jealous prejudice shown itself more
+openly, or under a more bitter form. "Ah!" said I to myself, "how true
+was the inspiration of the ancients when they attributed weaknesses to
+him who nevertheless made Olympus tremble by a frown!"
+
+Here I should mention, in order of time, a circumstance which might have
+produced the most fatal consequences for me. The fact was this:--
+
+I have described above, the scene which caused the expulsion of
+Brissot's son from the Polytechnic School. I had entirely lost sight of
+him for several months, when he came to pay me a visit at the
+Observatory, and placed me in the most delicate, the most terrible,
+position that an honest man ever found himself in.
+
+"I have not seen you," he said to me, "because since leaving the school
+I have practised daily firing with a pistol; I have now acquired a skill
+beyond the common, and I am about to employ it in ridding France of the
+tyrant who has confiscated all her liberties. My measures are taken: I
+have hired a small room on the Carrousel, close to the place by which
+Napoleon, on coming out from the court, will pass to review the cavalry;
+from the humble window of my apartment will the ball be fired which will
+go through his head."
+
+I leave it to be imagined with what despair I received this confidence.
+I made every imaginable effort to deter Brissot from his sinister
+project; I remarked how all those who had rushed on enterprises of this
+nature had been branded in history by the odious title of assassin.
+Nothing succeeded in shaking his fatal resolution; I only obtained from
+him a promise on his honour that the execution of it should be postponed
+for a time, and I put myself in quest of means for rendering it
+abortive.
+
+The idea of announcing Brissot's project to the authorities did not
+even enter my thoughts. It seemed a fatality which came to smite me, and
+of which I must undergo the consequences, however serious they might be.
+
+I counted much on the solicitations of Brissot's mother, already so
+cruelly tried during the revolution. I went to her home, in the Rue de
+Condé, and implored her earnestly to coöperate with me in preventing her
+son from carrying out his sanguinary resolution. "Ah, sir," replied this
+lady, who was naturally a model of gentleness, "if Silvain" (this was
+the name of her son) "believes that he is accomplishing a patriotic
+duty, I have neither the intention nor the desire to turn him from his
+project."
+
+It was from myself that I must henceforth draw all my resources. I had
+remarked that Brissot was addicted to the composition of romances and
+pieces of poetry. I encouraged this passion, and every Sunday, above
+all, when I knew that there would be a review, I went to fetch him, and
+drew him into the country, in the environs of Paris. I listened then
+complacently to the reading of those chapters of his romance which he
+had composed during the week.
+
+The first excursions frightened me a little, for armed with his pistols,
+Brissot seized every occasion of showing his great skill; and I
+reflected that this circumstance would lead to my being considered as
+his accomplice, if he ever carried out his project. At last, his
+pretensions to literary fame, which I flattered to the utmost, the hopes
+(though I had none myself) which I led him to conceive of the success of
+an attachment of which he had confided the secret to me, made him
+receive with attention the reflections which I constantly made to him on
+his enterprise. He determined on making a journey beyond the seas, and
+thus relieved me from the most serious anxiety which I have experienced
+in all my life.
+
+Brissot died after having covered the walls of Paris with printed
+handbills in favour of the Bourbon restoration.
+
+I had scarcely entered the Observatory, when I became the
+fellow-labourer of Biot in researches on the refraction of gases,
+already commenced by Borda.
+
+While engaged in this work the celebrated academician and I often
+conversed on the interest there would be in resuming in Spain the
+measurement interrupted by the death of Méchain. We submitted our
+project to Laplace, who received it with ardour, procured the necessary
+funds, and the Government confided to us two this important mission.
+
+M. Biot, I, and the Spanish commissary Rodriguez departed from Paris in
+the commencement of 1806. We visited, on our way, the stations indicated
+by Méchain; we made some important modifications in the projected
+triangulation, and at once commenced operations.
+
+An inaccurate direction given to the reflectors established at Iviza, on
+the mountain Campvey, rendered the observations made on the continent
+extremely difficult. The light of the signal of Campvey was very rarely
+seen, and I was, during six months, in the _Desierto de las Palmas_,
+without being able to see it, whilst at a later period the light
+established at the Desierto, but well directed, was seen every evening
+from Campvey. It will easily be imagined what must be the _ennui_
+experienced by a young and active astronomer, confined to an elevated
+peak, having for his walk only a space of twenty square metres, and for
+diversion only the conversation of two Carthusians, whose convent was
+situated at the foot of the mountain, and who came in secret,
+infringing the rule of their order.
+
+At the time when I write these lines, old and infirm, my legs scarcely
+able to sustain me, my thoughts revert involuntarily to that epoch of my
+life when, young and vigorous, I bore the greatest fatigues, and walked
+day and night, in the mountainous countries which separate the kingdoms
+of Valencia and Catalonia from the kingdom of Aragon, in order to
+reëstablish our geodesic signals which the storms had overset.
+
+I was at Valencia towards the middle of October, 1806. One morning early
+the French consul entered my room quite alarmed: "Here is sad news,"
+said M. Lanusse to me; "make preparations for your departure; the whole
+town is in agitation; a declaration of war against France has just been
+published; it appears that we have experienced a great disaster in
+Prussia. The Queen, we are assured, has put herself at the head of the
+cavalry and of the royal guard; a part of the French army has been cut
+to pieces; the rest is completely routed. Our lives would not be in
+safety if we remained here; the French ambassador at Madrid will inform
+me as soon as an American vessel now at anchor in the 'Grao' of Valencia
+can take us on board, and I will let you know as soon as the moment is
+come." This moment never came; for a few days afterwards the false news,
+which one must suppose had dictated the proclamation of the Prince of
+the Peace, was replaced by the bulletin of the battle of Jéna. People
+who at first played the braggart and threatened to root us out, suddenly
+became disgracefully cast down; we could walk in the town, holding up
+our heads, without fear henceforth of being insulted.
+
+This proclamation, in which they spoke of the critical circumstances in
+which the Spanish nation was placed; of the difficulties which
+encompassed this people; of the safety of their native country; of
+laurels, and of the god of victory; of enemies with whom they ought to
+fight;--did not contain the name of France. They availed themselves of
+this omission (will it be believed?) to maintain that it was directed
+against Portugal.
+
+Napoleon pretended to believe in this absurd interpretation; but from
+this moment it became evident that Spain would sooner or later be
+obliged to render a strict account of the warlike intentions which she
+had suddenly evinced in 1806; this, without justifying the events of
+Bayonne, explains them in a very natural way.
+
+I was expecting M. Biot at Valencia, he having undertaken to bring some
+new instruments with which we were to measure the latitude of
+Formentera. I shall take advantage of these short intervals of repose to
+insert here some details of manners, which may, perhaps, be read with
+interest.
+
+I will recount, in the first instance, an adventure which nearly cost me
+my life under somewhat singular circumstances.
+
+One day, as a recreation, I thought I could go, with a
+fellow-countryman, to the fair at Murviedro, the ancient Saguntum, which
+they told me was very curious. I met in the town the daughter of a
+Frenchman resident at Valencia, Madlle. B----. All the hotels were
+crowded; Madlle. B---- invited us to take some refreshments at her
+grandmother's; we accepted; but on leaving the house she informed us
+that our visit had not been to the taste of her betrothed, and that we
+must be prepared for some sort of attack on his part; we went directly
+to an armourer's, bought some pistols, and commenced our return to
+Valencia.
+
+On our way I said to the calezero (driver), a man whom I had employed
+for a long time, and who was much devoted to me:--
+
+"Isidro, I have some reason to believe that we shall be stopped; I warn
+you of it, so that you may not be surprised at the shots which will be
+fired from the caleza (vehicle)."
+
+Isidro, seated on the shaft, according to the custom of the country,
+answered:--
+
+"Your pistols are completely useless, gentlemen; leave me to act; one
+cry will be enough; my mule will rid us of two, three, or even four
+men."
+
+Scarcely one minute had elapsed after the calezero had uttered these
+words, when two men presented themselves before the mule and seized her
+by the nostrils. At the same instant a formidable cry, which will never
+be effaced from my remembrance,--the cry of _Capitana!_--was uttered by
+Isidro. The mule reared up almost vertically, raising up one of the men,
+came down again, and set off at a rapid gallop. The jolt which the
+carriage made led us to understand too well what had just occurred. A
+long silence succeeded this incident; it was only interrupted by these
+words of the calezero, "Do you not think, gentlemen, that my mule is
+worth more than any pistols?"
+
+The next day the captain-general, Don Domingo Izquierdo, related to me
+that a man had been found crushed on the road to Murviedro. I gave him
+an account of the prowess of Isidro's mule, and no more was said.
+
+One anecdote, taken from among a thousand, will show what an adventurous
+life was led by the delegate of the _Bureau of Longitude_.
+
+During my stay on a mountain near Cullera, to the north of the mouth of
+the river Xucar, and to the south of the Albuféra, I once conceived the
+project of establishing a station on the high mountains which are in
+front of it. I went to see them. The alcaid of one of the neighbouring
+villages warned me of the danger to which I was about to expose myself.
+"These mountains," said he to me, "form the resort of a band of highway
+robbers." I asked for the national guard, as I had the power to do so.
+My escort was supposed by the robbers to be an expedition directed
+against them, and they dispersed themselves at once over the rich plain
+which is watered by the Xucar. On my return I found them engaged in
+combat with the authorities of Cullera. Wounds had been given on both
+sides, and, if I recollect right, one alguazil was left dead on the
+plain.
+
+The next morning I regained my station. The following night was a
+horrible one; the rain fell in a deluge. Towards night, there was
+knocking at my cabin door. To the question "Who is there?" the answer
+was, "A custom-house guard, who asks of you a shelter for some hours."
+My servant having opened the door to him, I saw a magnificent man enter,
+armed to the teeth. He laid himself down on the earth, and went to
+sleep. In the morning, as I was chatting with him at the door of my
+cabin, his eyes flashed on seeing two persons on the slope of the
+mountain, the alcaid of Cullera and his principal alguazil, who were
+coming to pay me a visit. "Sir," cried he, "nothing less than the
+gratitude which I owe to you, on account of the service which you have
+rendered to me this night, could prevent my seizing this occasion for
+ridding myself, by one shot of this carabine, of my most cruel enemy.
+Adieu, sir!" And he departed, springing from rock to rock as light as a
+gazelle.
+
+On reaching the cabin, the alcaid and his alguazil recognized in the
+fugitive the chief of all the brigands in the country.
+
+Some days afterwards, the weather having again become very bad, I
+received a second visit from the pretended custom-house guard, who went
+soundly to sleep in my cabin. I saw that my servant, an old soldier, who
+had heard the recital of the deeds and behaviour of this man, was
+preparing to kill him. I jumped down from my camp bed, and, seizing my
+servant by the throat,--"Are you mad?" said I to him; "are we to
+discharge the duties of police in this country? Do you not see,
+moreover, that this would expose us to the resentment of all those who
+obey the orders of this redoubted chief? And we should thus render it
+impossible for us to terminate our operations."
+
+Next morning, when the sun rose, I had a conversation with my guest,
+which I will try to reproduce faithfully.
+
+"Your situation is perfectly known to me; I know that you are not a
+custom-house guard; I have learnt from certain information that you are
+the chief of the robbers of the country. Tell me whether I have any
+thing to fear from your confederates?"
+
+"The idea of robbing you did occur to us; but we concluded that all your
+funds would be in the neighbouring towns; that you would carry no money
+to the summit of mountains, where you would not know what to do with it,
+and that our expedition against you could have no fruitful result.
+Moreover, we cannot pretend to be as strong as the King of Spain. The
+King's troops leave us quietly enough to exercise our industry; but on
+the day that we molested an envoy from the Emperor of the French, they
+would direct against us several regiments, and we should soon have to
+succumb. Allow me to add, that the gratitude which I owe to you is your
+surest guarantee."
+
+"Very well, I will trust in your words; I shall regulate my conduct by
+your answer. Tell me if I can travel at night? It is fatiguing to me to
+move from one station to another in the day under the burning influence
+of the sun."
+
+"You can do so, sir; I have already given my orders to this purpose;
+they will not be infringed."
+
+Some days afterwards, I left for Denia; it was midnight, when some
+horsemen rode up to me, and addressed these words to me:--
+
+"Stop there, señor; times are hard; those who have something must aid
+those who have nothing. Give us the keys of your trunks; we will only
+take your superfluities."
+
+I had already obeyed their orders, when it came into my head to call
+out--"But I have been told, that I could travel without risk."
+
+"What is your name, sir?"
+
+"Don Francisco Arago."
+
+"_Hombre! vaya usted con Dios_ (God be with you)."
+
+And our cavaliers, spurring away from us, rapidly lost themselves in a
+field of "algarrobos."
+
+When _my friend_ the robber of Cullera assured me that I had nothing to
+fear from his subordinates, he informed me at the same time that his
+authority did not extend north of Valencia. The banditti of the northern
+part of the kingdom obeyed other chiefs; one of whom, after having been
+taken, was condemned and hung, and his body divided into four quarters,
+which were fastened to posts, on four royal roads, but not without
+their having previously been boiled in oil, to make sure of their longer
+preservation.
+
+This barbarous custom produced no effect; for scarcely was one chief
+destroyed before another presented himself to replace him.
+
+Of all these brigands those had the worst reputation who carried on
+their depredations in the environs of Oropeza. The proprietors of the
+three mules, on which M. Rodriguez, I, and my servant were riding one
+evening in this neighbourhood, were recounting to us the "grand deeds"
+of these robbers, which, even in full daylight, would have made the hair
+of one's head stand on end, when, by the faint light of the moon, we
+perceived a man hiding himself behind a tree; we were six, and yet this
+sentry on horseback had the audacity to demand our purses or our lives:
+my servant, at once answered him--"You must then believe us to be very
+cowardly; take yourself off, or I will bring you down by one shot of my
+carabine." "I will be off," returned the worthless fellow "but you will
+soon hear news of me." Still full of fright at the remembrance of the
+stories which they had just been relating, the three "arieros" besought
+us to quit the high road and cast ourselves into a wood which was on our
+left. We yielded to their proposal; but we lost our way. "Dismount,"
+said they, "the mules have been obeying the bridle and you have directed
+them wrongly. Let us retrace our way as far as the high road, and leave
+the mules to themselves, they will well know how to find their right way
+again." Scarcely had we effected this manoeuvre, which succeeded
+marvellously well, when we heard a lively discussion taking place at a
+short distance from us. Some were saying: "We must follow the high
+road, and we shall meet with them." Others maintained that they must get
+into the wood on the left. The barking of the dogs, by which these
+individuals were accompanied, added to the tumult. During this time we
+pursued our way silently, more dead than alive. It was two o'clock in
+the morning. All at once we saw a faint light in a solitary house; it
+was like a light-house for the mariner in the midst of the tempest, and
+the only means of safety which remained to us. Arrived at the door of
+the farm, we knocked and asked for hospitality. The inmates, very little
+reassured, feared that we were thieves, and did not hurry themselves to
+open to us.
+
+Impatient at the delay, I cried out, as I had received authority to do
+so, "In the name of the King, open to us!" They obeyed an order thus
+given; we entered pell-mell, and in the greatest haste, men and mules,
+into the kitchen, which was on the ground-floor; and we hurried to
+extinguish the lights, in order not to awaken the suspicions of the
+bandits who were seeking for us. Indeed, we heard them, passing and
+repassing near the house, vociferating with the whole force of their
+lungs against their unlucky fate. We did not quit this solitary house
+until broad day, and we continued our route for Tortosa, not without
+having given a suitable recompense to our hosts. I wished to know by
+what providential circumstance they happened to have a lamp burning at
+that unseasonable hour. "We had killed a pig," they told me, "in the
+course of the day, and we were busy preparing the black puddings." Had
+the pig lived one day more, or had there been no black puddings, I
+should certainly have been no longer in this world, and I should not
+have the opportunity to relate the story of the robbers of Oropeza.
+
+Never could I better appreciate the intelligent measure by which the
+constituent assembly abolished the ancient division of France into
+provinces, and substituted its division into departments, than in
+traversing for my triangulation the Spanish border kingdoms of
+Catalonia, Valencia, and Aragon. The inhabitants of these three
+provinces detested each other cordially, and nothing less than the bond
+of a common hatred was necessary to make them act simultaneously against
+France. Such was their animosity in 1807 that I could scarcely make use
+at the same time of Catalonians, Aragons, and Valencians, when I moved
+with my instruments from one station to another. The Valencians, in
+particular, were treated by the Catalonians as a light, trifling,
+inconsistent people. They were in the habit of saying to me, "_En el
+reino de Valencia la carne es verdura, la verdura agua, los hombres
+mugeres, las mugeres nada_"; which may be translated thus: "In the
+kingdom of Valencia meat is a vegetable, vegetables are water, men are
+women, and women nothing."
+
+On the other hand, the Valencians, speaking of the Aragons, used to call
+them "_schuros_."
+
+Having asked of a herdsman of this province who had brought some goats
+near to one of my stations, what was the origin of this denomination, at
+which his compatriots showed themselves so offended:
+
+"I do not know," said he, smiling cunningly at me, "whether I dare
+answer you." "Go on, go on," I said to him, "I can hear anything without
+being angry." "Well, the word _schuros_ means that, to our great shame,
+we have sometimes been governed by French kings. The sovereign, before
+assuming power, was bound to promise under oath to respect our freedom
+and to articulate in a loud voice the solemn words _lo Juro!_ As he did
+not know how to pronounce the J he said _schuro_. Are you satisfied,
+señor?" I answered him, "Yes, yes. I see that vanity and pride are not
+dead in this country."
+
+Since I have just spoken of a shepherd, I will say that in Spain, the
+class of individuals of both sexes destined to look after herds,
+appeared to me always less further removed than in France, from the
+pictures which the ancient poets have left us of the shepherds and
+shepherdesses in their pastoral poetry. The songs by which they
+endeavour to while away the tedium of their monotonous life, are more
+remarkable in their form and substance than in the other European
+nations to which I have had access. I never recollect without surprise,
+that being on a mountain situated at the junction-point of the kingdoms
+of Valencia, Aragon, and Catalonia, I was all at once overtaken by a
+violent storm, which forced me to take refuge in my tent, and to remain
+there squatting on the ground. When the storm was over and I came out
+from my retreat, I heard, to my great astonishment, on an isolated peak
+which looked down upon my station, a shepherdess who was singing a song
+of which I only recollect these eight lines, which will give an idea of
+the rest:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     A los que amor no saben
+       Ofreces las dulzuras
+     Y a mi las amarguras
+       Que s'e lo quo es amar.
+
+     Las gracias al me certé
+       Eran cuadro de flores
+     Te cantaban amores
+       Por hacerte callar.
+
+Oh! how much sap there is in this Spanish nation! What a pity that they
+will not make it yield fruit!
+
+In 1807, the tribunal of the Inquisition existed still at Valencia, and
+at times performed its functions. The reverend fathers, it is true, did
+not burn people, but they pronounced sentences in which the ridiculous
+contended with the odious. During my residence in this town, the holy
+office had to busy itself about a pretended sorceress; it doomed her to
+go through all quarters of the town astride on an ass, her face turned
+towards the tail, and naked down to the waist. Merely to observe the
+commonest rules of decency, the poor woman had been plastered with a
+sticky substance, partly honey, they told me, to which adhered an
+enormous quantity of little feathers, so that to say the truth, the
+victim resembled a fowl with a human head. The procession, whether
+attended by a crowd I leave it to be imagined, stationed itself for some
+time in the cathedral square, where I lived. I was told that the
+sorceress was struck on the back a certain number of blows with a
+shovel; but I do not venture to affirm this, for I was absent at the
+moment when this hideous procession passed before my windows.
+
+We thus see, however, what sort of spectacles were given to the people
+in the commencement of the nineteenth century, in one of the principal
+towns of Spain, the seat of a celebrated university, and the native
+country of numerous citizens distinguished by their knowledge, their
+courage, and their virtues. Let not the friends of humanity and of
+civilization disunite; let them form, on the contrary, an indissoluble
+union, for superstition is always on the watch, and waits for the moment
+again to seize its prey.
+
+I have mentioned in the course of my narrative that two Carthusians
+often left their convent in the _Desierto de las Palmas_, and came,
+though prohibited, to see me at my station, situated about two hundred
+metres higher. A few particulars will give an idea of what certain monks
+were, in the Peninsula, in 1807.
+
+One of them, Father Trivulce, was old; the other was very young. The
+former, of French origin, had played a part at Marseilles, in the
+counter-revolutionary events of which this town was the theatre, at the
+commencement of our first revolution. His part had been a very active
+one; one might see the proof of this in the scars of sabre cuts which
+furrowed his breast. It was he who was the first to come. When he saw
+his young comrade march up, he hid himself; but as soon as the latter
+had fully entered into conversation with me, Father Trivulce showed
+himself all at once. His appearance had the effect of Medusa's head.
+"Reassure yourself," said he to his young compeer; "only let us not
+denounce each other, for our prior is not a man to pardon us for having
+come here and infringed our vow of silence, and we should both receive a
+punishment, the recollection of which would long remain." The treaty was
+at once concluded, and from that day forward the two Carthusians came
+very often to converse with me.
+
+The youngest of our two visitors was an Aragonian, his family had made
+him a monk against his will. He related to me one day, before M. Biot,
+(then returned from Tarragon, where he had taken refuge to get cured of
+his fever,) some particulars which, according to him, proved that in
+Spain there was no longer more than the ghost of religion. These details
+were mostly borrowed from the secrets of confession. M. Biot manifested
+sharply the displeasure which this conversation caused him; there were
+even in his language some words which led the monk to suppose that M.
+Biot took him for a kind of spy. As soon as this suspicion had entered
+his mind, he quitted us without saying a word, and the next morning I
+saw him come up early, armed with a light gun. The French monk had
+preceded him, and had whispered in my ear the danger that threatened my
+companion. "Join with me," he said, "to turn the young Aragonian monk
+from his murderous project." I need scarcely say that I employed myself
+with ardour in this negotiation, in which I had the happiness to
+succeed. There were here, as must be seen, the materials for a chief of
+_guerilleros_. I should be much astonished if my young monk did not play
+his part in the war of independence.
+
+The anecdote which I am about to relate will amply prove that religion
+was, with the Carthusian monks of the _Desierto de las Palmas_, not the
+consequence of elevated sentiments, but a mere compound of superstitious
+practices.
+
+The scene with the gun, always present to my mind, seemed to make it
+clear to me that the Aragon monk, if actuated by his passions, would be
+capable of the most criminal actions. Hence, I had a very disagreeable
+impression when one Sunday, having come down to hear mass, I met this
+monk, who, without saying a word, conducted me by a series of dark
+corridors into a chapel where the daylight penetrated only by a very
+small window. There I found Father Trivulce, who prepared himself to say
+mass for me alone. The young monk assisted. All at once, an instant
+before the consecration, Father Trivulce, turning towards me, said these
+exact words: "We have permission to say mass with white wine; we
+therefore make use of that which we gather from our own vines: this wine
+is very good. Ask the prior to let you taste it, when on leaving this
+you go to breakfast with him. For the rest, you can assure yourself this
+instant of the truth of what I say to you." And he presented me the
+goblet to drink from. I resisted strongly, not only because I considered
+it indecent to give this invitation in the middle of the mass, but
+because, besides, I must own I conceived the thought for a moment that
+the monks wished, by poisoning me, to revenge themselves on me for M.
+Biot having insulted them. I found that I was mistaken, that my
+suspicions had no foundation; for Father Trivulce went on with the
+interrupted mass, drank, and drank largely, of the white wine contained
+in one of the goblets. But when I had got out of the hands of the two
+monks, and was able to breathe the pure air of the country, I
+experienced a lively satisfaction.
+
+The right of asylum accorded to some churches was one of the most
+obnoxious privileges among those of which the revolution of 1789 rid
+France. In 1807, this right still existed in Spain, and belonged, I
+believe, to all the cathedrals. I learnt, during my stay at Barcelona,
+that there was, in a little cloister contiguous to the largest church of
+the town, a brigand,--a man guilty of several assassinations, who lived
+quietly there, guaranteed against all pursuit by the sanctity of the
+place. I wished to assure myself with my own eyes of the reality of the
+fact, and I went with my friend Rodriguez into the little cloister in
+question. The assassin was then eating a meal which a woman had just
+brought him. He easily guessed the object of our visit, and made
+immediately such demonstrations as convinced us that, if the asylum was
+safe for the robber, it would not be so long for us. We retired at once,
+deploring that, in a country calling itself civilized, there should
+still exist such crying, such monstrous abuses.
+
+In order to succeed in our geodesic operations, to obtain the
+cöoperation of the inhabitants of the villages near our stations, it was
+desirable for us to be recommended to the priests. We went,
+therefore,--M. Lanusse, the French Vice-Consul, M. Biot, and I,--to pay
+a visit to the Archbishop of Valencia, to solicit his protection. This
+archbishop, a man of very tall figure, was then chief of the
+Franciscans; his costume more than negligent, his gray robe, covered
+with tobacco, contrasted with the magnificence of the archiepiscopal
+palace. He received us with kindness, and promised us all the
+recommendations we desired; but, at the moment of taking leave of him,
+the whole affair seemed to be spoiled. M. Lanusse and M. Biot went out
+of the reception room without kissing the hand of his grace, although he
+had presented it to each of them very graciously. The archbishop
+indemnified himself on my poor person. A movement, which was very near
+breaking my teeth, a gesture which I might justly call a blow of the
+fist, proved to me that the chief of the Franciscans, notwithstanding
+his vow of humility, had taken offence at the want of ceremony in my
+fellow visitors. I was going to complain of the abrupt way in which he
+had treated me, but I had the necessities of our trigonometrical
+operations before my eyes, and I was silent.
+
+Besides this, at the instant when the closed fist of the archbishop was
+applied to my lips, I was still thinking of the beautiful optical
+experiments which it would have been possible to make with the
+magnificent stone which ornamented his pastoral ring. This idea, I must
+frankly declare, had preoccupied me during the whole of the visit.
+
+M. Biot having at last come to seek me again at Valencia, where I
+expected, as I have before said, some new instruments, we went on to
+Formentera, the southern extremity of our arc, of which place we
+determined the latitude. M. Biot quitted me afterwards to return to
+Paris, whilst I made the geodesical junction of the island of Majorca to
+Iviza, and to Formentera, obtaining thus, by means of one single
+triangle, the measure of an arc of parallel of one degree and a half.
+
+I then went to Majorca, to measure there the latitude and the azimuth.
+
+At this epoch, the political fermentation, engendered by the entrance of
+the French into Spain, began to invade the whole Peninsula and the
+islands dependent on it. This ferment had as yet in Majorca only reached
+to the ministers, the partisans, and the relations of the Prince of
+Peace. Each evening, I saw, drawn in triumph in the square of Palma, the
+capital of the island of Majorca, on carriages, the effigies in flames,
+sometimes of the minister Soller, another time those of the bishop, and
+even those of private individuals supposed to be attached to the
+fortunes of the favourite Godoï. I was far from suspecting then that my
+turn would soon arrive.
+
+My station at Majorca, the _Clop de Galazo_, a very high mountain, was
+situated exactly over the port where _Don Jayme el Conquistator_
+disembarked when he went to deliver the Balearic Islands from the Moors.
+The report spread itself through the population that I had established
+myself there in order to favour the arrival of the French army, and that
+every evening I made signals to it. But these reports had nothing
+menacing until the moment of the arrival at Palma, the 27th of May,
+1808, of an ordnance officer from Napoleon. This officer was M.
+Berthémie; he carried to the Spanish squadron, at Mahon, the order to go
+in all haste to Toulon. A general rising, which placed the life of this
+officer in danger, followed the news of his mission. The Captain-General
+Vivés only saved his life by shutting him up in the strong castle of
+Belver. They then bethought themselves of the Frenchman established on
+the _Clop de Galazo_, and formed a popular expedition to go and seize
+him.
+
+M. Damian, the owner of a small kind of vessel called a Mistic, which
+the Spanish Government had placed at my disposal, was beforehand with
+them, and brought me a costume by means of which I disguised myself. In
+directing myself towards Palma, in company with this brave seaman, we
+met with the rioters who were going in search of me. They did not
+recognize me, for I spoke Majorcan perfectly. I strongly encouraged the
+men of this detachment to continue their route, and I pursued my way
+towards Palma. At night I went on board the Mistic, commanded by Don
+Manuel de Vacaro, whom the Spanish Government had placed under my
+orders. I asked this officer if he would conduct me to Barcelona,
+occupied by the French, promising him that if they made any attempt to
+keep him there, I would at once return and surrender myself a prisoner.
+
+Don Manuel, who up to this time had shown extreme obsequiousness towards
+me, had now no words but those of rudeness and distrust. There occurred
+on the pier where the Mistic was moored a riotous movement, which Vacaro
+assured me was directed against me. "Do not be uneasy," said he to me;
+"if they should penetrate into the vessel you can hide yourself in this
+trunk." I made the attempt; but the chest which he showed me was so
+small that my legs were entirely outside, and the cover could not be
+shut down. I understood perfectly what that meant, and I asked M. Vacaro
+to let me also be shut up in the castle of Belver. The order for
+incarceration having arrived from the captain-general, I got into the
+boat, where the sailors of the Mistic received me with emotion.
+
+At the moment of their crossing the harbour the populace perceived me,
+commenced a pursuit, and it was not without much difficulty that I
+reached Belver safe and sound. I had only, indeed, received on my way
+one slight wound from a dagger in the thigh. Prisoners have often been
+seen to run with all speed _from_ their dungeon; I am the first,
+perhaps, to whom it has happened to do the reverse. This took place on
+the 1st or 2d of June, 1808.
+
+The governor of Belver was a very extraordinary personage. If he is
+still alive he may demand of me a certificate as to his priority to the
+modern hydropathists; the grenadier-captain maintained that pure water,
+suitably administered, was a means of treatment for all illnesses, even
+for amputations. By listening very patiently to his theories, and never
+interrupting him, I won his good opinion. It was at his request, and
+from interest in our safety, that a Swiss garrison replaced the Spanish
+troop which until then had been employed as the guard of Belver. It was
+also through him that I one day learnt that a monk had proposed to the
+soldiers who went to bring my food from the town, to put some poison
+into one of the dishes.
+
+All my old Majorcan friends had abandoned me at the moment of my
+detention. I had had a very sharp correspondence with Don Manuel de
+Vacaro in order to obtain the restitution of the passport of safety
+which the English Admiralty had granted to us. M. Rodriguez alone
+ventured to visit me in full daylight, and bring me every consolation in
+his power.
+
+The excellent M. Rodriguez, to while away the monotony of my
+incarceration, remitted to me from time to time the journals which were
+then published at different parts of the Peninsula. He often sent them
+to me without reading them. Once I saw in these journals the recital of
+the horrible massacres of which the town of Valencia--I make a mistake,
+the _square of the Bull-fights_--had been the theatre, and in which
+nearly the whole of the French established in this town (more than 350)
+had disappeared under the pike of the bull-fighter. Another journal
+contained an article bearing this title: "Relacion de la ahorcadura del
+señor Arago e del señor Berthémie,"--literally, "Account of the
+execution of M. Arago and M. Berthémie." This account spoke of the two
+executed men in very different terms. M. Berthémie was a Huguenot; he
+had been deaf to all exhortations; he had spit in the face of the
+ecclesiastic who was present, and even on the image of Christ. As for
+me, I had conducted myself with much decency, and had allowed myself to
+be hung without giving rise to any scandal. The writer also expressed
+his regret that a young astronomer had been so weak as to associate
+himself with treason, coming under the disguise of science to assist the
+entrance of the French army into a friendly kingdom.
+
+After reading this article I immediately made my decision: "Since they
+talk of my death," said I to my friend Rodriguez, "the event will not be
+long in coming. I should prefer being drowned to being hung. I will make
+my escape from this fortress; it is for you to furnish me with the
+means."
+
+Rodriguez, knowing better than any one how well founded my apprehensions
+were, set himself at once to the work.
+
+He went to the captain-general, and made him feel what would be the
+danger of his position if I should disappear in a popular riot, or even
+if he were forced to give me up. His observations were so much the
+better comprehended, as no one could then predict what might be the
+issue of the Spanish revolution. "I will undertake," said the
+captain-general Vivés to my colleague Rodriguez, "to give an order to
+the commander of the fortress, that when the right moment arrives, he
+shall allow M. Arago, and even the two or three other Frenchmen who are
+with him in the castle of Belver, to pass out. They will then have no
+need of the means of escape which they have procured; but I will take no
+part in the preparations which will become necessary to enable the
+fugitives to leave the island; I leave all that to your responsibility."
+
+Rodriguez immediately conferred secretly with the brave commander
+Damian. It was agreed between them that Damian should take the command
+of a half-decked boat, which the wind had driven ashore; that he should
+equip it as if for a fishing expedition; that he should carry us to
+Algiers; after which his reëntrance at Palmas, with or without fish,
+would inspire no suspicion.
+
+All was executed according to agreement, notwithstanding the
+inquisitorial surveillance which Don Manuel de Vacaro exercised over the
+commander of his "Mistic."
+
+On the 28th July, 1808, we silently descended the hill on which Belver
+is built, at the same moment that the family of the minister Soller
+entered the fortress to escape the fury of the populace. Arrived at the
+shore, we found there Damian, his boat, and three sailors. We embarked
+at once, and set sail. Damian had taken the precaution of bringing with
+us in this frail vessel the instruments of value which he had carried
+off from my station at the Clop de Galazo. The sea was unfavourable;
+Damian thought it prudent to stop at the little island of Cabrera,
+destined to become a short time afterwards so sadly celebrated by the
+sufferings which the soldiers of the army of Dupont experienced after
+the shameful capitulation of Baylen. There a singular incident was very
+near compromising all. Cabrera, tolerably near to the southern extremity
+of Majorca, is often visited by fishermen coming from that part of the
+island. M. Berthémie feared, justly enough, that the rumour of our
+escape having spread about, they might dispatch some boats to seize us.
+He looked upon our going into harbour as inopportune; I maintained that
+we must yield to the prudence of the commander. During this discussion,
+the three seamen whom Damian had engaged saw that M. Berthémie, whom I
+had endeavoured to pass off as my servant, maintained his opinion
+against me on a footing of equality. They then addressed themselves in
+these terms to the commander:--
+
+"We only consented to take part in this expedition upon condition that
+the Emperor's aide-de-camp, shut up at Belver, should not be of the
+number of those persons whom we should help off. We only wished to aid
+the flight of the astronomer. Since it seems to be otherwise, you must
+leave this officer here, unless you would prefer to throw him into the
+sea."
+
+Damian at once informed me of the imperative wishes of his boat's crew.
+M. Berthémie agreed with me to suffer some abuse such as could only be
+tolerated by a servant threatened by his master; all the suspicions
+disappeared.
+
+Damian, who feared also for himself the arrival of Majorcan fishermen,
+hastened to set sail on the 29th of July, 1808, the first moment that
+was favourable, and we arrived at Algiers on the 3d of August.
+
+Our looks were anxiously directed towards the port, to guess what
+reception might await us. We were reassured by the sight of the
+tri-coloured flag, which was flying on two or three buildings. But we
+were mistaken; these buildings were Dutch. Immediately upon our
+entrance, a Spaniard, whom, from his tone of authority, we took for a
+high functionary of the Regency, came up to Damian, and asked him: "What
+do you bring?" "I bring," answered the commander, "four Frenchmen." "You
+will at once take them back again. I prohibit you from disembarking." As
+we did not seem inclined to obey his order, our Spaniard, who was the
+constructing engineer of the ships of the Dey, armed himself with a
+pole, and commenced battering us with blows. But immediately a Genoese
+seaman, mounted on a neighbouring vessel, armed himself with an oar, and
+struck our assailant both with edge and point. During this animated
+combat we managed to land without any opposition. We had conceived a
+singular idea of the manner in which the police act on the coast of
+Africa.
+
+We pursued our way to the French Consul's, M. Dubois Thainville. He was
+at his country house. Escorted by the janissary of the consulate, we
+went off towards this country house, one of the ancient residences of
+the Dey, situated not far from the gate of Bab-azoum. The consul and his
+family received us with great amity, and offered us hospitality.
+
+Suddenly transported to a new continent, I looked forward anxiously to
+the rising of the sun to enjoy all that Africa might offer of interest
+to a European, when all at once I believed myself to be engaged in a
+serious adventure. By the faint light of the dawn, I saw an animal
+moving at the foot of my bed. I gave a kick with my foot: all movement
+ceased. After some time, I felt the same movement made under my legs. A
+sharp jerk made this cease quickly. I then heard the fits of laughter of
+the janissary, who lay on the couch in the same room as I did; and I
+soon saw that he had simply placed on my bed a large hedgehog to amuse
+himself by my uneasiness.
+
+The consul occupied himself the next day in procuring a passage for us
+on board a vessel of the Regency which was going to Marseilles. M.
+Ferrier, the Chancellor of the French Consulate, was at the same time
+Consul for Austria. He procured for us two false passports, which
+transformed us--M. Berthémie and me--into two strolling merchants, the
+one from _Schwekat_, in Hungary, the other from _Leoben_.
+
+The moment of departure had arrived; the 13th of August, 1808, we were
+on board, but our ship's company was not complete. The captain, whose
+title was Raï Braham Ouled Mustapha Goja, having perceived that the Dey
+was on his terrace, and fearing punishment if he should delay to set
+sail, completed his crew at the expense of the idlers who were looking
+on from the pier, and of whom the greater part were not sailors. These
+poor people begged as a favour for permission to go and inform their
+families of this precipitate departure, and to get some clothes. The
+captain remained deaf to their remonstrances. We weighed anchor.
+
+The vessel belonged to the Emir of Seca, Director of the Mint. The real
+commander was a Greek captain, named Spiro Calligero. The cargo
+consisted of a great number of _groups_. Amongst the passengers there
+were five members of the family which the Bakri had succeeded as kings
+of the Jews; two ostrich-feather merchants, Moroccans; Captain Krog,
+from Berghen in Norway, who had sold his ship at Alicant; two lions sent
+by the Dey to the emperor Napoleon, and a great number of monkeys. Our
+voyage was prosperous. Off Sardinia we met with an American ship coming
+out from Cagliari. A cannon-shot (we were armed with forty pieces of
+small power) warned the captain to come to be recognized. He brought on
+board a certain number of counterparts of passports, one of which agreed
+perfectly with that which we carried. The captain being thus all right,
+was not a little astonished when I ordered him, in the name of Captain
+Braham, to furnish us with tea, coffee, and sugar. The American captain
+protested; he called us brigands, pirates, robbers. Captain Braham
+admitted without difficulty all these qualifications, and persisted none
+the less in the exaction of sugar, coffee, and tea.
+
+The American, then driven to the last stage of exasperation, addressed
+himself to me, who acted as interpreter, and cried out, "Oh! rogue of a
+renegade! if ever I meet you on holy ground I will break your head."
+"Can you then suppose," I answered him, "that I am here for my pleasure,
+and that, notwithstanding your menace, I would not rather go with you,
+if I could?" These words calmed him; he brought the sugar, the coffee,
+and the tea claimed by the Moorish chief, and we again set sail, though
+without having exchanged the usual farewell.
+
+We had already entered the Gulf of Lyons, and were approaching
+Marseilles, when on the 16th August, 1808, we met with a Spanish corsair
+from Palamos, armed at the prow with two twenty-four pounders. We made
+full sail; we hoped to escape it: but a cannon-shot, a ball from which
+went through our sails, taught us that she was a much better sailer than
+we were.
+
+We obeyed an injunction thus expressed, and awaited the great boat from
+the corsair. The captain declared that he made us prisoners, although
+Spain was at peace with Barbary, under the pretext that we were
+violating the blockade which had been lately raised on all the coasts of
+France: he added, that he intended to take us to Rosas, and that there
+the authorities would decide on our fate.
+
+I was in the cabin of the vessel; I had the curiosity to look furtively
+at the crew of the boat, and there I perceived, with a dissatisfaction
+which may easily be imagined, one of the sailors of the "Mistic,"
+commanded by Don Manuel de Vacaro, of the name of Pablo Blanco, of
+Palamos, who had often acted as my servant during my geodesic
+operations. My false passport would become from this moment useless, if
+Pablo should recognize me: I went to bed at once, covered my head with
+the counterpane, and lay as still as a statue.
+
+During the two days which elapsed between our capture and our entrance
+into the roads of Rosas, Pablo, whose curiosity often brought him into
+the room, used to exclaim, "There is one passenger whom I have not yet
+managed to get a sight of."
+
+When we arrived at Rosas it was decided that we should be placed in
+quarantine in a dismantled windmill, situated on the road leading to
+Figueras. I was careful to disembark in a boat to which Pablo did not
+belong. The corsair departed for a new cruise, and I was for a moment
+freed from the harassing thoughts which my old servant had caused me.
+
+Our ship was richly laden; the Spanish authorities were immediately
+desirous to declare it a lawful prize. They pretended to believe that I
+was the proprietor of it, and wished, in order to hasten things, to
+interrogate me, even without awaiting the completion of the quarantine.
+They stretched two cords between the mill and the shore, and a judge
+placed himself in front of me. As the interrogatories were made from a
+good distance, the numerous audience which encircled us took a direct
+part in the questions and answers. I will endeavour to reproduce this
+dialogue with all possible fidelity:--
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"A poor roving merchant."
+
+"Whence do you come?"
+
+"From a country where you certainly never were."
+
+"In a word, what country is it?"
+
+I was afraid to answer, for the passports, steeped in vinegar, were in
+the hands of the judge-instructor, and I had forgotten whether I was
+from Schwekat or from Leoben. Finally I answered at all hazards:--
+
+"I come from Schwekat."
+
+And this information happily was found to agree with that of the
+passport.
+
+"You are as much from Schwekat as I am," answered the judge. "You are
+Spanish, and, moreover, a Spaniard from the kingdom of Valencia, as I
+perceive by your accent."
+
+"Would you punish me, sir, because nature has endowed me with the gift
+of languages? I learn with facility the dialects of those countries
+through which I pass in the exercise of my trade; I have learnt, for
+example, the dialect of Iviza."
+
+"Very well, you shall be taken at your word. I see here a soldier from
+Iviza; you shall hold a conversation with him."
+
+"I consent; I will even sing the goat song."
+
+Each of the verses of this song (if verses they be) terminates by an
+imitation of the bleating of the goat.
+
+I commenced at once, with an audacity at which I really feel astonished,
+to chant this air, which is sung by all the shepherds of the island.
+
+     Ah graciada señora
+     Una canzo bouil canta
+       Bè, bè, bè, bè.
+
+     No sera gaira pulida
+     Nosé si vos agradara
+       Bè, bè, bè, bè.
+
+At once my Ivizacan, upon whom this air had the effect of the _ranz des
+vaches_ on the Swiss, declared, all in tears, that I was a native of
+Iviza.
+
+I then said to the judge that if he would put me in communication with a
+person knowing the French language, he would arrive at just as
+embarrassing a result. An _émigré_ officer of the Bourbon regiment
+offered at once to make the experiment, and, after some phrases
+interchanged between us, affirmed without hesitation that I was French.
+
+The judge, rendered impatient, exclaimed, "Let us put an end to these
+trials which decide nothing. I summon you, sir, to tell me who you are.
+I promise that your life will be safe if you answer me with sincerity.
+
+"My greatest wish would be to give an answer to your satisfaction. I
+will, then, try to do so; but I warn you that I am not going to tell you
+the truth. I am son of the innkeeper at Mataro." "I know that innkeeper;
+you are not his son." "You are right. I announced to you that I should
+vary my answers until one of them should suit you. I retract then, and
+tell you that I am a _titiretero_, (player of marionettes,) and that I
+practised at Lerida."
+
+A loud shout of laughter from the multitude encircling us greeted this
+answer, and put an end to the questions.
+
+"I swear by the d----l," exclaimed the judge, "that I will discover
+sooner or later who you are!"
+
+And he retired.
+
+The Arabs, the Moroccans, the Jews, who witnessed this interrogatory,
+understood nothing of it; they had only seen that I had not allowed
+myself to be intimidated. At the close of the interview they came to
+kiss my hand, and gave me, from this moment, their entire confidence.
+
+I became their secretary for all the individual or collective
+remonstrances which they thought they had a right to address to the
+Spanish Government; and this right was incontestable. Every day I was
+occupied in drawing up petitions, especially in the name of the two
+ostrich-feather merchants, one of whom called himself a tolerably near
+relation of the Emperor of Morocco. Astonished at the rapidity with
+which I filled a page of my writing, they imagined, doubtless, that I
+should write as fast in Arabic characters, when it should be requisite
+to transcribe passages from the Koran; and that this would form both for
+me and for them the source of a brilliant fortune, and they besought me,
+in the most earnest way, to become a Mahometan.
+
+Very little reassured by the last words of the judge, I sought means of
+safety from another quarter.
+
+I was the possessor of a safe-conduct from the English Admiralty; I
+therefore wrote a confidential letter to the captain of an English
+vessel, The Eagle, I think, which had cast anchor some days before in
+the roads at Rosas. I explained to him my position. "You can," I said to
+him, "claim me, because I have an English passport. If this proceeding
+should cost you too much, have the goodness at least to take my
+manuscripts and to send them to the Royal Society in London."
+
+One of the soldiers who guarded us, and in whom I had fortunately
+inspired some interest, undertook to deliver my letter. The English
+captain came to see me; his name was, if my memory is right, George
+Eyre. We had a private conversation on the shore. George Eyre thought,
+perhaps, that the manuscripts of my observations were contained in a
+register bound in morocco, and with gilt edges to the leaves. When he
+saw that these manuscripts were composed of single leaves, covered with
+figures, which I had hidden under my shirt, disdain succeeded to
+interest, and he quitted me hastily. Having returned on board, he wrote
+me a letter which I could find if needful, in which he said to me,--"I
+cannot mix myself up in your affairs; address yourself to the Spanish
+Government; I am persuaded that it will do justice to your
+remonstrance, and will not molest you." As I had not the same persuasion
+as Captain George Eyre, I chose to take no notice of his advice.
+
+I ought to mention that some time after having related these particulars
+in England, at Sir Joseph Banks's, the conduct of George Eyre was
+severely blamed; but when a man breakfasts and dines to the sound of
+harmonious music, can he accord his interest to a poor devil sleeping on
+straw and nibbled by vermin, even though he have manuscripts under his
+shirt? I may add that I (unfortunately for me) had to do with a captain
+of an unusual character. For, some days later, a new vessel, The
+Colossus, having arrived in the roads, the Norwegian, Captain Krog,
+although he had not, like me, an Admiralty passport, made an application
+to the commander of this new ship; he was immediately claimed, and
+relieved from captivity.
+
+The report that I was a Spanish deserter, and proprietor of the vessel,
+acquiring more and more credit, and this position being the most
+dangerous of all, I resolved to get out of it. I begged the commandant
+of the place, M. Alloy, to come to receive my declaration, and I
+announced to him that I was French. To prove to him the truth of my
+words, I invited him to send for Pablo Blanco, the sailor in the service
+of the corsair who took us, and who had returned from his cruise a short
+time before. This was done as I wished. In disembarking, Pablo Blanco,
+who had not been warned, exclaimed with surprise: "What! you, Don
+Francisco, mixed up with all these miscreants!" The sailor gave the
+Governor circumstantial evidence as to the mission which I fulfilled
+with two Spanish commissaries. My nationality thus became proved.
+
+That same day Alloy was replaced in the command of the fortress by the
+Irish Colonel of the Ultonian regiment; the corsair left for a fresh
+cruise, taking away Pablo Blanco; and I became once more the roving
+merchant from Schwekat.
+
+From the windmill, where we underwent our quarantine, I could see the
+tricoloured flag flying on the fortress of Figueras. The reconnoitring
+parties of the cavalry came sometimes within five or six hundred metres;
+it would not then have been difficult for me to escape. However, as the
+regulations against those who violate the sanitary laws are very
+rigorous in Spain, as they pronounce the penalty of death against him
+who infringes them, I only determined to make my escape on the eve of
+our admission to pratique.
+
+The night being come I crept on all-fours along the briars, and I should
+soon have got beyond the line of sentinels who guarded us. A noisy
+uproar which I heard among the Moors made me determine to reënter, and I
+found these poor people in an unspeakable state of uneasiness, thinking
+themselves lost if I left; I therefore remained.
+
+The next day a strong picquet of troops presented itself before the
+mill. The manoeuvres made by it inspired all of us with anxiety, but
+especially Captain Krog.[3] "What will they do with us?" he exclaimed.
+"Alas! you will see only too soon," replied the Spanish officer. This
+answer made every one believe that they were going to shoot us. What
+might have strengthened me in this idea was the obstinacy with which
+Captain Krog and two other individuals of small size hid themselves
+behind me. A handling of arms made us think that we had but a few
+seconds to live.
+
+In analyzing the feelings which I experienced on this solemn occasion, I
+have come to the conclusion that the man who is led to death is not as
+unhappy as the public imagines him to be. Fifty ideas presented
+themselves nearly simultaneously to my mind, and I did not rack my brain
+for any of them; I only recollect the two following, which have remained
+engraved on my memory. On turning my head to the right, I saw the
+national flag flying on the bastions of Figueras, and I said to myself,
+"If I were to move a few hundred metres, I should be surrounded by
+comrades, by friends, by fellow citizens, who would receive me
+affectionately. Here, without their being able to impute any crime to
+me, I am going to suffer death at twenty-two years of age." But what
+agitated me more deeply was this: looking towards the Pyrenees, I could
+distinctly see their peaks, and I reflected that my mother, on the other
+side of the chain, might at this awful moment be looking peaceably at
+them.
+
+The Spanish authorities, finding that to redeem my life I would not
+declare myself the owner of the vessel, had us conducted without farther
+molestation to the fortress of Rosas. Having to file through nearly all
+the inhabitants of the town, I had wished at first, through a false
+feeling of shame, to leave in the mill the remains of our week's meals.
+But M. Berthémie, more prudent than I, carried over his shoulder a great
+quantity of pieces of black bread, tied up with packthread. I imitated
+him. I furnished myself famously from our old stock, set it on my
+shoulder, and it was with this accoutrement that I made my entrance into
+the famous fortress.
+
+They placed us in a casemate, where we had barely the space necessary
+for lying down. In the windmill, they used to bring us, from time to
+time, some provisions, which came from our boat. Here, the Spanish
+government purveyed our food. We received every day some bread and a
+ration of rice; but as we had no means of dressing food, we were in
+reality reduced to dry bread.
+
+Dry bread was very unsubstantial food for one who could see from his
+casemate, at the door of his prison, a sutler selling grapes at two
+farthings a pound, and cooking, under the shelter of half a cask, bacon
+and herrings; but we had no money to bring us into connection with this
+merchant. I then decided, though with very great regret, to sell a watch
+which my father had given me. I was only offered about a quarter of its
+value; but I might well accept it, since there were no competitors for
+it.
+
+As possessors of sixty francs, M. Berthémie and I could now appease the
+hunger from which we had long suffered; but we did not like this return
+of fortune to be profitable to ourselves alone, and we made some
+presents, which were very well received by our companions in captivity.
+Though this sale of my watch brought some comfort to us, it was doomed
+at a later period to plunge a family into sorrow.
+
+The town of Rosas fell into the power of the French after a courageous
+resistance. The prisoners of the garrison were sent to France, and
+naturally passed through Perpignan. My father went in quest of news
+wherever Spaniards were to be found. He entered a café at the moment
+when a prisoner officer drew from his fob the watch which I had sold at
+Rosas. My good father saw in this act the proof of my death, and fell
+into a swoon. The officer had got the watch from a third party, and
+could give no account of the fate of the person to whom it had
+originally belonged.
+
+The casemate having become necessary to the defenders of the fortress,
+we were taken to a little chapel, where they deposited for twenty-four
+hours those who had died in the hospital. There we were guarded by
+peasants who had come across the mountain, from various villages, and
+particularly from Cadaquès. These peasants, eager to recount all that
+they had seen of interest during their one day's campaign, questioned me
+as to the deeds and behaviour of all my companions in misfortune. I
+satisfied their curiosity amply, being the only one of the set who could
+speak Spanish.
+
+To enlist their good will, I also questioned them at length upon the
+subject of their village, on the work that they did there, on smuggling,
+their principal sources of employment, &c. &c. They answered my
+questions with the loquacity common to country rustics. The next day our
+guards were replaced by some others who were inhabitants of the same
+village. "In my business of a roving merchant," I said to these last, "I
+have been at Cadaquès;" and then I began to talk to them of what I had
+learnt the night before, of such an individual, who gave himself up to
+smuggling with more success than others, of his beautiful residence, of
+the property which he possessed near the village,--in short, of a number
+of particulars which it seemed impossible for any but an inhabitant of
+Cadaquès to know. My jest produced an unexpected effect. Such
+circumstantial details, our guards said to themselves, cannot be known
+by a roving merchant; this personage, whom we have found here in such
+singular society, is certainly a native of Cadaquès; and the son of the
+apothecary must be about his age. He had gone to try his fortune in
+America; it is evidently he who fears to make himself known, having been
+found with all his riches in a vessel on its way to France. The report
+spread, became more consistent, and reached the ears of a sister of the
+apothecary established at Rosas. She runs to me, believes she recognizes
+me, and falls on my neck. I protest against the identity. "Well played!"
+said she to me; "the case is serious, as you have been found in a vessel
+coming to France; persist in your denial; circumstances may perhaps take
+a more favourable turn, and I shall profit by them to insure your
+deliverance. In the mean time, my dear nephew, I will let you want for
+nothing." And truly every morning M. Berthémie and I received a
+comfortable repast.
+
+The church having become necessary to the garrison to serve as a
+magazine, we were moved on the 25th of September, 1808, to a Trinity
+fort, called the _Bouton de Rosas_, a citadel situated on a little
+mountain at the entrance of the roads, and we were deposited deep under
+ground, where the light of day did not penetrate on any side. We did not
+long remain in this infected place, not because they had pity upon us,
+but because it offered shelter for a part of the garrison attacked by
+the French. They made us descend by night to the edge of the sea, and
+then transported us on the 17th of October to the port of Palamos. We
+were shut up in a hulk; we enjoyed, however, a certain degree of
+liberty;--they allowed us to go on land, and to parade our miseries and
+our rags in the town. It was there that I made the acquaintance of the
+dowager Duchess of Orleans, mother of Louis Philippe. She had left the
+town of Figueras, where she resided, because, she told me, thirty-two
+bombs sent from the fortress had fallen in her house. She was then
+intending to take refuge in Algiers, and she asked me to bring the
+captain of the vessel to her, of whom, perhaps, she would have to
+implore protection. I related to my "_raïs_" the misfortunes of the
+Princess; he was moved by them, and I conducted him to her. On entering,
+he took off his slippers from respect, as if he had entered within a
+mosque, and holding them in his hand, he went to kiss the front of the
+dress of Madame d'Orleans. The Princess Was alarmed at the sight of this
+manly figure, wearing the longest beard I ever saw; she quickly
+recovered herself, and the interview proceeded with a mixture of French
+politeness and Oriental courtesy.
+
+The sixty francs from Rosas were expended. Madame D'Orleans would have
+liked much to assist us, but she was herself without money. All that she
+could gratify us with was a piece of sugarbread. The evening of our
+visit I was richer than the Princess. To avoid the fury of the people
+the Spanish Government sent those French who had escaped the first
+massacres back to France in slight boats. One of the _cartels_ came and
+cast anchor by the side of our hulk. One of the unhappy emigrants
+offered me a pinch of snuff. On opening the snuff-box I found there
+"_una onza de oro_," (an ounce of gold,) the sole remains of his
+fortune. I returned the snuff-box to him, with warm thanks, after having
+shut up in it a paper containing these words:--"My fellow-countryman who
+carries this note has rendered me a great service;--treat him as one of
+your children." My petition was naturally favourably received; it was by
+this bit of paper, the size of the _onza de oro_, that my family learnt
+that I was still in existence, and it enabled my mother--a model of
+piety--to cease saying masses for the repose of my soul.
+
+Five days afterwards, one of my hardy compatriots arrived at Palamos,
+after having traversed the line of posts both French and Spanish,
+carrying to a merchant who had friends at Perpignan the proposal to
+furnish me with all I was in need of. The Spaniard showed a great
+inclination to agree to the proposal; but I did not profit by his good
+will, because of the occurrence of events which I shall relate
+presently.
+
+The Observatory at Paris is very near the barrier. In my youth, curious
+to study the manners of the people, I used to walk in sight of the
+public-houses which the desire of escaping payment of the duty has
+multiplied outside the walls of the capital; on these excursions I was
+often humiliated to see men disputing for a piece of bread, just as
+animals might have done. My feelings on this subject have very much
+altered since I have been personally exposed to the tortures of hunger.
+I have discovered, in fact, that a man, whatever may have been his
+origin, his education, and his habits, is governed, under certain
+circumstances, much more by his stomach than by his intelligence and his
+heart. Here is the fact which suggested these reflections to me.
+
+To celebrate the unhoped-for arrival of _una onza de oro_, M. Berthémie
+and I had procured an immense dish of potatoes. The ordnance officer of
+the Emperor was already devouring it with his eyes, when a Moroccan, who
+was making his ablutions near us with one of his companions,
+accidentally filled it with dirt. M. Berthémie could not control his
+anger; he darted upon the clumsy Mussulman, and inflicted upon him a
+rough punishment.
+
+I remained a passive spectator of the combat, until the second Moroccan
+came to the aid of his compatriot. The party no longer being equal, I
+also took part in the conflict by seizing the new assailant by the
+beard. The combat ceased at once, because the Moroccan would not raise
+his hand against a man who could write a petition so rapidly. This
+conflict, like the struggles of which I had often been a witness outside
+the barriers of Paris, had originated in a dish of potatoes.
+
+The Spaniards always cherished the idea that the ship and her cargo
+might be confiscated; a commission came from Girone to question us. It
+was composed of two civil judges and one inquisitor. I acted as
+interpreter. When M. Berthémie's turn came, I went to fetch him, and
+said to him, "Pretend that you can only talk Styrian, and be at ease; I
+will not compromise you in translating your answers."
+
+It was done as we had agreed; unfortunately the language spoken by M.
+Berthémie had but little variety, and the _sacrement der Teufel_, which
+he had learnt in Germany, when he was aide-de-camp to Hautpoul,
+predominated too much in his discourse. Be that as it may, the judges
+observed that there was too great a conformity between his answers and
+those which I had made myself, to render it necessary to continue an
+interrogatory, which I may say, by the way, disturbed me much. The wish
+to terminate it was still more decided on the part of the judges, when
+it came to the turn of a sailor named Mehemet. Instead of making him
+swear on the Koran to tell the truth, the judge was determined to make
+him place his thumb on the forefinger so as represent the cross. I
+warned him that great offence would thus be given; and, accordingly,
+when Mehemet became aware of the meaning of this sign, he began to spit
+upon it with inconceivable violence. The meeting ended at once.
+
+The next day things had wholly changed their appearance; one of the
+judges from Girone came to declare to us that we were free to depart,
+and to go with our ship wherever we chose. What was the cause of this
+sudden change? It was this.
+
+During our quarantine in the windmill at Rosas, I had written, in the
+name of Captain Braham, a letter to the Dey of Algiers. I gave him an
+account of the illegal arrest of his vessel, and of the death of one of
+the lions which the Dey had sent to the Emperor. This last circumstance
+transported the African monarch with rage. He sent immediately for the
+Spanish Consul, M. Onis, claimed pecuniary damages for his dear lion,
+and threatened war if his ship was not released directly. Spain had then
+to do with too many difficulties to undertake wantonly any new ones, and
+the order to release the vessel so anxiously coveted arrived at Girone,
+and from thence at Palamos.
+
+This solution, to which our Consul at Algiers, M. Dubois Thainville, had
+not remained inattentive, reached us at the moment when we least
+expected it. We at once made preparations for our departure, and on the
+28th of November, 1808, we set sail, steering for Marseilles; but, as
+the Mussulmen on board the vessel declared, it was written above that we
+should not enter that town. We could already perceive the white
+buildings which crown the neighbouring hills of Marseilles, when a gust
+of the "mistral," of great violence, sent us from the north towards the
+south.
+
+I do not know what route we followed, for I was lying in my cabin,
+overcome with sea-sickness; I may therefore, though an astronomer, avow
+without shame, that at the moment when our unqualified pilots supposed
+themselves to be off the Baléares, we landed, on the 5th of December,
+at Bougie.
+
+There, they pretended that during the three months of winter, all
+communication with Algiers, by means of the little boats named
+_sandalis_, would be impossible, and I resigned myself to the painful
+prospect of so long a stay in a place at that time almost a desert. One
+evening I was making these sad reflections while pacing the deck of the
+vessel, when a shot from a gun on the coast came and struck the side
+planks close to which I was passing. This suggested to me the thought of
+going to Algiers by land.
+
+I went next day, accompanied by M. Berthémie and Captain Spiro
+Calligero, to the Caïd of the town: "I wish," said I to him, "to go to
+Algiers by land." The man, quite frightened, exclaimed, "I cannot allow
+you to do so; you would certainly be killed on the road; your Consul
+would make a complaint to the Dey, and I should have my head cut off."
+
+"Fear not on that ground. I will give you an acquittance."
+
+It was immediately drawn up in these terms: "We, the undersigned,
+certify that the Caïd of Bougie wished to dissuade us from going to
+Algiers by land; that he has assured us that we shall be massacred on
+the road; that notwithstanding his representations, reiterated twenty
+times, we have persisted in our project. We beg the Algerine
+authorities, particularly our Consul, not to make him responsible for
+this event if it should occur. We once more repeat, that the voyage has
+been undertaken against his will.
+
+     _Signed_: ARAGO and BERTHÉMIE."
+
+Having given this declaration to the Caïd, we considered ourselves quit
+of this functionary; but he came up to me, undid, without saying a word,
+the knot of my cravat, took it off, and put it into his pocket. All this
+was done so quickly that I had not time, I will add that I had not even
+the wish, to reclaim it.
+
+At the conclusion of this audience, which had terminated in so singular
+a manner, we made a bargain with a Mahomedan priest, who promised to
+conduct us to Algiers for the sum of twenty "piastres fortes," and a red
+mantle. The day was occupied in disguising ourselves well or ill, and we
+set out the next morning, accompanied by several Moorish sailors
+belonging to the crew of the ship, after having shown the Mahomedan
+priest that we had nothing with us worth a sou, so that if we were
+killed on the road he would inevitably lose all reward.
+
+I went, at the last moment, to make my bow to the only lion that was
+still alive, and with whom I had lived in very good harmony; I wished
+also to say good-bye to the monkeys, who during nearly five months had
+been equally my companions in misfortune.[4] These monkeys during our
+frightful misery had rendered us a service which I scarcely dare
+mention, and which will scarcely be guessed by the inhabitants of our
+cities, who look upon these animals as objects of diversion; they freed
+us from the vermin which infested us, and showed particularly a
+remarkable cleverness in seeking out the hideous insects which lodged
+themselves in our hair.
+
+Poor animals! they seemed to me very unfortunate in being shut up in
+the narrow enclosure of the vessel, when, on the neighbouring coast,
+other monkeys, as if to bully them, came on to the branches of the
+trees, giving innumerable proofs of their agility.
+
+At the commencement of the day, we saw on the road two Kabyls, similar
+to the soldiers of Jugurtha, whose harsh appearance powerfully allayed
+our fancy for wandering. In the evening we witnessed a fearful tumult,
+which appeared to be directed against us. We learnt afterwards that the
+Mahomedan priest had been the object of it; that it originated with some
+Kabyls whom he had disarmed on one of their journeys to Bougie. This
+incident, which appeared likely to be repeated, inspired us for a moment
+with the thought of returning; but the sailors were resolute, and we
+continued our hazardous enterprise.
+
+In proportion as we advanced, our troops became increased by a certain
+number of Kabyls, who wished to go to Algiers to work there in the
+quality of seamen, and who dared not undertake alone this dangerous
+journey.
+
+The third day we encamped in the open air, at the entrance of a forest.
+The Arabs lighted a very large fire in the form of a circle, and placed
+themselves in the middle. Towards eleven o'clock, I was awakened by the
+noise which the mules made, all trying to break their fastenings. I
+asked what was the cause of this disturbance. They answered me that a
+"_sebâá_" had come roaming in the neighbourhood. I was not aware then
+that a "_sebâá_" was a lion, and I went to sleep again. The next day, in
+traversing the forest, the arrangement of the caravan was changed. It
+was grouped in the smallest space possible; one Kabyl was at the head,
+his gun ready for service; another was in the rear, in the same
+position. I inquired of the owner of the mule the cause of these unusual
+precautions. He answered me, that they were dreading an attack from a
+"_sebâá_" and that if this should occur, one of us would be carried off
+without having time to put himself on the defensive. "I would rather be
+a spectator," I said to him, "than an actor in the scene you describe;
+consequently, I will give you two piastres more if you will keep your
+mule always in the centre of the moving group." My proposal was
+accepted. It was then for the first time that I saw that my Arab carried
+a yatagan under his tunic, which he used for pricking on the mule the
+whole time that we were in the thicket. Superfluous cautions! The
+"_sebâá_" did not show himself.
+
+Each village being a little republic, whose territory we could not cross
+without obtaining permission and a passport from the Mahomedan priest
+_président_, the priest who conducted our caravan used to leave us in
+the fields, and went sometimes a good way off to a village to solicit
+the permission without which it would have been dangerous to continue
+our route. He remained entire hours without returning to us, and we then
+had occasion to reflect sadly on the imprudence of our enterprise. We
+generally slept amongst habitations. Once, we found the streets of a
+village barricaded, because they were fearing an attack from a
+neighbouring village. The foremost man of our caravan removed the
+obstacles; but a woman came out of her house like a fury, and belaboured
+us with blows from a pole. We remarked that she was fair, of brilliant
+whiteness, and very pretty.
+
+Another time we lay down in a lurking-place dignified by the beautiful
+name of caravansary. In the morning, when the sun rose, cries of
+"_Roumi! Roumi!_" warned us that we had been discovered. The sailor,
+Mehemet, he who figured in the scene of the oath at Palamos, entered in
+a melancholy mood the enclosure where we were together, and made us
+understand that the cries of "Roumi!" vociferated under these
+circumstances, were equivalent to a sentence of death. "Wait," said he;
+"a means of saving you has occurred to me." Mehemet entered some moments
+afterwards, told us that his means had succeeded, and invited me to join
+the Kabyls, who were going to say prayers.
+
+I accordingly went out, and prostrated myself towards the East. I
+imitated minutely the gestures which I saw made around me, pronouncing
+the sacred words,--_La elah il Allah! oua Mahommed raçoul Allah!_ It was
+the scene of Mamamouchi of the "Bourgeois Gentilhomme," which I had so
+often seen acted by Dugazon,--with this one difference, that this time
+it did not make me laugh. I was, however, ignorant of the consequences
+it might have brought upon me on my arrival at Algiers. After having
+made the profession of faith before Mahomedans--_There is but one God,
+and Mahomet is his prophet_, if I had been informed against to the
+mufti, I must inevitably have become Mussulman, and they would not have
+allowed me to go out of the Regency.
+
+I must not forget to relate by what means Mehemet had saved us from
+inevitable death. "You have guessed rightly," said he to the Kabyls;
+"there are two Christians in the caravansary, but they are Mahomedans at
+heart, and are going to Algiers to be adopted by the mufti into our holy
+religion. You will not doubt this when I tell you that I was myself a
+slave to some Christians, and that they redeemed me with their money."
+
+"In cha Allah!" they exclaimed with one voice. And it was then that the
+scene took place which I have just described.
+
+We arrived in sight of Algiers the 25th December, 1808. We took leave of
+the Arab owners of our mules, who walked on foot by the side of us, and
+we spurred them on, in order to reach the town before the closing of the
+gates. On our arrival, we learnt that the Dey, to whom we owed our first
+deliverance, had been beheaded. The guard of the palace before which we
+passed, stopped us and questioned us as to whence we came. We replied
+that we came from Bougie by land. "It is not possible!" exclaimed all
+the janissaries at once; "the Dey himself would not venture to undertake
+such a journey!" "We acknowledge that we have committed a great
+imprudence; that we would not undertake to recommence the journey for
+millions; but the fact that we have just declared is the strict truth."
+
+Arrived at the consular house, we were, as on the first occasion, very
+cordially welcomed. We received a visit from a dragoman sent by the Dey,
+who asked whether we persisted in maintaining that Bougie had been our
+point of departure, and not Cape Matifou, or some neighbouring port. We
+again affirmed the truth of our recital; it was confirmed, the next day,
+on the arrival of the proprietors of our mules.
+
+At Palamos, during the various interviews which I had with the dowager
+Duchess of Orleans, one circumstance had particularly affected me. The
+Princess spoke to me unceasingly of the wish she had to go and rejoin
+one of her sons, whom she believed to be alive, but of whose death I had
+been informed by a person belonging to her household. Hence I was
+anxious to do all that lay in my power to mitigate a sorrow which she
+must experience before long.
+
+At the moment when I quitted Spain for Marseilles, the Duchess confided
+to me two letters which I was to forward in safety to their addresses.
+One was destined for the Empress-mother of Russia, the other for the
+Empress of Austria.
+
+Scarcely had I arrived at Algiers, when I mentioned these two letters to
+M. Dubois Thainville, and begged him to send them to France by the first
+opportunity. "I shall do nothing of the sort," he at once answered me.
+"Do you know that you have behaved in this affair like a young
+inexperienced man, or, to speak out, like a blunderer? I am surprised
+that you did not comprehend that the Emperor, with his pettish spirit,
+might take this much amiss, and consider you, according to the contents
+of the two letters, as the promoter of an intrigue in favour of the
+exiled family of the Bourbons." Thus the paternal advice of the French
+Consul taught me that in all that regards politics, however nearly or
+remotely, one cannot give himself up without danger to the dictates of
+the heart and the reason.
+
+I enclosed my two letters in an envelope bearing the address of a
+trustworthy person, and gave them into the hands of a corsair, who,
+after touching at Algiers, would proceed to France. I have never known
+whether they reached their destination.
+
+The reigning Dey, successor to the beheaded Dey, had formerly filled the
+humble office of "_épileur_"[5] of dead bodies in the mosques. He
+governed the Regency with much gentleness, occupying himself with
+little but his harem. This disgusted those who had raised him to this
+eminent post, and they resolved upon getting rid of him. We became aware
+of the danger which menaced him, by seeing the courts and vestibules of
+the consular house full, according to the custom under such
+circumstances, of Jews, carrying with them whatever they had of most
+value. It was a rule at Algiers, that all that happened in the interval
+comprised between the death of a Dey and the installation of his
+successor, could not be followed up by justice, and must remain
+unpunished. One can imagine, then, why the children of Moses should seek
+safety in the consular houses, the European inhabitants of which had the
+courage to arm themselves for self-defence as soon as the danger was
+apparent, and who, moreover, had a janissary to guard them.
+
+Whilst the unfortunate Dey "épileur" was being conducted towards the
+place where he was to be strangled, he heard the cannon which announced
+his death and the installation of his successor. "They are in great
+haste," said he; "what will you gain by carrying matters to extremities?
+Send me to the Levant; I promise you never to return. What have you to
+reproach me with?" "With nothing," answered his escort, "but your
+insignificance. However, a man cannot live as a mere private man, after
+having been Dey of Algiers." And the unfortunate man perished by the
+rope.
+
+The communication by sea between Bougie and Algiers was not so
+difficult, even with the "_sandalas_," as the Caïd of the former town
+wished to assure me. Captain Spiro had the cases landed, which belonged
+to me. The Caïd sought to discover what they contained; and, having
+perceived through a chink something yellowish, he hastened to send the
+news to the Dey, that the Frenchmen who had come to Algiers by land had
+among their baggage cases filled with zechins, destined to revolutionize
+the Kabylie. They immediately had these cases forwarded to Algiers, and
+at their opening, before the Minister of Naval Affairs, all the
+phantasmagoria of zechins, of treasure, of revolution, disappeared at
+the sight of the stands and the limbs of several repeating circles in
+copper.
+
+We are now going to sojourn several months in Algiers. I will take
+advantage of this to put together some details of manners which may be
+interesting as the picture of a state of things anterior to that of the
+occupation of the Regency by the French. This occupation, it must be
+remarked, has already fundamentally altered the manners and the habits
+of the Algerine population.
+
+I am about to report a curious fact, and one which shows that politics,
+which insinuate themselves and bring discord into the bosom of the most
+united families, had succeeded, strange to say, in penetrating as far as
+the galley-slaves' prison at Algiers. The slaves belonged to three
+nations: there were in 1809 in this prison, Portuguese, Neapolitans, and
+Sicilians; among these two latter classes were counted partisans of
+Murat and those of Ferdinand of Naples. One day, at the beginning of the
+year, a dragoman came in the name of the Dey to beg M. Dubois Thainville
+to go without delay to the prison, where the friends of the French and
+their adversaries had involved themselves in a furious combat; and
+already several had fallen. The weapon with which they struck each other
+was the heavy long chain attached to their legs.
+
+Each Consul, as I said above, had a janissary placed with him as his
+guard; the one belonging to the French Consul was a Candiote; he had
+been surnamed _the Terror_. Whenever some news unfavourable to France
+was announced in the cafés, he came to the Consulate to inform himself
+as to the reality of the fact; and when we told him that the other
+janissaries had propagated false news, he returned to them, and there,
+yatagan in hand, he declared himself ready to enter the lists in combat
+against those who should still maintain the truth of the news. As these
+continual threats might endanger him, (for they had no support beyond
+his mere animal courage,) we had wished to render him expert in the
+handling of arms by giving him some lessons in fencing; but he could not
+endure the idea that Christians should touch him at every turn with
+foils; he therefore proposed to substitute for the simulated duel a real
+combat with the yatagan.
+
+One may gain an exact idea of this savage nature when I mention that,
+having one day heard a pistol-shot, the sound of which proceeded from
+his room, people ran, and found him bathed in his blood; he had just
+shot off a ball into his arm to cure himself of a rheumatic pain.
+
+Seeing with what facility the Deys disappeared, I said one day to our
+janissary, "With this prospect before your eyes, would you consent to
+become Dey?" "Yes, doubtless," answered he. "You seem to count as
+nothing the pleasure of doing all that one likes, if only even for a
+single day!"
+
+When we wished to take a turn in the town of Algiers, we generally took
+care to be escorted by the janissary attached to the consular house; it
+was the only means of escaping insults, affronts, and even acts of
+violence. I have just said it was the only means. I made a mistake;
+there was one other; that was, to go in the company of a French
+"lazarist" of seventy years of age, and whose name, if my memory serves
+me, was Father Joshua; he had lived in this country for half a century.
+This man, of exemplary virtue, had devoted himself with admirable
+self-denial to the service of the slaves of the Regency, and had
+divested himself of all considerations of nationality;--the Portuguese,
+Neapolitans, Sicilians, all were equally his brethren.
+
+In the times of plague he was seen day and night carrying eager help to
+the Mussulmans; thus, his virtue had conquered even religious hatreds;
+and wherever he passed, he and the persons who might accompany him
+received from multitudes of the people, from the janissaries, and even
+from the officials of the mosques, the most respectful salutations.
+
+During our long hours of sailing on board the Algerine vessel, and our
+compulsory stay in the prisons at Rosas, and on the hulk at Palamos, I
+gathered some ideas as to the interior life of the Moors or the
+Coulouglous, which, even now when Algiers has fallen under the dominion
+of France, would perhaps be yet worth preserving. I shall, however,
+confine myself to recounting, nearly word for word, a conversation which
+I had with Raïs Braham, whose father was a "_Turc fin_," that is to say,
+a Turk born in the Levant.
+
+"How is it that you consent," said I to him, "to marry a young girl whom
+you have never seen, and find in her, perhaps, an excessively ugly
+woman, instead of the beauty whom you had fancied to yourself?"
+
+"We never marry without having obtained information from the women who
+serve in the capacity of servants at the public baths. The Jewesses are
+moreover, in these cases, very useful go-betweens."
+
+"How many legitimate wives have you?"
+
+"I have four, that is to say, the number authorized by the Koran."
+
+"Do they live together on a good understanding?"
+
+"Ah, sir, my house is a hell. I never enter it without finding them at
+the step of the door, or at the bottom of the stairs; then, each wants
+to be the first to make me listen to the complaints which she has to
+bring against her companions. I am about to utter blasphemy, but I think
+that our holy religion ought to prohibit a plurality of wives to those
+who are not rich enough to give to each a separate habitation."
+
+"But since the Koran allows you to repudiate even legitimate wives, why
+do you not send back three of them to their parents?"
+
+"Why? because that would ruin me. On the day of the marriage the father
+of the young woman to be married stipulates for a dowry, and the half of
+it is paid. The other half may be exacted the day that the woman is
+repudiated. It would then be three half dowries that I should have to
+pay if I sent back three of my wives. I ought, however, to rectify one
+inaccuracy in what I said just now, that my four wives had never agreed
+together. Once, they were agreed among themselves in the feeling of a
+common hatred. In going through the market I had bought a young negress.
+In the evening, when I retired to rest, I perceived that my wives had
+prepared no bed for her, and that the unfortunate girl was extended on
+the ground. I rolled up my trowsers and laid them under her head as a
+kind of pillow. In the morning the distracting cries of the poor slave
+made me run to her, and I found her nearly sinking under the blows of my
+four wives; for once they understood each other marvellously well."
+
+In February, 1809, the new Dey, the successor of the "épileur," a short
+time after having entered on his functions, claimed from two to three
+hundred thousand francs,--I do not remember exactly the sum,--which he
+pretended was due to him from the French Government. M. Dubois
+Thainville answered that he had received the Emperor's orders not to pay
+one centime.
+
+The Dey was furious, and decided upon declaring war against us. A
+declaration of war at Algiers used to be immediately followed by putting
+all the persons of other nations into prison. This time matters were not
+pushed to this extreme limit. Our names might be figuring on the list of
+the slaves of the Regency; but in fact, so far as I was concerned, I
+remained free in the consular house. By means of a pecuniary guarantee,
+contracted with the Swedish Consul, M. Norderling, I was even permitted
+to live at his country house, situated near the Emperor's fort.
+
+The most insignificant event was sufficient to modify the ideas of these
+barbarians. I had come into the town one day, and was seated at table at
+M. Dubois Thainville's, when the English Consul, Mr. Blankley, arrived
+in great haste, announcing to our Consul the entrance into the port of a
+French prize. "I never will uselessly add," said he, generously, "to the
+severities of war; I came to announce to you, my colleague, that I will
+give up your prisoners on a receipt which will insure me the deliverance
+of an equal number of Englishmen detained in France." "I thank you,"
+answered M. Dubois Thainville; "but I do not the less deplore this event
+that it will retard, indefinitely, perhaps, the settlement of the
+account in which I am engaged with the Dey."
+
+During this conversation, armed with a telescope, I was looking through
+the window of the dining-room, trying to persuade myself at least that
+the captured vessel was not one of much importance. But one must yield
+to evidence. It was pierced for a great number of guns. All at once, the
+wind having displayed the flags, I perceived with surprise the French
+flag over the English flag. I communicated what I observed to Mr.
+Blankley. He answered immediately, "You do not surely pretend to observe
+better with your bad telescope than I did with my _Dollond_?"
+
+"And you cannot pretend," said I to him in _my_ turn, "to see better
+than an astronomer by profession? I am sure of my fact. I beg M.
+Thainville's permission, and will go this instant to visit this
+mysterious prize."
+
+In short, I went there; and this is what I learnt:--
+
+General Duhesme, Governor of Barcelona, wishing to rid himself of the
+most ill-disciplined portion of his garrison, formed the principal part
+into the crew of a vessel, the command of which he gave to a lieutenant
+of Babastre, a celebrated corsair of the Mediterranean.
+
+There were amongst these improvised seamen a hussar, a dragoon, two
+veterans, a miner with his long beard, &c. &c. The vessel, leaving
+Barcelona by night, escaped the English cruiser, and got to the entrance
+of Port Mahon. An English "lettre de marque" was coming out of the port.
+The crew of the French vessel boarded her; and a furious combat on the
+deck ensued, in which the French got the upper hand. It was this "lettre
+de marque" which had now arrived at Algiers.
+
+Invested with full power by M. Dubois Thainville, I announced to the
+prisoners that they were about to be immediately given up to their
+Consul. I respected even the trick of the captain, who, wounded by
+several sabre-cuts, had contrived to cover up his head with his
+principal flag. I re-assured his wife; but my chief care was especially
+devoted to a passenger whom I saw with one arm amputated.
+
+"Where is the surgeon," I said to him, "who operated on you?"
+
+"It was not our surgeon," he answered. "He basely fled with a part of
+the crew, and saved himself on land."
+
+"Who, then, cut off your arm?"
+
+"It was the hussar whom you see here."
+
+"Unhappy man!" I exclaimed; "what could lead you, when it was not your
+profession, to perform this operation?"
+
+"The pressing request of the wounded man. His arm had already swollen to
+an enormous size. He wanted some one to cut it off for him with a blow
+of a hatchet. I told him that in Egypt, when I was in hospital, I had
+seen several amputations made; that I would imitate what I had seen, and
+might perhaps succeed. That at any rate it would be better than the blow
+of a hatchet. All was agreed; I armed myself with the carpenter's saw;
+and the operation was done."
+
+I went off immediately to the American consul, to claim the assistance
+of the only surgeon worthy of confidence who was then in Algiers. M.
+Triplet--I think I recollect that that was the name of the man of the
+distinguished art whose aid I invoked--came at once on board the vessel,
+examined the dressing of the wound, and declared, to my very lively
+satisfaction, that all was going on well, and that the Englishman would
+survive his horrible injury.
+
+The same day we had the wounded men carried on litters to Mr. Blankley's
+house; this operation, executed with somewhat of ceremony, modified,
+though slightly, the feelings of the Dey in our favour, and his
+sentiments became yet more favourable towards us in consequence of
+another maritime occurrence, although a very insignificant one.
+
+One day a corvette was seen in the horizon armed with a very great
+number of guns, and shaping her way towards the port of Algiers; there
+appeared immediately after an English brig of war, in full sail; a
+combat was therefore expected, and all the terraces of the town were
+covered with spectators; the brig appeared to be the best sailer, and
+seemed to us likely to reach the corvette, but the latter tacked about,
+and seemed desirous to engage in battle; the English vessel fled before
+her; the corvette tacked about a second time, and again directed her
+course towards Algiers, where, one would have supposed, she had some
+special mission to execute. The brig, in her turn now changed her
+course, but held herself constantly beyond the reach of shot from the
+corvette; at last the two vessels arrived in succession in the port, and
+cast anchor, to the lively disappointment of the Algerine population,
+who had hoped to be present without danger at a maritime combat between
+the "Christian dogs," belonging to two nations equally detested in a
+religious point of view; but shouts of laughter could not be repressed
+when it was seen that the corvette was a merchant vessel, and that she
+was only armed with wooden imitations of cannon. It was said in the town
+that the English sailors were furious, and had been on the point of
+mutiny against their too prudent captain.
+
+I have very little to tell in favour of the Algerines; hence I must do
+an act of justice by mentioning, that the corvette departed the next day
+for the Antilles, her destination, and that the brig was not permitted
+to set sail until the next day but one.
+
+Bakri often came to the French Consulate to talk of our affairs with M.
+Dubois Thainville: "What can you want?" said the latter, "you are an
+Algerine; you will be the first victim of the Dey's obstinacy. I have
+already written to Livorno that your families and your goods are to be
+seized. When the vessels laden with cotton, which you have in this port,
+arrive at Marseilles, they will be immediately confiscated; it is for
+you to judge whether it would not better suit you to pay the sum which
+the Dey claims, than to expose yourself to tenfold and certain loss."
+
+Such reasoning was unanswerable; and whatever it might cost him, Bakri
+decided on paying the sum that was demanded of France.
+
+Permission to depart was immediately granted to us; I embarked the 21st
+of June, 1809, on board a vessel in which M. Dubois Thainville and his
+family were passengers.
+
+The evening before our departure from Algiers, a corsair deposited at
+the consul's the Majorcan mail, which he had taken from a vessel which
+he had captured. It was a complete collection of the letters which the
+inhabitants of the Baléares had been writing to their friends on the
+Continent.
+
+"Look here," said M. Dubois Thainville to me, "here is something to
+amuse you during the voyage,--you who generally keep your room from
+sea-sickness,--break the seals and read all these letters, and see
+whether they contain any accounts by which we might profit how to aid
+the unhappy soldiers who are dying of misery and despair in the little
+island of Cabrera."
+
+Scarcely had we arrived on board the vessel, when I set myself to the
+work, and acted without scruple or remorse the part of an official of
+the black chamber, with this sole difference, that the letters were
+unsealed without taking any precautions. I found amongst them several
+dispatches, in which Admiral Collingwood signified to the Spanish
+Government the ease with which the prisoners might be delivered.
+Immediately on our arrival at Marseilles these letters were sent to the
+minister of naval affairs, who, I believe, did not pay much attention to
+them.
+
+I knew almost every one at Palma, the capital of Majorca. I leave it to
+be imagined with what curiosity I read the missives in which the
+beautiful ladies of the town expressed their hatred against _los
+malditos cavachios_, (French,) whose presence in Spain had rendered
+necessary the departure for the Continent of a magnificent regiment of
+hussars; how many persons might I not have embroiled, if under a mask I
+had found myself with them at the opera ball!
+
+Many of the letters made mention of me, and were particularly
+interesting to me; I was sure in this instance there was nothing to
+constrain the frankness of those who had written them. It is an
+advantage which few people can boast having enjoyed to the same degree.
+
+The vessel in which I was, although laden with bales of cotton, had some
+corsair papers of the Regency, and was the reputed escort of three
+richly laden merchant vessels which were going to France.
+
+We were off Marseilles on the 1st of July, when an English frigate came
+to stop our passage: "I will not take you," said the English captain;
+"but you will go towards the Hyères Islands, and Admiral Collingwood
+will decide on your fate."
+
+"I have received," answered the Barbary captain, "an express commission
+to conduct these vessels to Marseilles, and I will execute it."
+
+"You, individually, can do what may seem to you best," answered the
+Englishman; "as to the merchant vessels under your escort, they will be,
+I repeat to you, taken to Admiral Collingwood." And he immediately gave
+orders to those vessels to set sail to the East.
+
+The frigate had already gone a little distance when she perceived that
+we were steering towards Marseilles. Having then learnt from the crews
+of the merchant vessels that we were ourselves laden with cotton, she
+tacked about to seize us.
+
+She was very near reaching us, when we were enabled to enter the port of
+the little island of Pomègue. In the night she put her boats to sea to
+try to carry us off; but the enterprise was too perilous, and she did
+not dare attempt it.
+
+The next morning, 2d of July, 1809, I disembarked at the lazaretto.
+
+At the present day they go from Algiers to Marseilles in four days; it
+had taken me eleven months to make the same voyage. It is true that here
+and there I had made involuntary sojourns.
+
+My letters sent from the lazaretto at Marseilles were considered by my
+relatives and friends as certificates of resurrection, they having for a
+long time past supposed me dead. A great geometer had even proposed to
+the Bureau of Longitude no longer to pay my allowance to my authorized
+representative; which appears the more cruel inasmuch as this
+representative was my father.
+
+The first letter which I received from Paris was full of sympathy and
+congratulations on the termination of my laborious and perilous
+adventures; it was from a man already in possession of an European
+reputation, but whom I had never seen: M. de Humboldt, after what he had
+heard of my misfortunes, offered me his friendship. Such was the first
+origin of a connection which dates from nearly forty-two years back,
+without a single cloud ever paving troubled it.
+
+M. Dubois Thainville had numerous acquaintances in Marseilles; his wife
+was a native of that town, and her family resided there. They received,
+therefore, both of them, numerous visits in the parlour of the
+lazaretto. The bell which summoned them, for me alone was dumb; and I
+remained as solitary and forsaken, at the gates of a town peopled with a
+hundred thousand of my countrymen, as if I had been in the heart of
+Africa. One day, however, the parlour-bell rang three times (the number
+of times corresponding to the number of my room); I thought it must be a
+mistake. I did not, however, allow this to appear. I traversed proudly
+under the escort of my guard of health the long space which separates
+the lazaretto, properly so called, from the parlour; and there I found,
+with very lively satisfaction, M. Pons, the director of the Observatory
+at Marseilles, and the most celebrated discoverer of comets of whom the
+annals of Astronomy have ever had to register the success.
+
+At any time a visit from the excellent M. Pons, whom I have since seen
+director of the Observatory at Florence, would have been very agreeable
+to me; but, during my quarantine, I felt it unappreciably valuable. It
+proved to me that I had returned to my native soil.
+
+Two or three days before our admission to freedom, we experienced a loss
+which was deeply felt by each of us. To pass away the heavy time of a
+severe quarantine, the little Algerine colony was in the habit of going
+to an enclosure near the lazaretto, where a very beautiful gazelle,
+belonging to M. Dubois Thainville, was confined; she bounded about there
+in full liberty with a grace which excited our admiration. One of us
+endeavoured to stop this elegant animal in her course; he seized her
+unluckily by the leg, and broke it. We all ran, but only, alas! to
+witness a scene which excited the deepest emotion in us.
+
+The gazelle, lying on her side, raised her head sadly; her beautiful
+eyes (the eyes of a gazelle!) shed torrents of tears; no cry of
+complaint escaped her mouth; she produced that effect upon us which is
+always felt when a person who is suddenly struck by an irreparable
+misfortune, resigns himself to it, and shows his profound anguish only
+by silent tears.
+
+Having ended my quarantine, I went at once to Perpignan, to the bosom of
+my family, where my mother, the most excellent and pious of women,
+caused numerous masses to be said to celebrate my return, as she had
+done before to pray for the repose of my soul, when she thought that I
+had fallen under the daggers of the Spaniards. But I soon quitted my
+native town to return to Paris; and I deposited at the Bureau of
+Longitude and the Academy of Sciences my observations, which I had
+succeeded in preserving amidst the perils and tribulations of my long
+campaign.
+
+A few days after my arrival, on the 18th of September, 1809, I was
+nominated an academician in the place of Lalande. There were fifty-two
+voters; I obtained forty-seven voices, M. Poisson four, and M. Nouet
+one. I was then twenty-three years of age.
+
+A nomination made with such a majority would appear, at first sight, as
+if it could give rise to no serious difficulties; but it proved
+otherwise. The intervention of M. de Laplace, before the day of ballot,
+was active and incessant to have my admission postponed until the time
+when a vacancy, occurring in the geometry section, might enable the
+learned assembly to nominate M. Poisson at the same time as me. The
+author of the _Mécanique Céleste_ had vowed to the young geometer an
+unbounded attachment, completely justified, certainly, by the beautiful
+researches which science already owed to him. M. de Laplace could not
+support the idea that a young astronomer, younger by five years than M.
+Poisson, a pupil, in the presence of his professor at the Polytechnic
+School, should become an academician before him. He proposed to me,
+therefore, to write to the Academy that I would not stand for election
+until there should be a second place to give to Poisson. I answered by a
+formal refusal, and giving my reasons in these terms: "I care little to
+be nominated at this moment. I have decided upon leaving shortly with M.
+de Humboldt for Thibet. In those savage regions the title of member of
+the Institute will not smooth the difficulties which we shall have to
+encounter. But I would not be guilty of any rudeness towards the
+Academy. If they were to receive the declaration for which I am asked,
+would not the savans who compose this illustrious body have a right to
+say to me: 'How are you certain that we have thought of you? You refuse
+what has not yet been offered to you.'"
+
+On seeing my firm resolution not to lend myself to the inconsiderate
+course which he had advised me to follow, M. de Laplace went to work in
+another way; he maintained that I had not sufficient distinction for
+admission into the Academy. I do not pretend that, at the age of
+three-and-twenty, my scientific attainments were very considerable, if
+estimated in an _absolute_ manner; but when I judged by _comparison_, I
+regained courage, especially on considering that the three last years of
+my life had been consecrated to the measurement of an arc of the
+meridian in a foreign country; that they were passed amid the storms of
+the war with Spain; often enough in dungeons, or, what was yet worse, in
+the mountains of Kabylia, and at Algiers, at that time a very dangerous
+residence.
+
+Here is, therefore, my statement of accounts for that epoch. I make it
+over to the impartial appreciation of the reader.
+
+On leaving the Polytechnic School, I had made, in conjunction with M.
+Biot, an extensive and very minute research on the determination of the
+coefficient of the tables of atmospheric refraction.
+
+We had also measured the refraction of different gases, which, up to
+that time, had not been attempted.
+
+A determination, more exact than had been previously obtained, of the
+relation of the weight of air to the weight of mercury, had furnished a
+direct value of the coefficient of the barometrical formula which served
+for the calculation of the heights.
+
+I had contributed, in a regular and very assiduous manner, during nearly
+two years, to the observations which were made day and night with the
+transit telescope and with the mural quadrant at the Paris Observatory.
+
+I had undertaken, in conjunction with M. Bouvard, the observations
+relating to the verification of the laws of the moon's libration. All
+the calculations were prepared; it only remained for me to put the
+numbers into the formulæ, when I was, by order of the Bureau of
+Longitude, obliged to leave Paris for Spain. I had observed various
+comets, and calculated their orbits. I had, in concert with M. Bouvard,
+calculated, according to Laplace's formula, the table of refraction
+which has been published in the _Recueil des Tables_ of the Bureau of
+Longitude, and in the _Connaissance des Temps_. A research on the
+velocity of light, made with a prism placed before the object end of the
+telescope of the mural circle, had proved that the same tables of
+refraction might serve for the sun and all the stars.
+
+Finally, I had just terminated, under very difficult circumstances, the
+grandest triangulation which had ever been achieved, to prolong the
+meridian line from France as far as the island of Formentera.
+
+M. de Laplace, without denying the importance and utility of these
+labours and these researches, saw in them nothing more than indications
+of promise; M. Lagrange then said to him explicitly:--
+
+"Even you, M. de Laplace, when you entered the Academy, had done nothing
+brilliant; you only gave promise. Your grand discoveries did not come
+till afterwards."
+
+Lagrange was the only man in Europe who could with authority address
+such an observation to him.
+
+M. de Laplace did not reply upon the ground of the personal question,
+but he added,--"I maintain that it is useful to young savans to hold out
+the position of member of the Institute as a future recompense, to
+excite their zeal."
+
+"You resemble," replied M. Hallé, "the driver of the hackney coach, who,
+to excite his horses to a gallop, tied a bundle of hay at the end of his
+carriage pole; the poor horses redoubled their efforts, and the bundle
+of hay always flew on before them. After all, his plan made them fall
+off, and soon after brought on their death."
+
+Delambre, Legendre, Biot, insisted on the devotion, and what they termed
+the courage, with which I had combated arduous difficulties, whether in
+carrying on the observations, or in saving the instruments and the
+results already obtained. They drew an animated picture of the dangers I
+had undergone. M. de Laplace ended by yielding when he saw that all the
+most eminent men of the Academy had taken me under their patronage, and
+on the day of the election he gave me his vote. It would be, I must own,
+a subject of regret with me even to this day, after a lapse of forty-two
+years, if I had become member of the Institute without having obtained
+the vote of the author of the _Mécanique Céleste_.
+
+The Members of the Institute were always presented to the Emperor after
+he had confirmed their nominations. On the appointed day, in company
+with the presidents, with the secretaries of the four classes, and with
+the academicians who had special publications to offer to the Chief of
+the State, they assembled in one of the saloons of the Tuileries. When
+the Emperor returned from mass, he held a kind of review of these
+savans, these artists, these literary men, in green uniform.
+
+I must own that the spectacle which I witnessed on the day of my
+presentation did not edify me. I even experienced real displeasure in
+seeing the anxiety evinced by members of the Institute to be noticed.
+
+"You are very young," said Napoleon to me on coming near me; and without
+waiting for a flattering reply, which it would not have been difficult
+to find, he added,--"What is your name?" And my neighbour on the right,
+not leaving me time to answer the simple enough question just addressed
+to me, hastened to say,--
+
+"_His_ name is Arago?"
+
+"What science do you cultivate?"
+
+My neighbour on the left immediately replied,--
+
+"_He_ cultivates astronomy."
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+My neighbour on the right, jealous of my left hand neighbour for having
+encroached on his rights at the second question, now hastened to reply,
+and said,--
+
+"_He_ has just been measuring the line of the meridian in Spain."
+
+The Emperor imagining doubtless that he had before him either a dumb man
+or an imbecile, passed on to another member of the Institute. This one
+was not a novice, but a naturalist well known through his beautiful and
+important discoveries; it was M. Lamarck. The old man presented a book
+to Napoleon.
+
+"What is that?" said the latter, "it is your absurd _meteorology_, in
+which you rival Matthieu Laensberg. It is this 'annuaire' which
+dishonours your old age. Do something in Natural History, and I should
+receive your productions with pleasure. As to this volume, I only take
+it in consideration of your white hair. Here!" And he passed the book to
+an aide-de-camp.
+
+Poor M. Lamarck, who, at the end of each sharp and insulting sentence of
+the Emperor, tried in vain to say, "It is a work on Natural History
+which I present to you," was weak enough to fall into tears.
+
+The Emperor immediately afterwards met with a more energetic antagonist
+in the person of M. Lanjuinais. The latter had advanced, book in hand.
+Napoleon said to him, sneeringly:--
+
+"The entire Senate, then, is to merge in the Institute?" "Sire,"
+replied Lanjuinais, "it is the body of the state to which most time is
+left for occupying itself with literature."
+
+The Emperor, displeased at this answer, at once quitted the civil
+uniforms, and busied himself among the great epaulettes which filled the
+room.
+
+Immediately after my nomination, I was exposed to strange annoyances on
+the part of the military authorities. I had left for Spain, still
+holding the title of pupil of the Polytechnic School. My name could not
+remain on the books more than four years; consequently I had been
+enjoined to return to France to go through the examinations necessary on
+quitting the school. But in the meantime Lalande died, and thus a place
+in the Bureau of Longitude became vacant. I was named assistant
+astronomer. These places were submitted to the nomination of the
+Emperor. M. Lacuée, Director of the Conscription, thought that, through
+this latter circumstance, the law would be satisfied, and I was
+authorized to continue my operations.
+
+M. Matthieu Dumas, who succeeded him, looked at the question from an
+entirely different point of view; he enjoined me either to furnish a
+substitute, or else to set off myself with the contingent of the twelfth
+arrondissement of Paris.
+
+All my remonstrances and those of my friends having been fruitless, I
+announced to the honourable General that I should present myself in the
+Place de l'Estrapade, whence the conscripts had to depart, in the
+costume of a member of the Institute; and that thus I should march on
+foot through the city of Paris. General Matthieu Dumas was alarmed at
+the effect which this scene would produce on the Emperor, himself a
+member of the Institute, and hastened, under fear of my threat, to
+confirm the decision of General Lacuée.
+
+In the year 1809, I was chosen by the "conseil du perfectionnement" of
+the Polytechnic School, to succeed M. Monge, in his chair of Analysis
+applied to Geometry. The circumstances attending that nomination have
+remained a secret; I seize the first opportunity which offers itself to
+me to make them known.
+
+M. Monge took the trouble to come to me one day, at the Observatory, to
+ask me to succeed him. I declined this honour, because of a proposed
+journey which I was going to make into Central Asia with M. de Humboldt.
+"You will certainly not set off for some months to come," said the
+illustrious geometer; "you could, therefore, take my place temporarily."
+"Your proposal," I replied, "flatters me infinitely; but I do not know
+whether I ought to accept it. I have never read your great work on
+partial differential equations; I do not, therefore, feel certain that I
+should be competent to give lessons to the pupils of the Polytechnic
+School on such a difficult theory." "Try," said he, "and you will find
+that that theory is clearer than it is generally supposed to be."
+Accordingly, I did try; and M. Monge's opinion appeared to me to be well
+founded.
+
+The public could not comprehend, at that time, how it was that the
+benevolent M. Monge obstinately refused to confide the delivery of his
+course to M. Binet, (a private teacher under him,) whose zeal was well
+known. It is this motive which I am going to reveal.
+
+There was then in the "Bois de Boulogne" a residence named the _Grey
+House_, where there assembled round M. Coessin, the high-priest of a new
+religion, a number of adepts, such as Lesueur, the musician, Colin,
+private teacher of chemistry at the school, M. Binet, &c. A report from
+the prefect of police had signified to the Emperor that the frequenters
+of the Grey House were connected with the Society of Jesuits. The
+Emperor was uneasy and irritated at this. "Well," said he to M. Monge,
+"there are your dear pupils become disciples of Loyola!" And on Monge's
+denial, "You deny it," answered the Emperor; "well, then, know that the
+private teacher of your course is in that clique." Every one can
+understand that after such a remark, Monge could not consent to being
+succeeded by M. Binet.
+
+Having entered the academy, young, ardent, and impassioned, I took much
+greater part in the nominations than may have been suitable for my
+position and my time of life. Arrived at an epoch of life whence I
+examine retrospectively all my actions with calmness and impartiality, I
+can render this amount of justice to myself, that, excepting in three or
+four instances, my vote and interest were always in favour of the most
+deserving candidate, and more than once I succeeded in preventing the
+Academy from making a deplorable choice. Who could blame me for having
+maintained with energy the election of Malus, considering that his
+competitor, M. Girard, unknown as a physicist, obtained twenty-two votes
+out of fifty-three, and that an addition of five votes would have given
+him the victory over the savant who had just discovered the phenomenon
+of polarization by reflection, over the savant whom Europe would have
+named by acclamation? The same remarks are applicable to the nomination
+of Poisson, who would have failed against this same M. Girard if four
+votes had been otherwise given. Does not this suffice to justify the
+unusual ardour of my conduct? Although in a third trial the majority of
+the Academy was decided in favour of the same engineer, I cannot regret
+that I supported up to the last moment with conviction and warmth the
+election of his competitor, M. Dulong.
+
+I do not suppose that, in the scientific world, any one will he disposed
+to blame me for having preferred M. Liouville to M. de Pontécoulant.
+
+Sometimes it happened that the Government wished to influence the choice
+of the Academy; with a strong sense of my rights I invariably resisted
+all dictation. Once this resistance acted unfortunately on one of my
+friends--the venerable Legendre; as to myself, I had prepared myself
+beforehand for all the persecutions of which I could be made the object.
+Having received from the Minister of the Interior an invitation to vote
+for M. Binet against M. Navier on the occurrence of a vacant place in
+the section of mechanics, Legendre nobly answered that he would vote
+according to his soul and his conscience. He was immediately deprived of
+a pension which his great age and his long services rendered due to him.
+The _protégé_ of the authorities failed; and, at the time, this result
+was attributed to the activity with which I enlightened the members of
+the Academy as to the impropriety of the Minister's proceedings.
+
+On another occasion the King wished the Academy to name Dupuytren, the
+eminent surgeon, but whose character at the time lay under grave
+imputations. Dupuytren was nominated, but several blanks protested
+against the interference of the authorities in academic elections.
+
+I said above that I had saved the Academy from some deplorable choices;
+I will only cite a single instance, on which occasion I had the sorrow
+of finding myself in opposition to M. de Laplace. The illustrious
+geometer wished a vacant place in the astronomical section to be granted
+to M. Nicollet,--a man without talent, and, moreover, suspected of
+misdeeds which reflected on his honour in the most serious degree. At
+the close of a contest, which I maintained undisguisedly,
+notwithstanding the danger which might follow from thus braving the
+powerful protectors of M. Nicollet, the Academy proceeded to the ballot;
+the respected M. Damoiseau, whose election I had supported, obtained
+forty-five votes out of forty-eight. Thus M. Nicollet had collected but
+three.
+
+"I see," said M. de Laplace to me, "that it is useless to struggle
+against young people; I acknowledge that the man who is called the
+_great elector_ of the Academy is more powerful than I am."
+
+"No," replied I; "M. Arago can only succeed in counterbalancing the
+opinion justly preponderating for M. de Laplace, when the right is found
+to be without possible contradiction on his side."
+
+A short time afterwards M. Nicollet had run away to America, and the
+Bureau of Longitude had a warrant passed to expel him ignominiously from
+its bosom.
+
+I would warn those savans, who, having early entered the Academy, might
+be tempted to imitate my example, to expect nothing beyond the
+satisfaction of their conscience. I warn them, with a knowledge of the
+case, that gratitude will almost always be found wanting.
+
+The elected academician, whose merits you have sometimes exalted beyond
+measure, pretends that you have done no more than justice to him; that
+you have only fulfilled a duty, and that he therefore owes you no
+thanks.
+
+Delambre died the 19th August, 1822. After the necessary delay, they
+proceeded to fill his place. The situation of Perpetual Secretary is not
+one which can long be left vacant. The Academy named a commission to
+present it with candidates; it was composed of Messrs. de Laplace,
+Arago, Legendre, Rossel, Prony, and Lacroix. The list presented was
+composed of the names of Messrs. Biot, Fourier, and Arago. It is not
+necessary for me to say with what obstinacy I opposed the inscription of
+my name on this list; I was compelled to give way to the will of my
+colleagues, but I seized the first opportunity of declaring publicly
+that I had neither the expectation nor the wish to obtain a single vote;
+that, moreover, I had on my hands already as much work as I could get
+through; that in this respect M. Biot was in the same position; and
+that, in short, I should vote for the nomination of M. Fourier.
+
+It was supposed, but I dare not flatter myself that it was the fact,
+that my declaration exercised a certain influence on the result of the
+ballot. The result was as follows: M. Fourier received thirty-eight
+votes, and M. Biot ten. In a case of this nature each man carefully
+conceals his vote, in order not to run the risk of future disagreement
+with him who may be invested with the authority which the Academy gives
+to the perpetual secretary. I do not know whether I shall be pardoned if
+I recount an incident which amused the Academy at the time.
+
+M. de Laplace, at the moment of voting, took two plain pieces of paper;
+his neighbour was guilty of the indiscretion of looking, and saw
+distinctly that the illustrious geometer wrote the name of Fourier on
+both of them. After quietly folding them up, M. de Laplace put the
+papers into his hat, shook it, and said to this same curious neighbour:
+"You see, I have written two papers; I am going to tear up one, I shall
+put the other into the urn; I shall thus be myself ignorant for which of
+the two candidates I have voted."
+
+All went on as the celebrated academician had said; only that every one
+knew with certainty that his vote had been for Fourier; and "the
+calculation of probabilities" was in no way necessary for arriving at
+this result.
+
+After having fulfilled the duties of secretary with much distinction,
+but not without some feebleness and negligence in consequence of his bad
+health, Fourier died the 16th of May, 1830. I declined several times the
+honour which the Academy appeared willing to do me, in naming me to
+succeed him. I believed, without false modesty, that I had not the
+qualities necessary to fill this important place suitably. When
+thirty-nine out of forty-four voters had appointed me, it was quite time
+that I should give in to an opinion so flattering and so plainly
+expressed. On the 7th of June, 1830, I, therefore, became perpetual
+secretary of the Academy for the Mathematical Sciences; but, conformably
+to the plea of an accumulation of offices, which I had used as an
+argument to support, in November, 1822, the election of M. Fournier, I
+declared that I should give in my resignation of the Professorship in
+the Polytechnic School. Neither the solicitations of Marshal Soult, the
+Minister of War, nor those of the most eminent members of the Academy,
+could avail in persuading me to renounce this resolution.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] With such precocious heroism it is by no means so clear that the
+author might not have had a hand in the revolution, from which he
+endeavours above to exculpate himself.
+
+[2] Méchain, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the Institute, was
+charged in 1792 with the prolongation of the measure of the arc of the
+meridian in Spain as far as Barcelona.
+
+During his operations in the Pyrenees, in 1794, he had known my father,
+who was one of the administrators of the department of the Eastern
+Pyrenees. Later, in 1803, when the question was agitated as to the
+continuation of the measure of the meridian line as far as the Balearic
+Islands, M. Méchain went again to Perpignan, and came to pay my father a
+visit. As I was about setting off to undergo the examination for
+admission at the Polytechnic School, my father ventured to ask him
+whether he could not recommend me to M. Monge. "Willingly," answered he;
+"but, with the frankness which is my characteristic, I ought not to
+leave you unaware that it appears to me improbable that your son, left
+to himself, can have rendered himself completely master of the subjects
+of which the programme consists. If, however, he be admitted, let him be
+destined for the artillery, or for the engineers; the career of the
+sciences, of which you have talked to me, is really too difficult to go
+through, and unless he had a special calling for it, your son would only
+find it deceptive." Anticipating a little the order of dates, let us
+compare this advice with what occurred: I went to Toulouse, underwent
+the examination, and was admitted; one year and a half afterwards I
+filled the situation of secretary at the Observatory, which had become
+vacant by the resignation of M. Méchain's son; one year and a half
+later, that is to say, four years after the Perpignan "horoscope,"
+associated with M. Biot, I filled the place, in Spain, of the celebrated
+academician who had died there, a victim to his labours.
+
+[3] This appears to be an oversight, as in a preceding page M. Arago
+described the fortunate release of Captain Krog from this captivity.
+
+[4] On my return to Paris I hastened to the Jardin des Plantes to pay a
+visit to the lion, but he received me with a very unamiable gnashing of
+the teeth. Think then of the marvellous history of the Florentine lion,
+the subject of so many engravings, which is offered on the stall of
+every printseller to the eyes of the moved and astonished passers-by.
+
+[5] An "_épileur_" is a person who removes superfluous hairs. We have
+been unable to ascertain what office of this kind is performed in
+Mohammedan funerals.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY.
+
+BIOGRAPHY READ AT THE PUBLIC SITTING OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, THE
+26TH OF FEBRUARY, 1844.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+Gentlemen,--The learned man, illustrious in so many ways, whose life I
+am going to relate, was taken from France half a century ago. I hasten
+to make this remark, so as thoroughly to show that I have selected this
+subject without being deterred by complaints which I look upon as unjust
+and inapplicable. The glory of the members of the early Academy of
+Sciences is an inheritance for the present Academy. We must cherish it
+as we would the glory of later days; we must hallow it with the same
+respect, we must devote to it the same worship: the word _prescription_
+would here be synonymous with ingratitude.
+
+If it had happened, Gentlemen, that amongst the academicians who
+preceded us, a man, already illustrious by his labours, and, without
+personal ambition, yet thrown, despite himself, into the midst of a
+terrible revolution, exposed to a thousand unrestrained passions, had
+cruelly disappeared in the political effervescence--oh! then, any
+negligence, any delay in studying the facts would be inexcusable; the
+honourable contemporaries of the victim would soon be no longer there to
+shed the light of their honest and impartial memory on obscure events;
+an existence devoted to the cultivation of reason and of truth would
+come to be appreciated only from documents, on which, for my part, I
+would not blindly draw, until it shall be proved that, in revolutionary
+times, we can trust to the uprightness of parties.
+
+I felt in duty bound, Gentlemen, to give you a sketch of the ideas that
+have led me to present to you a detailed account of the life and labours
+of a member of the early Academy of Sciences. The biographies which will
+soon follow this, will show that the studies I have undertaken
+respecting Carnot, Condorcet, and Bailly, have not prevented me from
+attending seriously to our illustrious contemporaries.
+
+To render them a loyal and truthful homage, is the first duty of the
+secretaries of the Academy, and I will religiously fulfil it; without
+binding myself, however, to observe a strict chronological order, or to
+follow the civil registers step by step.
+
+Eulogies, said an ancient authority, should be deferred until we have
+lost the true measure of the dead. Then we could make giants of them
+without any one opposing us. On the contrary, I am of opinion that
+biographers, especially those of academicians, ought to make all
+possible haste, so that every one may be represented according to his
+true measure, and that well-informed people may have the opportunity of
+rectifying the mistakes which, notwithstanding every care, almost
+inevitably slip into this sort of composition. I regret that our former
+secretaries did not adopt this rule. By deferring from year to year to
+analyze the scientific and political life of Bailly with their scruples,
+and with their usual talents, they allowed time for inconsiderateness,
+prejudice, and passions of every kind, to impregnate our minds with a
+multitude of serious errors, which have added considerably to the
+difficulty of my task. When I was led to form very different opinions
+from those that are found spread through some of the most celebrated
+works, on the events of the great revolution of 1789, in which our
+fellow-academician took an active part, I could not be so conceited as
+to expect to be believed on my own word. To propound my opinions then
+was insufficient; I had also to combat those of the historians with whom
+I differed. This necessity has given to the biography that I am going to
+read an unusual length. I solicit the kind sympathy of the assembly on
+this point. I hope to obtain it, I acknowledge, when I consider that my
+task is to analyze before you the scientific and literary claims of an
+illustrious colleague, to depict the uniformly noble and patriotic
+conduct of the first President of the National Assembly; to follow the
+first Mayor of Paris in all the acts of an administration, the
+difficulties of which appeared to be above human strength; to accompany
+the virtuous magistrate to the very scaffold, to unroll the mournful
+phases of the cruel martyrdom that he was made to undergo; to retrace,
+in a word, some of the greatest, some of the most terrible events of the
+French Revolution.
+
+
+
+
+INFANCY OF BAILLY.--HIS YOUTH.--HIS LITERARY ESSAYS.--HIS MATHEMATICAL
+STUDIES.
+
+John Sylvain Bailly was born at Paris in 1736. His parents were James
+Bailly and Cecilia Guichon.
+
+The father of the future astronomer had charge of the king's pictures.
+This post had continued in the obscure but honest family of Bailly for
+upwards of a century.
+
+Sylvain, while young, never quitted his paternal home. His mother would
+not be separated from him; it was not that she could give him the
+instruction required from masters in childhood, but a tenderness,
+allowed to run to the utmost extreme, entirely blinded her. Bailly then
+formed his own mind, under the eye of his parents. Nothing could be
+better, it seemed, than the boyhood of our brother academician, to
+verify the oft-repeated theory, touching the influence of imitation on
+the development of our faculties. Here, the result, attentively
+examined, would not by a great deal agree with the old hypothesis. I
+know not but, every thing considered, whether it would rather furnish
+powerful weapons to whoever would wish to maintain that, in its early
+habits, childhood rather seeks for contrasts.
+
+James Bailly had an idle and light character; whilst young Sylvain from
+the beginning showed strong reasoning powers, and a passion for study.
+
+The grown man felt in his own element while in noisy gayety.
+
+But the boy loved retirement.
+
+To the father, solitude would have been fatal; for to him life consisted
+in motion, sallies, witty conversations, free and easy parties, the
+little gay suppers of those days.
+
+The son, on the contrary, would remain alone and quite silent for whole
+days. His mind sufficed to itself; he never sought the fellowship of
+companions of his own age. Extreme steadiness was at once his habit and
+his taste.
+
+The warder of the king's pictures drew remarkably well, but did not
+appear to have troubled himself much with the principles of art.
+
+His son Sylvain studied those principles deeply, and to some purpose; he
+became a theoretic artist of the first class, but he never could either
+draw or paint even moderately well.
+
+There are few young people who would not, at some time or other, have
+wished to escape from the scrutinizing eyes of their parents. The
+contrary was the case in Bailly's family, for James used sometimes to
+say to his friends or to his servants, "Do not mention this peccadillo
+to my son. Sylvain is worth more than I am; his morals are very strict.
+Under the most respectful exterior, I should perceive in his manner a
+censure which would grieve me. I wish to avoid his tacit reproaches,
+even when he does not say a word."
+
+The two characters resembled each other only in one point--in their
+taste for poetry, or perhaps we ought to say versification, but even
+here we shall perceive differences.
+
+The father composed songs, little interludes, and farces that were acted
+at the _Italian Comedy_; but the son commenced at the age of sixteen by
+a serious work of time,--a tragedy.
+
+This tragedy was entitled _Clothaire_. The subject, drawn from the early
+centuries of the French History, had led Bailly by a curious and
+touching coincidence to relate the tortures inflicted on a Mayor of
+Paris by a deluded and barbarous multitude. The work was modestly
+submitted to the actor Lanoue, who, although he bestowed flattering
+encouragement on Bailly, dissuaded him frankly from exposing _Clothaire_
+to the risk of a public representation. On the advice of the
+comedian-author, the young poet took _Iphygenia in Tauris_ for the
+subject of his second composition. Such was his ardour, that by the end
+of three months, he had already written the last line of the fifth act
+of his new tragedy, and hastened to Passy, to solicit the opinion of the
+author of _Mahomet II_. This time Lanoue thought he perceived that his
+confiding young friend was not intended by nature for the drama, and he
+declared it to him without disguise. Bailly heard the fatal sentence
+with more resignation than could have been expected from a youth whose
+budding self-esteem received so violent a shock. He even threw his two
+tragedies immediately into the fire. Under similar circumstances,
+Fontenelle showed less docility in his youth. If the tragedy of _Aspar_
+also disappeared in the flames, it was not only in consequence of the
+criticism of a friend; for the author went so far as to call forth the
+noisy judgment of the pit.
+
+Certainly no astronomer will regret that any opinions either off-hand or
+well digested, on the first literary productions of Bailly, contributed
+to throw him into the pursuit of science. Still, for the sake of
+principle, it seems just to protest against the praises given to the
+foresight of Lanoue, to the sureness of his judgment, to the excellence
+of his advice. What was it in fact? A lad of sixteen or seventeen years
+of age, composes two tolerable tragedies, and these essays are made
+irrevocably to decide on his future fate. We have then forgotten that
+Racine had already reached the age of twenty-two, when he first
+appeared, producing _Theagenes and Charicles_, and the _Inimical
+Brothers_; that Crébillon was nearly forty years of age when he composed
+a tragedy on _The Death of the Sons of Brutus_, of which not a single
+verse has been preserved; finally, that the two first comedies of
+Molière, _The three rival Doctors_ and _The Schoolmaster_, are no longer
+known but by their titles. Let us recall to mind that reflection of
+Voltaire's: "It is very difficult to succeed before the age of thirty in
+a branch of literature that requires a knowledge of the world and of the
+human heart."
+
+A happy chance showed that the sciences might open an honourable and
+glorious path to the discouraged poet. M. de Moncaville offered to teach
+him mathematics, in exchange for drawing-lessons that his son received
+from the warder of the king's pictures. The proposal being accepted, the
+progress of Sylvain Bailly in these studies was rapid and brilliant.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY BECOMES THE PUPIL OF LACAILLE.--HE IS ASSOCIATED WITH HIM IN HIS
+ASTRONOMICAL LABOURS.
+
+The mathematical student soon after had one of those providential
+meetings which decide a young man's future fate. Mademoiselle Lejeuneux
+cultivated painting. It was at the house of this female artist, known
+afterwards as Madame La Chenaye, that Lacaille saw Bailly. The
+attentive, serious, and modest demeanour of the student charmed the
+great astronomer. He showed it in a most unequivocal manner, by
+offering, though so avaricious of his time, to become the guide of the
+future observer, and also to put him in communication with Clairaut.
+
+It is said that from his first intercourse with Lacaille, Bailly showed
+a decided vocation for astronomy. This fact appears to me incontestable.
+At his first appearance in this line, I find him associated in the most
+laborious, difficult, and tiresome investigations of that great
+observer.
+
+These epithets may perhaps appear extraordinary; but they will be so
+only to those who have learnt the science of the stars in ancient poems,
+either in verse or in prose.
+
+The Chaldæans, luxuriously reclining on the perfumed terraced roofs of
+their houses in Babylon, under a constantly azure sky, followed with
+their eyes the general and majestic movements of the starry sphere; they
+ascertained the respective displacements of the planets, the moon, the
+sun; they noted the date and hour of eclipses; they sought out whether
+simple periods would not enable them to foretell these magnificent
+phenomena a long time beforehand. Thus the Chaldæans created, if I may
+be allowed the expression, _Contemplative Astronomy_. Their observations
+were neither numerous nor exact; they both made and discussed them
+without labour and without trouble.
+
+Such is not, by a great deal, the position of modern astronomers.
+Science has felt the necessity of the celestial motions being studied in
+their minutest details. Theories must explain these details; it is their
+touchstone; it is by details that theories become confirmed or fall to
+the ground. Besides, in Astronomy, the most important truths, the most
+astonishing results, are based on the measurement of quantities of
+extreme minuteness. Such measures, the present bases of the science,
+require very fatiguing attention, infinite care, to which no learned man
+would bind himself, were he not sustained, and encouraged by the hope of
+attaining some capital determination, through an ardent and decided
+devotion to the subject.
+
+The modern astronomer, really worthy of the name, must renounce the
+distractions of society, and even the refreshment of uninterrupted
+sleep. In our climates during the inclement season, the sky is almost
+constantly overspread by a thick curtain of clouds. Under pain of
+postponing by some centuries the verification of this or that theoretic
+point, we must watch the least clearing off, and avail ourselves of it
+without delay.
+
+A favourable wind arises and dissipates the vapours in the very
+direction where some important phenomenon will manifest itself, and is
+to last only a few seconds. The astronomer, exposed to all the
+transitions of weather, (it is one of the conditions of accuracy,) the
+body painfully bent, directs the telescope of a great graduated circle
+in haste upon the star that he impatiently awaits. His lines for
+measuring are a spider's threads. If in looking he makes a mistake of
+half the thickness of one of these threads, the observation is good for
+nothing; judge what his uneasiness must be; at the critical moment, a
+puff of wind occasioning a vibration in the artificial light adapted to
+his telescope, the threads become almost invisible; the star itself,
+whose rays reach the eye through atmospheric strata of various density,
+temperature, and refrangibility, will appear to oscillate so much as to
+render the true position of it almost unassignable; at the very moment
+when extremely good definition of the object becomes indispensable to
+insure correctness of measures, all becomes confused, either because the
+eye-piece gets steamed with vapour, or that the vicinity of the very
+cold metal occasions an abundant secretion of tears in the eye applied
+to the telescope; the poor observer is then exposed to the alternative
+of abandoning to some other more fortunate person than himself, the
+ascertaining a phenomenon that will not recur during his lifetime, or
+introducing into the science results of problematical correctness.
+Finally, to complete the observation, he must read off the microscopical
+divisions of the graduated circle, and for what opticians call _indolent
+vision_ (the only sort that the ancients ever required) must substitute
+_strained vision_, which in a few years brings on blindness.[6]
+
+When he has scarcely escaped from this physical and moral torture, and
+the astronomer wishes to know what degree of utility is deducible from
+his labours, he is obliged to plunge into numerical calculations of
+repelling length and intricacy. Some observations that have been made in
+less than a minute, require a whole day's work in order to be compared
+with the tables.
+
+Such was the view that Lacaille, without any softening, exhibited to his
+young friend; such was the profession into which the adolescent poet
+plunged with great ardour, and without having been at all prepared for
+the transition.
+
+A useful calculation constituted the first claim of our tyro to the
+attention of the learned world.
+
+The year 1759 had been marked by one of those great events, the memory
+of which is religiously preserved in scientific history. A comet, that
+of 1682, had returned at the epoch foretold by Clairaut, and very nearly
+in the region that mathematical analysis had indicated to him. This
+reappearance raised comets out of the category of sublunary meteors; it
+gave them definitely closed curves as orbits, instead of parabolas, or
+even mere straight lines; attraction confined them within its immense
+domain; in short, these bodies ceased for ever to be liable to
+superstition regarding them as prognostics.
+
+The stringency, the importance of these results, would naturally
+increase in proportion as the resemblance between the announced orbit
+and the real orbit became more evident.
+
+This was the motive that determined so many astronomers to calculate the
+orbit of the comet minutely, from the observations made in 1759,
+throughout Europe. Bailly was one of those zealous calculators. In the
+present day, such a labour would scarcely deserve special mention; but
+we must remark that the methods at the close of the eighteenth century
+were far from being so perfect as those that are now in use, and that
+they greatly depended on the personal ability of the individual who
+undertook them.
+
+Bailly resided in the Louvre. Being determined to make the theory and
+practice of astronomy advance together, he had an observatory
+established from the year 1760, at one of the windows in the upper story
+of the south gallery. Perhaps I may occasion surprise by giving the
+pompous name of _Observatory_ to the space occupied by a window, and the
+small number of instruments that it could contain. I admit this feeling,
+provided it be extended to the Royal Observatory of the epoch, to the
+old imposing and severe mass of stone that attracts the attention of the
+promenaders in the great walk of the Luxembourg. There also, the
+astronomers were obliged to stand in the hollow of the windows; there
+also they said, like Bailly: I cannot verify my quadrants either by the
+horizon or by the zenith, for I can neither see the horizon nor the
+zenith. This ought to be known, even if it should disturb the wild
+reveries of two or three writers, who have no scientific authority:
+France did not possess an observatory worthy of her, nor worthy of the
+science, and capable of rivalling the other observatories of Europe,
+until within these ten or twelve years.
+
+The earliest observations made by Bailly, from one of the windows in the
+upper story of the Louvre gallery that looks out on the Pont des Arts,
+are dated in the beginning of 1760. The pupil of Lacaille was not yet
+twenty-four years old. Those observations relate to an opposition of the
+planet Mars. In the same year he determined the oppositions of Jupiter
+and of Saturn, and compared the results of his own determinations with
+the tables.
+
+The subsequent year I see him associated with Lacaille in observing the
+transit of Venus over the sun's disk. It was an extraordinary piece of
+good fortune, Gentlemen, at the very commencement of his scientific
+life, to witness in succession two of the most interesting astronomical
+events: the first predicted and well established return of a comet; and
+one of those partial eclipses of the sun by Venus, that do not recur
+till after the lapse of a hundred and ten years, and from which science
+has deduced the indirect but exact method, without which we should still
+be ignorant of the fact that the sun's mean distance from our earth is
+thirty-eight millions of leagues.
+
+I shall have completed the enumeration of Bailly's astronomical labours
+performed before he became an academician, when I have added, from
+observations of the comet of 1762, the calculation of its parabolic
+orbit; the discussion of forty-two observations of the moon by La Hire,
+a detailed labour destined to serve as a starting point for any person
+occupying himself with the lunar theory; finally, also the reduction of
+515 zodiacal stars, observed by Lacaille in 1760 and 1761.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] This long list of supposed difficulties in making an exact
+observation is hardly worthy of a zealous astronomer. Our author shows
+no enthusiasm for his subject here, and ends by ascribing the whole
+jeremiad to Lacaille, a man of very great practical perseverance. It is
+to be regretted that Arago never refers to observations of his own, but
+constantly quotes from others, nor does he always select the best.
+--_Translator's Note_.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY A MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.--HIS RESEARCHES ON JUPITER'S
+SATELLITES.
+
+Bailly was named member of the Academy of Sciences the 29th January,
+1763. From that moment his astronomical zeal no longer knew any bounds.
+The laborious life of our fellow-academician might, on occasion, be set
+up against a line, more fanciful than true, by which an ill-natured poet
+stigmatized academical honours. Certainly no one would say of Bailly,
+that after his election,
+
+     "Il s'endormit et ne fit qu'un somme."
+
+     "He fell asleep and made but one nap (or sum)."
+
+On the contrary, we cannot but be surprised at the multitude of literary
+and scientific labours that he accomplished in a few years.
+
+Bailly's earliest researches on Jupiter's satellites began in 1763.
+
+The subject was happily chosen. Studying it in all its generalities, he
+showed himself both an indefatigable computer, a clear-sighted geometer,
+and an industrious and able observer. Bailly's researches on the
+satellites of Jupiter, will always be his first and chief claim to
+scientific glory. Before him, the Maraldis, the Bradleys, the Wargentins
+had discovered empirically some of the principal perturbations that
+those bodies undergo, in their revolving motions around the powerful
+planet that rules them; but they had not been traced up to the
+principles of universal attraction. The initiative honour in this
+respect belongs to Bailly. Nor is this honour decreased by the ulterior
+and considerable improvements that the science has since received; even
+the discoveries of Lagrange and of Laplace have left this honour intact.
+
+The knowledge of the satellitic motions rests almost entirely on the
+observation of the precise moment when each of those bodies disappears,
+by entering into the conical shadow, which the immense opaque globe of
+Jupiter projects on the opposite side from the sun. In the course of
+discussing a multitude of these eclipses, Bailly was not long in
+perceiving that the computers of the Satellitic Tables worked on
+numerical data that were not at all comparable with each other. This
+seemed of little consequence previous to the birth of the theory; but,
+after the analytical discovery of the perturbations, it became desirable
+to estimate the possible errors of observation, and to suggest means for
+remedying them. This was the object of the very considerable work that
+Bailly presented to the Academy in 1771.
+
+In this beautiful memoir, the illustrious astronomer developes the
+series of experiments, by the aid of which each observation may give the
+instant of the real disappearance of a satellite, distinguished from the
+instant of the apparent disappearance, whatever be the power of the
+telescope used, whatever be the altitude of the eclipsed body above the
+horizon, and consequently, whatever be the transparency of the
+atmospheric strata through which the phenomenon is observed, also
+whatever be the distance from that body to the sun, or to the planet;
+finally, whatever be the sensibility of the observer's sight, all which
+circumstances considerably influence the time of apparent disappearance.
+The same series of ingenious and delicate observations led the author,
+very curiously, to the determination of the true diameters of the
+satellites, that is to say, of small luminous points, which, with the
+telescopes then in use, showed no perceptible diameter.
+
+I will rest contented with these general considerations; only remarking,
+in addition, that the diaphragms used by Bailly were not intended only
+to diminish the quantity of light contributing to the formation of the
+images, but that they considerably increase the diameter, and in a
+variable way, at least in the instance of stars.
+
+Under this new aspect, it will be requisite to submit the question to a
+new examination.
+
+Any geometers and astronomers who wish to know all the extent of
+Bailly's labours, must not content themselves with consulting the
+collections in the Academy of Sciences; for he published, at the
+beginning of 1766, a separate work under the modest title of _Essay on
+the Theory of Jupiter's Satellites_.
+
+The author commences with the _Astronomical History of the Satellites_.
+This history contains an almost complete analysis of the discoveries by
+Maraldi, by Bradley, by Wargentin. The labours of Galileo and his
+contemporaries are given with less detail and exactness. I have thought
+that I ought to fill up the lacunæ, by availing myself of some very
+precious documents published a few years since, and which were unknown
+to Bailly.
+
+But this I will do in a separate notice, free from all preconceived
+ideas, and free from all party spirit; I will not forget that an honest
+man ought not to calumniate any one, not even the agents of the
+Inquisition.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY'S LITERARY WORKS.--HIS BIOGRAPHIES OF CHARLES V.--OF
+LEIBNITZ--OF PETER CORNEILLE--OF MOLIÈRE.
+
+When Bailly entered the Academy of Sciences, the perpetual secretary was
+Grandjean de Fouchy. The bad health of this estimable scholar occasioned
+an early vacancy to be foreseen. D'Alembert cast his views on Bailly,
+hinted to him the survivorship to Fouchy, and proposed to him, by way of
+preparing the way, to write some biographies. Bailly followed the advice
+of the illustrious geometer, and chose as the subject of his studies,
+the éloges proposed by several academies, though principally by the
+French Academy.
+
+From the year 1671 to the year 1758, the prize subjects proposed by the
+French Academy related to questions of religion and morality. The
+eloquence of the candidates had therefore had to exercise itself
+successively on the knowledge of salvation; on the merit and dignity of
+martyrdom; on the purity of the soul and of the body; on the danger
+there is in certain paths that appear safe, &c. &c. It had even to
+paraphrase the _Ave Maria_. According to the literal intentions of the
+founder, (Balzac,) each discourse was ended by a short prayer. Duclos
+thought in 1758, that five or six volumes of similar sermons must have
+exhausted the matter, and on his proposal the Academy decided that, in
+future, it would give as the subject of the eloquence prize, the
+eulogiums of the great men of the nation. Marshal Saxe, Duguay Trouin,
+Sully, D'Aguesseau, Descartes, figured first on this list. Later, the
+Academy felt itself authorized to propose the éloge of kings themselves;
+it entered on this new branch at the beginning of 1767, by asking for
+the éloge of Charles V.
+
+Bailly entered the lists, but his essay obtained only an honourable
+mention.
+
+Nothing is more instructive than to search out at what epoch originated
+the principles and opinions of persons who have acted an important part
+on the political scene, and how those opinions developed themselves. By
+a fatality much to be regretted, the elements of these investigations
+are rarely numerous or faithful. We shall not have to express these
+regrets relative to Bailly. Each composition shows us the serene,
+candid, and virtuous mind of the illustrious writer, in a new and true
+point of view. The éloge of Charles V. was the starting point, followed
+by a long series of works, and it ought to arrest our attention for a
+while.
+
+The writings, crowned with the approbation of the French Academy, did
+not reach the public eye till they had been submitted to the severe
+censure of four Doctors in Theology. A special and digested approbation
+by the high dignitaries of the Church, whom the illustrious assembly
+always possessed among her members, was not a sufficient substitute for
+the humbling formality. If we are sure that we possess the éloge of
+Charles V. such as it flowed from the author's pen; if we have not
+reason to fear that the thoughts have undergone some mutilation, we owe
+it to the little favour that the discourse of Bailly enjoyed in the
+sitting of the Academy in 1767. Those thoughts, however, would have
+defied the most squeamish mind, the most shadowy susceptibility. The
+panegyrist unrolls with emotion the frightful misfortunes that assailed
+France during the reign of King John. The temerity, the improvidence of
+that monarch; the disgraceful passions of the King of Navarre; his
+treacheries; the barbarous avidity of the nobility; the seditious
+disposition of the people; the sanguinary depredations of the great
+companies; the ever recurring insolence of England; all this is
+expressed without disguise, yet with extreme moderation. No trait
+reveals, no fact even foreshadows in the author, the future President of
+a reforming National Assembly, still less the Mayor of Paris, during a
+revolutionary effervescence. The author may make Charles V. say that he
+will discard favour, and will call in renown to select his
+representatives; it will appear to him that taxes ought to be laid on
+riches and spared on poverty; he may even exclaim that oppression
+awakens ideas of equality. His temerity will not overleap this boundary.
+Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue, made the Chair resound with bold words
+of another description.
+
+I am far from blaming this scrupulous reserve; when moderation is united
+to firmness, it becomes power. In a word, however, Bailly's patriotism
+might, I was about to say ought to, have shown itself more susceptible,
+more ardent, prouder. When in the elegant prosopopoeia which closes
+the éloge, the King of England has recalled with arrogance the fatal day
+of Poitiers, ought he not instantly to have restrained that pride within
+just limits? ought he not to have cast a hasty glance on the components
+of the Black Prince's army? to examine whether a body of troops,
+starting from Bordeaux, recruiting in Guienne, did not contain more
+Gascons than English? whether France, now bounded by its natural limits,
+in its magnificent unity, would not have a right, every thing being
+examined, to consider that battle almost as an event of civil war? ought
+he not, in short, to have pointed out, in order to corroborate his
+remarks, that the knight to whom King John surrendered himself, Denys de
+Morbecque, was a French officer banished from Artois?
+
+Self-reliance on the field of battle is the first requisite for
+obtaining success; now, would not our self-reliance be shaken, if the
+men most likely to know the facts, and to appreciate them wisely,
+appeared to think that the Frank race were nationally inferior to other
+races who had peopled this or that region, either neighbouring or
+distant? This, let it be well remarked, is not a puerile susceptibility.
+Great events may, on a given day, depend on the opinion that the nation
+has formed of itself. Our neighbours on the other side of the Channel,
+afford examples on this subject that it would be well to imitate.
+
+In 1767, the Academy of Berlin proposed a prize for an éloge of
+Leibnitz. The public was somewhat surprised at it. It was generally
+supposed that Leibnitz had been admirably praised by Fontenelle, and
+that the subject was exhausted. But from the moment that Bailly's essay,
+crowned in Prussia, was published, former impressions were quite
+changed. Every one was anxiously asserting that Bailly's appreciation of
+his subject might be read with pleasure and benefit, even after
+Fontenelle's. The éloge composed by the historian of Astronomy will not,
+certainly, make us forget that written by the first Secretary of the
+Academy of Sciences. The style is, perhaps, too stiff; perhaps it is
+also rather declamatory; but the biography, and the analysis of his
+works, are more complete, especially if we consider the notes; the
+_universal_ Leibnitz is exhibited under more varied points of view.
+
+In 1768, Bailly obtained the award of the prize of eloquence proposed
+by the Academy of Rouen. The subject was the éloge of Peter Corneille.
+In reading this work of our fellow-academician, we may be somewhat
+surprised at the immense distance that the modest, the timid, the
+sensitive Bailly puts between the great Corneille, his special
+favourite, and Racine.
+
+When the French Academy, in 1768, proposed an éloge of Molière for
+competition, our candidate was vanquished only by Chamfort. And yet, if
+people had not since that time treated of the author of "Tartufe" to
+satiety, perhaps I would venture to maintain, notwithstanding some
+inferiority of style, that Bailly's discourse offered a neater, truer,
+and more philosophic appreciation of the principal pieces of that
+immortal poet.
+
+
+
+
+DEBATES RELATIVE TO THE POST OF PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF THE ACADEMY OF
+SCIENCES.
+
+We have seen D'Alembert, ever since the year 1763, encouraging Bailly to
+exercise himself in a style of literary composition then much liked, the
+style of éloge, and holding out to him in prospect the situation of
+Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. Six years after, the
+illustrious geometer gave the same advice, and perhaps held out the same
+hopes, to the young Marquis de Condorcet. This candidate, docile to the
+voice of his protector, rapidly composed and published the éloges of the
+early founders of the Academy, of Huyghens, of Mariotte, of Roëmer, &c.
+
+At the beginning of 1773, the Perpetual Secretary, Grandjean de Fouchy,
+requested that Condorcet should be nominated his successor, provided he
+survived him. D'Alembert strongly supported this candidateship. Buffon
+supported Bailly with equal energy; the Academy presented for some
+weeks the aspect of two hostile camps. There was at last a strongly
+disputed electoral battle; the result was the nomination of Condorcet.
+
+I should regret if we had to judge of the sentiments of Bailly, after
+this defeat, by those of his adherents. Their anger found vent in terms
+of unpardonable asperity. They said that D'Alembert had "basely betrayed
+friendship, honour, and the first principles of probity."
+
+They here alluded to a promise of protection, support, coöperation,
+dating ten years back. But was his promise absolute? Engaging himself
+personally to Bailly for a situation that might not become vacant for
+ten or fifteen years, had D'Alembert, contrary to his duty as an
+academician, declared beforehand, that any other candidate, whatever
+might be his talents, would be to him as not existing?
+
+This is what ought to have been ascertained, before giving themselves up
+to such violent and odious imputations.
+
+Was it not quite natural that the geometer D'Alembert, having to
+pronounce his opinion between two honourable learned men, gave the
+preference to the candidate who seemed to him most imbued with the
+higher mathematics? The éloges of Condorcet were, besides, by their
+style, much more in harmony with those that the Academy had approved
+during three quarters of a century. Before the declaration of the
+vacancy on the 27th of February, 1773, D'Alembert said to Voltaire,
+relative to the recueil by Condorcet, "Some one asked me the other day
+what I thought of that work. I answered by writing on the frontispiece,
+'Justice, propriety, learning, clearness, precision, taste, elegance,
+and nobleness.'" And Voltaire wrote, on the 1st of March, "I have read,
+while dying, the little book by M. de Condorcet; it is as good in its
+departments as the éloges by Fontenelle. There is a more noble and more
+modest philosophy in it, though bold."
+
+And excitement in words and action could not be legitimately reproached
+in a man who had felt himself supported by a conviction of such distinct
+and powerful influence.
+
+Among the éloges by Bailly, there is one, that of the Abbé de Lacaille,
+which not having been written for a literary academy, shows no longer
+any trace of inflation or declamation, and might, it seems to me,
+compete with some of the best éloges by Condorcet. Yet, it is curious,
+that this excellent biography contributed, perhaps as much as
+D'Alembert's opposition, to make Bailly's claims fail. Vainly did the
+celebrated astronomer flatter himself in his exordium, "that M. de
+Fouchy, who, as Secretary of the Academy, had already paid his tribute
+to Lacaille, would not be displeased at his having followed him in the
+same career ... that he would not be blamed for repeating the praises
+due to an illustrious man."
+
+Bailly, in fact, was not blamed aloud; but when the hour for retreat had
+sounded in M. de Fouchy's ear, without any fuss, without showing himself
+offended in his self-love, remaining apparently modest, this learned
+man, in asking for an assistant, selected one who had not undertaken to
+repeat his éloges; who had not found his biographies insufficient. This
+preference ought not to be, and was not, uninfluential in the result of
+the competition.
+
+Bailly, if Perpetual Secretary of the Academy, would have been obliged
+to reside constantly at Paris. But Bailly, as member of the Astronomical
+Section, might retire to the country, and thus escape those thieves of
+time, as Byron called them, who especially abound in the metropolis.
+Bailly settled at Chaillot. It was at Chaillot that our
+fellow-academician composed his best works, those that will sail down
+the stream of time.
+
+Nature had endowed Bailly with the most happy memory. He did not write
+his discourses till he had completed them in his head. His first copy
+was always a clean copy. Every morning Bailly started early from his
+humble residence at Chaillot; he went to the Bois de Boulogne, and
+there, walking for many hours at a time, his powerful mind elaborated,
+coördinated, and robed in all the pomps of language, those high
+conceptions destined to charm successive generations. Biographers inform
+us that Crébillon composed in a similar way. And this was, according to
+several critics, the cause of the incorrectness, of the asperity of
+style, which disfigure several pieces by that tragic poet. The works of
+Bailly, and especially the discourses that complete the _History of
+Astronomy_, invalidate this explanation. I could also appeal to the
+elegant and pure productions of that poet whom France has just lost and
+weeps for. No one indeed can be ignorant of his works; Casimir
+Delavigne, like Bailly, never committed his verses to paper until he had
+worked them up in his mind to that harmonious perfection which procured
+for them the unanimous suffrages of all people of taste. Gentlemen,
+pardon this reminiscence. The heart loves to connect such names as those
+of Bailly and of Delavigne; those rare and glorious symbols, in whom we
+find united talent, virtue, and an invariable patriotism.
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY.--LETTERS ON THE ATLANTIS OF PLATO AND ON THE
+ANCIENT HISTORY OF ASIA.
+
+In 1775, Bailly published a quarto volume, entitled _History of Ancient
+Astronomy, from its Origin up to the Establishment of the Alexandrian
+School_. An analogous work for the lapse of time, comprised between the
+Alexandrian School and 1730, appeared in 1779, in two volumes. An
+additional volume appeared three years later, entitled the _History of
+Modern Astronomy up to the Epoch of 1782_. The fifth part of this
+immense composition, the _History of Indian Astronomy_, was published in
+1787.
+
+When Bailly undertook this general history of Astronomy, the science
+possessed nothing of the sort. Erudition had seized upon some special
+questions, some detailed points, but no commanding view had presided
+over these investigations.
+
+Weidler's book, published in 1741, was a mere simple nomenclature of the
+astronomers of every age, and of every country; the dates of their birth
+and death; the titles of their works. The utility of this precise
+enumeration of dates and titles did not alter the character of the book.
+
+Bailly sketches the plan of his work with a masterly hand in a few
+lines; he says, "It is interesting to transport one's self back to the
+times when Astronomy began; to observe how discoveries were connected
+together, how errors have got mixed up with truth, have delayed the
+knowledge of it, and retarded its progress; and, after having followed
+the various epochs and traversed every climate, finally to contemplate
+the edifice founded on the labours of successive centuries and of
+various nations."
+
+This vast plan essentially led to the minute discussion and comparison
+of a multitude of passages both ancient and modern. If the author had
+mixed up these discussions with the body of the work, he would have
+laboured for astronomers only. If he had suppressed all discussions, the
+book would have interested amateurs only. To avoid this double rock,
+Bailly decided on writing a connected narrative with the quintessence of
+the facts, and to place the proofs and the discussions of the merely
+conjectural parts, under the appellation of explanations in separate
+chapters. Bailly's History, without forfeiting the character of a
+serious and erudite work, became accessible to the public in general,
+and contributed to disseminate accurate notions of Astronomy both among
+literary men and among general society.
+
+When Bailly declared, in the beginning of his book, that he would go
+back to the very commencement of Astronomy, the reader might expect some
+pages of pure imagination. I know not, however, whether any body would
+have expected a chapter of the first volume to be entitled, _Of
+Antediluvian Astronomy_.
+
+The principal conclusion to which Bailly comes, after an attentive
+examination of all the positive ideas that antiquity has bequeathed to
+us is, that we find rather the ruins than the elements of a science in
+the most ancient Astronomy of Chaldæa, of India, and of China.
+
+After treating of certain ideas of Pluche, Bailly says, "The country of
+possibilities is immense, and although truth is contained therein, it is
+not often easy to distinguish it."
+
+Words so reasonable would authorize me to inquire whether the
+calculations of our fellow-labourer, intended to establish the immense
+antiquity of the Indian Tables, are beyond all criticism. But the
+question has been sufficiently discussed in a passage of _The Exposition
+of the System of the World_, on which it would be useless to insist
+here. Whatever came from the pen of M. de Laplace was always marked by
+the stamp of reason and of evidence. In the first lines of his
+magnificent work, after having remarked that "the history of Astronomy
+forms an essential part of the history of the human mind," Bailly
+observes, "that it is perhaps the true measure of man's intelligence,
+and a proof of what he can do with time and genius." I shall allow
+myself to add, that no study offers to reflecting minds more striking or
+more curious relations.
+
+When by measurements, in which the evidence of the method advances
+equally with the precision of the results, the volume of the earth is
+reduced to the millionth part of the volume of the sun; when the sun
+himself, transported to the region of the stars, takes up a very modest
+place among the thousands of millions of those bodies that the telescope
+has revealed to us; when the 38,000,000 of leagues which separate the
+earth from the sun, have become, by reason of their comparative
+smallness, a base totally insufficient for ascertaining the dimensions
+of the visible universe; when even the swiftness of the luminous rays
+(77,000 leagues per second) barely suffices for the common valuations of
+science; when, in short, by a chain of irresistible proofs, certain
+stars have retired to distances that light could not traverse in less
+than a million of years; we feel as if annihilated by such immensities.
+In assigning to man, and to the planet that he inhabits, so small a
+position in the material world, Astronomy seems really to have made
+progress only to humble us.
+
+But if, on the other hand, we regard the subject from the opposite
+point of view, and reflect on the extreme feebleness of the natural
+means by the help of which so many great problems have been attacked and
+solved; if we consider that to obtain and measure the greater part of
+the quantities now forming the basis of astronomical computation, man
+has had greatly to improve the most delicate of his organs, to add
+immensely to the power of his eye; if we remark that it was not less
+requisite for him to discover methods adapted to measuring very long
+intervals of time, up to the precision of tenths of seconds; to combat
+against the most microscopic effects that constant variations of
+temperature produce in metals, and therefore in all instruments; to
+guard against the innumerable illusions that a cold or hot atmosphere,
+dry or humid, tranquil or agitated, impresses on the medium through
+which the observations have inevitably to be made; the feeble being
+resumes all his advantage; by the side of such wonderful labours of the
+mind, what signifies the weakness, the fragility of our body; what
+signify the dimensions of the planet, our residence, the grain of sand
+on which it has happened to us to appear for a few moments!
+
+The thousands of questions on which Astronomy has thrown its dazzling
+light belong to two entirely distinct categories; some offered
+themselves naturally to the mind, and man had only to seek the means for
+solving them; others, according to the beautiful expression of Pliny,
+were enveloped in the majesty of nature! When Bailly lays down in his
+book these two kinds of problems, it is with the firmness, the depth, of
+a consummate astronomer; and when he shows their importance, their
+immensity, it is always with the talent of a writer of the highest
+order; it is sometimes with a bewitching eloquence. If in the beautiful
+work we are alluding to, Astronomy unavoidably assigns to man an
+imperceptible place in the material world, she assigns him, on the other
+hand, a vast share in the intellectual world. The writings which,
+supported by the invincible deductions of science, thus elevate man in
+his own eyes, will find grateful readers in all climes and times.
+
+In 1775, Bailly sent the first volume of his history to Voltaire. In
+thanking him for his present, the illustrious old man addressed to the
+author one of those letters that he alone could write, in which
+flattering and enlivening sentences were combined without effort with
+high reasoning powers. "I have many thanks to return you, (said the
+Patriarch of Ferney,) for having on the same day received a large book
+on medicine and yours, while I was still ill; I have not opened the
+first, I have already read the second almost entirely, and feel better."
+
+Voltaire, indeed, had read Bailly's work pen in hand, and he proposed to
+the illustrious astronomer some queries, which proved both his infinite
+perspicacity, and wonderful variety of knowledge. Bailly then felt the
+necessity of developing some ideas which in his _History of Ancient
+Astronomy_ were only accessories to his principal subject. This was the
+object of the volume that he published in 1776, under the title of
+_Letters on the Origin of the Sciences and of the People of Asia,
+addressed to M. de Voltaire_. The author modestly announced that "to
+lead the reader by the interest of the style to the interest of the
+question discussed," he would place at the head of his work three
+letters from the author of _Merope_, and he protested against the idea
+that he had been induced to play with paradoxes.
+
+According to Bailly, the present nations of Asia are heirs of an
+anterior people, who understood Astronomy perfectly. Those Chinese,
+those Hindoos, so renowned for their learning, would thus have been mere
+depositaries; we should have to deprive them of the title of inventors.
+Certain astronomical facts, found in the annals of those southern
+nations, appear to have belonged to a higher latitude. By these means we
+discover the true site on the globe of the primitive people, proving
+against the received opinion that learning came southward from the
+north.
+
+Bailly also found that the ancient fables, considered physically,
+appeared to belong to the northern regions of the earth.
+
+In 1779, Bailly published a second collection, forming a sequel to the
+former, and entitled _Letters on the Atlantis of Plato, and on the
+Ancient History of Asia_.
+
+Voltaire died before these new letters could be communicated to him.
+Bailly did not think that this circumstance ought to make him change the
+form of the discussion already employed in the former series; it is
+still Voltaire whom he addresses.
+
+The philosopher of Ferney thought it strange that there should be no
+knowledge of this ancient people, who, according to Bailly, had
+instructed the Indians. To answer this difficulty, the celebrated
+astronomer undertakes to prove that some nations have disappeared,
+without their existence being known to us by any thing beyond tradition.
+He cites five of these, and in the first rank the Atlantidæ.
+
+Aristotle said that he thought Atlantis was a fiction of Plato's: "He
+who created it also destroyed it, like the walls that Homer built on the
+shores of Troy, and then made them disappear." Bailly does not join in
+this skepticism. According to him, Plato spoke seriously to the
+Athenians of a learned, polished people, but destroyed and forgotten.
+Only, he totally repudiates the idea of the Canaries being the remains
+of the ancient country of the Atlantidæ, and now engulfed. Bailly rather
+places that nation at Spitzbergen, Greenland, or Nova Zembla, whose
+climate may have changed. We should also have to seek for the Garden of
+the Hesperides near the Pole; in short, the fable of the Phoenix may
+have arisen in the Gulf of the Obi, in a region where we must suppose
+the sun to have been annually absent during sixty-five days.
+
+It is evident, in many passages, that Bailly is himself surprised at the
+singularity of his own conclusions, and fears that his readers may
+rather regard them as jokes. He therefore exclaims, "My pen would not
+find expressions for thoughts which I did not believe to be true." Let
+us add that no effort is painful to him. Bailly calls successively to
+his aid astronomy, history, supported by vast erudition, philology, the
+systems of Mairan, of Buffon, relatively to the heat appertaining to the
+earth. He does not forget, using his own words, "that in the human
+species, still more sensitive than curious, more anxious for pleasure
+than for instruction, nothing pleases generally, or for a long time,
+unless the style is agreeable; that dry truth is killed by ennui!" Yet
+Bailly makes few proselytes; and a species of instinct determines men of
+science to despise the fruits of so persevering a labour; and D'Alembert
+goes so far as to tax them with poverty, even with hollow ideas, with
+vain and ridiculous efforts; he goes so far as to call Bailly,
+relatively to his letters, the _illuminated brother_. Voltaire is, on
+the contrary, very polite and very academical in his communications with
+our author. The renown of the Brahmins is dear to him; yet this does
+not prevent his discussing closely the proofs, the arguments of the
+ingenious astronomer. We could also now enter into a serious discussion.
+The mysterious veil that in Bailly's time covered the East, is in great
+part raised. We now know the Astronomy of the Chinese and the Hindoos in
+all its detail. We know up to what point the latter had carried their
+mathematical knowledge. The theory of central heat has in a few years
+made an unhoped-for progress; in short, comparative philology,
+prodigiously extended by the invaluable labours of Sacy, Rémusat,
+Quatremère, Burnouf, and Stanislaus Julien, have thrown strong lights on
+some historical and geographical questions, where there reigned before a
+profound darkness. Armed with all these new means of investigation, it
+might easily be established that the systems relative to an ancient
+unknown people, first creator of all the sciences, and relative to the
+Atlantidæ, rest on foundations devoid of solidity. Yet, if Bailly still
+lived, we should be only just in saying to him, as Voltaire did, merely
+changing the tense of a verb, "Your two books _were_, Sir, treasures of
+the most profound erudition and the most ingenious conjectures, adorned
+with an eloquence of style, which is always suitable to the subject."
+
+
+
+
+FIRST INTERVIEW OF BAILLY WITH FRANKLIN.--HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE FRENCH
+ACADEMY IN 1783.--HIS RECEPTION.--DISCOURSE.--HIS RUPTURE WITH BUFFON.
+
+Bailly became the particular and intimate friend of Franklin at the end
+of 1777. The personal acquaintance of these two distinguished men began
+in the strangest manner.
+
+One of the most illustrious members of the Institute, Volney, on
+returning from the New World, said: "The Anglo-Americans tax the French
+with lightness, with indiscretion, with chattering." (Volney, preface to
+_The Table of the Climate of the United States_.) Such is the
+impression, in my opinion very erroneous, at least by comparison, under
+which the Ambassador Franklin arrived in France. All the world knows
+that he halted at Chaillot. As an inhabitant of the Commune, Bailly
+thought it his duty to visit without delay the illustrious guest thus
+received. He was announced, and Franklin, knowing him by reputation,
+welcomed him very cordially, and exchanged with his visitor the eight or
+ten words usual on such occasions. Bailly seated himself by the American
+philosopher, and discreetly awaited some question to be put to him. Half
+an hour passed, and Franklin had not opened his mouth. Bailly drew out
+his snuff-box, and presented it to his neighbour without a word; the
+traveller signed with his hand that he did not take snuff. The dumb
+interview was then prolonged during a whole hour. Bailly finally rose.
+Then Franklin, as if delighted to have found a Frenchman who could
+remain silent, extended his hand to him, pressed his visitor's
+affectionately, exclaiming: "Very well, Monsr. Bailly, very well!"
+
+After having recounted the anecdote as our academician used amusingly to
+relate it, I really fear being asked how I look upon it. Well,
+Gentlemen, whenever this question may be put to me, I shall answer that
+Bailly and Franklin discussing together some scientific question from
+the moment of their meeting, would have appeared to me much more worthy
+of each other, than the two actors of the scene at Chaillot. I will,
+moreover, grant that we may draw the following inference,--that even men
+of genius are liable to cross humours; but I must at the same time add
+that the example is not dangerous, dumbness not being an efficacious
+method of making one's self valued, or of distinguishing ourselves to
+advantage.
+
+Bailly was nominated member of the French Academy in the place of M. de
+Tressan, in November, 1783. The same day, M. de Choiseul Gouffier
+succeeded to D'Alembert. Thanks to the coincidence of the two
+nominations, Bailly escaped the sarcasms which the expectant
+academicians never fail to pour out, with or without reason, against
+those who have obtained a double crown. This time they vented their
+spleen exclusively on the great man, thus enabling the astronomer to
+take possession of his new dignity without raising the usual storm. Let
+us carefully collect, Gentlemen, from the early years of our
+academician's life, all that may appear an anticipated compensation for
+the cruel trials that we shall have to relate in the sequel.
+
+The admission of the eloquent author of the _History of Astronomy_ into
+the Academy, was more difficult than could be supposed by those who have
+remarked to what slight works certain early and recent writers have owed
+the same favour. Bailly failed three times. Fontenelle had before him
+unsuccessfully presented himself once oftener; but Fontenelle underwent
+these successive checks without ill-humour, and without being
+discouraged. Bailly, on the contrary, with or without reason, seeing in
+these unfavourable results of the elections the immediate effect of
+D'Alembert's enmity, showed himself much more hurt at it, perhaps, than
+was suitable for a philosopher. In these somewhat envenomed contests,
+Buffon always gave Bailly a cordial and able support.
+
+Bailly pronounced his reception-discourse in February, 1784. The merits
+of M. de Tressan were therein celebrated with grace and delicacy. The
+panegyrist identified himself with his subject. A select public loaded
+with praises various passages wherein just and profound ideas were
+clothed in all the richness of a forcible and harmonious style.
+
+Did any one ever speak with more eloquence of the scientific power
+revealed by a contemporary discovery! Listen, Gentlemen, and judge.
+
+"That which the sciences can add to the privileges of the human race has
+never been more marked than at the present moment. They have acquired
+new domains for man. The air seems to become as accessible to him as the
+waters, and the boldness of his enterprises equals almost the boldness
+of his thoughts. The name of Montgolfier, the names of those hardy
+navigators of the new element, will live through time; but who among us,
+on seeing these superb experiments, has not felt his soul elevated, his
+ideas expanded, his mind enlarged?"
+
+I know not whether, all things considered, the satisfaction of self-love
+which may be attached to academical titles, to his success in public and
+important meetings, ever completely rewarded Bailly for the heartaches
+he experienced in his literary career.
+
+A kind and tender intimacy had grown up between the great naturalist
+Buffon and the celebrated astronomer. An academical nomination broke it
+up. You know it, Gentlemen; amongst us a nomination is the apple of
+discord; notwithstanding the most opposite views, every one then thinks
+that he is acting for the true interest of science or of letters; every
+one thinks that he is proceeding in the line of strict justice; every
+one endeavours earnestly to make proselytes. So far all is legitimate.
+But what is much less so, is forgetting that a vote is a decision, and
+that in this sense the academician, like the magistrate, may say to the
+suitor, whether an academician or not, "I give decrees, and not
+services."
+
+Unfortunately, considerations of this sort, notwithstanding their
+justice, would make but little impression on the haughty and positive
+mind of Buffon. That great naturalist wished to have the Abbé Maury
+nominated; his associate Bailly thought he ought to vote for Sedaine.
+Let us place ourselves in the ordinary course of things, and it will
+appear difficult to see in this discordancy a sufficient cause for a
+rupture between two superior men. _The Unforeseen Wager_ and _The
+Unconscious Philosopher_, considerably balanced the, then very light,
+weight of Maury. The comic poet had already reached his sixty-sixth
+year; the Abbé was young. The high character, the irreproachable conduct
+of Sedaine, might, without disparagement, be put in comparison with what
+the public knew of the character of the official and the private life of
+the future cardinal. Whence then had the illustrious naturalist derived
+such a great affection for Maury, such violent antipathies against
+Sedaine? It may be surmised that they arose from aristocratic prejudices
+of rank. Nor is it impossible but that M. le Comte de Buffon
+instinctively foresaw, with some repugnance, his approaching
+confraternity with a man formerly a lapidary; but was not Maury the son
+of a shoemaker? This very small incident of our literary history seemed
+doomed to remain in obscurity; chance has, I believe, given me the key
+to it.
+
+You remember, Gentlemen, that aphorism continually quoted by Buffon, and
+of which he seemed very proud,--
+
+     "Style makes the man."
+
+I have discovered that Sedaine made a counterpart of it. The author of
+_Richard Coeur de Lion_ and of _The Deserter_ said,--
+
+     "Style is nothing, or next to it!"
+
+Place this heresy, in imagination, under the eyes of the immortal
+writer, whose days and nights were passed in polishing his style, and if
+you then ask me why he detested Sedaine, I shall have a right to answer:
+You do not know the human heart.
+
+Bailly firmly resisted the imperious solicitations of his former patron,
+and refused even to absent himself from the Academy on the day of the
+nomination. He did not hesitate to sacrifice the attractions and
+advantages of an illustrious friendship to the performance of a duty; he
+answered to him who wanted to be master, "I will be free." Honour be to
+him!
+
+The example of Bailly warns timid men never to listen to mere
+entreaties, whatever may be their source; not to yield but to good
+arguments. Those who have thought so little of their own tranquillity as
+to do any more in academical elections than to give a silent and secret
+vote, will see on their part, in the noble and painful resistance of an
+honest man, how culpable they become in trying to substitute authority
+for persuasion, in wishing to subject conscience to gratitude.
+
+On the occurrence of a similar discord, the astronomer Lemonnier, of the
+Academy of Sciences, said one day to Lalande, his fellow-academician and
+former pupil, "I enjoin you not to put your foot again within my door
+during the semi-revolution of the lunar orbital nodes." Calculation
+shows this to be nine years. Lalande submitted to the punishment with a
+truly astronomical punctuality; but the public, despite the scientific
+form of the sentence, thought it excessively severe. What then will be
+said of that which was pronounced by Buffon?--"We will never see each
+other more, Sir!" These words will appear at once both harsh and solemn,
+for they were occasioned by a difference of opinion on the comparative
+merits of Sedaine and the Abbé Maury. Our friend resigned himself to
+this separation, nor ever allowed his just resentment to be perceived. I
+may even remark, that after this brutal disruption he showed himself
+more attentive than ever to seize opportunities of paying a legitimate
+homage to the talents and eloquence of the French Pliny.
+
+
+
+
+REPORT ON ANIMAL MAGNETISM.
+
+We are now going to see the astronomer, the savant, the man of letters,
+struggling against passions of every kind, excited by the famous
+question of animal magnetism.
+
+At the beginning of the year 1778, a German doctor established himself
+at Paris. This physician could not fail of succeeding in what was then
+styled high society. He was a stranger. His government had expelled him;
+acts of the greatest effrontery and unexampled charlatanism were imputed
+to him.
+
+His success, however, exceeded all expectations. The Gluckists and the
+Piccinists themselves forgot their differences, to occupy themselves
+exclusively with the new comer.
+
+Mesmer, since we must call him by his name, pretended to have discovered
+an agent till then totally unknown both in the arts and in physics; an
+universally distributed fluid, and serving thus as a means of
+communication and of influence among the celestial globes;--a fluid
+capable of flux and reflux, which introduced itself more or less
+abundantly into the substance of the nerves, and acted on them in a
+useful manner,--thence the name of animal magnetism given to this fluid.
+
+Mesmer said: "Animal magnetism may be accumulated, concentrated,
+transported, without the aid of any intermediate body. It is reflected
+like light; musical sounds propagate and augment it."
+
+Properties so distinct, so precise, seemed as if they must be capable of
+experimental verification. It was requisite, then, to be prepared for
+some instance of want of success, and Mesmer took good care not to
+neglect it. The following was his declaration: "Although the fluid be
+universal, all animated bodies do not equally assimilate it into
+themselves; there are some even, though very few in number, that by
+their very presence destroy the effects of this fluid in the surrounding
+bodies."
+
+So soon as this was admitted, as soon it was allowed to explain
+instances of non-success by the presence of neutralizing bodies, Mesmer
+no longer ran any risk of being embarrassed. Nothing prevented his
+announcing, in full security, "that animal magnetism could immediately
+cure diseases of the nerves, and mediately other diseases; that it
+afforded to doctors the means of judging with certainty of the origin,
+the nature, and the progress of the most complicated maladies; that
+nature, in short, offered in magnetism a universal means of curing and
+preserving mankind."
+
+Before quitting Vienna, Mesmer had communicated his systematic notions
+to the principal learned societies of Europe. The Academy of Sciences at
+Paris, and the Royal Society of London, did not think proper to answer.
+The Academy of Berlin examined the work, and wrote to Mesmer that he was
+in error.
+
+Some time after his arrival in Paris, Mesmer tried again to get into
+communication with the Academy of Sciences. This society even acceded to
+a rendezvous. But, instead of the empty words that were offered them,
+the academicians required experiments. Mesmer stated--I quote his
+words--that _it was child's play_; and the conference had no other
+result.
+
+The Royal Society of Medicine, being called upon to judge of the
+pretended cures performed by the Austrian doctor, thought that their
+agents could not give a well-founded opinion "without having first duly
+examined the patients to ascertain their state." Mesmer rejected this
+natural and reasonable proposal. He wished that the agents should be
+content with the word of honour and attestations of the patients. In
+this respect, also, the severe letters of the worthy Vicq-d'Azyr put an
+end to communications which must have ended unsatisfactorily.
+
+The faculty of medicine showed, we think, less wisdom. It refused to
+examine any thing; it even proceeded in legal form against one of its
+regent doctors who had associated himself, they said, with the
+charlatanism of Mesmer.
+
+These barren debates evidently proved that Mesmer himself was not
+thoroughly sure of his theory, nor of the efficacy of the means of cure
+that he employed. Still the public showed itself blind. The infatuation
+became extreme. French society appeared at one moment divided into
+magnetizers and magnetized. From one end of the kingdom to the other
+agents of Mesmer were seen, who, with receipt in hand, put the weak in
+intellect under contribution.
+
+The magnetizers had had the address to intimate that the mesmeric crises
+manifested themselves only in persons endowed with a certain
+sensitiveness. From that moment, in order not to be ranged among the
+insensible, both men and women, when near the _rod_, assumed the
+appearance of epileptics.
+
+Was not Father Hervier really in one of those paroxysms of the disease
+when he wrote, "If Mesmer had lived contemporary with Descartes and
+Newton, he would have saved them much labour: those great men suspected
+the existence of the universal fluid; Mesmer has discovered the laws of
+its action"?
+
+Count de Gébelin showed himself stranger still. The new doctrine would
+naturally seduce him by its connection with some of the mysterious
+practices of ancient times; but the author of _The Primitive World_ did
+not content himself with writing in favour of Mesmerism with the
+enthusiasm of an apostle. Frightful pain, violent griefs, rendered life
+insupportable to him; Gébelin saw death approaching with satisfaction,
+so from that moment he begged earnestly that he might not be carried to
+Mesmer's, where assuredly "he could not die." We must just mention,
+however, that his request was not attended to; he was carried to
+Mesmer's, and died while he was being magnetized.
+
+Painting, sculpture, and engraving were constantly repeating the
+features of this Thaumaturgus. Poets wrote verses to be inscribed on the
+pedestals of the busts, or below the portraits. Those by Palisot deserve
+to be quoted, as one of the most curious examples of poetic licences:--
+
+     "Behold that man--the glory of his age!
+     Whose art can all Pandora's ills assuage.
+     In skill and tact no rival pow'r is known--
+     E'en Greece, in him, would Esculapius own."[7]
+
+Enthusiasm having thus gone to the last limits in verse, enthusiasm had
+but one way left to become remarkable in prose: that is, violence. Is it
+not thus that we must characterize the words of Bergasse?--"The
+adversaries of animal magnetism are men who must one day be doomed to
+the execration of all time, and to the punishment of the avenging
+contempt of posterity."
+
+It is rare for violent words not to be followed by violent acts. Here
+every thing proceeded according to the natural course of human events.
+We know, indeed, that some furious admirers of Mesmer attempted to
+suffocate Berthollet in the corner of one of the rooms of the Palais
+Royal, for having honestly said that the scenes he had witnessed did not
+appear to him demonstrative. We have this anecdote from Berthollet
+himself.
+
+The pretensions of the German doctor increased with the number of his
+adherents. To induce him to permit only three learned men to attend his
+meetings, M. de Maurepas offered him, in the name of the king, 20,000
+francs a year for life, and 10,000 annually for house-rent. Yet Mesmer
+did not accept this offer, but demanded, as a national recompense, one
+of the most beautiful châteaux in the environs of Paris, together with
+all its territorial dependencies.
+
+Irritated at finding his claims repulsed, Mesmer quitted France,
+angrily vowing her to the deluge of maladies from which it would have
+been in his power to save her. In a letter written to Marie Antoinette,
+the Thaumaturgus declared that he had refused the government offers
+through austerity.
+
+Through austerity!!! Are we then to believe that, as it was then
+pretended, Mesmer was entirely ignorant of the French language; that in
+this respect his meditations had been exclusively centered on the
+celebrated verse--
+
+     "Fools are here below for our amusement?"[8]
+
+However this may be, the austerity of Mesmer did not prevent his being
+most violently angry when he learnt at Spa that Deslon continued the
+magnetical treatments at Paris. He returned in all haste. His partisans
+received him with enthusiasm, and set on foot a subscription of 100
+louis per head, which produced immediately near 400,000 francs,
+(16,000_l._) We now feel some surprise to see, among the names of the
+subscribers, those of Messrs. de Lafayette, de Ségur, d'Eprémesnil.
+
+Mesmer quitted France a second time about the end of 1781, in quest of a
+more enlightened government, who could appreciate superior minds. He
+left behind him a great number of tenacious and ardent adepts, whose
+importunate conduct at last determined the government to submit the
+pretended magnetic discoveries to be examined by four Doctors of the
+Faculty of Paris. These distinguished physicians solicited to have added
+to them some members of the Academy of Sciences. M. de Breteuil then
+recommended Messrs. Le Roy, Bory, Lavoisier, Franklin, and Bailly, to
+form part of the mixed commission. Bailly was finally named reporter.
+
+The work of our brother-academician appeared in August, 1784. Never was
+a complex question reduced to its characteristic traits with more
+penetration and tact; never did more moderation preside at an
+examination, though personal passions seemed to render it impossible;
+never was a scientific subject treated in a more dignified and lucid
+style.
+
+Nothing equals the credulity of men in whatever touches their health.
+This aphorism is an eternal truth. It explains how a portion of the
+public has returned to mesmeric practices; how I shall still perform an
+interesting task by giving a detailed analysis of the magnificent
+labours published by our fellow-academician sixty years ago. This
+analysis will show, besides, how daring those men were, who recently, in
+the bosom of another academy, constituted themselves passionate
+defenders of some old women's tales, which one would have supposed had
+been permanently buried in oblivion.
+
+The commissioners go in the first place to the treatment by M. Deslon,
+examine the famous rod, describe it carefully, relate the means adopted
+to excite and direct magnetism. Bailly then draws out a varied and truly
+extraordinary table of the state of the sick people. His attention is
+principally attracted by the convulsions that they designated by the
+name of _crisis_. He remarked that in the number of persons in the
+crisis state, there were always a great many women, and very few men; he
+does not imagine any deceit, however; holds the phenomena as
+established, and passes on to search out their causes.
+
+According to Mesmer and his partisans, the cause of the crisis and of
+the less characteristic effects, resided in a particular fluid. It was
+to search out proofs of the existence of this fluid, that the
+commissioners had first to devote their efforts. Indeed, Bailly said,
+"Animal magnetism may exist without being useful, but it cannot be
+useful if it does not exist."
+
+The animal magnetic fluid is not luminous and visible, like electricity;
+it does not produce marked and manifest effects on inert matter, as the
+fluid of the ordinary magnet does; finally, it has no taste. Some
+magnetizers asserted that it had a smell; but repeated experiments
+proved that they were in error. The existence, then, of the pretended
+fluid, could be established only by its effects on animated beings.
+
+Curative effects would have thrown the commission into an inextricable
+dædalus, because nature alone, without any treatment, cures many
+maladies. In this system of observations, they could not have hoped to
+learn the exact part performed by magnetism, until after a great number
+of cures, and after trials oftentimes repeated.
+
+The commissioners, therefore, had to limit themselves to instantaneous
+effects of the fluid on the animal organism.
+
+They then submitted themselves to the experiments, but using an
+important precaution. "There is no individual," says Bailly, "in the
+best state of health, who, if he closely attended to himself, would not
+feel within him an infinity of movements and variations, either of
+exceedingly slight pain, or of heat, in the various parts of his
+body.... These variations, which are continually taking place, are
+independent of magnetism.... The first care required of the
+commissioners was, not to be too attentive to what was passing within
+them. If magnetism is a real and powerful cause, we have no need to
+think about it to make it act and manifest itself; it must, so to say,
+force the attention, and make itself perceived by even a purposely
+distracted mind."
+
+The commissioners, magnetized by Deslon, felt no effect. After the
+healthy people, some ailing ones followed, taken of all ages, and from
+various classes of society. Among these sick people, who amounted to
+fourteen, five felt some effects. On the remaining nine, magnetism had
+no effect whatever.
+
+Notwithstanding the pompous announcements, magnetism already could no
+longer be considered as a certain indicator of diseases.
+
+Here the reporter made a capital remark: magnetism appeared to have no
+effect on incredulous persons who had submitted to the trials, nor on
+children. Was it not allowable to think, that the effects obtained in
+the others proceeded from a previous persuasion as to the efficacy of
+the means, and that they might be attributed to the influence of
+imagination? Thence arose another system of experiments. It was
+desirable to confirm or to destroy this suspicion; "it became therefore
+requisite to ascertain to what degree imagination influences our
+sensations, and to establish whether it could have been in part or
+entirely the cause of the effects attributed to magnetism."
+
+There could be nothing neater or more demonstrative than this portion of
+the work of the commissioners. They go first to Dr. Jumelin, who, let it
+be observed, obtains the same effects, the same crises as Deslon and
+Mesmer, by magnetizing according to an entirely different method, and
+not restricting himself to any distinction of poles; they select persons
+who seem to feel the magnetic action most forcibly, and put their
+imagination at fault by now and then bandaging their eyes.
+
+What happens then?
+
+When the patients see, the seat of the sensations is exactly the part
+that is magnetized; when their eyes are bandaged, they locate these same
+sensations by chance, sometimes in parts very far away from those to
+which the magnetizer is directing his attention. The patient, whose eyes
+are covered, often feels marked effects at a time when they are not
+magnetizing him, and remains, on the contrary, quite passive while they
+are magnetizing him, without his being aware of it.
+
+Persons of all classes offer similar anomalies. An instructed physician,
+subjected to these experiments, "feels effects whilst nothing is being
+done, and often does not feel effects while he is being acted upon. On
+one occasion, thinking that they had been magnetizing him for ten
+minutes, this same doctor fancied that he felt a heat in his lumbi,
+which he compared to that of a stove."
+
+Sensations thus felt, when no magnetizing was exerted, must evidently
+have been the effect of imagination.
+
+The commissioners were too strict logicians to confine themselves with
+these experiments. They had established that imagination, in some
+individuals, can occasion pain, and heat--even a considerable degree of
+heat--in all parts of the body; but practical female Mesmerizers did
+more; they agitated certain people to that pitch, that they fell into
+convulsions. Could the effect of imagination go so far?
+
+Some new experiments entirely did away with these doubts.
+
+A young man was taken to Franklin's garden at Passy, and when it was
+announced to him that Deslon, who had taken him there, had magnetized a
+tree, this young man ran about the garden, and fell down in convulsions,
+but it was not under the magnetized tree: the crisis seized him while
+he was embracing another tree, very far from the former.
+
+Deslon selected, in the treatment of poor people, two women who had
+rendered themselves remarkable by their sensitiveness around the famous
+rod, and took them to Passy. These women fell into convulsions whenever
+they thought themselves mesmerized, although they were not. At
+Lavoisier's, the celebrated experiment of the cup gave analogous
+results. Some plain water engendered convulsions occasionally, when
+magnetized water did not.
+
+We must really renounce the use of our reason, not to perceive a proof
+in this collection of experiments, so well arranged that imagination
+alone can produce all the phenomena observed around the mesmeric rod,
+and that mesmeric proceedings, cleared from the delusions of
+imagination, are absolutely without effect. The commissioners, however,
+recommence the examination on these last grounds, multiply the trials,
+adopt all possible precautions, and give to their conclusions the
+evidence of mathematical demonstrations. They establish, finally and
+experimentally, that the action of the imagination can both occasion the
+crises to cease, and can engender their occurrence.
+
+Foreseeing that people with an inert or idle mind would be astonished at
+the important part assigned to the imagination by the commissioners'
+experiments in the production of mesmeric phenomena, Bailly instanced:
+sudden affection disturbing the digestive organs; grief giving the
+jaundice; the fear of fire restoring the use of their legs to paralytic
+patients; earnest attention stopping the hiccough; fright blanching
+people's hair in an instant, &c.
+
+The touching or stroking practised in mesmeric treatments, as
+auxiliaries of magnetism, properly so called, required no direct
+experiments, since the principal agent,--since magnetism itself, had
+disappeared. Bailly, therefore, confined himself, in this respect, to
+anatomical and physiological considerations, remarkable for their
+clearness and precision. We read, also, with a lively interest, in his
+report, some ingenious reflections on the effects of imitation in those
+assemblages of magnetized people. Bailly compares them to those of
+theatrical representations. He says: "Observe how much stronger the
+impressions are when there are a great many spectators, and especially
+in places where there is the liberty of applauding. This sign of
+particular emotions produces a general emotion, participated in by
+everybody according to their respective susceptibility. This is also
+observed in armies on the day of battle, when the enthusiasm of courage,
+as well as panic-terrors, propagate themselves with so much rapidity.
+The sound of the drum and of military music, the noise of the cannon, of
+the musquetry, the cries, the disorder, stagger the organs, impart the
+same movement to men's minds, and raise their imaginations to a similar
+degree. In this unity of intoxication, an impression once manifested
+becomes universal; it encourages men to charge, or determines men to
+fly." Some very curious examples of imitation close this portion of
+Bailly's report.
+
+The commissioners finally examined whether these convulsions, occasioned
+by the imagination or by magnetism, could be useful in curing or easing
+the suffering persons. The reporter said: "Undoubtedly, the imagination
+of sick people often influences the cure of their maladies very much....
+There are cases in which every thing must first be disordered, to
+enable us to restore order ... but the shock must be unique ... whereas
+in the public treatment by magnetism ... the habit of the crises cannot
+but be injurious."
+
+This thought related to the most delicate considerations. It was
+developed in a report addressed to the king personally. This report was
+to have remained secret, but it was published some years since. It
+should not be regretted; the magnetic treatment, regarded in a certain
+point of view, pleased sick people much; they are now aware of all its
+dangers.
+
+In conclusion, Bailly's report completely upsets an accredited error.
+This was an important service, nor was it the only one. In searching for
+the imaginary cause of animal magnetism, they ascertained the real power
+that man can exert over man, without the immediate and demonstrable
+intervention of any physical agent; they established that "the most
+simple actions and signs sometimes produce most powerful effects; that
+man's action on the imagination may be reduced to an art ... at least in
+regard to persons who have faith." This work finally showed how our
+faculties should be experimentally studied; in what way psychology may
+one day come to be placed among the exact sciences.
+
+I have always regretted that the commissioners did not judge it
+expedient to add a historical chapter to their excellent work. The
+immense erudition of Bailly would have given it an inestimable value. I
+figure to myself, also, that in seeing the Mesmeric practices that have
+now been in use during upwards of two thousand years, the public would
+have asked itself whether so long an interval of time had ever been
+required to push a good and useful thing forward into estimation. By
+circumscribing himself to this point of view, a few traits would have
+sufficed.
+
+Plutarch, for example, would have come to the aid of the reporter. He
+would have showed him Pyrrhus curing complaints of the spleen, by means
+of frictions made with the great toe of his right foot. Without giving
+one's self up to a wild spirit of interpretation, we might be permitted
+to see in that fact the germ of animal magnetism. I admit that one
+circumstance would have rather unsettled the savant: this was the white
+cock that the King of Macedon sacrificed to the gods before beginning
+these frictions.
+
+Vespasian, in his turn, might have figured among the predecessors of
+Mesmer, in consequence of the extraordinary cures that he effected in
+Egypt by the action of his foot. It is true that the pretended cure of
+an old blindness, only by the aid of a little of that emperor's saliva,
+would have thrown some doubt on the veracity of Suetonius.
+
+Homer and Achilles are not too far back but we might have invoked their
+names. Joachim Camerarius, indeed, asserted having seen, on a very
+ancient copy of the Iliad, some verses that the copyists sacrificed
+because they did not understand them, and in which the poet alluded, not
+to the heel of Achilles (its celebrity has been well established these
+three thousand years,) but to the medical properties possessed by the
+great toe of that same hero's right foot.
+
+What I regret most is, the chapter in which Bailly might have related
+how certain adepts of Mesmer's had the hardihood to magnetize the moon,
+so as, on a given day, to make all the astronomers devoted to observing
+that body fall into a syncope; a perturbation, by the way, that no
+geometer, from Newton to Laplace, had thought of.
+
+The work of Bailly gave rise to trouble, spite, and anger, among the
+Mesmerists. It was for many months the target for their combined
+attacks. All the provinces of France saw refutations of the celebrated
+report arise: sometimes under the form of calm discussions, decent and
+moderate; but generally with all the characteristics of violence, and
+the acrimony of a pamphlet.
+
+It would be labour thrown away now to go to the dusty shelves of some
+special library, to hunt up hundreds of pamphlets, even the titles of
+which are now completely forgotten. The impartial analysis of that
+ardent controversy does not call for such labour; I believe at least
+that I shall attain my aim, by concentrating my attention on two or
+three writings which, by the strength of the arguments, the merit of the
+style, or the reputation of their authors, have left some trace in men's
+minds.
+
+In the first rank of this category of works we must place the elegant
+pamphlet published by Servan, under the title of _Doubts of a
+Provincial, proposed to the Gentlemen Medical Commissioners commanded by
+the King to examine into Animal Magnetism_.
+
+The appearance of this little work of Servan's was saluted in the camp
+of the Mesmerists with cries of triumph and joy. Undecided minds fell
+back into doubt and perplexity. Grimm wrote in Nov. 1784: "No cause is
+desperate. That of magnetism seemed as if it must fall under the
+reiterated attacks of medicine, of philosophy, of experience and of good
+sense.... Well, M. Servan, formerly the Attorney-General at Grenoble,
+has been proving that with talent we may recover from any thing, even
+from ridicule."
+
+Servan's pamphlet seemed at the time the anchor of salvation for the
+Mesmerists. The adepts still borrow from it their principal arguments.
+Let us see, then, whether it has really shaken Bailly's report.
+
+From the very commencing lines, the celebrated Attorney-General puts the
+question in terms deficient in exactness. If we believe him, the
+commissioners were called to establish a parallel between magnetism and
+medicine; "they were to weigh on both sides the errors and the dangers;
+to indicate with wise discernment what it would be desirable to
+preserve, and what to retrench, in the two sciences." Thus, according to
+Servan, the sanative art altogether would have been questioned, and the
+impartiality of the physicians might appear suspicious. The clever
+magistrate took care not to forget, on such an occasion, the eternal
+maxim, no one can be both judge and client. Physicians, then, ought to
+have been excepted.
+
+There then follows a legitimate homage to the non-graduated
+academicians, members of the commission: "Before Franklin and Bailly,"
+says the author, "every knee must bend. The one has invented much, the
+other has discovered much; Franklin belongs to the two worlds, and all
+ages seem to belong to Bailly." But arming himself afterwards with more
+cleverness than uprightness, with these words of the reporter, "The
+commissioners, especially the doctors, made an infinity of experiments,"
+he insinuates under every form that the commissioners accepted of a very
+passive line of conduct. Thus, putting aside the most positive
+declarations, pretending even to forget the name, the titles of the
+reporter, Servan no longer sees before him but one class of adversaries,
+regent doctors of the Faculty of Paris, and then he gives full scope to
+his satirical vein. He holds it even as an honour that they do not
+regard him as impartial. "The doctors have killed me; what it has
+pleased them to leave me of life is not worth, in truth, my seeking a
+milder term.... For these twenty years I have always been worse through
+the remedies administered to me than through my maladies.... Even were
+animal magnetism a chimera, it should be tolerated; it would still be
+useful to mankind, by saving many individuals among them from the
+incontestable dangers of vulgar medicine.... I wish that medicine, so
+long accustomed to deceive itself, should still deceive itself now, and
+that the famous report be nothing but a great error...." Amidst these
+singular declarations, there are hundreds of epigrams still more
+remarkable by their ingenious and lively turn than by their novelty. If
+it were true, Gentlemen, that the medical corps had ever tried,
+knowingly, to impose on the vulgar, to hide the uncertainty of their
+knowledge, the weakness of their theories, the vagueness of their
+conceptions, under an obscure and pedantic jargon, the immortal and
+laughable sarcasms of Molière would not have been more than an act of
+strict justice. In all cases every thing has its day; now, towards the
+end of the eighteenth century, the most delicate, the most thorny points
+of doctrine were discussed with an entire good faith, with perfect
+lucidity, and in a style that placed many members of the faculty in the
+rank Of our best speakers. Servan, however, goes beyond the limits of a
+scientific discussion, when, without any sort of excuse, he accuses his
+adversaries of being anti-mesmerists through esprit de corps, and, what
+is worse, through cupidity.
+
+Servan is more in his element when he points out that the present best
+established medical theories occasioned at their birth prolonged
+debates; when he reminds us that several medicines have been alternately
+proscribed and recommended with vehemence: the author might even have
+more deeply undermined this side of his subject. Instead of some
+unmeaning jokes, why did he not show us, for example, in a neighbouring
+country, two celebrated physicians, Mead and Woodward, deciding, sword
+in hand, the quarrel that had arisen between them as to the purgative
+treatment of a patient? We should then have heard Woodward, pierced
+through and through, rolling on the ground, and drenched in blood, say
+to his adversary with an exhausted voice: "The blow was harsh, but yet I
+prefer it to your medicine!"
+
+It is not truth alone that has the privilege of rendering men
+passionate. Such was the legitimate result of these retrospective views.
+I now ask myself whether, by labouring to put the truth of this aphorism
+in full light, the passionate advocate of Mesmerism showed proof of
+ability!
+
+Gentlemen, let us put all these personal attacks aside, all these
+recriminations against science and its agents, who unfortunately had not
+succeeded in restoring the health of the morose magistrate. What remains
+then of his pamphlet? Two chapters, only two chapters, in which Bailly's
+report is treated seriously. The medical commissioners and the members
+of the Academy had not seen, in the real effects of Mesmerism anything
+more than was occasioned by imagination. The celebrated magistrate
+exclaims on this subject, "Any one hearing this proposition spoken of
+would suppose, before reading the report, that the commissioners had
+treated and cured, or considerably relieved by the force of imagination,
+large tumours, inveterate obstructions, gutta serenas, and strong
+paralyses." Servan admitted, in short, that magnetism had effected most
+wonderful cures. But there lay all the question. The cures being
+admitted, the rest followed as a matter of course.
+
+However incredible these cures might be, they must be admitted, they
+said, when numerous witnesses certified their truth. Was it owing to
+chance that attestations were wanting for the miracles at the Cemetery
+of St. Médard? Did not the counsellor to the parliament, Montgeron,
+state, in three large quarto volumes, the names of a great multitude of
+individuals who protested on their honour as illuminati, that the tomb
+of the Deacon, Páris, had restored sight to the blind, hearing to the
+deaf, strength to the paralytic; that in a twinkling it cured ailing
+people of gouty rheumatism, of dropsy, of epilepsy, of phthisis, of
+abscesses, of ulcers, &c.? Did these attestations, although many
+emanated from persons of distinction, from the Chevalier Folard, for
+example, prevent the convulsionists from becoming the laughingstock of
+Europe? Did they not see the Duchess of Maine herself laugh at their
+prowess in the following witty couplet?--
+
+     "A scavenger at the palace-gate
+       Who, his left heel being lame,
+     Obtained as a most special grace,
+       That his right should ail the same."[9]
+
+Was not government, urged to the utmost, at last obliged to interfere,
+when the multitude, carrying folly to the extremest bounds, was going to
+try to resuscitate the dead? In short, do we not remember the amusing
+distich, affixed at the time to the gate of the Cemetery of St.
+Médard?--
+
+     "By royal decree, we prohibit the gods
+     To work any miracles near to these sods."[10]
+
+Servan must have known better than any one that in regard to testimony,
+and in questions of complex facts, quality always carries the day over
+mere numbers; let us add, that quality does not result either from
+titles of nobility, or from riches, nor from the social position, nor
+even from a certain sort of celebrity. What we must seek for in a
+witness is a calmness of mind and of feeling, a store of knowledge, and
+a very rare thing, notwithstanding the name it bears, common sense; on
+the other hand, what we must most avoid is the innate taste of some
+persons for the extraordinary, the wonderful, the paradoxical. Servan
+did not at all recollect these precepts in the criticism he wrote on
+Bailly's work.
+
+We have already remarked that the Commissioners of the Academy and of
+the Faculty did not assert that the Mesmeric meetings were always
+ineffectual. They only saw in the crises the mere results of
+imagination; nor did any sort of magnetic fluid reveal itself to their
+eyes. I will also prove, that imagination alone generated the refutation
+that Servan gave to Bailly's theory. "You deny," exclaims the
+attorney-general, "you deny, gentlemen commissioners, the existence of
+the fluid which Mesmer has made to act such an important part! I
+maintain, on the contrary, not only that this fluid exists, but also
+that it is the medium by the aid of which all the vital functions are
+excited; I assert that imagination is one of the phenomena engendered by
+this agent; that its greater or less abundance in this or that among our
+organs, may totally change the normal intellectual state of
+individuals."
+
+Everybody agrees that too great a flow of blood towards the brain
+produces a stupefaction of the mind. Analogous or inverse effects might
+evidently be produced by a subtle, invisible, imponderable fluid, by a
+sort of nervous fluid, or magnetic fluid (if this term be preferred),
+circulating through our organs. And the commissioners took good care not
+to speak on this subject of impossibility. Their thesis was more modest;
+they contented themselves with saying that nothing demonstrated the
+existence of such a fluid. Imagination, therefore, had no share in their
+report; but in Servan's refutation, on the contrary, imagination was the
+chief actor.
+
+One thing that was still less proved, if possible, than any of those
+that we have been speaking of, is the influence that the magnetic fluid
+of the magnetizer might exert on the magnetized person.
+
+In magnetism, properly so called, in that which physicists have studied
+with so much care and success, the phenomena are constant. They are
+reproduced exactly under the same conditions of form, of duration, and
+of quantity, when certain bodies, being present to each other, find
+themselves exactly in the same relative positions. That is the essential
+and necessary character of all purely material and mechanical action.
+Was it thus in the pretended phenomena of animal magnetism? In no way.
+To-day the crises would occur in the space of some seconds; to-morrow
+they may require several entire hours; and finally, on another day,
+other circumstances remaining the same, the effect would be positively
+null. A certain magnetizer exercised a brisk action on a certain
+patient, and was absolutely powerless on another who, on the contrary,
+entered into a crisis under the earliest efforts of a second magnetizer.
+Instead of one or two universal fluids, there must, then, to explain the
+phenomena, be as many distinct fluids, and constantly acting, as there
+exist animated or inanimate beings in the world.
+
+The necessity of such a hypothesis evidently upset Mesmerism from its
+very foundations; yet the illuminati did not judge thus. All bodies
+became a focus of special emanations, more or less subtle, more or less
+abundant, and more or less dissimilar. So far the hypothesis found very
+few contradictors, even among rigorous minds; but soon these individual
+corporeal emanations were endowed, relatively towards those, (without
+the least appearance of proof,) either with a great power of
+assimilation, or with a decided antagonism, or with a complete
+neutrality; but they pretended to see in these occult qualities the
+material causes of the most mysterious affections of the soul. Oh! then
+doubt had a legitimate right to take possession of all those minds that
+had been taught by the strict proceedings of science not to rest
+satisfied with vain words. In the singular system that I have been
+explaining, when Corneille says,--
+
+     "There are some secret knots, some sympathies,
+     By whose relations sweet assorted souls
+     Attach themselves the one to the other...."[11]
+
+and when the celebrated Spanish Jesuit Balthazar Gracian spoke of the
+natural relationship of minds and hearts, both the one and the other
+alluded, assuredly without suspecting it, to the mixture, penetration,
+and easy crossing of two atmospheres.
+
+"I love thee not, Sabidus," wrote Martial, "and I know not why; all that
+I can tell thee is, that I love thee not." Mesmerists would soon have
+relieved the poet from his doubts. If Martial loved not Sabidus, it was
+because their atmospheres could not intermingle without occasioning a
+kind of storm.
+
+Plutarch informs us that the conqueror of Arminius fainted at the sight
+of a cock. Antiquity was astonished at this phenomenon. What could be
+more simple, however? the corporeal emanations of Germanicus and of the
+cock exercised a repulsive action the one on the other.
+
+The illustrious biographer of Cheronea declares, it is true, that the
+presence of the cock was not requisite, that its crowing produced
+exactly the same effect on the adopted son of Tiberius. Now, the crowing
+may be heard a long way off; the crowing, then, would seem to possess
+the power of transporting the corporeal emanations of the king of the
+lower court with great rapidity through space. The thing may appear
+difficult to believe. As for myself, I think it would be puerile to stop
+at such a difficulty; have we not leaped high over other difficulties
+far more embarrassing?
+
+The Maréchal d'Albret was still worse off than Germanicus: the
+atmosphere that made him fall into a syncope exhaled from the head of a
+wild boar. A live, complete, whole wild boar produced no effect; but on
+perceiving the head of the animal detached from the body, the Maréchal
+was struck as if with lightning. You see, gentlemen, to what sad trials
+military men would be exposed, if the Mesmerian theory of atmospheric
+conflicts were to regain favour. We ought to be carefully on our guard
+against a ruse de guerre, of which no one till then had ever
+thought,--that is, against cocks, wild boars, &c.,--for through them an
+army might suddenly be deprived of its commander-in-chief. "It would
+also be requisite not to entrust command," Montaigne says, "to men who
+would fly from apples more than from arquebusades."
+
+It is not only amongst the corpuscular emanations of living animals that
+the Mesmerists asserted conflicts to occur. They unhesitatingly extended
+their speculations to dead bodies. Some ancients dreamt that a catgut
+cord made of a wolf's intestines would never strike in unison with one
+made from a lamb's intestine; a discord of atmospheres renders the
+phenomenon possible. It is still a conflict of corporeal emanations that
+explains the other aphorism of an ancient philosopher: "The sound of a
+drum made with a wolf's skin takes away all sonorousness from a drum
+made with a lamb's skin."
+
+Here I pause, Gentlemen. Montesquieu said: "When God created the brains
+of human beings, he did not intend to guarantee them."
+
+To conclude: Servan's witty, piquant, agreeably written pamphlet was
+worthy under this triple claim of the reception with which the public
+honoured it; but it did not shake, in any one part, the lucid, majestic,
+elegant report by Bailly. The magistrate of Grénoble has said, that in
+his long experience he had met men accustomed to reflect without
+laughing, and other men who only wished to laugh without reflecting.
+Bailly thought of the first class when he wrote his memorable report.
+_The Doubts of the Provincial man_ were destined only for the other
+class.
+
+It was also to these light and laughing souls that Servan exclusively
+addressed himself some time after, if it be true that the _Queries of
+the young Doctor Rhubarbini de Purgandis_ were written by him.
+
+Rhubarbini de Purgandis sets to work manfully. In his opinion the report
+by Franklin, by Lavoisier, by Bailly, is, in the scientific life of
+those learned men, what the _Monades_ were for Leibnitz, the
+_Whirlwinds_ for Descartes, the _Commentary on the Apocalypse_ for
+Newton. These examples may enable us to judge of the rest, and render
+all farther refutation unnecessary.
+
+Bailly's report destroyed root and branch the ideas, the systems, the
+practices of Mesmer and of his adepts. Let us add sincerely that we have
+no right to appeal to him in regard to modern somnambulism. The greater
+portion of the phenomena now grouped around that name were neither known
+nor announced in 1783. A magnetizer certainly says the most improbable
+thing in the world, when he affirms that a given individual in the state
+of somnambulism can see every thing in the most profound darkness, that
+he can read through a wall, and even without the help of his eyes. But
+the improbability of these announcements does not result from the
+celebrated report, for Bailly does not mention such marvels, neither in
+praise nor dispraise; he does not say one word about them. The
+physicist, the doctor, the merely curious man who gives himself up to
+experiments in somnambulism, who thinks he must examine whether, in
+certain states of nervous excitement, some individuals are really
+endowed with extraordinary faculties; with the faculty, for example, of
+reading with their stomach, or with their heel; people who wish to know
+exactly up to what point the phenomena so boldly asserted by the
+magnetizers of our epoch may be within the domain of rogues and sharks;
+all such people, we say, do not at all deny the authority of the subject
+in question, nor do they put themselves really in opposition to the
+Lavoisiers, the Franklins, or the Baillys; they dive into an entirely
+new world, of which those illustrious learned men did not even suspect
+the existence.
+
+I cannot approve of the mystery adopted by some grave learned men, who,
+in the present day, attend experiments on somnambulism. Doubt is a proof
+of diffidence, and has rarely been inimical to the progress of science.
+We could not say the same of incredulity. He who, except in pure
+mathematics, pronounces the word _impossible_, is deficient in prudence.
+Reserve is especially requisite when we treat of animal organization.
+
+Our senses, notwithstanding twenty-four centuries of study,
+observations, and researches, are far from being an exhausted subject.
+Take, for example, the ear. A celebrated natural philosopher, Wollaston,
+occupied himself with it; and immediately we learn, that with an equal
+sensibility as regards the low notes a certain individual can hear the
+highest tones, whilst another cannot hear them at all; and it becomes
+proved that certain men, with perfectly sound organs, never heard the
+cricket in the chimney-corner, yet did not doubt but that bats
+occasionally utter a piercing cry; and attention being once awakened to
+these singular results, observers have found the most extraordinary
+differences of sensibility between their right ear and their left ear,
+&c.
+
+Our vision offers phenomena not less curious, and an infinitely vaster
+field of research. Experience has proved, for example, that some people
+are absolutely blind to certain colours, as red, and enjoy perfect
+vision relatively to yellow, to green, and to blue. If the Newtonian
+theory of emission be true, we must irrevocably admit that a ray ceases
+to be light as soon as we diminish its velocity by one ten thousandth
+part. Thence flow those natural conjectures, which are well worthy of
+experimental examination: all men do not see by the same rays; decided
+differences may exist in this respect in the same individual during
+various nervous states; it is possible that the calorific rays, the dark
+rays of one person, may be the luminous rays of another person, and
+reciprocally; the calorific rays traverse some substances freely, which
+are therefore called diathermal, these substances, thus far, had been
+called opaque, because they transmit no ray commonly called luminous;
+now the words opaque and diathermal have no absolute meaning. The
+diathermals allow those rays to pass through which constitute the light
+of one man; and they stop those which constitute the light of another
+man. Perhaps in this way the key of many phenomena might be found, that
+till now have remained without any plausible explanation.
+
+Nothing, in the marvels of somnambulism, raised more doubts than an
+oft-repeated assertion, relative to the power which certain persons are
+said to possess in a state of crisis, of deciphering a letter at a
+distance with the foot, the nape of the neck, or the stomach. The word
+_impossible_ in this instance seemed quite legitimate. Still, I do not
+doubt but some rigid minds would withhold it after having reflected on
+the ingenious experiments by which Moser produces, also at a distance,
+very distinct images of all sorts of objects, on all sorts of bodies,
+and in the most complete darkness.
+
+When we call to mind in what immense proportion electric or magnetic
+actions increase by motion, we shall be less inclined to deride the
+rapid actions of magnetizers.
+
+In here recording these developed reflections, I wished to show that
+somnambulism must not be rejected _à priori_, especially by those who
+have kept well up with the recent progress of the physical sciences. I
+have indicated some facts, some resemblances, by which magnetizers might
+defend themselves against those who would think it superfluous to
+attempt new experiments, or even to see them performed. For my part, I
+hesitate not to acknowledge it, although, notwithstanding the
+possibilities that I have pointed out, I do not admit the reality of the
+readings, neither through a wall, nor through any other opaque body, nor
+by the mere intromission of the elbow, or the occiput,--still, I should
+not fulfil the duties of an academician if I refused to attend the
+meetings where such phenomena were promised me, provided they granted me
+sufficient influence as regards the proofs, for me to feel assured that
+I was not become the victim of mere jugglery.
+
+Nor did Franklin, Lavoisier, or Bailly believe in Mesmeric magnetism
+before they became members of the Government Commission, and yet we may
+have remarked with what minute and scrupulous care they varied the
+experiments. True philosophers ought to have constantly before their
+eyes those two beautiful lines:--
+
+     "To suppose that every thing has been discovered is a profound error:
+     It is mistaking the horizon for the limits of the world."[12]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7]
+
+     "Le voilà, ce mortel, dont le siècle s'honore,
+     Par qui sont replongés au séjour infernal
+     Tous les fléaux vengeurs que déchaîna Pandore;
+     Dans son art bienfaisant il n'a pas de rival,
+     Et la Grèce l'eut pris pour le dieu d'Epidaure."
+
+[8]
+
+     "Les sots sont ici-bas pour nos menus plaisirs."
+
+[9]
+
+     "Un décrotteur â la royale,
+     Du talon gauche estropié,
+     Obtint pour grace spéciale
+     D'être boiteux de l'autre pié."
+
+[10]
+
+     "De par le Roi, défense à Dieu
+     D'opérer miracle en ce lieu!"
+
+[11]
+
+     "Il est des noeuds secrets, il est des sympathies,
+     Dont par les doux rapports les âmes assorties
+     S'attachent l'une à l'autre."
+
+[12]
+
+     "Croire tout découvert est un erreur profonde:
+     C'est prendre l'horizon pour les bornes du monde."
+
+
+
+
+ELECTION OF BAILLY INTO THE ACADEMY OF INSCRIPTIONS.
+
+In speaking of the pretended identity of the Atlantis, or of the kingdom
+of Ophir under Solomon with America, Bailly says, in his fourteenth
+letter to Voltaire: "Those ideas belonged to the age of learned men, but
+not to the philosophic age." And elsewhere (in the twenty-first letter)
+we read these words: "Do not fear that I shall fatigue you by heavy
+erudition." To have supposed that erudition could be heavy and be
+deficient in philosophy, was for certain people of a secondary order an
+unpardonable crime. And thus we saw men, excited by a sentiment of hate,
+arm themselves with a critical microscope, and painfully seek out
+imperfections in the innumerable quotations with which Bailly had
+strengthened himself. The harvest was not abundant; yet, these eager
+ferrets succeeded in discovering some weak points, some interpretations
+that might be contested. Their joy then knew no bounds. Bailly was
+treated with haughty disdain: "His literary erudition was very
+superficial; he had not the key of the sanctuary of antiquity; he was
+everywhere deficient in languages."
+
+That it might not be supposed that these reproaches had any reference to
+Oriental literature, Bailly's adversaries added: "that he had not the
+least tincture of the ancient languages; that he did not know Latin."
+
+He did not know Latin? And do you not see, you stupid enemies of the
+great Astronomer, that if it had been possible to compose such learned
+works as _The History of Astronomy_, and _The Letters on the Atlantis_,
+without referring to the original texts, by using translations only, you
+would no longer have preserved any importance in the literary world.
+How is it that you did not remark, that by despoiling Bailly (and very
+arbitrarily) of the knowledge of Latin, you showed the inutility of
+studying that language to become both one of your best writers, and one
+of the most illustrious philosophers of the age?
+
+The Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, far from participating
+in these puerile rancours, in the blind prejudices of some lost children
+of erudition, called Bailly to its bosom in 1785. Till then, Fontenelle
+alone had had the honour of belonging to the three great Academies of
+France. Bailly always showed himself very proud of a distinction which
+associated his name in an unusual manner with that of the illustrious
+writer, whose eulogies contributed so powerfully to make science and
+scientific men known and respected.
+
+Independently of this special consideration, Bailly, as member of the
+French Academy, could all the better appreciate the suffrages of the
+Academy of Inscriptions, since there existed at that time between those
+two illustrious Societies a strong and inexplicable feeling of rivalry.
+This had even proceeded so far, that by a most solemn deliberation of
+the Academy of Inscriptions, any of its members would have ceased to
+belong to it, would have been irrevocably expelled, if they had even
+only endeavoured to be received into the French Academy; and the king
+having annulled this deliberation, fifteen academicians bound themselves
+by oath to observe all its stipulations notwithstanding; furthermore, in
+1783, Choiseul Gouffier, who was accused of having adhered to the
+principles of the fifteen confederates, and then of having allowed
+himself to be nominated by the rival Academy, was summoned by Anquetil
+to appear before the Tribunal of the Marshals of France for having
+broken his word of honour.
+
+But, I may be allowed here to remark, superior men have always had the
+privilege of upsetting, by the mere influence of their name, the
+obstacles that routine, prejudices, and jealousy wished to oppose to the
+progress and the union of souls.
+
+
+
+
+REPORT ON THE HOSPITALS.
+
+Scientific tribunals, which should pronounce in the first instance while
+awaiting the definitive judgment of the public, were one of the
+requisites of our epoch; and thus, without any formal prescription of
+its successive regulations, the Academy of Sciences has been gradually
+led on to appoint committees to examine all the papers that have been
+presented to it, and to pronounce on their novelty, merit, and
+importance. This labour is generally an ungrateful one, and without
+glory, but talent has immense privileges; entrust Bailly with those
+simple Academical Reports, and their publication becomes an event.
+
+M. Poyet, architect and comptroller of buildings in Paris, presented to
+Government in the course of the year 1785, a paper wherein he strove to
+establish the necessity of removing the Hôtel Dieu, and building a new
+hospital in another locality. This document, submitted by order of the
+king to the judgment of the Academy, gave rise, directly or indirectly,
+to three deliberations. The Academic Commissioners were, Lassone, Tenou,
+Tillet, Darcet, Daubenton, Bailly, Coulomb, Laplace, and Lavoisier. It
+was Bailly, however, who constantly held the pen. His reports have been
+honoured with a great and just celebrity. The progress of science would
+now perhaps allow of some modification being made in the ideas of the
+illustrious commissioners. Their views on warming-rooms, on their size,
+on ventilation, on general health, might, for example, receive some real
+ameliorations; but nothing could add to the sentiments of respect
+inspired by Bailly's work. What clearness of exposition! What neatness,
+what simplicity of style! Never did a writer put himself more completely
+out of view; never did a man more sincerely seek to make the sacred
+cause of humanity triumph. The interest that Bailly takes in the poor is
+deep, but always exempt from parade; his words are moderate, full of
+gentleness, even where hasty feelings of anger and indignation would
+have been legitimate. Of anger and of indignation! Yes, Gentlemen;
+listen, and decide!
+
+I have cited the names of the commissioners. At no time, and in no
+country, could more virtue and learning have been united. These select
+men, regulating themselves in this respect according to the most common
+logic, felt that the task of pronouncing on a reform of the Hôtel Dieu
+imposed on them the necessity of examining that establishment. "We have
+asked," said their interpreter, "we have asked the Board of
+Administration to permit us to see the hospital in detail, and
+accompanied by some one who could guide and instruct us ... we required
+to know several particulars; we asked for them, but we obtained
+nothing."
+
+We have obtained nothing! These are the sad, the incredible words, that
+men so worthy of respect are obliged to insert in the first line of
+their report!
+
+What then was the authority that allowed itself to be so deficient in
+the most usual respect towards commissioners invested with the
+confidence of the King, the Academy, and the Public? This authority
+consisted of several administrators (the type of them, it is said, is
+not quite lost), who looked upon the poor as their patrimony, who
+devoted to them a disinterested but unproductive activity; who were
+impatient at any amelioration, the germ of which had not developed
+itself either in their own heads, or in those of certain men,
+philanthropic by nature, or by the privilege of their station. Ah! if by
+enlightened and constant care that vast asylum, opened to poverty and
+sickness, near Notre-Dame, had been then conducted, now sixty years ago,
+only in a tolerable way, we should have understood how, in taking human
+nature into consideration, the promoters of this great benefit would
+have repelled an examination that seemed to throw a doubt on their zeal
+and on their good sense. But alas! let us take from Bailly's work a few
+traits of the moderate and faithful picture that he drew of the Hôtel
+Dieu, and you shall decide, Gentlemen, whether the susceptibility of the
+administrators was authorized; whether, on the contrary, they ought not
+themselves to have anticipated the unhoped-for help from the king's
+power, united to science, which was now offered to them; whether by
+retarding certain ameliorations by a single day, they did not commit the
+crime of lèse-humanity.
+
+In 1786, infirmities of all sorts were treated at the Hôtel Dieu:
+surgical maladies, chronic maladies, contagious maladies, female
+diseases, infantine diseases, &c. Every thing was admitted, but all
+presented an inevitable confusion.
+
+A patient on arriving was often laid in the bed and in the sheets of a
+man who had had the itch, and had just died.
+
+The department reserved for madmen being very confined, two were put to
+sleep together. Two madmen in the same sheets! Nature revolts at the
+very thought of it.
+
+In the ward of St. Francis, reserved exclusively for men having the
+smallpox, there were sometimes, for want of other space, as many as six
+adults or eight children in a bed not a mètre and a half wide.
+
+The women attacked with this frightful disease were mixed in the ward of
+St. Monique with others who had only a simple fever, and the latter fell
+an inevitable prey to the hideous contagion, in the very place where,
+full of confidence, they had hoped to recover their health.
+
+Women with child, women in their confinement, were equally crowded,
+pell-mell, on narrow and infected truckle-beds.
+
+Nor let it be supposed that I have borrowed from Bailly's Report some
+purely exceptional cases, belonging to those cruel times, when whole
+populations, suffering under some epidemic, were tried beyond all human
+anticipation. In their usual state, the beds of the Hôtel Dieu, which
+were not a mètre and a half wide, contained four, and often six
+patients; they were placed alternately head and feet, the feet of one
+touching the shoulders of the next; each had only for his share of space
+25 centimetres (9 inches); now, a man of medium size, lying with his
+arms close to his body, is 48 centimetres (16 inches) broad at the
+shoulders. The poor patients then could not keep within the bed but by
+lying on their side perfectly immovable; no one could turn without
+pushing, without waking his neighbour; they therefore used to agree, as
+far as their illness would allow, for some of them to remain up part of
+the night in the space between the beds, whilst the others slept; and
+when the approaches of death nailed these unfortunate people to their
+place, did they not energetically curse that help, which in such a
+situation could only prolong their painful agony.
+
+But it was not only that beds thus placed were a source of discomfort,
+of disgust; that they prevented rest and sleep; that an insupportable
+heat occasioned and propagated diseases of the skin and frightful
+vermin; that the fever patient bedewed his neighbours with his profuse
+perspirations; and that in the critical moment he might be chilled by
+contact with those whose hot fit would occur later, &c. Still more
+serious effects resulted from the presence of many sick in the same bed;
+the food, the medicines, intended for one person, often found their way
+to another. In short, Gentlemen, in those beds of multiple population,
+the dead often lay for hours, and sometimes whole nights, intermingled
+with the living. The principal charitable establishment in Paris thus
+offered those dreadful coincidences, that the poets of Rome, that
+ancient historians have represented under King Mezentius, as the utmost
+extreme of barbarism.
+
+Such was, Gentlemen, the normal state of the old Hôtel Dieu. One word,
+one word only, will suffice to tell what was the exceptional state: they
+placed some patients on the tops or testers of those same beds, where we
+have found so much suffering, so many authorized maledictions.
+
+Now, Gentlemen, let us, together with our fellow academician, cast a
+glance on the ward of surgical operations.
+
+This ward was full of patients. The operations were performed in their
+presence. Bailly says, "We see there the preparations for the torment;
+there are heard the cries of the tormented. He who has to suffer the
+next day has before him a picture of his own future sufferings; he who
+has passed through this terrible trial, must be deeply moved at those
+cries so similar to his own, and must feel his agonies repeated; and
+these terrors, these emotions, he experiences in the midst of the
+progress of inflammation or suppuration, retarding his recovery, and at
+the hazard of his life."... "To what purpose," Bailly justly exclaims,
+"would you make an unfortunate man suffer, if there is not a probability
+of saving him, and unless we increase that probability by all possible
+precautions?"
+
+The heart aches, the mind becomes confused, at the sight of so much
+misery; and yet this hospital, so little in harmony with its intended
+purpose, still existed sixty years ago. It is in a capital, the centre
+of the arts, of knowledge, of polished manners; it is in an age renowned
+for the development of public wealth, for the progress of luxury, for
+the ruinous creation of a crowd of establishments devoted to amusements,
+to worldly and futile pleasures; it is by the side of the palace of an
+opulent archbishop; it is at the gate of a sumptuous cathedral, that the
+unfortunate, under the deceitful mask of charity, underwent such
+dreadful tortures. To whom should we impute the long duration of this
+vicious and inhuman organization?
+
+To the professors of the art? No, no, Gentlemen! By an inconceivable
+anomaly the physicians, the surgeons, never obtained more than a
+secondary, a subordinate influence over the administration of the
+hospitals. No, no, the sentiments of the medical body for the poor could
+not be doubted, at an epoch and in a country where Dr. Anthony Petit
+thus answered the irritated queen, Marie Antoinette: "Madam, if I came
+not yesterday to Versailles, it was because I was attending the lying-in
+of a peasant, who was in the greatest danger. Your Majesty errs,
+however, in supposing that I neglect the Dauphin for the poor; I have
+hitherto treated the young child with as much attention and care as if
+he had been the son of one of your grooms."
+
+Preference was granted to the most suffering, to those in most danger,
+disregarding rank and fortune; such was, you see, Gentlemen, the sublime
+rule of the French Medical Corps; and such is still its gospel. I want
+no other proof of it than those admirable words addressed by our fellow
+labourer Larrey, to his friend Tanchou, when wounded at the Battle of
+Montmirail: "Your wound is slight, sir; we have only room and straw in
+this ambulance for serious wounds. They will take you into that stable."
+
+The medical corps could not, therefore, with any reason be accused or
+suspected in regard to the old Hôtel Dieu of Paris.
+
+If economy be invoked, I find an answer quite à-propos in Bailly: the
+daily allowance for the patients at the Hôtel Dieu was notably higher
+than in other establishments in the capital more charitably organized.
+
+Would any one go so far as to assert that the sick condemned to seek
+refuge in the hospitals, having their sensibilities blunted by labour,
+by misery, by their daily sufferings, would but faintly feel the effects
+of the horrible arrangements that the old Hôtel Dieu revealed to all
+clear-sighted people? I will quote from the report of our colleague;
+"The maladies continue nearly double the time at the Hôtel Dieu,
+compared with those at the Charité: the mortality there is also nearly
+double!... All the trepanned die in that hospital; whilst this
+operation is tolerably successful in Paris, and still more so at
+Versailles."
+
+The maladies continue double the time! The mortality there is double!
+All those who are trepanned die! The lying-in women die in a frightful
+proportion, &c. These are the sinister words that strike the eye
+periodically in the statements of the Hôtel Dieu; and yet, let us repeat
+it, years passed away, and nothing was altered in the organization of
+the great hospital! Why persist in remaining in a condition that so
+openly wounds humanity? Must we, together with Cabanis, who also abused
+the old Hôtel Dieu severely, "must we exclaim, that abuses known by all
+the world, against which every voice is raised, have secret supporters
+who know how to defend them, in a manner to tire out well-meaning
+people? Must we speak of false characters, perverse hearts, that seemed
+to regard errors and abuses as their patrimony?" Let us dare to
+acknowledge it, Gentlemen, evil is generally perpetrated in a less
+wicked manner: it is done without the intervention of any strong
+passion; by vulgar, yet all-powerful routine, and ignorance. I observe
+the same thought, though couched in the calm and cleverly circumspect
+language of Bailly: "The Hôtel Dieu has existed perhaps since the
+seventh century, and if this hospital is the most imperfect of all, it
+is because it is the oldest. From the earliest date of this
+establishment, good has been sought, the desire has been to adhere to
+it, and constancy has appeared a duty. From this cause, all useful
+novelties have with difficulty found admission; any reform is difficult;
+there is a numerous administration to convince; there is an immense mass
+to move."
+
+The immensity of the mass, however, did not discourage the old
+Commissioners of the Academy. Let this conduct serve as an example to
+learned men, to administrators, who might be called upon to cast an
+investigating eye on the whole of our beneficent and humane
+establishments. Undoubtedly, the abuses, if any yet exist, have not
+individually any thing to be compared to those to which Bailly's report
+did justice; but would it be impossible for them to have sprung up
+afresh in the course of half a century, and that in proportion to their
+multiplicity, they should still make enormous and deplorable breaches in
+the patrimony of the poor?
+
+I shall modify very slightly, Gentlemen, the concluding words of our
+illustrious colleague's report, and I shall not in the least alter their
+innate meaning, if I say, in finishing this long analysis: "Each poor
+man is now laid alone in a bed, and he owes it principally to the
+gifted, persevering, and courageous efforts of the Academy of Sciences.
+The poor man ought to know it, and the poor man will not forget it."
+Happy, Gentlemen, happy the academy that can adorn itself with such
+reminiscences!
+
+
+
+
+REPORT ON THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES.
+
+An attentive glance at the past has been, in all ages and in all
+countries, the infallible means of rightly appreciating the present.
+When we direct this glance to the sanitary state of Paris, the name of
+Bailly will again present itself in the first line amongst the promoters
+of a capital amelioration, which I shall point out in a few words.
+
+Notwithstanding the numerous acts of parliament,--notwithstanding the
+positive police regulations, which dated back to Charles IX., to Henry
+III., to Henry IV., slaughter-houses still existed in the interior of
+the capital in 1788; for instance, at l'Apport-Paris, La Croix-Rouge, in
+the streets of the Butcheries, Mont-Martre, Saint-Martin, Traversine,
+&c. &c. The oxen were, consequently, driven in droves through frequented
+parts of the town; enraged by the noise of the carriages, by the
+excitements of the children, by the attacks or barking of the wandering
+dogs, they often sought to escape,--entered houses or alleys, spread
+alarm everywhere, gored people, and committed great damage. Fetid gases
+exhaled from buildings too small and badly ventilated; the offal that
+had to be carried away gave out an insupportable smell; the blood flowed
+through the gutters of the neighbourhood, with other remains of the
+animals, and putrefied there. The melting of tallow, an inevitable
+annexation of all slaughter-houses, spread around disgusting emanations,
+and occasioned a constant danger of fire.
+
+So inconvenient, so repulsive a state of things, awakened the solicitude
+of individuals and of the public administration; the problem was
+submitted to our predecessors, and Bailly, as usual, became the reporter
+of the Academical Committee. The other members were Messrs. Tillet,
+Darcet, Daubenton, Coulomb, Lavoisier, and Laplace.
+
+When Napoleon, wishing to liberate Paris from the dangerous and
+insalubrious results of internal slaughter-houses, decreed the
+construction of the fine slaughter-houses known by everybody, he found
+the subject already well examined, exhibited in all its points of view,
+in Bailly's excellent work. "We ask," said the reporter of the
+Academical Commission in 1788, "we ask that the shambles be removed to a
+distance from the interior of Paris;" and these interior shambles have
+disappeared accordingly. Does it create surprise that it required more
+than fifteen years to obtain the grant of this most reasonable demand?
+I will further remark that, unfortunately, there was nothing exceptional
+in this; he who sows a thought in a field rank with prejudices, with
+private interests, and with routine, must never expect an early harvest.
+
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHIES OF COOK AND OF GRESSET.
+
+The publication of the five quarto volumes of which _the History of
+Astronomy_ consists, together with the two powerful _reports_ that I
+have just described, had worn out Bailly. To relax and amuse his mind,
+he resumed the style of composition that had enchanted him in his youth;
+he wrote some biographies, amongst others, that of Captain Cook,
+proposed as a prize-subject by the Academy of Marseilles, and the Life
+of Gresset.
+
+The biography of Gresset first appeared anonymously. This circumstance
+gave rise to a singular scene, which the author used to relate with a
+smile. I will here myself repeat the principal traits of it, if it be
+only to deter writers, whoever they may be, from launching their works
+into the world without affixing their names to them.
+
+The Marchioness of Créqui was a lady in the high circles of society, to
+whom a copy of the eulogium of the author of _Vert-Vert_ was presented
+as an offering. Some days after Bailly went to pay her a visit; did he
+hope to hear her speak favourably of the new work? I know not. At all
+events, our predecessor would have been ill rewarded for his curiosity.
+
+"Do you know," said the great lady as soon as she saw him, "a Eulogy of
+Gresset recently published? The author has sent me a copy of it, without
+naming himself. He will probably come to see me; he may, perhaps, have
+come already. What could I say to him? I do not think any one ever wrote
+worse. He mistakes obscurity for profundity; it is the darkness before
+the creation."
+
+Notwithstanding all Bailly's efforts to change the subject of the
+conversation, perhaps on account of those very efforts, the Marchioness
+rose, goes in search of the pamphlet, puts it into the author's hands,
+and begs of him to read aloud, if it be but the first page--quite
+enough, she said, to enable one to judge of the rest.
+
+Bailly used to read remarkably well. I leave it to be guessed whether,
+on this occasion, he was able to exercise this talent. Superfluous
+trouble! Madame de Créqui interrupted him at each sentence by the most
+disagreeable commentaries, by exclamations such as the following:
+"Detestable style!" "Confusion worse confounded!" and other similar
+amenities. Bailly did not succeed in extorting any indulgences from
+Madame de Créqui, when, fortunately, the arrival of another visitor put
+an end to this insupportable torture.
+
+Two years after this, Bailly having become the first personage in the
+city, some booksellers collected all his opuscula and published them.
+This time, the Marchioness, who had lost all recollection of the scene
+that I have been describing, overpowered the Mayor of Paris with
+compliments and felicitations on account of this same eulogy, which she
+had before treated with such inhuman rigour.
+
+Such a contrast excited the mirth of the author. Still, might I dare to
+say so, Madame de Créqui was, perhaps, sincere on both occasions; had
+the exaggerations of praise and of criticism been put aside, it would
+not have been impossible to defend both opinions. The early pages of
+the pamphlet might appear embarrassed and obscure, whilst in the rest
+there might be found great refinement, elegance, and appreciations full
+of taste.
+
+
+
+
+ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES.--BAILLY IS NAMED FIRST DEPUTY OF PARIS; AND
+SOON AFTER DEAN OR SENIOR OF THE DEPUTIES OF THE COMMUNES.
+
+The Assembly of the Notables had no other effect than to show in a
+stronger light the disorder of the finances, and the other wounds that
+were galling France. It was then that the Parliament of Paris asked for
+the convocation of the States General. This demand was unfavourably
+received by Cardinal de Brienne. Soon afterwards the convocation became
+a necessity, and Necker, now in the ministry, announced, in the month of
+November, 1788, that it was decreed in Council, and that the king had
+even granted to the third estate a double representation, which had been
+so imprudently disputed by the courtiers.
+
+The districts were formed, on the king's convocation, the 21st of April,
+1789. That day was the first day of Bailly's political life. It was on
+the 21st of April that the Citizen of Chaillot, entering the Hall of the
+_Feuillants_, imagined, he said, that "he breathed a new atmosphere,"
+and regarded "as a phenomenon that he should have become something in
+the body-politic, merely from his being a citizen."
+
+The elections were to be made in two gradations. Bailly was named first
+elector of his district. A few days after, at the general meeting, the
+Assembly called him to the Board in quality of secretary. Thus it was
+our fellow-academician who, in the beginning, drew up the celebrated
+_procès-verbal_ of the meetings of the electors of Paris, so often
+quoted by the historians of the revolution.
+
+Bailly also took an active part in drawing up the records of his
+district, and the records of the body of electors. The part he acted in
+these two capacities could not be doubtful, if we judge of it by the
+three following short quotations extracted from his memoirs: "The nation
+must remember that she is sovereign and mistress to order every
+thing.... It is not when reason awakes, that we should allege ancient
+privileges and absurd prejudices.... I shall praise the electors of
+Paris who were the first to conceive the idea of prefacing the French
+Constitution with a declaration of the Rights of Man."
+
+Bailly had always been so extremely reserved in his conduct and in his
+writings, that it was difficult to surmise under what point of view he
+would consider the national agitation of '89. Hence, at the very
+beginning, the Abbé Maury, of the French Academy, proposed to unite
+himself to Bailly, and that they should reside at Versailles, and have
+an apartment in common between them. It is difficult to avoid a smile
+when one compares the conduct of the eloquent and impetuous Abbé with
+the categorical declarations, so distinct and so progressive, of the
+learned astronomer.
+
+On Tuesday, the 12th of May, the general assembly of the electors
+proceeded to ballot for the nomination of the first deputy of Paris.
+Bailly was chosen.
+
+This nomination is often quoted as a proof of the high intelligence, and
+of the wisdom of our fathers, two qualities which, since that epoch,
+must have been constantly on the decline, if we are to believe the blind
+Pessimists. Such an accusation imposed on me the duty of carrying the
+appreciation of this wisdom, of this intelligence that is held up
+against us, even to numerical correctness. The following is the result:
+the majority of the votes was 159; Bailly obtained 173; this was
+fourteen more than he required. If fourteen votes had changed sides the
+result would have been different. Was this an incident, I ask, to
+exclaim so much against?
+
+Bailly showed himself deeply affected by this mark of the confidence
+with which he was regarded. His sensibility, his gratitude, did not
+prevent him, however, from recording in his memoirs the following
+_naïve_ observation: "I observed in the Assembly of the Electors a great
+dislike for literary men, and for the academicians."
+
+I recommend this remark to all studious men who, by circumstances or by
+a sense of duty, may be thrown into the whirlpool of politics. Perhaps I
+may yield to the temptation of developing it, when I shall have to
+characterize Bailly's connection with his co-laborers in the first
+municipality of Paris.
+
+The great question on the verification of the powers was already
+strongly agitated, the day that Bailly and the other Deputies of Paris
+for the first time were able to go to Versailles; our academician had
+only spoken once in that majestic assembly, viz: to induce the adoption
+of the method of voting by members being _seated_ or _standing_,--when,
+on the 3d of June, he was named Senior of the Deputies of the Communes
+(or Commons). Formerly, the right of presiding in the third house of the
+kingdom belonged to the provost of the merchants. Bailly in his
+diffidence thought that the assembly, in assigning the chair to him, had
+wished to compensate the capital for the loss of an old privilege. This
+consideration induced him to accept of a duty that he thought above his
+powers,--he who always depicted himself as timid to an extreme, and not
+possessing a facility of speaking.
+
+Men's minds were more animated, more ardent in 1789 than those would
+admit who always see in the present a faithful image of the past. But
+calumny, that murderous arm of political party, already respected no
+position. Knowledge, loyalty, virtue, did not suffice to shelter any one
+from its poisoned darts. Bailly experienced it on the very day after his
+nomination to such an eminent post as President of the Communes.
+
+On the 29th of May, the Communes had voted an address to the king on the
+constantly recurring difficulties that the nobility opposed to the union
+of the States General in one assembly. In order to carry out this most
+solemn deliberation, Bailly solicited an audience, in which the moderate
+and respectful expression of the anxiety of six hundred loyal deputies
+was to be presented to the monarch. In the midst of these strifes the
+Dauphin died. Without taking the trouble to consult dates, the court
+party immediately represented Bailly as a stranger to the commonest
+proprieties, and totally deficient in feeling; he ought, they said, to
+have respected the most allowable of griefs; his importunities had been
+barbarous.
+
+I had imagined that such ridiculous accusations were no longer thought
+of; the categorical explanations that Bailly himself gave on this topic,
+seemed to me as if they would have sufficed to convince the most
+prejudiced. I was deceived, Gentlemen; the reproach of violence, of
+brutal insensibility, has just been repeated by the pen of a clever and
+a conscientious man. I will give his recital: "Scarcely two hours had
+elapsed since the royal child had breathed his last sigh, when Bailly,
+President of the Third Estate, insisted on admission to the king, who
+had prohibited any one being allowed to intrude upon him. But so
+positive was the demand, that they were obliged to yield, and Louis XVI.
+exclaimed, 'There are then no fathers in that chamber of the Third
+Estate.' The chamber very much applauded this trait of brutal
+insensibility in Bailly, which they termed a trait of Spartan stoicism."
+
+As many errors as words. The following is the truth. The illness of the
+Dauphin had not prevented the two privileged orders from being received
+by the king. This preference offended the Communes. They ordered the
+President to solicit an audience. He discharged his duty with great
+caution. All his proceedings were concerted with two ministers, Necker
+and M. de Barentin. The king answered, "It is impossible for me to see
+M. Bailly in the situation in which I am to-night, nor to-morrow
+morning, nor to fix a day for receiving the deputation of the Third
+Estate." The note ends with these words: "Show my note to M. Bailly for
+his vindication."
+
+Thus, on the day of these events the Dauphin was not dead; thus the king
+was not obliged to yield, he did not receive Bailly; thus the chamber
+had no act of insensibility to applaud; thus Louis XVI. perceived so
+clearly that the President of the Communes was fulfilling the duties of
+his office, that he felt it requisite to give him an exoneration.
+
+The death of the Dauphin happened on the 4th of June. As soon as the
+assembly of the Third Estate were informed of it, they charged the
+President, I quote the very words, "to report to their majesties the
+deep grief with which this news had penetrated the Communes."
+
+A deputation of twenty members, having Bailly at their head, was
+received on the 6th. The President thus expressed himself: "Your
+faithful Communes are deeply moved by the circumstance in which your
+majesty has the goodness to receive their deputation, and they take the
+liberty to address to you the expression of all their regrets, and of
+their respectful sensibility."
+
+Such language can, I think, be delivered without uneasiness to the
+appreciation of all good men.
+
+Let us be correct; the Communes did not obtain at once the audience that
+they demanded on account of the difficulties of the ceremonial. They
+would have wished to make the Third Estate speak kneeling. "This
+custom," said M. de Barentin, "has existed from time immemorial, and if
+the king wished...." "And if twenty-five millions of men do not wish
+it," exclaimed Bailly, interrupting the minister, "where are the means
+to force them?" "The two privileged orders," replied the Guard of the
+Seals, somewhat stunned by the apostrophe, "no longer require the Third
+Estate to bend the knee; but, after having formerly possessed immense
+privileges in the ceremonial, they limit themselves now to asking some
+difference. This difference I cannot find." "Do not take the trouble to
+seek for it," replied the President hastily: "however slight the
+difference might be, the Communes will not suffer it."
+
+This digression was required through a grave and recent error. The
+memory of Bailly will not suffer by it, since it has afforded me the
+opportunity of establishing, beyond any reply, that in our fellow
+academician a noble firmness was on occasions allied to urbanity,
+mildness, and politeness. But what will be said of the puerilities which
+I have been obliged to recall, of the mean pretensions of the courtiers
+on the eve of an immense revolution? When the Greeks of the Lower
+Empire, instead of going on the ramparts valiantly to repel the attacks
+of the Turks, remained night and day collected around some sophists in
+their lyceums and academies, their sterile debates at least related to
+some intellectual questions; but at Versailles, there was nothing in
+action, on the part of two out of three orders, but the most miserable
+vanity.
+
+By an express arrangement, decreed from the beginning, among the Members
+of the Communes, the Dean or President had to be renewed every week.
+Notwithstanding the incessant representations of Bailly, this
+legislative article was long neglected, so fortunate did the Assembly
+feel in having at their head this eminent man, who to undeniable
+knowledge, united sincerity, moderation, and a degree of patriotism not
+less appreciated.
+
+He thus presided over the Third Estate on the memorable days that
+determined the march of our great revolution.
+
+On the 17th of June, for instance, when the Deputies of the Communes,
+worn out with the tergiversations of the other two orders, showed that
+in case of need they would act without their concurrence, and resolutely
+adopted the title of National Assembly,--they provided against presumed
+projects of dissolution, by stamping as illegal all levies of
+contribution which were not granted by the Assembly.
+
+Again, on the 20th of June, when the Members of the National Assembly,
+affronted at the Hall having been closed and their meetings suspended
+without an official notification, with only the simple form of placards
+and public criers, as if a mere theatre was in question, they assembled
+at a tennis-court, and "took an oath never to separate, but to assemble
+wherever circumstances might render it requisite, until the Constitution
+of the Kingdom should be established and confirmed on solid
+foundations."
+
+Once more, Bailly was still at the head of his colleagues on the 23d of
+June, when, by an inexcusable inconsistency, and which perhaps was not
+without some influence on the events of that day, the Deputies of the
+Third Estate were detained a long time at the servants' door of the Hall
+of Meeting, and in the rain; while the deputies of the other two orders,
+to whom a more convenient and more suitable entrance had been assigned,
+were already in their places.
+
+The account that Bailly gave of the celebrated royal meeting on the 23d
+of June, does not exactly agree with that of most historians.
+
+The king finished his speech with the following imprudent words: "I
+order you, Gentlemen, to separate immediately."
+
+The whole of the nobility and a portion of the clergy retired; while the
+Deputies of the Communes remained quietly in their places. The Grand
+Master of the Ceremonies having remarked it, approaching Bailly said to
+him, "You heard the king's order, Sir?" The illustrious President
+answered, "I cannot adjourn the Assembly until it has deliberated on
+it." "Is that indeed your answer, and am I to communicate it to the
+king?" "Yes, Sir," replied Bailly, and immediately addressing the
+Deputies who surrounded him, he said, "It appears to me that the
+assembled nation cannot receive an order."
+
+It was after this debate, at once both firm and moderate, that Mirabeau
+addressed from his place the well-known apostrophe to M. de Brézé. The
+President disapproved both of the basis and the form of it; he felt that
+there was no sufficient motive; for, said he, the Grand Master of the
+Ceremonies made use of no menace; he had not in any way insinuated that
+there was an intention to resort to force; he had not, above all, spoken
+of bayonets. At all events, there is an essential difference between the
+words of Mirabeau as related in almost all the Histories of the
+Revolution, and those reported by Bailly. According to our illustrious
+colleague the impetuous tribune exclaimed, "Go tell those who sent you,
+that the force of bayonets can do nothing against the will of the
+nation." This is, to my mind, much more energetic than the common
+version. The expression, "We will only retire by the force of bayonets!"
+had always appeared to me, notwithstanding the admiration conceded to
+it, to imply only a resistance which would cease on the arrival of a
+corporal and half-a-dozen soldiers.
+
+Bailly quitted the chair of President of the National Assembly on the 2d
+of July. His scientific celebrity, his virtue, his conciliating spirit,
+had not been superfluous in habituating certain men to see a member of
+the Communes preside over an assembly in which there was a prince of the
+blood, a prince of the church, the greatest lords of the kingdom, and
+all the high dignitaries of the clergy. The first person named to
+succeed to Bailly was the Duke d'Orléans. After his refusal, the
+Assembly chose the Archbishop of Vienne (Pompignan).
+
+Bailly recalls to mind with sensibility, in his memoirs, the testimonies
+of esteem that he obtained through his difficult and laborious
+presidency. The 3d of July, on the proposition of the Duke de la
+Rochefoucauld and of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the National Assembly
+sent a deputation to their illustrious ex-president, to thank him (these
+are the precise words) "for his noble, wise, and firm conduct." The
+electoral body of Bordeaux had been beforehand with these homages. The
+Chamber of Commerce of that town, at the same time, decided that the
+portrait of the great citizen should decorate their hall of meeting. The
+Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, did
+not remain insensible to the glory that one of their members had
+acquired in the career of politics, and testified it by numerous
+deputations. Finally, Marmontel, in the name of the French Academy,
+expressed to Bailly "how proud that assembly was to count, among its
+members an Aristides that no one was tired of calling the Just."
+
+I shall not excite surprise, I hope, by adding, after such brilliant
+testimonies of sympathy, that the inhabitants of Chaillot celebrated the
+return of Bailly amongst them by fêtes, and fireworks, and that even the
+curate of the parish and the churchwardens, unwilling to be surpassed by
+their fellow-citizens, nominated the historian of antediluvian astronomy
+honorary churchwarden. I will, at all events, repress the smile that
+might arise from such private reminiscences, by reminding the reader
+that a man's moral character is better appreciated by his neighbours, to
+whom he shows himself daily without disguise, than that of more
+considerable persons, who are only seen on state occasions, and in
+official costume.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY BECOMES MAYOR OF PARIS.--SCARCITY.--MARAT DECLARES HIMSELF
+INIMICAL TO THE MAYOR.--EVENTS OF THE 6TH OF OCTOBER.
+
+The Bastille had been taken on the 14th of July. That event, on which,
+during upwards of half a century, there have been endless discussions,
+on opposite sides, was characterized in the following way, in the
+address to the National Assembly, drawn up by M. Moreau de Saint Méry,
+in the name of the City Committee:--
+
+"Yesterday will be for ever memorable by the taking of a citadel,
+consequent on the Governor's perfidy. The bravery of the people was
+irritated by the breaking of the word of honour. This act (the strongest
+proof that the nation who knows best how to obey, is jealous of its just
+liberties,) has been followed by incidents that from the public
+misfortunes might have been foreseen."
+
+Lally Tollendal said to the Parisians, on the 15th of July: "In the
+disastrous circumstances that have just occurred, we did not cease to
+participate in your griefs; and we have also participated in your anger;
+it was just."
+
+The National Assembly solicited and obtained permission from the king on
+the 15th of July, to send a deputation to Paris, which they flattered
+themselves would restore order and peace in that great city, then in a
+convulsed state. Madame Bailly, always influenced by fear, endeavoured,
+though vainly, to dissuade her husband from joining the appointed
+deputies. The learned academician naïvely replied, "After a presidency
+that has been applauded, I am not sorry to show myself to my
+fellow-citizens." You see, Gentlemen, that Bailly always admits the
+future reader of his Posthumous Memoirs confidentially into his most
+secret feelings.
+
+The deputation completed its mandate at the Town Hall, to the entire
+satisfaction of the Parisian populace; the Archbishop of Paris, its
+President, had already proposed to go in procession to the Cathedral to
+sing _Te Deum_; they were preparing to depart, when the Assembly, giving
+way to a spontaneous enthusiasm, with an unanimous voice, proclaimed
+Bailly Mayor of Paris, and Lafayette Commander-in-Chief of the National
+Guard, the creation of which had just been authorized.
+
+The official minutes of the Municipality state, that on being thus
+unexpectedly named, Bailly bent forward to the Assembly, his eyes bathed
+in tears, and that amidst his sobs he could only utter a few unconnected
+words to express his gratitude. The Mayor's own recital differs very
+little from this official relation. Still I shall quote it as a model of
+sincerity and of modesty.
+
+"I know not whether I wept, I know not what I said; but I remember well
+that I was never so surprised, so confused, and so beneath myself.
+Surprise adding to my usual timidity before a large assembly, I rose, I
+stammered out a few words that were not heard, and that I did not hear
+myself, but which my agitation, much more than my mouth, rendered
+expressive. Another effect of my sudden stupidity was, that I accepted
+without knowing what a burden I was taking on myself."
+
+Bailly having become Mayor, and being tacitly accepted by the National
+Assembly, even from the 16th of July, availed himself of his intimacy
+with Vicq-d'Azyr, the Queen's physician, to persuade Louis XVI. to show
+himself to the Parisians. This advice was listened to. On the 17th the
+new magistrate addressed the king near the barrière de la Conférence, in
+a discourse that began thus:--
+
+"I bring to your Majesty the keys of your good city of Paris. They are
+the same that were presented to Henry IV. He had reconquered his people,
+here the people have reconquered their king."
+
+The antithesis: "he had reconquered his people, here the people have
+reconquered their king," was universally applauded. But since then, it
+has been criticized with bitterness and violence. The enemies of the
+Revolution have striven to discover in it an intention of committing an
+outrage, to which the character of Bailly, and still more so the first
+glance at an examination of the rest of his discourse, give a flat
+contradiction. I will acknowledge, Gentlemen, I think that I have even a
+right to decline the epithet of "unfortunate," which one of our most
+respectable colleagues in the French Academy has pronounced relative to
+this celebrated phrase, while doing justice at the same time to the
+sentiments of the author. The poison contained in the few words that I
+have quoted, was very inoffensive, since more than a year passed without
+any courtier, though furnished like a microscope with, all the
+monarchical susceptibilities, beginning to suspect its existence.
+
+The Mayor of Paris was at the Hôtel de Ville in the midst of those same
+Parisian citizens who inspired him, a few months before, with the
+mortifying reflection already quoted: "I remarked in the Assembly of
+Electors a dislike to literary people and Academicians." The feeling did
+not appear to be changed.
+
+The political movement in 1789, had been preceded by two very serious
+physical perturbations which had great influence on the march of events.
+Every one is aware, that the excessively rigorous winter of 1788-89 was
+the cause of severe sufferings to the people. But it may not be so
+generally known, that on the 13th of July, 1788, a fall of hail of
+unprecedented size and quantity, in a few hours completely ravaged the
+two parallel zones lying between the department of the Charente and the
+frontiers of the Pays-Bas, and that in consequence of this frightful
+hail, the wheat partly failed, both in the north and in the west of
+France, until after the harvest of 1789.
+
+The scarcity was already severely felt, when Bailly on the 15th of July
+accepted the appointment of Mayor of Paris. That day, it had been
+ascertained, from an examination of the quantity of corn at the Market
+Hall and of the private stocks of the bakers, that the supply of grain
+and flour would be entirely exhausted in three days. The next day, the
+16th of July, all the overseers in the victualling administration had
+disappeared. This flight, the natural consequence of the terrible
+intimidation that hovered over those who were in any way connected with
+the furnishing of provisions, interrupted the operations which had been
+commenced, and exposed the city of Paris to famine.
+
+Bailly, a magistrate of only one day's standing, considered that the
+multitude understands nothing, hears nothing when bread fails; that a
+scarcity, either real or supposed, is the great promoter of riots; that
+all classes of the population grant their sympathy to whoever cries, _I
+am hungry_; that this lamentable cry soon unites individuals of all
+ages, of both sexes, of every condition, in one common sentiment of
+blind fury; that no human power could maintain order and tranquillity in
+the bosom of a population that dreads the want of food; he therefore
+resolved to devote his days and his nights to provisioning the capital;
+to deserve, as he himself said, the title of the _Father nourisher of
+the Parisians_,--that title of which he showed himself always so proud,
+after having painfully gained it.
+
+Bailly day by day recorded in his Memoirs a statement of his actions, of
+his anxieties, and of his fears. It may be good for the instruction of
+the more fortunate administrators of the present epoch, to insert here a
+few lines from the journal of our colleague.
+
+"18th August. Our provisions are very much reduced. Those of the morrow
+depend strictly on the arrangements made on the previous evening; and
+now amidst this distress, we learn that our flour-wagons have been
+stopped at Bourg-la-Reine; that some banditti are pillaging the markets
+in the direction of Rouen, that they have seized twenty wagons of flour
+that were destined for us; ... that the unfortunate Sauvage was
+massacred at Saint Germain-en-Laye; ... that Thomassin escaped with
+difficulty from the fury of the populace at Choisy."
+
+By repeating either these literal words, or something equivalent to
+them, for every day of distress throughout the year 1789, an exact idea
+may be formed of the anxieties that Bailly experienced from the morning
+after his installation as mayor. I deceive myself; to complete the
+picture we ought also to record the unreflecting and inconsiderate
+actions of a multitude of people whose destiny appeared to be, to meddle
+with every thing and to spoil every thing. I will not resist the wish to
+show one of these self-important men, starving (or very nearly so) the
+city of Paris.
+
+"21st August. The store of victuals, Bailly says, was so scanty, that
+the lives of the inhabitants of Paris depended on the somewhat
+mathematical precision of our arrangements. Having learnt that a barge
+with eighteen hundred sacks of flour had arrived at Poissy, I
+immediately despatched a hundred wagons from Paris to fetch them. And
+behold, in the evening, an officer without powers and without orders,
+related before me, that having met some wagons on the Poissy road, he
+made them go back, because he did not think that there was a wharf for
+any loaded barge on the Seine. It would be difficult for me to describe
+the despair and the anger into which this recital threw me. We were
+obliged to put sentinels at the bakers' doors!"
+
+The despair and the anger of Bailly were very natural. Even now, after
+more than half a century, no one thinks without a shudder of that
+obscure individual who, from not believing that a loaded barge could get
+up to Poissy, was going, on the 21st August, 1789, to plunge the capital
+into bloody disorders.
+
+By means of perseverance, devotedness, and courage, Bailly succeeded in
+overcoming all the difficulties that the real scarcity, and the
+fictitious one, which was still more redoubtable, caused daily to arise.
+He succeeded, but his health from that epoch was deeply injured; his
+mind had undergone several of those severe shocks that we can never
+entirely recover from. Our colleague said, "when I used to pass the
+bakers' shops during the scarcity, and saw them besieged by a crowd, my
+heart sunk within me; and even now that abundance has been restored to
+us, the sight of one of those shops strikes me with a deep emotion."
+
+The administrative conflicts, the source of which lay in the very bosom
+of the Council of the Commune, daily drew from Bailly the following
+exclamation, a faithful image of his mind: _I have ceased to be happy_.
+The embarrassments that proceeded from external sources touched him
+much less, and yet they were far from contemptible. Let us surmount our
+repugnance, although a reasonable one; let us cast a firm look on the
+sink where the unworthy calumnies were manufactured, of which Bailly was
+for some time the object.
+
+Several years before our first revolution, a native of Neufchatel
+quitted his mountains, traversed the Jura, and lighted upon Paris.
+Without means, without any recognized talent, without eminence of any
+sort, repulsive in appearance, of a more than negligent deportment, it
+seemed unlikely that he should hope, or even dream, of success; but the
+young traveller had been told to have full confidence, although a
+celebrated academician had not yet given that singular definition of our
+country, "France is the home of foreigners." At all events, the
+definition was not erroneous in this instance, for soon after his
+arrival, the Neufchatelois was appointed physician to the household of
+one of the princes of the royal family, and formed strict intimacies
+with the greater part of the powerful people about the court.
+
+This stranger thirsted for literary glory. Amongst his early
+productions, a medico-philosophical work figured in three volumes,
+relative to the reciprocal influences of the mind and the body. The
+author thought he had produced a _chef d'oeuvre_; even Voltaire was
+not thought to be above analyzing it suitably; let us hasten to say that
+the illustrious old man, yielding to the pressing solicitations of the
+Duke de Praslin, one of the most active patrons of the Swiss doctor,
+promised to study the work and give his opinion of it.
+
+The author was at the acmé of his wishes. After having pompously
+announced that the seat of the soul is in the _meninges_ (cerebral
+membrane), could there be any thing to fear from the liberal thinker of
+Ferney? He had only forgotten that the patriarch was above all a man of
+good taste, and that the book on the body and soul offended all the
+proprieties of life. Voltaire's article appeared. He began with this
+severe and just lesson--"We should not be prodigal of contempt towards
+others, and of esteem for ourselves, to such a degree as will be
+revolting to our readers." The end was still more overwhelming. "We see
+harlequin everywhere cutting capers to amuse the pit."
+
+Harlequin had received a sufficient dose. Not having succeeded in
+literature, he threw himself upon the sciences.
+
+On betaking himself to this new career, the doctor of Neufchatel
+attacked Newton. But unluckily his criticisms were directed precisely to
+those points wherein optics may vie in evidence with geometry itself.
+This time the patron was M. de Maillebois, and the tribunal the Academy
+of Sciences.
+
+The Academy pronounced its judgment gravely, without inflicting a word
+of ridicule; for example, it did not speak of harlequin; but it did not
+therefore remain the less established that the pretended experiments,
+intended, it was said, to upset Newton's, on the unequal refrangibility
+of variously coloured rays, and the explanation of the rainbow, &c., had
+absolutely no scientific value.
+
+Still the author would not allow himself to have been beaten. He even
+conceived the possibility of retaliation; and, availing himself of his
+intimacy with the Duke de Villeroy, governor of the second city in the
+kingdom, he got the Academy of Lyons to propose for competition all the
+questions in optics, which for several years past had been the subjects
+of its disquisitions; he even furnished the amount of the prize out of
+his own pocket, under an assumed name.
+
+The prize so longed for, and so singularly proposed, was not obtained,
+however, by the Duke de Villeroy's candidate, but by the astronomer
+Flaugergues. From that instant, the pseudo-physicist became the bitter
+enemy of the scientific bodies of the whole universe, of whoever bore
+the title of an academician. Putting aside all shame, he no longer made
+himself known in the field of natural philosophy, merely by imaginary
+experiments, or by juggleries; he had recourse to contemptible
+practices, with the object of throwing doubt upon the clearest and best
+proved principles of science; for example, the metallic needles
+discovered by the academician Charles, and which the foreign doctor had
+adroitly concealed in a cake of resin, in order to contradict the common
+opinion of the electric non-conductibility of that substance.
+
+These details were necessary. I could not avoid characterizing the
+journalist who by his daily calumnies contributed most to undermine the
+popularity of Bailly. It was requisite besides, once for all, to strip
+him in this circle of the epithet of philosopher, with which men of the
+world, and even some historians, inconsiderately gratified him. When a
+man reveals himself by some brilliant and intelligent works, the public
+is pleased to find them united with good qualities of the heart. Nor
+should its joy be less hearty on discovering the absence of all
+intellectual merit in a man who had before shown himself despicable by
+his passions, or his vices, or even only by serious blemishes of
+character.
+
+If I have not yet named the enemy of our colleague, if I have contented
+myself with recounting his actions, it is in order to avoid as much as I
+can the painful feeling that his name must raise here. Judge,
+Gentlemen, weigh, my scruples: the furious persecutor of Bailly, of whom
+I have been talking to you for some minutes, was Marat.
+
+The revolution of '89 just occurred in time to relieve the abortive
+author, physiologist, and physicist from the intolerable position into
+which he had been thrown by his inability and his quackery.
+
+As soon as the revolution had assumed a decided movement, great surprise
+was occasioned by the sudden transformations excited in the inferior
+walks of the political world. Marat was one of the most striking
+examples of these hasty changes of principles. The Neufchatel physician
+had shown himself a violent adversary to those opinions that occasioned
+the convocation of the assembly of Notables, and the national commotion
+in '89. At that time democratical institutions had not a more bitter or
+more violent censor. Marat liked it to be believed that in quitting
+France for England, he fled especially from the spectacle of social
+renovation which was odious to him. Yet a month after the taking of the
+Bastille, he returned to Paris, established a journal, and from its very
+beginning left far behind him, even those who, in the hope of making
+themselves remarkable, thought they must push exaggeration to its very
+farthest limits. The former connection of Marat with M. de Calonne was
+perfectly well known; they remembered these words of Pitt's: "The French
+must go through liberty, and then be brought back to their old
+government by licence;" the avowed adversaries of revolution testified
+by their conduct, by their votes, and even by their imprudent words,
+that according to them, _the worst_ was the only means of returning to
+what they call _the good_; and yet these instructive comparisons struck
+only eight or ten members of our great assemblies, so small a share has
+suspicion in the national character, so painful is distrust to French
+sincerity. The historians of our troubles themselves have but skimmed
+the question that I have just raised--assuredly a very important and
+very curious one. In such matters, the part of a prophet is tolerably
+hazardous; yet I do not hesitate to predict, that a minute study of the
+conduct and of the discourses of Marat, would lead the mind more and
+more to those chapters in a treatise on the chase, wherein we see
+depicted bad species of falcons and hawks, at first only pursuing the
+game by a sign from the master, and for his advantage; but by degrees
+taking pleasure in these bloody struggles, and entering on the sport at
+last with passion and for their own profit.
+
+Marat took good care not to forget that during a revolution, men,
+naturally suspicious, act in their more immediate affairs so as to
+render those persons suspected whose duty it is to watch over them. The
+Mayor of Paris, the General Commandant of the National Guard, were the
+first objects, therefore, at which the pamphleteer aimed. As an
+academician, Bailly had an extra claim to his hate.
+
+Among men of Marat's disposition, the wounds of self-love never heal.
+Without the hateful passions derived from this source, who would believe
+that an individual, whose time was divided between the superintendence
+of a daily journal, the drawing up of innumerable placards with which he
+covered the walls of Paris, together with the struggles of the
+Convention, the disputes not less fierce of the clubs; that an
+individual who, besides, had given himself the task of imposing an
+Agrarian law on the country, could find time to write the very long
+letters against the old official adversaries of his bad experiments, his
+absurd theories, his lucubrations devoid both of erudition and of
+talent; letters in which the Monges, the Laplaces, the Lavoisiers are
+treated with such an entire neglect of justice and of truth, and with
+such a cynical spirit, that my respect for this assembly prevents my
+quoting a single expression.
+
+It was not then only the Mayor of Paris whom the pretended friend of the
+people persecuted; it was also the Academician Bailly. But the
+illustrious philosopher, the virtuous magistrate, gave no hold for
+positive and decided criminations. The hideous pamphleteer understood
+this well; and therefore he adopted vague insinuations, that allowed of
+no possible refutation, a method which, we may remark by the way, has
+not been without imitators. Marat exclaimed every day: "Let Bailly send
+in his accounts!" and the most powerful figure of rhetoric, as Napoleon
+said, repetition, finally inspires doubts in a stupid portion of the
+public, in some feeble, ignorant, and credulous minds in the Council of
+the Commune; and the scrupulous magistrate wished, in fact, to send in
+his accounts. Here they are in two lines: Bailly never had the handling
+of any public funds. He left the Hôtel de Ville, after having spent
+there two thirds of his patrimony. If his functions had been long
+protracted, he would have retired completely ruined. Before the Commune
+assigned him any salary, the expenses of our colleague in charities
+already exceeded 30,000 livres.
+
+That was, Gentlemen, the final result. The details would be more
+striking, and the name of Bailly would ennoble them. I could show our
+colleague entering only once with his wife, to regulate the furnishing
+of the apartments that the Commune assigned him; rejecting all that had
+the appearance of luxury or even of elegance; to replace sets of china
+by sets of earthenware, new carpets by the half-used ones of M. de
+Crosnes, writing tables of mahogany by writing tables of walnut, &c. But
+all this would appear an indirect criticism, which is far from my
+thoughts. From the same motives, I will not say, that inimical to all
+sinecures, of all plurality of appointments, when the functions are not
+fulfilled, the Mayor of Paris, since he no longer regularly attended the
+meetings of the National Assembly, no longer fingered the pay of a
+deputy, and that this was proved, to the great confusion of the idiots,
+whose minds had been disturbed by Marat's clamours. Yet I will record
+that Bailly refused all that in the incomes of his predecessors had
+proceeded from an impure source; as, for example, the allowances from
+the lotteries, the amount of which was by his orders constantly paid
+into the coffers of the Commune.
+
+You see, Gentlemen, that no trouble was required to show that the
+disinterestedness of Bailly was great, enlightened, dictated by virtue,
+and that it was at least equal to his other eminent qualities. In the
+series of accusations that I have extracted from the pamphlets of that
+epoch, there is one, however, as to which, all things considered, I will
+not attempt to defend Bailly. He accepted a livery from the city; on
+this point no blame was attached to him; but the colours of the livery
+were very gaudy. Perhaps the inventors of these bright shades had
+imagined, that the insignia of the first magistrate of the metropolis,
+in a ceremony, in a crowd, should, like the light from a Pharos, strike
+even inattentive eyes. But these explanations regard those who would
+make of Bailly a perfectly rational being, a man absolutely faultless;
+I, although his admirer, I resign myself to admit that in a laborious
+life, strewed with so many rocks, he committed the horrible crime,
+unpardonable let it be called, of having accepted from the Commune a
+livery of gaudy colours.
+
+Bailly figured in the events of the month of October 1789, only by the
+unsuccessful efforts he made at Paris, to arrange with Lafayette how to
+prevent a great crowd of women from going to Versailles. When this
+crowd, considerably increased, returned on the 6th October very
+tumultuously escorting the carriages of the royal family, Bailly
+harangued the king at the Barrière de la Conférence. Three days after,
+he also complimented the Queen at the Tuileries in the name of the
+Municipal Council.
+
+On retiring from the National Assembly, which he then called a Cavern of
+Anthropophagi, Lally Tollendal published a letter in which he found
+bitter fault with Bailly on account of these discourses. Lally was
+angry, recollecting that the day when the king reëntered his capital as
+a prisoner, surrounded by a very disrespectful crowd, and preceded by
+the heads of his body-guards, had appeared to Bailly a fine day!
+
+If the two heads had been in the procession, Bailly becomes inexcusable;
+but the two epochs, or rather hours (to speak more correctly), have been
+confounded; the wretched men, who after a conflict with the body-guard,
+brought their barbarous trophies to Paris, left Versailles in the
+morning; they were arrested and imprisoned, by order of the
+municipality, as soon as they had entered the barriers of the capital.
+Thus the hideous circumstance reported by Lally was the dream of a wild
+imagination.
+
+
+
+
+A GLANCE AT THE POSTHUMOUS MEMOIR OF BAILLY.
+
+Bailly's Memoirs have thus far served me as a guide and check; now that
+this resource fails me, let us refer to his posthumous work.
+
+I could only consult those Memoirs as far as they related to the public
+or private life of our colleague. Historians may consult them in a more
+general point of view. They will find some valuable facts in them,
+related without prejudice; ample matter for new and fruitful reflections
+on the way in which revolutions are generated, increase, and lead to
+catastrophes. Bailly is less positive, less absolute, less slashing,
+than the generality of his contemporaries, even respecting those events
+in which circumstances assigned to him the principal part to be acted;
+hence when he points out some low intrigue, in distinct and categorical
+terms, he inspires full confidence.
+
+When the occasion will allow of it, Bailly praises with enthusiasm; a
+noble action fills him with joy; he puts it together and relates it with
+relish. This disposition of mind is sufficiently rare to deserve
+mention.
+
+The day, still far off, when we shall finally recognize that our great
+revolution presented, even in the interior, even during the most cruel
+epochs, something besides anarchical and sanguinary scenes: the day
+when, like the intrepid fishermen in the Gulf of Persia and on the
+coasts of Ceylon, a zealous and impartial writer will consent to plunge
+head-foremost into the ocean of facts of all sorts, of which our fathers
+were witnesses, and exclusively seize the pearls, disdainfully rejecting
+the mud,--Bailly's Memoirs will furnish a glorious contingent to this
+national work. Two or three quotations will explain my ideas, and will
+show, besides, how scrupulously Bailly registered all that could shed
+honour on our country.
+
+I will take the first fact from the military annals; a grenadier of the
+French Guard saves his commanding officer's life, although the people
+thought that they had great reason of complaint against him. "Grenadier,
+what is your name?" exclaimed the Duke de Châtelet, full of gratitude.
+The soldier replied, "Colonel, my name is that of all my comrades."
+
+I will borrow the second fact from the civil annals: Stephen de
+Larivière, one of the electors of Paris, had gone on the 20th of July,
+to fetch Berthier de Sauvigny, who had been fatally arrested at
+Compiègne, on the false report that the Assembly of the Town Hall wished
+to prosecute him as intendant of the army, by which a few days before
+the capital had been surrounded. The journey was performed in an open
+cabriolet, amidst the insults of a misled population, who imputed to the
+prisoner the scarcity and bad quality of the bread. Twenty times, guns,
+pistols, sabres, would have put an end to Berthier's life, if, twenty
+times, the member of the Commune of Paris had not voluntarily covered
+him with his body. When they reached the streets of the capital, the
+cabriolet had to penetrate through an immense and compact crowd, whose
+exasperation bordered on delirium, and who evidently wished to
+perpetrate the utmost extremities; not knowing which of the two
+travellers was the Intendant of Paris, they betook themselves to crying
+out, "let the prisoner take off his hat!" Berthier obeyed, but Larivière
+uncovered his head also at the same instant.
+
+All parties would gain by the production of a work, that I desire to see
+most earnestly. For my part, I acknowledge, I should be sorry not to
+see in it the answer made to Francis II. by one of the numerous officers
+who committed the fault, so honestly acknowledged afterwards,--a fault
+that no one would commit now,--that of joining foreigners in arms. The
+Austrian prince, after his coronation, attempted, at a review, to induce
+our countrymen to admire the good bearing of his troops, and finally
+exclaimed, "There are materials wherewith to crush the Sans-culottes."
+"That remains to be seen!" instantly answered the émigré officer.
+
+May these quotations lead some able writer to erect a monument still
+wanting to the glory of our country! There is in this subject, it seems
+to me, enough to inspire legitimate ambition. Did not Plutarch
+immortalize himself by preserving noble actions and fine sentiments from
+oblivion?
+
+
+
+
+EXAMINATION OF BAILLY'S ADMINISTRATION AS MAYOR.
+
+The illustrious Mayor of Paris had not the leisure to continue writing
+his reminiscences beyond the date of the 2d of October, 1789. The
+analysis and appreciation of the events subsequent to that epoch will
+remain deprived of that influential sanction, pure as virtue, concise
+and precise as truth, which I found in the handwriting of our colleague.
+Xenocrates, historians say, who was celebrated among the Greeks for his
+honesty, being called to bear witness before a tribunal, the judges with
+common consent stopped him as he was advancing towards the altar
+according to the usual custom, and said, "These formalities are not
+required from you; an oath would add nothing to the authority of your
+words." Such, Bailly presents himself to the reader of his Posthumous
+Memoirs. None of his assertions leave any room for indecision or doubt.
+He needs not high-flown expressions or protestations in order to
+convince; nor would an oath add authority to his words. He may be
+deceived, but he is never the deceiver.
+
+I will spare no effort to give to the description of the latter part of
+Bailly's life, all the correctness which can result from a sincere and
+conscientious comparison of the writings published as well by the
+partisans as by the enemies of our great revolution. Such, however, is
+my desire to prevent two phases, though very distinct, being confounded
+together, that I shall here pause, in order to cast a scrupulous glance
+on the actions and on the various publications of our colleague. I shall
+moreover thus have an easy opportunity of filling up some important
+lacunæ.
+
+I read in a biographical article, otherwise very friendly, that Bailly
+was nominated the very day of, and immediately after, the assassination
+of M. de Flesselles; and in this identity the wish was to insinuate that
+the first Mayor of Paris received this high dignity from the bloody
+hands of a set of wretches. The learned biographer, notwithstanding his
+good will, has ill repelled the calumny. With a little more attention he
+would have succeeded better. A simple comparison of dates would have
+sufficed. The death of M. de Flesselles occurred on the 14th of July;
+Bailly was nominated two days after.
+
+I will address the same remark to the authors of a Biographical
+Dictionary still more recent, in which they speak of the ineffectual
+efforts that Bailly made to prevent the multitude from murdering the
+governor of the Bastille (de Launay). But Bailly had no opportunity of
+making an effort, for he was then at Versailles; no duty called him to
+Paris, nor did he become Mayor till two days after the taking of the
+fortress. It is really inexcusable not to have compared the two dates,
+by which these errors would have been avoided.
+
+Many persons very little acquainted with contemporaneous history, fancy
+that during the whole duration of Bailly's administration, Paris was
+quite a cut-throat place. That is a romance; the following is the
+truth:--
+
+Bailly was Mayor during two years and four months. In that time there
+occurred four political assassinations; those of Foulon and of Berthier
+de Sauvigny, his son-in-law, at the Hôtel de Ville; that of M. Durocher,
+a respectable officer of the gendarmerie, killed at Chaillot, by a
+musket-shot, in August, 1789; and that of a baker massacred in a riot in
+the month of October of the same year. I do not speak of the
+assassination of two unfortunate men on the Champ de Mars in July, 1791,
+as that deplorable fact must be considered separately.
+
+The individuals guilty of the assassination of the baker were seized,
+condemned to death, and executed. The family of the unfortunate victim
+became the object of the anxious care of all the authorities, and
+obtained a pension.
+
+The death of M. Durocher was attributed to some Swiss soldiers who had
+revolted.
+
+The horrible and ever to be deplored assassinations of Foulon and of
+Berthier, are among those misfortunes which, under certain given
+circumstances, no human power could prevent.
+
+In times of scarcity, a slight word, either true or unfounded, suffices
+to create a terrible commotion.
+
+Réveillon is made to say, that a workman can live upon fifteen sous per
+diem, and behold his manufactory destroyed from top to bottom.
+
+They ascribe to Foulon the barbarous vaunt; "I will force the people to
+eat hay;" and without any order from the constituted authorities, some
+peasants, neighbours of the old minister, arrest him, take him to Paris,
+his son-in-law experiences the same fate, and the famished populace
+immolates both of them.
+
+In proportion as the multitude appear to me unjust and culpable, in
+attacking certain men respecting a scarcity of provisions, when it is
+the manifest consequence of the severity of the seasons, I should be
+disposed to excuse their rage against the authors of factitious
+scarcities. Well, Gentlemen, at the time that Foulon was assassinated,
+the people, deceived by some impassioned orators of the Assembly, might,
+or let us rather say, ought to believe, that they were wilfully
+famished. Foulon perished the 22d of July, 1789; on the 15th, that is to
+say, seven days before, Mirabeau had addressed the following incendiary
+words to the inhabitants of the capital, from the National Tribune:--
+
+"Henry IV. allowed provisions to be taken into besieged and rebellious
+Paris; but now, some perverse ministers intercept convoys of provisions
+destined for famished and obedient Paris."
+
+Yet people have been so inconsiderate as to be astonished at the
+assassinations of Foulon and of Berthier. Going back in thought to the
+month of July, 1789, I perceive in the imprudent apostrophe of the
+eloquent tribune, more sanguinary disorders than the contemporary
+history has had to record.
+
+One of the most honourable, one of the most respectable and the most
+respected members of the institute, having been led, in a recent work,
+to relate the assassination of Foulon, has thrown on the conduct of
+Bailly, under those cruel circumstances, an aspersion that I read with
+surprise and grief. Foulon was detained in the Hôtel de Ville. Bailly
+went down into the square, and succeeded for a moment in calming the
+multitude. "I did not imagine," said the Mayor in his memoirs, "that
+they could have forced the Hôtel de Ville, a well-guarded post, and an
+object of respect to all the citizens. I therefore thought the prisoner
+in perfect safety; I did not doubt but the waves of this storm would
+finally subside, and I departed."
+
+The honourable author of the _History of the Reign of Louis XVI._
+opposes to this passage the following words taken from the official
+minutes of the Hôtel de Ville: "The electors (those who had accompanied
+Bailly out to the square) reported in the Hall the certainty that the
+calm would not last long." The new historian adds: "How could the Mayor
+alone labour under this delusion? It is too evident, that on such a day,
+the public tranquillity was much too uncertain, to allow of the chief
+magistrate of the town absenting himself without deserving the reproach
+of weakness." The remainder of the passage shows too evidently, that in
+the author's estimation, weakness here was synonymous with cowardice.
+
+It is against this, Gentlemen, that I protest with heartfelt
+earnestness. Bailly absented himself because he did not think that the
+Hôtel de Ville could be forced. The electors in the passage quoted do
+not enunciate a different opinion: where then is the contradiction?
+
+Bailly deceived himself in this expectation, for the multitude burst
+into the Hôtel de Ville. We will grant that there was an error of
+judgment in this; but nothing in the world authorizes us to call in
+question the courage of the Mayor.
+
+To decide after the blow, with so little hesitation or consideration,
+that Bailly ought not to have absented himself from the House of the
+Commune, we must forget that, under such circumstances, the obligations
+of the first magistrate of the city were quite imperious and very
+numerous; it is requisite, above all, not to remember that each day, the
+provision of flour required for the nourishment of seven or eight
+hundred thousand inhabitants, depended on the measures adopted on the
+previous evening. M. de Crosne, who on quitting the post of Lieutenant
+of Police, had not ceased to be a citizen, was during some days a very
+enlightened and zealous councillor for Bailly; but on the day that
+Foulon was arrested, this dismissed magistrate thought himself lost. He
+and his family made an appeal to the gratitude and humanity of our
+colleague. It was to procure a refuge for them, that Bailly employed the
+few hours of absence with which he was so much reproached: those hours
+during which that catastrophe happened which the Mayor could not have
+prevented, since even the superhuman efforts of General Lafayette,
+commanding an armed force, proved futile. I will add, that to spare M.
+de Crosne an arbitrary arrest, the imminent danger of which alas! was
+too evident in the death of Berthier, Bailly absented himself again from
+the Hôtel de Ville on the night of the 22d to the 23d of July, to
+accompany the former Lieutenant of Police to a great distance from
+Paris.
+
+There is not a more distressing spectacle than that of one honest man
+wrongfully attacking another honest man. Gentlemen, let us never
+willingly leave the satisfaction and the advantage of it to the wicked.
+
+To appreciate the actions of our predecessors with impartiality and
+justice, it would be indispensable to keep constantly before our eyes
+the list of unheard-of difficulties that the revolution had to surmount,
+and to remember the very restricted means of repression placed at the
+disposal of the authorities in the beginning.
+
+The scarcity of food gave rise to many embarrassments, to many a crisis;
+but causes of quite another nature had not less influence on the march
+of events.
+
+In his memoirs, Bailly speaks of the manoeuvres of a redoubtable
+faction labouring for ... under the name of the.... The names are blank.
+A certain editor of the work filled up the lacunæ. I have not the same
+hardihood, I only wished to remark that Bailly had to combat at once
+both the spontaneous effervescence of the multitude, and the intrigues
+of a crowd of secret agents, who distributed money with a liberal hand.
+
+Some day, said our colleague, the infernal genius who directed those
+intrigues and _le bailleur de fonds_ will be known. Although the proper
+names are wanting, it is certain that some persons inimical to the
+revolution urged it to deplorable excesses.
+
+These enemies had collected in the capital thirty or forty thousand
+vagabonds. What could be opposed to them? The Tribunals? They had no
+moral power, and were declared enemies to the revolution. The National
+Guard? It was only just formed; the officers scarcely knew each other,
+and moreover scarcely knew the men who were to obey them. Was it at
+least permitted to depend on the regular armed force? It consisted of
+six battalions of French Guards without officers; of six thousand
+soldiers who, from every part of France, had flocked singly to Paris, on
+reading in the newspapers the following expressions from General
+Lafayette: "They talk of deserters! The real deserters are those men who
+have not abandoned their standards." There were finally six hundred
+Swiss Guards in Paris, deserters from their regiments; for, let us speak
+freely, the celebrated monument of Lucerne will not prevent the Swiss
+themselves from being recognized by impartial and intelligent
+historians, as having experienced the revolutionary fever.
+
+Those who, with such poor means of repression, flattered themselves that
+they could entirely prevent any disorder, in a town of seven or eight
+hundred thousand inhabitants in exasperation, must have been very blind.
+Those, on the other hand, who attempt to throw the responsibility of the
+disorders on Bailly, would prove by this alone, that good people should
+always keep aloof from public affairs during a revolution.
+
+The administrator, a being of modern creation, now declares, with the
+most ludicrous self-sufficiency, that Bailly was not equal to the
+functions of a Mayor of Paris. It is, he says, by undeserved favour that
+his statue has been placed on the façade of the Hôtel de Ville. During
+his magistracy, Bailly did not create any large square in the capital,
+he did not open out any large streets, he elevated no splendid monument;
+Bailly would therefore have done better had he remained an astronomer or
+erudite scholar.
+
+The enumeration of all the public erections that Bailly did not execute
+is correct. It might also have been added, that far from devoting the
+municipal funds to building, he had the vast and threatening castle of
+the Bastille demolished down to its very foundation's; but this would
+not deprive Bailly of the honour of having been one of the most
+enlightened magistrates that the city of Paris could boast.
+
+Bailly did not enlarge any street, did not erect any palace during the
+twenty-eight months of his administration! No, undoubtedly! for, first
+it was necessary to give bread to the inhabitants of Paris; now the
+revenues of the town, added to the daily sums furnished by Necker,
+scarcely sufficed for those principal wants. Some years before, the
+Parisians had been very much displeased at the establishment of import
+dues on all alimentary substances. The writers of that epoch preserved
+the burlesque Alexandrine, which was placarded all over the town, on the
+erection of the Octroi circumvallation:
+
+     "Le mur murant Paris, rend Paris murmurant."[13]
+
+The multitude was not content with murmuring; the moment that a
+favourable opportunity occurred, it went to the barriers and broke them
+down. These were reëstablished by the administration with great trouble,
+and the smugglers often took them down by main force. The _Octroi_
+revenue from the imports, which used to amount to 70,000 francs, now
+fell to less than 30,000. Those persons who have considered the figures
+of the present revenue, will assuredly not compare such very dissimilar
+epochs.
+
+But it is said that ameliorations in the moral world may often be
+effected without expense. What were those for which the public was
+indebted to the direct exertions of Bailly? The question is simple, but
+repentance will follow the having asked it. My answer is this: One of
+the most honourable victories gained by mathematics over the avaricious
+prejudices of the administrations of certain towns has been, in our own
+times, the radical suppression of gambling-houses. I will hasten to
+prove that such a suppression had already engaged Bailly's attention,
+that he had partly effected it, and that no one ever spoke of those
+odious dens with more eloquence and firmness.
+
+"I declare," wrote the Mayor of Paris on the 5th of May, 1790, "that the
+gambling-houses are in my opinion a public scourge. I think that these
+meetings not only should not be tolerated, but that they ought to be
+sought out and prosecuted, as much as the liberty of the citizens, and
+the respect due to their homes, will admit.
+
+"I regard the tax that has been levied from such houses as a disgraceful
+tribute. I do not think that it is allowable to employ a revenue derived
+from vice and disorder, even to do good. In consequence of these
+principles, I have never granted any permit to gambling-houses; I have
+constantly refused them. I have constantly announced that not only they
+would not be tolerated, but that they would be sought out and
+prosecuted."
+
+If I add that Bailly suppressed all spectacles of animal-fighting, at
+which the multitude cannot fail to acquire ferocious and sanguinary
+habits, I shall have a right to ask of every superficial writer, how he
+would justify the epithet of sterile, applied with such assurance to the
+administration of our virtuous colleague.
+
+Anxious to carry out in practice that which had been largely recognized
+theoretically in the declaration of rights--the complete separation of
+religion from civil law,--Bailly presented himself before the National
+Assembly on the 14th of May, 1791, and demanded, in the name of the city
+of Paris, the abolition of an order of things which, in the then state
+of men's minds, gave rise to great abuses. If declarations of births, of
+marriages, and of deaths are now received by civil officers in a form
+agreeing with all religious opinions, the country is chiefly indebted
+for it to the intelligent firmness of Bailly.
+
+The unfortunate beings for whom all public men should feel most
+solicitous, are those prisoners who are awaiting in prison the decrees
+of the courts of justice. Bailly took care not to neglect such a duty.
+At the end of 1790, the old tribunals had no moral power; they could no
+longer act; the new ones were not yet created. This state of affairs
+distracted the mind of our colleague. On the 18th of November, he
+expressed his grief to the National Assembly, in terms full of
+sensibility and kindness. I should be culpable if I left them in
+oblivion.
+
+"Gentlemen, the prisons are full. The innocent are awaiting their
+justification, and the criminals an end to their remorse. All breathe an
+unwholesome air, and disease will pronounce terrible decrees. Despair
+dwells there: Despair says, either give me death, or judge me. When we
+visit those prisons, that is what the fathers of the poor and the
+unfortunate hear; this is what it is their duty to repeat to the fathers
+of their country. We must tell them that in those asylums of crime, of
+misery, and of every grief, time is infinite in its duration; a month is
+a century, a month is an abyss the sight of which is frightful.... We
+ask of the tribunals to empty the prisons by the justification of the
+innocent, or by examples of justice."
+
+Does it not appear to you, Gentlemen, that calm times may occasionally
+derive excellent lessons, and, moreover, lessons expressed in very good
+language, from our revolutionary epoch?
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[13] "The wall walling Paris, renders Paris wailing."
+
+
+
+
+THE KING'S FLIGHT.--EVENTS ON THE CHAMP DE MARS.
+
+In the month of April, 1791, Bailly perceived that his influence over
+the Parisian population was decreasing. The king had announced that he
+should depart on the 18th, and would remain some days at St. Cloud. The
+state of his health was the ostensible cause of his departure. Some
+religious scruples were probably the real cause; the holy week was
+approaching, and the king would have no communications with the
+ecclesiastics sworn in for his parish. Bailly was not discomposed at
+this projected journey; he regarded it even with satisfaction. Foreign
+courts, said our colleague, looked upon him as a prisoner. The sanction
+he gives to various decrees, appears to them extorted by violence; the
+visit of Louis XVI. to Saint Cloud will dissipate all these false
+reports. Bailly therefore concerted measures with La Fayette for the
+departure of the royal family; but the inhabitants of Paris, less
+confiding than their mayor, already saw the king escaping from St.
+Cloud, and seeking refuge amidst foreign armies. They therefore rushed
+to the Tuileries, and notwithstanding all the efforts of Bailly and his
+colleague, the court carriages could not advance a step. The king and
+queen therefore, after waiting for an hour and a half in their carriage,
+reascended into the palace.
+
+To remain in power after such a check, was giving to the country the
+most admirable proof of devotion.
+
+In the night of the 20th to the 21st of June, 1791, the king quitted the
+Tuileries. This flight, so fatal to the monarchy, irretrievably
+destroyed the ascendency that Bailly had exercised over the capital. The
+populace usually judges from the event. The king, they said, with the
+queen and their two children, were freely allowed to go out of the
+palace. The Mayor of Paris was their accomplice, for he has the means of
+knowing every thing; otherwise he might be accused of carelessness, or
+of the most culpable negligence.
+
+These attacks were not only echoed in the shops, in the streets, but
+also in the strongly organized clubs. The Mayor answered in a peremptory
+manner, but without entirely effacing the first impression. During
+several days after the king's flight, both Bailly and La Fayette were in
+personal danger. The National Assembly had often to look to their
+safety.
+
+I have now reached a painful portion of my task, a frightful event, that
+led finally to Bailly's cruel death; a bloody catastrophe, the relation
+of which will perhaps oblige me to allow a little blame to hover over
+some actions of this virtuous citizen, whom thus far it has been my
+delight to praise without any restriction.
+
+The flight of the king had an immense influence on the progress of our
+first revolution. It threw into the republican party some considerable
+political characters who, till then, had hoped to realize the union of a
+monarchy with democratical principles.
+
+Mirabeau, a short time before his death, having heard this projected
+flight spoken of, said to Cabanis: "I have defended monarchy to the
+last; I defend it still, although I think it lost.... But, if the king
+departs, I will mount the tribune, have the throne declared vacant, and
+proclaim a Republic."
+
+After the return from Varennes, the project of substituting a republican
+government for a monarchical government was very seriously discussed by
+the most moderate members of the National Assembly, and we now know
+that the Duke de La Rochefoucauld and Dupont (de Némours) for example,
+were decidedly in favour of a republic. But it was chiefly in the clubs
+that the idea of such a radical change had struck root. When the
+Commission of the National Assembly had expressed itself, through M.
+Muguet, at the sitting of the 13th of July, 1791, against the forfeiture
+of Louis XVI., there was a great fermentation in Paris. Some agents of
+the Cordeliers (Shoemakers') Club were the first to ask for signatures
+to a petition on the 14th of July, against the proposed decision. The
+Assembly refused to read and even to receive it. On the motion of
+Laclos, the club of the Jacobins got up another. This, after undergoing
+some important modifications, was to be signed on the 17th on the Champ
+de Mars, on the altar of their country. These projects were discussed
+openly, in full daylight. The National Assembly deemed them anarchical.
+On the 16th of July it called to its bar the municipality of Paris,
+enjoining it to have recourse to force, if requisite, to repress any
+culpable movements.
+
+The Council of the Commune on the morning of the 17th placarded a
+proclamation that it had prepared according to the orders of the
+National Assembly. Some municipal officers went about preceded by a
+trumpeter, to read it in various public squares. Around the Hotel de
+Ville, the military arrangements, commanded by La Fayette, led to the
+expectation of a sanguinary conflict. All at once, on the opening of the
+sitting of the National Assembly, a report was circulated that two good
+citizens having dared to tell the people collected around their
+country's altar, that they must obey the law, had been put to death, and
+that their heads, stuck upon pikes, were carried through the streets.
+The news of this attack excited the indignation of all the deputies, and
+under this impression, Alexander Lameth, then President of the Assembly,
+of his own accord transmitted to Bailly very severe new orders, a
+circumstance which, though only said _en passant_, has been but recently
+known.
+
+The municipal body, as soon as it was informed, about eleven o'clock, of
+the two assassinations, deputed three of its members, furnished with
+full powers, to reëstablish order. Strong detachments accompanied the
+municipal officers. About two o'clock it was reported that stones had
+been thrown at the National Guard. The Municipal Council instantly had
+martial law proclaimed on the Place de Grève, and the red flag suspended
+from the principal window of the Hôtel de Ville. At half-past five
+o'clock, just when the municipal body was about to start for the Champ
+de Mars, the three councillors, who had been sent in the morning to the
+scene of disorder, returned, accompanied by a deputation of twelve
+persons, taken from among the petitioners. The explanations given on
+various sides occasioned a new deliberation of the Council. The first
+decision was maintained, and at six o'clock the municipality began its
+march with the red flag, three pieces of cannon, and numerous
+detachments of the National Guard.
+
+Bailly, as chief of the municipality, found himself at this time in one
+of those solemn and perilous situations, in which a man becomes
+responsible in the eyes of a whole nation, in the eyes of posterity, for
+the inconsiderate or even culpable actions of the passionate multitude
+that surrounds him, but which he scarcely knows, and over which he has
+little or no influence.
+
+The National Guard, in that early epoch of the revolution, was very
+troublesome to lead and to rule. Insubordination appeared to be the rule
+in its ranks; and hierarchical obedience a very rare exception. My
+remark may perhaps appear severe: well, Gentlemen, read the contemporary
+writings, Grimm's Correspondence, for example, and you will see, under
+date of November 1790, a dismissed captain replying to the regrets of
+his company in the following style: "Console yourselves, my companions,
+I shall not quit you; only, henceforward I shall be a simple fusilier;
+if you see me resolved to be no longer your chief, it is because I am
+content to command in my turn."
+
+It is allowable besides to suppose that the National Guard of 1791 was
+deficient, in the presence of such crowds, of that patience, that
+clemency, of which the French troops of the line have often given such
+perfect examples. It was not aware that, in a large city, crowds are
+chiefly composed of the unemployed and the idly curious.
+
+It was half-past seven o'clock when the municipal body arrived at the
+Champ de Mars. Immediately some individuals placed on the glacis
+exclaimed: "Down with the red flag! down with the bayonettes!" and threw
+some stones. There was even a gun fired. A volley was fired in the air
+to frighten them; but the cries soon recommenced; again some stones were
+thrown; then only the fatal fusillade of the National Guard began!
+
+These, Gentlemen, are the deplorable events of the Champ de Mars,
+faithfully analyzed from the relation that Bailly himself gave of the
+18th July to the Constituent Assembly. This recital, the truth of which
+no one assuredly will question any more than myself, labours under some
+involuntary but very serious omissions. I will indicate them, when the
+march of events leads us, in following our unfortunate colleague, to the
+revolutionary tribunal.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY QUITS THE MAYORALTY THE 12TH OF NOVEMBER, 1791.--THE
+ESCHEVINS.--EXAMINATION OF THE REPROACHES THAT MIGHT BE ADDRESSED TO THE
+MAYOR.
+
+I resume the biography of Bailly at the time when he quitted the Hôtel
+de Ville after a magistracy of about two years.
+
+On the 12th November, 1791, Bailly convoked the Council of the Commune,
+rendered an account of his administration, solemnly entreated those who
+thought themselves entitled to complain of him, to say so without
+reserve; so resolved was he to bow to any legitimate complaints;
+installed his successor Pétion, and retired. This separation did not
+lead to any of those heartfelt demonstrations from the co-labourers of
+the late Mayor, which are the true and the sweetest recompense to a good
+man.
+
+I have sought for the hidden cause of such a constant and undisguised
+hostility towards the first Mayor of Paris. I asked myself first,
+whether the magistrate's manners had possibly excited the
+susceptibilities of the Eschevins.[14] The answer is decidedly in the
+negative. Bailly showed in all the relations of life a degree of
+patience, a suavity, a deference to the opinions of others, that would
+have soothed the most irascible self-love.
+
+Must we suspect jealousy to have been at work? No, no; the persons who
+constituted the town-council were too obscure, unless they were mad, to
+attempt to vie in public consideration and glory with the illustrious
+author of _the History of Astronomy_, with the philosopher, the writer,
+the erudite scholar who belonged to our three principal academies, an
+honour that Fontenelle alone had enjoyed before him.
+
+Let us say it aloud, for such is our conviction, nothing personal
+excited the evil proceedings, the acts of insubordination with which
+Bailly had daily to reproach his numerous assistants. It is even
+presumable, that in his position, any one else would have had to
+register more numerous and more serious complaints. Let us be truthful:
+when the _aristocracy of the ground-floor_, according to the expression
+of one of the most illustrious members of the French Academy, was called
+by the revolutionary movements to replace the _aristocracy of the
+first-floor_, it became giddy. Have I not, it said, conducted the
+business of the warehouse, the workshop, the counting-house, &c., with
+probity and success; why then should I not equally succeed in the
+management of public affairs? And this swarm of new statesmen were in a
+hurry to commence work; hence all control was irksome to them, and each
+wished to be able to say on returning home, "I have framed such or such
+an act that will tie the hands of faction for ever; I have repressed
+this or that riot; I have, in short, saved the country by proposing such
+or such a measure for the public good, and by having it adopted." The
+pronoun _I_ so agreeably tickles the ear of a man lately risen from
+obscurity.
+
+What the thorough-bred Eschevin, whether new or old, dreads above every
+thing else, is specialties. He has an insurmountable antipathy towards
+men, who have in the face of the world gained the honourable titles of
+historian, geometer, mechanician, astronomer, physician, chemist, or
+geologist, &c.... His desire, his will, is to speak on every thing. He
+requires, therefore, colleagues who cannot contradict him.
+
+If the town constructs an edifice, the Eschevin, losing sight of the
+question, talks away on the aspect of the façades. He declares with the
+imperturbable assurance inspired by a fact that he had heard speak of
+whilst on the knees of his nurse, that on a particular side of the
+future building, the moon, an active agent of destruction, will
+incessantly corrode the stones of the frontage, the shafts of the
+columns, and that it will efface in a few years all the projecting
+ornaments; and hence the fear of the moon's voracity will lead to the
+upsetting of all the views, the studies, and the well-digested plans of
+several architects. Place a meteorologist on the council, and, despite
+the authority of the nurses, a whole scaffolding of gratuitous
+suppositions will be crumbled to dust by these few categorical and
+strict words of science; the moon does not exert the action that is
+attributed to it.
+
+At another time, the Eschevin hurls his anathema at the system of
+warming by steam. According to him, this diabolical invention is an
+incessant cause of damp to the wood-work, the furniture, the papers, and
+the books. The Eschevin fancies, in short, that in this way of warming,
+torrents of watery vapour enter into the atmosphere of the apartments.
+Can he love a colleague, I ask, who after having had the cunning
+patience to let him come to the conclusion of his discourse, informs him
+that, although vapour, the vehicle of an enormous quantity of latent
+heat, rapidly conveys this caloric to every floor of the largest
+edifice, it has never occasion therefore to escape from those
+impermeable tubes through which the circulation is effected!
+
+Amidst the various labours that are required by every large town, the
+Eschevin thinks, some one day, that he has discovered an infallible way
+of revenging himself of specialties. Guided by the light of modern
+geology, it has been proposed to go with an immense sounding line in
+hand, to seek in the bowels of the earth the incalculable quantities of
+water, that from all eternity circulate there without benefiting human
+nature, to make them spout up to the surface, to distribute them in
+various directions, in large cities, until then parched, to take
+advantage of their high temperature, to warm economically the
+magnificent conservatories of the public gardens, the halls of refuge,
+the wards of the sick in hospitals, the cells of madmen. But according
+to the old geology of the Eschevin, promulgated perhaps by his nurse,
+there is no circulation in subterranean water; at all events,
+subterranean water cannot be submitted to an ascending force and rise to
+the surface; its temperature would not differ from that of common
+well-water. The Eschevin, however, agrees to the expensive works
+proposed. Those works, he says, will afford no material result; but once
+for all, such fantastic projects will receive a solemn and rough
+contradiction, and we shall then be liberated for ever from the odious
+yoke under which science wants to enslave us.
+
+However, the subterranean water appears. It is true that a clever
+engineer had to bore down 548 mètres (or 600 yards) to find it; but
+thence it comes transparent as crystal, pure as if the product of
+distillation, warmed as physical laws had shown that it would be, more
+abundant indeed than they had dared to foresee, it shot up thirty-three
+mètres above the ground.
+
+Do not suppose, Gentlemen, that putting aside wretched views of
+self-love, the Eschevin would applaud such a result. He shows himself,
+on the contrary, deeply humiliated. And he will not fail in future to
+oppose every undertaking that might turn out to the honour of science.
+Crowds of such incidents occur to the mind. Are we to infer thence, that
+we ought to be afraid of seeing the administration of a town given up to
+the stationary, and exclusive spirit of the old Eschevinage--to people
+who have learnt nothing and studied nothing? Such is not the result of
+these long reflections. I wished to enable people to foresee the
+struggle, not the defeat. I even hasten to add, that by the side of the
+surly, harsh, rude, positive Eschevin, the type of whom, to say the
+truth, is fortunately becoming rare, an honourable class of citizens
+exists, who, content with a moderate fortune laboriously acquired, live
+retired, charm their leisure with study, and magnanimously place
+themselves, without any interested views, at the service of the
+community. Everywhere similar auxiliaries fight courageously for truth
+as soon as they perceive it. Bailly constantly obtained their
+concurrence; as is proved by some touching testimonies of gratitude and
+sympathy. As to the counsellors who so often occasioned trouble,
+confusion, and anarchy in the Hôtel de Ville in the years '89 and '90, I
+am inclined to blame the virtuous magistrate for having so patiently, so
+diffidently endured their ridiculous pretensions, their unbearable
+assumption of power.
+
+From the earliest steps in the important study of nature, it becomes
+evident that facts unveiled to us in the lapse of centuries, are but a
+very small fraction, if we compare them with those that still remain to
+be discovered. Placing ourselves in that point of view, deficiency in
+diffidence would just be the same as deficiency in judgment. But, by the
+side of positive diffidence, if I may be allowed the expression,
+relative diffidence comes in. This is often a delusion; it deceives no
+one, yet occasions a thousand difficulties. Bailly often confounded
+them. We may regret, I think, that in many instances, the learned
+academician disdained to throw in the face of his vain fellow-labourers
+these words of an ancient philosopher: "When I examine myself, I find I
+am but a pigmy; when I compare myself, I think I am a giant."
+
+If I were to cover with a veil that which appeared to me susceptible of
+criticism in the character of Bailly, I should voluntarily weaken the
+praises that I have bestowed on several acts of his administration. I
+will not commit this fault, no more than I have done already in alluding
+to the communications of the mayor with the presuming Eschevins.
+
+I will therefore acknowledge that on several occasions, Bailly, in my
+opinion, showed himself influenced by a petty susceptibility, if not
+about his personal prerogatives, yet about those of his station.
+
+I think also that Bailly might be accused of an occasional want of
+foresight.
+
+Imaginative and sensitive, the philosopher allowed his thoughts to
+centre too exclusively on the difficulties of the moment. He persuaded
+himself, from an excess of good-will, that no new storm would follow the
+one that he had just overcome. After every success, whether great or
+small, against the intrigues of the court, or prejudices, or anarchy,
+whether President of the National Assembly or Mayor of Paris, our
+colleague thought the country saved. Then his joy overflowed; he would
+have wished to spread it over all the world. It was thus that on the day
+of the definite reunion of the nobility with the other two orders, the
+27th of June, 1789, Bailly going from Versailles to Chaillot, after the
+close of the session, leaned half his body out of his carriage door, and
+announced the happy tidings with loud exclamations to all whom he met on
+the road. At Sèvres, it is from himself that I borrow the anecdote, he
+did not see without painful surprise that his communication was received
+with the most complete indifference by a group of soldiers assembled
+before the barrack door; Bailly laughed much on afterwards learning that
+this was a party of Swiss soldiers, who did not understand a word he
+said.
+
+Happy the actors in a great revolution, in whose conduct we find nothing
+to reprehend until after having entered into so minute an analysis of
+their public and private conduct.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[14] _Eschevin_ was a sort of town-councilman, peculiar to
+Paris and to Rotterdam, acting under a mayor.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY'S JOURNEY FROM PARIS TO NANTES, AND THEN FROM NANTES TO
+MÉLUN.--HIS ARREST IN THE LAST TOWN.--HE IS TRANSFERRED TO PARIS.
+
+After having quitted the Mayorality of Paris, Bailly retired to
+Chaillot, where he hoped again to find happiness in study; but upwards
+of two years passed amidst the storms of public life had deeply injured
+his health; it was therefore requisite to obey the advice of physicians,
+and undertake a journey. About the middle of June, 1792, Bailly quitted
+the capital, made some excursions in the neighbouring departments, went
+to Niort to visit his old colleague and friend, M. de Lapparent, and
+soon after went on far as Nantes, where the due influence of another
+friend, M. Gelée de Prémion, seemed to promise him protection and
+tranquillity. Determined to establish himself in this last town, Bailly
+and his wife took a small lodging in the house of some distinguished
+people, who could understand and appreciate them. They hoped to live
+there in peace; but news from Paris soon dissipated this illusion. The
+Council of the Commune decreed, that the house previously occupied, in
+consequence of a formal decision, by the Mayor of Paris, and by the
+public offices of the town, ought to have paid a tax of 6,000 livres,
+and strange enough, that Bailly was responsible for it. The pretended
+debt was claimed with harshness. They demanded the payment of it without
+delay. To free himself Bailly was obliged to sell his library, to
+abandon to the chances of an auction that multitude of valuable books,
+from which he had sought out, in the silence of his study, and with such
+remarkable perseverance, the most recondite secrets of the firmament.
+
+This painful separation was followed by two acts that did not afflict
+him less.
+
+The central government (then directed, it must be allowed, by the
+Gironde party) placed Bailly under surveillance. Every eight days the
+venerable academician was obliged to present himself at the house of the
+Syndic Procurator of the Departmental Administration of the Lower-Loire,
+like a vile malefactor, whose every footstep it would be to the interest
+of society to watch. What was the true motive for such a strange
+measure? This secret has been buried in a tomb where I shall not allow
+myself to dig for it.
+
+Though painful to me to say so, the odious assimilation of Bailly to a
+dangerous criminal had not exhausted the rancour of his enemies. A
+letter from Roland, the Minister of the Interior, announced very dryly
+to the unfortunate proscribed man, that the apartments in the Louvre,
+which his family had occupied for upwards of half a century, had been
+withdrawn from him. They had even proceeded so far as to furnish a
+tipstaff with the order to clear the rooms.
+
+A short time before this epoch, Bailly had found himself obliged to sell
+his house at Chaillot. The old Mayor of Paris then had no longer a
+hearth or a home in the great city which had been the late scene of his
+devotion, his solicitude, and his sacrifices. When this reflection
+occurred to his mind, his eyes filled with tears.
+
+But the grief that Bailly experienced on seeing himself the daily object
+of odious persecutions, left his patriotic convictions intact. Vainly
+did they endeavour several times to transform a legitimate hatred
+towards individuals into an antipathy towards principles. They still
+remember in Brittany the debate raised, by one of these attempts,
+between our colleague and a Vendéan physician, Dr. Blin. Never, in the
+season of his greatest popularity, did the president of the National
+Assembly express himself with more vivacity; never had he defended our
+first revolution with more eloquence. Not long since, in the same place,
+I pointed out to public attention another of our colleagues (Condorcet),
+who already under the blow of a capital condemnation, devoted his last
+moments to restore to the light of day the principles of eternal
+justice, which the fashions and the follies of men had but too much
+obscured. At a time of weak or interested convictions, and disgraceful
+capitulations of conscience, those two examples of unchangeable
+convictions deserved to be remarked. I am happy in having found them in
+the bosom of the Academy of Sciences.
+
+Tranquillity of mind is not less requisite than vigour of intellect, to
+those who undertake great works. Thus during his residence at Nantes,
+Bailly did not even try to add to his numerous scientific or literary
+productions. This celebrated astronomer passed his time in reading
+novels. He sometimes said with a bitter smile: "My day has been well
+occupied; since I got up, I have put myself in a position to give an
+analysis of the two, or of the three first volumes of the new novel that
+the reading-room has just received." From time to time these
+abstractions were of a more elevated tone; he owed them to two young
+persons, who having reached an advanced age may now be listening to my
+words. Bailly discoursed with them of Homer, of Plato, of Aristotle, of
+the principal works in our literature, of the rapid progress of the
+sciences, and chiefly of those of astronomy. What our colleague chiefly
+appreciated in these two young friends, was a true sensibility, and
+great warmth of feeling. I know that years have not effaced or weakened
+these rare qualities in the bosoms of those two Brétons. M. Pariset, our
+colleague, and M. Villenave, will therefore think it natural in me to
+thank them here, in the name of science and literature, in the name of
+humanity, for the few moments of sweet peace and happiness that they
+afforded to our learned colleague, at a time when the inconstancy and
+ingratitude of men were lacerating his heart.
+
+Louis XVI. had perished; dark clouds hung over the horizon; some acts of
+odious brutality showed our proscribed philosopher how little he must
+thenceforward depend on public sympathy; how much times had changed
+since the memorable meeting (of the 7th of October, 1791), at which the
+National Assembly decided that the bust of Bailly should be placed in
+the hall of their meetings! The storm appeared near and very menacing;
+even persons usually of little foresight were meditating where to find
+shelter.
+
+During these transactions, Charles Marquis de Casaux, known by various
+productions on literature and on economical politics, went and requested
+our colleague, together with his wife, to take a passage on board a ship
+that he had freighted for himself and his family. "We will first go to
+England," said M. Casaux; "we will then, if you prefer it, pass our
+exile in America. Have no anxiety, I have property; I can, without
+inconvenience to myself, undertake all the expenses. Pythagoras said:
+'In solitude the wise man worships echo;' but this no longer suffices in
+France; the wise man must fly from a land that threatens to devour its
+children."
+
+These warm solicitations, and the prayers of his weeping companion,
+could not shake the firm resolution of Bailly. "From the day that I
+became a public character," he said, "my fate has become irrevocably
+united with that of France; never will I quit my post in the moment of
+danger. Under any circumstances my country may depend on my devotion.
+Whatever may happen, I shall remain."
+
+By regulating his conduct on such fine generous maxims, a citizen does
+himself honour, but he exposes himself to fall under the blows of
+faction.
+
+Bailly was still at Nantes on the 30th of June, 1793, when eighty
+thousand Vendéans, commanded by Cathelineau and Charette, went to
+besiege that city.
+
+Let us imagine to ourselves the position of the President of the sitting
+of the "Jeu de Paume," of the first Mayor of Paris, in a city besieged
+by the Vendéans! We cannot presume that the unfavourable opinion of the
+Convention under which he was labouring, and the rigorous surveillance
+to which he was subjected, would have saved him from harsh treatment if
+the town had been taken. No one can therefore be surprised that after
+the victory of Nanteans, our colleague hastened to follow out his
+project, formed a short time before, of withdrawing from the insurgent
+provinces.
+
+Up to the beginning of July 1793, Mélun had enjoyed perfect
+tranquillity. Bailly knew it through M. de Laplace, who, living retired
+in that chief town of the department, was there composing the immortal
+work in which the wonders of the heavens are studied with so much depth
+and genius. He also knew that the great geometer, hoping to be still
+more retired in a cottage on the banks of the Seine, and out of the
+town, was going to dispose of his house in Mélun. It is easy to guess
+that Bailly would be charmed with the prospect of residing far away from
+political agitation, and near to his illustrious friend!
+
+The arrangements were promptly made, and on the 6th of July, M. and
+Madame Bailly quitted Nantes in company with M. and Madame Villenave,
+who were going to Rennes.
+
+At this same time, a division of the revolutionary army was marching to
+Mélun. As soon as the terrible news was known, Madame Laplace wrote to
+Bailly, persuading him, under covert expressions, to give up the
+intended project. The house, she said, is at the water's edge: there is
+extreme dampness in the rooms: Madame Bailly would die there. A letter
+so different from those that had preceded it, could not fail of its
+effect; such at least was the hope with which M. and Madame Laplace
+flattered themselves, when about the end of July they perceived, with
+inexpressible alarm, Bailly crossing the garden path. "Great God, you
+did not then understand our last letter!" exclaimed at the same instant
+our colleague's two friends. "I understood perfectly," Bailly replied
+with the greatest calm; "but on the one hand, the two servants who
+followed me to Nantes, having heard that I was going to be imprisoned,
+quitted me; on the other hand, if I am to be arrested, I wish it to be
+in a house that I have occupied some time. I will not be described in
+any act as an individual without a domicile!" Can it be said, after
+this, that great men are not subject to strange weaknesses?
+
+These minute details will be my only answer to some culpable expressions
+that I have met with in a work very widely spread: "M. Laplace," says
+the anonymous writer "knew all the secrets of geometry; but he had not
+the least notion of the state France was in, he therefore imprudently
+advised Bailly to go and join him."
+
+What is to be here deplored as regards imprudence, is, that a writer,
+without exactly knowing the facts, should authoritatively pronounce such
+severe sentences against one of the most illustrious ornaments of our
+country.
+
+Bailly did not even enjoy the puerile satisfaction of taking rank among
+the domiciled citizens of Mélun. For two days after his arrival in that
+town, a soldier of the revolutionary army having recognized him,
+brutally ordered him to accompany him to the municipality: "I am going
+there," coolly replied Bailly; "you may follow me there."
+
+The municipal body of Mélun had at that time an honest and very
+courageous man at its head, M. Tarbé des Sablons. This virtuous
+magistrate endeavoured to prove to the multitude, (with which the Hôtel
+de Ville was immediately filled by the news, rapidly propagated, of the
+arrest of the old Mayor of Paris,) that the passports granted at Nantes,
+countersigned at Rennes, showed nothing irregular; that according to the
+terms of the law, he could not but set Bailly at liberty, under pain of
+forfeiture. Vain efforts! To avoid a bloody catastrophe, it was
+necessary to promise that reference would be made to Paris, and that in
+the mean time he should be guarded--_à vue_--in his own house.
+
+The surveillance, perhaps purposely, was not at all strict; to escape
+would have been very easy. Bailly utterly discarded the notion. He would
+not at any price have compromised M. Tarbé, nor even his guard.
+
+An order from the Committee of Public Safety enjoined the authorities of
+Mélun to transfer Bailly to one of the prisons of the capital. On the
+day of departure, Madame Laplace paid a visit to our unfortunate
+colleague. She represented to him again the possibility of escape. The
+first scruples no longer existed; the escort was already waiting in the
+street. But Bailly was inflexible. He felt perfectly safe. Madame
+Laplace held her son in her arms; Bailly took the opportunity of turning
+the conversation to the education of children. He treated the subject,
+to which he might well have been thought a stranger, with a remarkable
+superiority, and ended even with several amusing anecdotes that would
+deserve a place in the witty and comic gallery of "les Enfants
+terribles."
+
+On arriving at Paris, Bailly was imprisoned at the Madelonnettes, and
+some days after at La Force. They there granted him a room, where his
+wife and his nephews were permitted to visit him.
+
+Bailly had undergone only one examination of little importance, when he
+was summoned as a witness in the trial of the queen.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY IS CALLED AS A WITNESS IN THE TRIAL OF THE QUEEN.--HIS OWN TRIAL
+BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL.--HIS CONDEMNATION TO DEATH.--HIS
+EXECUTION.--IMAGINARY DETAILS ADDED BY ILL-INFORMED HISTORIANS TO WHAT
+THAT ODIOUS AND FRIGHTFUL EVENT ALREADY PRESENTED.
+
+Bailly, under the weight of a capital accusation, and precisely on
+account of a portion of the acts imputed to Marie Antoinette, was heard
+as a witness in the trial of that princess. The annals of tribunals,
+either ancient or modern, never offered any thing like this. What did
+they hope for? To lead our colleague to make inexact declarations, or to
+concealments from a feeling of imminent personal danger? To suggest the
+thought to him to save his own head at the expense of that of an unhappy
+woman? To make virtue finally stagger? At all events, this infernal
+combination failed; with a man like Bailly it could not succeed.
+
+"Do you know the accused?" said the President to Bailly. "Oh! yes, I do
+know her!" answered the witness, in a tone of emotion, and bowing
+respectfully to Marie Antoinette. Bailly then protested with horror
+against the odious imputations that the act of accusation had put into
+the mouth of the young dauphin. From that moment Bailly was treated with
+great harshness. He seemed to have lost in the eyes of the tribunal the
+character of a witness, and to have become the accused. The turn that
+the debates took would really authorize us to call the sitting in which
+the queen was condemned, (in which she figured ostensibly as the only
+one accused,) the trial of Marie Antoinette and of Bailly. What
+signified, after all, this or that qualification of this monstrous
+trial? in the judgment of any man of feeling, never did Bailly prove
+himself more noble, more courageous, more worthy, than in this difficult
+situation.
+
+Bailly appeared again before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and this time
+as the accused, the 10th of November 1793. The accusation bore chiefly
+on the pretended participation of the Mayor of Paris in the escape of
+Louis XVI. and his family, and in the catastrophe that occurred in the
+Champ de Mars.
+
+If any thing in the world appeared evident, even in 1793, even before
+the detailed revelations of the persons who took a more or less direct
+part in the event, it is, that Bailly did not facilitate the departure
+of the royal family; it is that, in proportion to the suspicions that
+reached him, he did all that was in his power to prevent their
+departure; it is, that the President of the sitting of the Jeu de Paume
+had not, and could never have had in any case, an intention of going to
+join the fugitive family in a strange country; it is that, finally, any
+act emanating from a public authority in which such expressions as the
+following could be found: "The deep wickedness of Bailly.... Bailly
+thirsted for the people's blood!" must have excited the disgust and
+indignation of good men, whatever might be their political opinions.
+
+The accusation, as far as it regarded the murderous fusillade on the
+Champ de Mars, had more weight; this event had as counterpoises, the
+10th of August and the 31st of May; La Fayette says in his memoirs, that
+those two days were a retaliation. It is at least certain that the
+terrible scenes of the 17th of July cost Bailly his life; they left deep
+impressions in people's minds, which were still perceptible after the
+revolution of 1830, and which, on more than one occasion, rendered the
+position of La Fayette one of great delicacy. I have therefore studied
+them most attentively, with a very sincere and lively desire to
+dissipate, once for all, the clouds that seemed to have obscured this
+point, this sole point, in the life of Bailly. I have succeeded,
+Gentlemen, without ever having had a wish or occasion to veil the truth.
+I do no Frenchman the injustice to suppose that I need define to him an
+event of the national history that has been so influential on the
+progress of our revolution, but perhaps, there may be some foreigners
+present at this sitting. It will be therefore for them only that I shall
+here relate some details. We must bring to mind some deplorable
+circumstances of the evening of the 17th July, when the multitude had
+assembled on the Champ de Mars or Champ de la Fédération, around the
+altar of their country, the remains of the wooden edifice that had been
+raised to celebrate the anniversary of the 14th of July. Part of this
+crowd signed a petition tending to ask the forfeiture of the throne by
+Louis XVI., then lately reconducted from Varennes, and on whose fate the
+Constituent Assembly had been enacting regulations. On that occasion
+martial law was proclaimed. The National Guard, with Bailly and La
+Fayette at their head, went to the Champ de Mars; they were assailed by
+clamours, by stones, and by the firing of a pistol; the Guard fired;
+many victims fell, without its being possible to say exactly how many,
+for the estimates, according to the effect that the reporters wished to
+produce, varied from eighty to two thousand!
+
+The Revolutionary Tribunal heard several witnesses relative to the
+events on the Champ de Mars: amongst them I find Chaumette, Procurator
+of the Commune of Paris; Lullier, the Syndic Procurator General of the
+Department; Coffinhal, Judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal; Dufourny,
+manufacturer of gunpowder; Momoro, a printer.
+
+All these witnesses strongly blamed the old Mayor of Paris; but who is
+there that does not know how much arbitrariness and cruelty these
+individuals, whom I have mentioned above, showed during our misfortunes?
+Their declarations, therefore, must be received with great suspicion.
+
+The sincere admirers of Bailly would be relieved of a great weight, if
+the event of the Champ de la Fédération had been darkened only by the
+testimonies of Chaumettes and Coffinhals. Unfortunately, the public
+accuser produced some very grave documents during the debates, which the
+impartial historian cannot overlook. Let us say, however, just to
+correct one error out of a thousand, that on the day of Bailly's trial,
+the public accuser was Naulin, and not Fouquier Tinville,
+notwithstanding all that has been written on this subject by persons
+calling themselves well-informed, and even some of the accused's
+intimate friends.
+
+The catastrophe of the Champ de Mars, when impartially examined in its
+essential phases, presents some very simple problems:
+
+Was a petition to the Constituent Assembly illegal that was got up on
+the 17th of July, 1791, against a decree issued on the 15th?
+
+Had the petitioners, by assembling on the Champ de Mars, violated any
+law?
+
+Could the two murders committed in the morning be imputed to these men?
+
+Had projects of disorder and rebellion been manifested with sufficient
+evidence to justify the proclamation of martial law, and especially the
+putting it into practice?
+
+I say it, Gentlemen, with deep grief, these problems will be answered in
+the negative by whoever takes the trouble to analyze without passion,
+and without preconceived opinions, some authentic documents, which
+people in general seem to have made it a point to leave in oblivion. But
+I hasten to add, that considering the question as to intention, Bailly
+will continue to appear, after this examination, quite as humane, quite
+as honourable, quite as pure as we have found him to be in the other
+phases of a public and private life, which might serve as a model.
+
+In the best epochs of the National Assembly, no one who belonged to it
+would have dared to maintain, that to draw up and sign a petition,
+whatever might be the object of it, were rebellious acts. Never, at that
+time, would the President of that great Assembly have called down hate,
+public vengeance, or a sanguinary repression upon those who attempted,
+said Charles Lameth, in the sitting of the 16th of July, "to oppose
+their individual will to the law, which is an expression of the national
+will." The right of petition seemed as if it ought to be absolute, even
+if contrary to sanctioned and promulgated laws in full action, and even
+more so against legislative arrangements still under discussion, or
+scarcely voted.
+
+The petitioners of the Champ de Mars asked the Constituent Assembly to
+revise a decree that they had issued two days before. We have no
+occasion to examine whether the act was reasonable, opportune, dictated
+by an enlightened view of the public good. The question is simple; in
+soliciting the Assembly to revise a decree, they violated no law.
+Perhaps it will be thought that the petitioners at least committed an
+unusual act, contrary to all custom. Even this would be unfounded. In
+ten various instances, the National Assembly modified or annulled its
+own decrees; in twenty others, it had been entreated to revise them,
+without any cry of anarchy being raised.
+
+It is well ascertained, that the crowd on the Champ de Mars availed
+itself of a right that the constitution recognized, that of getting up
+and signing a petition against a decree which, right or wrong, it
+thought was opposed to the true interests of the country. Still, the
+exercise of the right of petitioning was always wisely subjected to
+certain forms. Had these forms been violated? Was the meeting illegal?
+
+In 1791, according to the decrees, every meeting that wished to exercise
+the right of petition must consist of unarmed citizens, and be announced
+to the competent authorities twenty-four hours beforehand.
+
+Well, on the 16th of July, twelve persons had gone as a deputation to
+the municipality, in order to declare, according to law, that the next
+day, the 17th, numerous citizens would meet, without arms, on the Champ
+de Mars, where they wished to sign a petition. The deputation obtained
+an acknowledgment of its declaration from the hand of the syndic
+procurator Desmousseaux, who addressed them besides with these solemn
+words: "The law shields you with its inviolability."
+
+The acknowledgment was presented to Bailly on the day of his
+condemnation.
+
+Had they committed some assassinations? Yes, undoubtedly; they had
+committed two; but in the morning, very early; but at the Gros Caillou,
+and not on the Champ de Mars. Those horrid murders could not
+legitimately be imputed to the petitioners who, eight or ten hours
+after, surrounded the altar of their country; to the crowd who fell by
+the fusillade of the National Guard. By changing the date of these
+crimes, and displacing also the localities where these crimes were
+committed, some historians of our revolution, and amongst others the
+best known of all, have given, without intending it, to the meeting in
+the afternoon, a character that cannot be honestly concurred in.
+
+It is requisite we should know at what hour, in what place, and how,
+these misfortunes happened, before we hazard an opinion on the
+sanguinary acts of that day, the 17th of July.
+
+A young man had gone that day very early to the altar of his country.
+This young man wished to copy several inscriptions. All at once he heard
+a singular noise, and very soon after the worm of a wimble shot up from
+the planked floor on which he was standing. The youth went and sought
+the guard, who raised the plank, and found beneath the altar two
+ill-looking individuals, lying down, and furnished with provisions. One
+of these men was an invalid with a wooden leg. The guard seized them,
+and took them to the Gros Caillou, to the section, to the Commissary of
+Police. On the way, the barrel of water with which these unfortunate men
+had provided themselves under the altar of their country, was
+transformed, according to the ordinary course of things, into a barrel
+of gunpowder. The inhabitants of that quarter of the town collected
+together; it was on a Sunday. The women especially showed themselves
+very much irritated when the purpose of the auger-holes was told them,
+as declared by the invalid. When the two prisoners came out of the hall
+to be conducted to the Hôtel de Ville, the crowd tore them from the
+guard, massacred them, and paraded their heads on pikes!
+
+It cannot be too often repeated, that these hideous assassinations,
+this execution of two old vagabonds by the barbarous and blinded
+population of the Gros Caillou, evidently had no relation to, no
+connection with, the events which, in the evening, carried mourning into
+the Champ de la Fédération.
+
+On the evening of the 17th of July, from five to seven o'clock, had the
+crowd which was collected around the altar of their country an aspect of
+turbulence, giving reason to fear a riot, sedition, violence, or any
+anarchical enterprise?
+
+Relative to this point, we have the written declaration of three
+councillors, whom the municipality had sent in the morning to the Gros
+Caillou, on the first intimation of the two assassinations of which I
+have just spoken. This declaration was presented to Bailly on the day of
+his condemnation. We read therein, "that the assembled citizens on the
+Champ de Mars had in no way acted contrary to law; that they only asked
+for time to sign their petition before they retired; that the crowd had
+shown all possible respect to the commissaries, and given proofs of
+submission to the law and its agents." The Municipal Councillors, on
+their return to the Hôtel de Ville, accompanied by a deputation of
+twelve of the petitioners, protested strongly against the proclamation
+of martial law; they declared that if the red flag was unfurled, they
+would be regarded, and with some appearance of reason, as traitors and
+faithless men.
+
+Vain efforts; the anger of the councillors, confined since the morning
+at the Hôtel de Ville, carried the day over the enlightened opinion of
+those who had been sent scrupulously to study the state of affairs, who
+had mixed in the crowd, who returned after having reassured it by
+promises.
+
+I might invoke the testimony of one of my honourable colleagues. Led by
+the fine weather, and somewhat also by curiosity, towards the Champ de
+Mars, he was enabled to observe all; and he has assured me that there
+never was a meeting which showed less turbulence or seditious spirit;
+that especially the women and children were very numerous. Is it not,
+besides, perfectly proved now, that on the morning of the 17th July, the
+Jacobin club, by means of printed placards, disavowed any intention of
+petitioning; and that the influential men of the Jacobins and of the
+Cordeliers,--those men whose presence might have given to this concourse
+the dangerous character of a riot,--not only did not appear there, but
+had started in the night for the country?
+
+By thus connecting together all the circumstances whence it is proved
+that martial law was proclaimed and put in practice on the 17th of July
+without legitimate motives, a most terrible responsibility seems at
+first sight to be cast on the memory of Bailly. But reassure yourselves,
+Gentlemen; the events which are now grouped together, and are exhibited
+to our eyes with complete evidence, were not known on that inauspicious
+day at the Hôtel de Ville, until they had been distorted by the spirit
+of party.
+
+In the month of July, 1791, after the king had returned from Varennes,
+the monarchy and the republic began for the first time to be dangerously
+opposed to each other; in an instant passion took the place of cool
+reason in the minds of the respective partisans of the two different
+forms of government. The terrible formula: _We must make an end of it!_
+was in everybody's mouth.
+
+Bailly was surrounded by those passionate politicians who, without the
+least scruple as to the honesty or legality of the means, are
+determined to make an end of the adversaries who annoy them, as soon as
+circumstances seem to promise them victory.
+
+Bailly had still near him some Eschevins long accustomed to regard him
+as a magistrate for show.
+
+The former gave the Mayor false, or highly coloured intelligence. The
+others, by long habit, did not conceive themselves obliged to
+communicate any thing to him.
+
+On the bloody day of July, 1791, of all the inhabitants of Paris,
+perhaps Bailly was the man who knew with least detail or correctness the
+events of the morning and of the evening.
+
+Bailly, with his deep horror for falsehood, would have thought that he
+was most cruelly insulting the magistrates, if he had not attributed to
+them similar sentiments to his own. His uprightness prevented his being
+sufficiently on the watch against the machinations of parties. It was
+evidently by false reports that he was induced to unfurl the red flag on
+the 17th of July: "It was from the reports that followed each other," he
+said to the Revolutionary Tribunal, on being questioned by the
+President, "and became more and more alarming every hour, that the
+council adopted the measure of marching with the armed force to the
+Champ de Mars."
+
+In all his answers Bailly insisted on the repeated orders he had
+received from the President of the National Assembly; on the reproaches
+addressed to him for not sufficiently watching the agents of foreign
+powers; it was against these pretended agents and their creatures, that
+the Mayor of Paris thought he was marching when he put himself at the
+head of a column of National Guards.
+
+Bailly did not even know the cause of the meeting; he had not been
+informed that the crowd wished to sign a petition; and that the
+previous evening, according to the decree of the law, there had been a
+declaration made to this effect before the competent authority. His
+answers to the Revolutionary Tribunal leave not the least doubt on this
+point!
+
+Oh Eschevins, Eschevins! when your vain pretensions only were treated
+of, the public could forgive you; but the 17th of July, you took
+advantage of Bailly's confidence; you induced him to take sanguinary
+measures of repression, after having fascinated him with false reports;
+you committed a real crime. If it was the duty of the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, of deplorable memory, to demand in 1793 from any one an
+explanation of the massacres of the Champ de Mars, it was not Bailly
+assuredly who ought to have been accused in the first place.
+
+The political party whose blood flowed on the 17th of July, pretended to
+have been the victim of a plot concocted by its adversaries. When
+interrogated by the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Bailly
+answered: "I had no knowledge of it, but experience has since given me
+reason to think that such a plot did exist at that time."
+
+Nothing more serious has ever been written against the promoters of the
+sanguinary violences on the 17th of July.
+
+The blame that has been thrown on the events of the Champ de Mars has
+not been confined solely to the fact of proclaiming martial law; the
+repressive measures that followed that proclamation have been criticized
+with equal bitterness.
+
+The municipal administration was especially reproached for having
+hoisted a red flag much too small; a flag that was called in the
+Tribunal _a pocket flag_; for not having placed this flag at the head
+of the column, as the law commands, but in such a position, that the
+public on whom the column was advancing could not see it; for having
+made the armed force enter the Champ de Mars, by all the gates on the
+side towards the town, a manoeuvre that seemed rather intended to
+surround the multitude, than to disperse it; for having ordered the
+National Guard to load their arms, even on the Place de Grève; for
+having made the guard fire before the three required summonses were
+made, and fire upon the people around the altar, whilst the stones and
+the pistol shot, which were assigned as the motive for the sanguinary
+order, came from the steps and benches; for allowing some people who
+were endeavouring to escape on the side towards l'Ecole Militaire, and
+others who had actually jumped into the Seine, to be pursued, shot, and
+bayonetted.
+
+It results clearly from one of Bailly's publications, from his answers
+to the questions put to him by the President of the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, from the writings of the day:
+
+That the Mayor of Paris gave no order for the troops to be collected on
+the 17th of July; that he had had no conference on that day with the
+military authority; that if any arrangements, culpable and contrary to
+law were adopted, as to the situation of the cavalry, of the red flag,
+and of the Municipal Body, in the column marching on the Champ de Mars,
+they could not without injustice be imputed to him; that Bailly was not
+aware of the National Guard having loaded their muskets with ball before
+quitting the square of the Hôtel de Ville; that he was not aware even of
+the existence of the red flag, with whose small dimensions he had been
+so severely reproached; that the National Guard fired without his
+order; that he made every effort to stop the firing, to stop the
+pursuit, and make the soldiers resume their ranks; that he congratulated
+the troops of the line, who under the command of Hulin, entered by the
+gate of l'Ecole Militaire, and not only did not fire, but tore many of
+the unfortunate people from the hands of the National Guard, whose
+exasperation amounted to delirium. In short, it might he asked, relative
+to any want of exactness attributable to Bailly in that unfortunate
+affair, whether it was just to impute it to him who, in his letters to
+Voltaire on the origin of the sciences, wrote as follows in 1776:
+
+"I am unfortunately short-sighted. I am often humiliated in the open
+country. Whilst I with difficulty can distinguish a house at the
+distance of a hundred paces, my friends relate to me what they see at
+the distance of five or six hundred. I open my eyes, I fatigue myself
+without seeing any thing, and I am sometimes inclined to think that they
+amuse themselves at my expense."
+
+You begin to see, Gentlemen, the advantage that a firm and able lawyer
+might have drawn from the authentic facts that I have just been
+relating. But Bailly knew the pretended jury before whom he had to
+appear. This jury was not a collection of drunken cobblers, whatever
+some passionate writers may have asserted; it was worse than that,
+Gentlemen, notwithstanding the deservedly celebrated names that were
+occasionally interspersed among them: it was--let us cut the subject
+short--an odious, commission.
+
+The very circumscribed list from which chance in 1793 and 1794 drew the
+juries of the Revolutionary Tribunals, did not embrace, as the sacred
+word _jury_ seems to imply, all one class of citizens. The authorities
+formed it, after a prefatory and very minute inquiry, of their
+adherents only. The unfortunate defendants were thus judged not by
+impartial persons free from any preconceived system, but by political
+enemies, which is as much as to say, by that which is the most cruel and
+remorseless in the world.
+
+Bailly would not be defended. After his appearance as a witness in the
+trial of Marie Antoinette, the ex-Mayor only wrote and had printed for
+circulation, a paper entitled _Bailly to his fellow-citizens_. It closes
+with these affecting words:
+
+"I have only gained by the Revolution that which my fellow-citizens have
+gained: liberty and equality. I have lost by it some useful situations,
+and my fortune is nearly destroyed. I could be happy with what remains
+of it to me and a clear conscience; but to be happy in the repose of my
+retreat, I require, my dear fellow-citizens, your esteem: I know well
+that, sooner or later, you will do me justice; but I require it while I
+live, and while I am yet amongst you."
+
+Our colleague was unanimously condemned. We should despair of the
+future, unless such a unanimity struck all friends of justice and
+humanity with stupor, if it did not increase the number of decided
+adversaries to all political tribunals.
+
+When the President of the Tribunal interrogated the accused, already
+declared guilty, as to whether he had any reclamations to make relative
+to the execution of the sentence, Bailly answered:
+
+"I have always carried out the law; I shall know how to submit myself to
+it, since you are its organ."
+
+The illustrious convict was led back to his cell.
+
+Bailly had said in his éloge on M. de Tressan: "French gaiety produces
+the same effect as stoicism." These words occurred to my memory at the
+time when I was gathering from various sources the proof that on
+reëntering the Conciergerie after his condemnation, Bailly showed
+himself at once both gay and stoical.
+
+He desired his nephew, M. Batbéda, to play a game at piquet with him as
+usual. He thought of all the circumstances connected with the frightful
+morrow with such coolness, that he even said with a smile to M. Batbéda
+during the game: "Let us rest awhile, my friend, and take a pinch of
+snuff; to-morrow I shall be deprived of this pleasure, for I shall have
+my hands tied behind my back."
+
+I will quote some words which, while testifying to a similar degree
+Bailly's serenity of mind, are more in harmony with his grave character,
+and more worthy of being preserved in history.
+
+One of the companions of the illustrious academician's captivity, on the
+evening of the 11th of November, with tears in his eyes and moved by a
+tender veneration, exclaimed: "Why did you let us fancy there was a
+possibility of acquittal? You deceived us then?"--Bailly answered: "No,
+I was teaching you never to despair of the laws of your country."
+
+In the paroxysms of wild despair, some of the prisoners reviewing the
+past, went so far as to regret that they had never infringed the laws of
+the strictest honesty.
+
+Bailly brought back these minds, erring for the moment from the path of
+duty, by repeating to them maxims which both in form and substance would
+not disparage the collections of the most celebrated moralists:
+
+"It is false, very false, that a crime can ever be useful. The trade of
+an honest man is the safest, even in times of revolution. Enlightened
+egotism suffices to put any intelligent individual into the path of
+justice and truth. Whenever innocence can be sacrificed with impunity,
+crime is not sure of succeeding. There is so great a difference between
+the death of a good man and that of a wicked man, that the multitude is
+incapable of estimating it."
+
+Cannibals devouring their vanquished enemies seem to me less hideous,
+less contrary to nature, than those wretches, the refuse of the
+population of large towns, who, too often alas! have carried their
+ferocity so far, as to disturb by their clamorous and infamous raillery
+the last moments of the unhappy victims about to be struck by the sword
+of the law. The more humiliating this picture of the degradation of the
+human species may be, the more we should beware of overcharging the
+colouring. With few exceptions, the historians of Bailly's last agony
+appear to me to have forgotten this duty. Was the truth, the strict
+truth, not sufficiently distressing? Was it requisite, without any sort
+of proof, to impute to the mass of the people the infernal cynicism of
+cannibals? Should they lightly make just sentiments of disgust and
+indignation rest upon an immense class of citizens? I think not,
+Gentlemen, and I will therefore avoid the cruelty and poignancy of
+chaining the thoughts for a long time on such scenes; I will prove that
+by rendering the drama a little less atrocious, I have only sacrificed
+imaginary details, which are the envenomed fruits of the spirit of the
+party.
+
+I will not shut my ears to the questions that already hum around me.
+People will say to me, What are your claims for daring to modify a page
+of our revolutionary history, on which every one seemed agreed? What
+right have you to weaken contemporary testimonies, you, who at the time
+of Bailly's death, were scarcely born; you, who lived in an obscure
+valley of the Pyrenees, two hundred and twenty leagues from the capital?
+
+These questions do not embarrass me at all. In short, I do not ask that
+the relation of what seems to me to be the expression of the truth,
+should be adopted upon my word. I enumerate my proofs, I express my
+doubts. Within these limits there is no one but has claims to bring
+forward; the discussion is open to all the world, the public will
+pronounce its definitive judgment.
+
+As a general thesis, I will add that by concentrating our researches on
+one circumscribed and special object, we have a better chance of seeing
+it correctly and knowing it well, all other things being equal, than by
+scattering our attention in all directions.
+
+As to the merit of contemporaneous narratives, it seems to me very
+dubious. Political passions do not allow us to see objects in their real
+dimensions, nor in their true forms, nor in their natural colours.
+Moreover, have not unpublished and very valuable documents come to shed
+bright colours, just where the spirit of party had spread a thick veil?
+
+The account that Riouffe gave of the death of Bailly has almost blindly
+led all the historians of our revolution. What does it consist of "at
+bottom." The prisoner of la Conciergerie said it himself; of tales
+related by executioners' valets, repeated by turnkeys.
+
+I would willingly allow this account to be set against me,
+notwithstanding the horrid sewer from which Riouffe had been obliged to
+draw, if it were not evident that this clever writer saw all the
+revolutionary events through the just anger that an ardent and active
+young man must feel after an iniquitous imprisonment; if this current of
+sentiments and ideas had not led him into some manifest errors.
+
+Who has not, for example, read with tears in their eyes, in the
+_Mémoires sur les Prisons_, what the author relates of the fourteen
+girls of Verdun? "Of those girls," he said, "of unparalleled fairness,
+and who appeared like young virgins dressed for a public fête. They
+disappeared," added Riouffe, "all at once, and were mowed down in the
+spring of life. The court occupied by the women the day after their
+death, had the appearance of a garden that had been despoiled of its
+flowers by a storm. I have never seen amongst us a despair equal to that
+excited by this barbarity."
+
+Far be from me the intention to weaken the painful feelings which the
+catastrophe related by Riouffe must naturally inspire; but every one has
+remarked that the report of this writer is very circumstantial; the
+author appears to have seen all with his own eyes. Yet he has been
+guilty of the gravest inaccuracy.
+
+Out of the fourteen unfortunate women who were sentenced after Verdun
+was retaken from the Prussians, two girls of seventeen years of age were
+not condemned to death on account of their youth.
+
+This first circumstance was well worth recording. Let us go farther. A
+historian having lately consulted the official journals of that epoch,
+and the bulletin of the Revolutionary Tribunal, discovered with some
+surprise that among the twelve _young girls_ who were condemned, there
+were seven either married or widows, whose ages varied from forty-one to
+sixty-nine!
+
+Contemporary accounts then, even those of Riouffe, may be submitted
+without irreverence to earnest discussion. When a tenth part of the
+funds annually devoted to researches in and examination of old
+chronicles, is applied to making extracts from the registers relative to
+the French Revolution, we shall certainly see many other hideous
+circumstances that revolt the soul, disappear from our contemporary
+history. Look at the massacres of September! The historians most in
+vogue report the number of victims that fell in that butchery to have
+been from six to twelve thousand; whilst a writer who has lately taken
+the trouble to analyze the prison registers in the gaoler's books,
+cannot make the whole amount to one thousand. Even this number is very
+large; but, for my part, I thank the author of this recent publication
+for having reduced the number of assassinations in September to less
+than a tenth part of what had been generally admitted.
+
+When the discussion which I have here undertaken becomes known to the
+public, it will be seen how many and how important are the retrenchments
+to be made from that lugubrious page of our history. Another important
+circumstance may be appreciated, which appears to me to arise from all
+these facts. After having weighed my proofs, every one I hope will join
+me in seeing that the wretches around the scaffold of Bailly were but
+the refuse of the population, fulfilling for pay the part that had been
+assigned them by three or four wealthy cannibals.
+
+The sentence pronounced against Bailly by the Revolutionary Tribunal was
+to be executed on the 12th of November, 1793. The reminiscences recently
+published by a fellow-prisoner of our colleague, the reminiscences of M.
+Beugnot, will enable us to penetrate into the Conciergerie, on the
+morning of that inauspicious day.
+
+Bailly had risen early, after having slept as usual, the sleep of the
+just. He took some chocolate, and conversed a long time with his
+nephew. The young man was a prey to despair, but the illustrious
+prisoner preserved all his serenity. The previous evening in returning
+from the Tribunal, he remarked, with admirable coolness, though
+springing from a certain disquietude, "that the spectators of his trial
+had been strongly excited against him. I fear," he added, "that the mere
+execution of the sentence will no longer satisfy them, which might be
+dangerous in its consequences. Perhaps the police will provide against
+it." These reflections having recurred to Bailly's mind on the 12th, he
+asked for, and drank hastily, two cups of coffee without milk. These
+precautions were a sinister omen. To his friends who surrounded him at
+this awful moment, and were sobbing aloud, he said, "Be calm; I have
+rather a difficult journey to perform, and I distrust my constitution.
+Coffee excites and reanimates; I hope, however, to reach the end
+properly."
+
+Noon had just struck. Bailly addressed a last and tender adieu to his
+companions in captivity, wished them a better fate, followed the
+executioner without weakness as well as without bravado, mounted the
+fatal cart, his hands tied behind his back. Our colleague was accustomed
+to say: "We must entertain a bad opinion of those who, in their dying
+moments, have not a look to cast behind them." Bailly's last look was
+towards his wife. A gendarme of the escort feelingly listened to his
+last words, and faithfully repeated them to his widow. The procession
+reached the entrance to the Champ de Mars, on the side towards the
+river, at a quarter past one o'clock. This was the place where,
+according to the words of the sentence, the scaffold had been raised.
+The blinded crowd collected there, furiously exclaimed that the sacred
+ground of the Champ de la Fédération should not be soiled by the
+presence and by the blood of him whom they called a great criminal. Upon
+their demand (I had almost said their orders), the scaffold was taken
+down again, and carried piecemeal into one of the fosses, where it was
+put up afresh. Bailly remained the stern witness of these frightful
+preparations, and of these infernal clamours. Not one complaint escaped
+from his lips. Rain had been falling all the morning; it was cold; it
+drenched the body, and especially the bare head, of the venerable man. A
+wretch saw that he was shivering, and cried out to him, _"Thou
+tremblest, Bailly."_--"_I am cold, my friend_," mildly answered the
+victim. These were his last words.
+
+Bailly descended into the moat, where the executioner burnt before him
+the red flag of the 17th July; he then with a firm step mounted the
+scaffold. Let us have the courage to say it, when the head of our
+venerable colleague fell, the paid witnesses whom this horrid execution
+had assembled on the Champ de Mars burst into infamous acclamations.
+
+I had announced a faithful recital of the martyrdom of Bailly; I have
+kept my word. I said that I should banish many circumstances without
+reality, and that the drama would thus become less atrocious. If I am to
+trust your aspect, I have not accomplished the second part of my
+promise. The imagination perhaps cannot reach beyond the cruel facts on
+which I have been obliged to dilate. You ask what I can have retrenched
+from former relations, whilst what remains is so deplorable.
+
+The order for execution addressed by Fouquier Tinville to the
+executioner has been seen by several persons now living. They all
+declare that if it differs from the numerous orders of a similar nature
+that the wretch sent off daily, it was only by the substitution of the
+following words: "Esplanade du Champ de Mars," for the usual designation
+of "Place de la Revolution." Now, the Revolutionary Tribunal has
+deserved many anathemas, but I never remarked its being reproached with
+not having known how to enforce obedience.
+
+I felt myself relieved from an immense weight, Gentlemen, when I could
+dispel from my thoughts the image of a melancholy march on foot of two
+hours, because with it there disappeared two hours of corporeal
+ill-usage, which, according to those same accounts, our virtuous
+colleague must have endured from the Conciergerie to the Champ de Mars.
+
+An illustrious writer asserts that they conducted Bailly to the Place de
+la Revolution, that the scaffold there was taken to pieces on the
+multitude demanding it, and that the victim was then led to the Champ de
+Mars. This relation is not correct. The sentence expressed in positive
+terms, that, as an exception, the Square of the Revolution was not to be
+the scene of Bailly's execution. The procession went direct to the place
+designated.
+
+The historian already quoted affirms that the scaffold on being put up
+again on the bank of the Seine was erected on a heap of rubbish; that
+this operation lasted some hours, and that Bailly meanwhile was drawn
+round the Champ de Mars several times.
+
+These promenades are imaginary. Those men who on the arrival of the
+lugubrious procession vociferated that the presence of the old Mayor of
+Paris would soil the Champ de la Fédération, could not the next minute
+force him to make the circuit of it. In fact, the illustrious victim
+remained in the road. The cruel idea, so knowingly attributed to the
+actors of those hideous scenes, to raise the fatal instrument on a heap
+of rubbish on the river bank, so that Bailly might in his last moments
+see the house at Chaillot where he had composed his works, was so far
+from occurring to the mind of the multitude, that the sentence was
+executed in the moat between two walls.
+
+I have not thought it my duty, Gentlemen, to represent the condemned man
+forced to carry some parts of the scaffold himself, because he had his
+hands tied behind his back. In my recital nobody waves the burning red
+flag over Bailly's head, because this barbarity is not mentioned in the
+narratives, otherwise so shocking, drawn up by some friends of our
+colleague shortly after the event; nor have I consented, with the author
+of _The History of the French Revolution_, to represent one of the
+soldiers forming the escort asking the question that led the victim to
+make, we must say so, the theatrical answer: "Yes, I tremble, but it is
+with cold;" but the more touching answer, so characteristic of Bailly;
+"Yes, my friend, I am cold."
+
+Far be it from me, Gentlemen, to suppose that no soldier in the world
+would be capable of a despicable and culpable act. I do not ask,
+assuredly, the suppression of all courts-martial; but to be induced to
+attribute to a man dressed in a military uniform, a personal part in
+this frightful drama, proofs or contemporary testimonies would be
+required, of which I have found no trace.
+
+If the fact had occurred, its results would certainly have become known
+to the public. I take to witness an event which is found related in
+Bailly's Memoirs.
+
+On the 22d of July, 1789, on the square of the Hôtel de Ville, a dragoon
+with his sabre mutilated the corpse of Berthier. His comrades, feeling
+outraged by this barbarity, all showed themselves instantly resolved to
+fight him in succession, and so wash out in his blood the disgrace he
+had thrown on the whole corps. The dragoon fought that same evening and
+was killed.
+
+In his _History of Prisons_, Riouffe says that "Bailly exhausted the
+ferocity of the populace, of whom he had been the idol, and was basely
+abandoned by the people, though they had never ceased to esteem him."
+
+Nearly the same idea is found expressed in _The History of the
+Revolution_, and in several other works.
+
+What is called the populace rarely read and did not write. To attack it
+and calumniate it therefore was a convenient thing, since no refutation
+need to be feared. I am far from supposing that the historians whose
+works I have quoted, ever gave way to such considerations; but I affirm,
+with entire certainty, that they have deceived themselves. In the
+sanguinary drama that has been unrolled before your eyes, the atrocities
+had a quite different source from the sentiments common to the
+barbarians that were swarming in the dregs of society and always ready
+to soil it with every crime; in plainer words, it is not to the
+unfortunate people who have neither property, nor capital, living by the
+work of their hands, to the _prolétaires_, that we are to impute the
+deplorable incidents which marked Bailly's last moments. To put forward
+an opinion so remote from received opinions, is imposing on one's self
+the duty of proving its truth.
+
+After his condemnation, our colleague exclaimed, says La Fayette: "I die
+for the sitting of the Jeu de Paume, and not for the fatal day at the
+Champ de Mars." I do not here intend to expound these mysterious words
+in the glimpses they give us by a half-light; but, whatever meaning we
+may attribute to them, it is evident that the sentiments and passions of
+the lower class have no share in them; it is a point beyond discussion.
+
+On reëntering the Conciergerie, the evening before his death, Bailly
+spoke of the efforts that must have been made to excite the passions of
+the auditors, who followed the various phases of his trial. Factitious
+excitement is always the produce of corruption. The working classes are
+without money;, they then cannot have been the corruptors or direct
+promoters of the distressing scenes of which Bailly complained.
+
+The implacable enemies of the former President of the National Assembly
+had procured for pay some auxiliaries among the turnkeys of the
+Conciergerie. M. Beugnot informs us that when the venerable magistrate
+was consigned to the gendarmes who were to conduct him to the Tribunal,
+"these wretches pushed him violently, sending him from one to the other
+like a drunken man, calling out: _Hold there, Bailly! Catch, Bailly,
+there!_ and that they laughed and shouted at the grave demeanour the
+philosopher maintained amidst the insults of those cannibals."
+
+To confirm my statement that these violences (in comparison with which,
+in truth, those of the Champ de Mars lose their virulence,) were
+fomented by pay, I have more than the formal declaration of our
+colleague's fellow prisoner. For in fact I find that no other prisoner
+or convict underwent such treatment; not even the man called the
+Admiral, when he was taken to the Conciergerie for having attempted to
+assassinate Collot-d'Herbois.
+
+Besides, it is not only on indirect considerations that my decided
+opinion is founded relative to the intervention of rich and influential
+people in those scenes of indescribable barbarity on the Champ de Mars.
+Mérard St. Just, the intimate friend of Bailly, has alluded by his
+initials to a wretch who, the very day of our colleague's death,
+publicly boasted of having electrified the few acolytes who, together
+with him, insisted on the removal of the scaffold; the day after the
+execution, the meeting of the Jacobins reëchoed with the name of another
+individual of the Gros Caillou, who also claimed his share of influence
+in the crime.
+
+I have progressively unrolled before you the series of events in our
+revolution, in which Bailly took an active part; I have scrupulously
+searched out the smallest circumstances of the deplorable affair on the
+Champ de Mars; I have followed our colleague in his proscription to the
+Revolutionary Tribunal, and to the foot of the scaffold. We had seen him
+before, surrounded by esteem, by respect, and by glory, in the bosom of
+our principal academies. Yet the work is not complete; several essential
+traits are still wanting.
+
+I will therefore claim a few more minutes of your kind attention. The
+moral life of Bailly is like those masterpieces of ancient sculpture,
+that deserve to be studied in every point of view, and in which new
+beauties are continually discovered, in proportion as the contemplation
+is prolonged.
+
+
+
+
+PORTRAIT OF BAILLY.--HIS WIFE.
+
+Nature did not endow Bailly generously with those exterior advantages
+that please us at first sight. He was tall and thin. His visage
+compressed, his eyes small and sunk, his nose regular, but of unusual
+length, and a very brown complexion, constituted an imposing whole,
+severe and almost glacial. Fortunately, it was easy to perceive through
+this rough bark, the inexhaustible benevolence of the good man; the
+kindness that always accompanies a serene mind, and even some rudiments
+of gayety.
+
+Bailly early endeavoured to model his conduct on that of the Abbé de
+Lacaille, who directed his first steps in the career of astronomy. And
+therefore it will be found that in transcribing five or six lines of the
+very feeling eulogy that the pupil dedicated to the memory of his
+revered master, I shall have made known at the same time many of the
+characteristic traits of the panegyrist:
+
+"He was cold and reserved towards those of whom he knew little; but
+gentle, simple, equable, and familiar in the intercourse of friendship.
+It is there that, throwing off the grave exterior which he wore in
+public, he gave himself up to a peaceful and amiable gayety."
+
+The resemblance between Bailly and Lacaille goes no farther. Bailly
+informs us that the great astronomer proclaimed truth on all occasions,
+without disquieting himself as to whom it might wound. He would not
+consent to put vice at its ease, saying:
+
+"If good men thus showed their indignation, bad men being known, and
+vice unmasked, could no longer do harm, and virtue would be more
+respected." This Spartan morality could not accord with Bailly's
+character; he admired but did not adopt it.
+
+Tacitus took as a motto: "To say nothing false, to omit nothing true."
+Our colleague contented himself in society with the first half of the
+precept. Never did mockery, bitterness, or severity issue from his lips.
+His manners were a medium between those of Lacaille and the manners of
+another academician who had succeeded in not making a single enemy, by
+adopting the two axioms: "Every thing is possible, and everybody is in
+the right."
+
+Crébillon obtained permission from the French Academy to make his
+reception discourse in verse. At the moment when that poet, then almost
+sixty years of age, said, speaking of himself,
+
+     "No gall has ever poisoned my pen,"
+
+the hall reëchoed with approbation.
+
+I was going to apply this line by the author of _Rhadamistus_ to our
+colleague, when accident offered to my sight a passage in which Lalande
+reproaches Bailly for having swerved from his usual character, in 1773,
+in a discussion that they had together on a point in the theory of
+Jupiter's Satellites. I set about the search for this discussion; I
+found the article by Bailly in a journal of that epoch, and I affirm
+that this dispute does not contain a word but what is in harmony with
+all our colleague's published writings. I return therefore to my former
+idea, and say of Bailly, with perfect confidence,
+
+     "No gall had ever poisoned his pen."
+
+Diffidence is usually the trait that the biographers of studious men
+endeavour most to put in high relief. I dare assert, that in the common
+acceptation, this is pure flattery. To merit the epithet of diffident,
+must we think ourselves beneath the competitors of whom we are at least
+the equals? Must we, in examining ourselves, fail in the tact, in the
+intelligence, in the judgment, that nature has awarded us, and of which
+we make so good a use in appreciating the works of others? Oh! then, few
+learned men can be said to be diffident. Look at Newton: his diffidence
+is almost as celebrated as his genius. Well, I will extract from two of
+his letters, scarcely known, two paragraphs which, put side by side,
+will excite some surprise; the first confirms the general opinion; the
+second seems with equal force to contradict it. Here are the two
+passages:
+
+"We are diffident in the presence of Nature."
+
+"We may nobly feel our own strength in the face of man's works."
+
+In my opinion, the opposition in these two passages is only apparent; it
+will he explained by means of a distinction which I have already
+slightly indicated.
+
+Bailly's diffidence required the same distinction. When people praised
+him to his face on the diversity of his knowledge, our colleague did not
+immediately repel the compliment; but soon after, he would stop his
+panegyrist, and whisper in his ear with an air of mystery: "I will
+confide a secret to you, pray do not take advantage of it: I am only a
+very little less ignorant than another man."
+
+Never did a man act more in harmony with his principles. Bailly was led
+to reprimand severely a man belonging to the humblest and poorest class
+of society. Anger does not make him forget that he speaks to a citizen,
+to a man. "I ask pardon," says the first magistrate of the capital,
+addressing himself to a rag-gatherer; "I ask your pardon, if I am angry;
+but your conduct is so reprehensible, that I cannot speak to you
+otherwise."
+
+Bailly's friends were wont to say that he devoted too much of his
+patrimony to pleasure. This word was calumniously interpreted. Mérard
+Saint Just has given the true sense of it: "Bailly's pleasure was
+beneficence."
+
+So eminent a mind could not fail to be tolerant. Such in fact Bailly
+constantly showed himself in politics, and what is almost equally rare,
+in regard to religion. In the month of June, 1791, he checked in severe
+terms the fury with which the multitude appeared to be excited, at the
+report that at the Théatines some persons had taken the Communion two
+or three times in one day. "The accusation is undoubtedly false," said
+the Mayor of Paris; "but if it were true, the public would not have a
+right to inquire into it. Every one should have the free choice of his
+religion and his creed." Nothing would have been wanting in the picture,
+if Bailly had taken the trouble to remark how strange it was, that these
+violent scruples against repeated Communions emanated from persons who
+probably never took the Sacrament at all.
+
+The reports on animal magnetism, on the hospitals, on the
+slaughter-houses, had carried Bailly's name into regions, whence the
+courtiers knew very cleverly how to discard true merit. _Madame_ then
+wished to attach the illustrious academician to her person as a cabinet
+secretary. Bailly accepted. It was an entirely honorary title. The
+secretary saw the princess only once, that was on the day of his
+presentation.
+
+Were more important functions reserved for him? We must suppose so; for
+some influential persons offered to procure Bailly a title of nobility
+and a decoration. This time the philosopher flatly refused, saying, in
+answer to the earnest negotiators: "I thank you, but he who has the
+honour of belonging to the three principal academies of France is
+sufficiently decorated, sufficiently noble in the eyes of rational men;
+a cordon, or a title, could add nothing to him."
+
+The first secretary of the Academy of Sciences had, some years before,
+acted as Bailly did. Only he gave his refusal in such strong terms, that
+I could not easily believe them to have been written by the timid pen of
+Fontenelle, if I did not find them in a perfectly authentic document, in
+which he says: "Of all the titles in this world, I have never had any
+but of one sort, the titles of Academician, and they have not been
+profaned by an admixture of any others, more worldly and more
+ostentatious."
+
+Bailly married, in November, 1787, an intimate friend of his mother's,
+already a widow, only two years younger than himself. Madame Bailly, a
+distant relation of the author of the _Marseillaise_, had an attachment
+for her husband that bordered on adoration. She lavished on him the most
+tender and affectionate attention. The success that Madame Bailly might
+have had in the fashionable world by her beauty, her grace, by her
+ineffable goodness, did not tempt her. She lived in almost absolute
+retirement, even when the learned academician was most in society. The
+Mayor's wife appeared only at one public ceremony: the day of the
+benediction of the colours of the sixty battalions of the National Guard
+by the Archbishop of Paris, she accompanied Madame de Lafayette to the
+Cathedral. She said: "My husband's duty is to show himself in public
+wherever there is any good to be done, or sound advice to be given; mine
+is to remain at home." This rare retiring and respectable conduct did
+not disarm some hideous pamphleteers. Their impudent sarcasms were
+continually attacking the modest wife on her domestic hearth, and
+troubling her peace of mind. In their logic of the tavern they fancied
+that an elegant and handsome woman, who avoided society, could not fail
+to be ignorant and stupid. Thence arose a thousand imaginary stories,
+ridiculous both as to their matter and form, thrown out daily to the
+public, more, indeed, to offend and disgust the upright magistrate than
+to humble his companion.
+
+The axe that ended our colleague's life, with the same stroke, and
+almost as completely, crushed in Madame Bailly, after so many poignant
+agitations and unexampled misfortunes, all that was left of strength of
+mind and power of intellect. A strange incident also aggravated the
+sadness of Madame Bailly's situation. On a day of trouble, during her
+husband's lifetime, she had placed the assignats resulting from the sale
+of their house at Chaillot, amounting to about thirty thousand francs,
+in the wadding of a dress. The enfeebled memory of the unfortunate widow
+did not recall to her the existence of this treasure, even in the time
+of her greatest distress. When the age of the material which had
+secreted them began to reveal them to daylight, they were no longer of
+any value.
+
+The widow of the author of one of the best works of the age, of the
+learned member of our three great academies, of the first President of
+the National Assembly, of the first Mayor of Paris, found herself thus
+reduced, by an unheard-of turn of fortune, to implore help from public
+pity. It was the geometer Cousin, member of this academy, who by his
+incessant solicitations got Madame Bailly's name inserted at the Board
+of Charity in his arrondissement. The support was distributed in kind.
+Cousin used to receive the articles at the Hôtel de Ville, where he was
+a Municipal Councillor, and carried them himself to the street de la
+Sourdière. It was, in short, in the street de la Sourdière that Madame
+Bailly had obtained two rooms gratis, in the house of a compassionate
+person, whose name I very much regret not having learnt. Does it not
+appear to you, Gentlemen, that the academician Cousin, who crossed the
+whole of Paris, with the bread under his arm and the meat and the
+candle, intended for the unfortunate widow of an illustrious colleague,
+did himself more honour than if he had come to one of the sittings
+bringing in his portfolio the results of some fine scientific research?
+Such noble actions are certainly worth good "Papers."
+
+Affairs proceeded thus up to the revolution of the 18th Brumaire. On the
+21st, the public criers were announcing everywhere, even in the street
+de la Sourdière, that General Bonaparte was Consul, and M. de Laplace
+Minister of the Interior. This name, so well known by the respectable
+widow, reached even the room that she inhabited, and caused her some
+emotion. That same evening, the new minister (this was a noble
+beginning, Gentlemen) asked for a pension of 2000 francs for Madame
+Bailly. The Consul granted the demand, adding to it this express
+condition, that the first half year should be paid in advance, and
+immediately. Early on the 22d, a carriage stopped in the street de la
+Sourdière; Madame de Laplace descends from it, carrying in her hand a
+purse filled with gold. She rushed to the staircase, runs to the humble
+abode, that had now for several years witnessed irremediable sorrow and
+severe misery; Madame Bailly was at the window: "My dear friend, what
+are you doing there so early?" exclaimed the wife of the minister.
+"Madam," replied the widow, "I heard the public crier yesterday, and I
+was expecting you!"
+
+If after having, from a sense of duty, expatiated upon anarchical,
+odious, and sanguinary scenes, the historian of our civil discords has
+the good fortune to meet on his progress with an incident that gratifies
+the mind, raises the soul, and fills the heart with pleasing emotions,
+he stops there, Gentlemen, as the African traveller halts in an oasis!
+
+
+
+
+HERSCHEL.
+
+
+William Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers that ever lived in any
+age or country, was born at Hanover, on the 15th of November, 1738. The
+name of Herschel has become too illustrious for people to neglect
+searching back, up the stream of time, to learn the social position of
+the families that have borne it. Yet the just curiosity of the learned
+world on this subject has not been entirely satisfied. We only know that
+Abraham Herschel, great-grandfather of the astronomer, resided at
+Mähren, whence he was expelled on account of his strong attachment to
+the Protestant faith; that Abraham's son Isaac was a farmer in the
+vicinity of Leipzig; that Isaac's eldest son, Jacob Herschel, resisted
+his father's earnest desire to see him devote himself to agriculture,
+that he determined on being a musician, and settled at Hanover.
+
+Jacob Herschel, father of William, the astronomer, was an eminent
+musician; nor was he less remarkable for the good qualities of his heart
+and of his mind. His very limited means did not enable him to bestow a
+complete education on his family, consisting of six boys and four girls.
+But at least, by his care, his ten children all became excellent
+musicians. The eldest, Jacob, even acquired a rare degree of ability,
+which procured for him the appointment of Master of the Band in a
+Hanoverian regiment, which he accompanied to England. The third son,
+William, remained under his father's roof. Without neglecting the fine
+arts, he took lessons in the French language, and devoted himself to the
+study of metaphysics, for which he retained a taste to his latest day.
+
+In 1759, William Herschel, then about twenty-one years old, went over to
+England, not with his father, as has been erroneously published, but
+with his brother Jacob, whose connections in that country seemed likely
+to favour the young man's opening prospects in life. Still, neither
+London nor the country towns afforded him any resource in the beginning,
+and the first two or three years after his expatriation were marked by
+some cruel privations, which, however, were nobly endured. A fortunate
+chance finally raised the poor Hanoverian to a better position; Lord
+Durham engaged him as Master of the Band in an English regiment which
+was quartered on the borders of Scotland. From this moment the musician
+Herschel acquired a reputation that spread gradually, and in the year
+1765 he was appointed organist at Halifax (Yorkshire). The emoluments of
+this situation, together with giving private lessons both in the town
+and the country around, procured a degree of comfort for the young
+William. He availed himself of it to remedy, or rather to complete, his
+early education. It was then that he learnt Latin and Italian, though
+without any other help than a grammar and a dictionary. It was then also
+that he taught himself something of Greek. So great was the desire for
+knowledge with which he was inspired while residing at Halifax, that
+Herschel found means to continue his hard philological exercises, and at
+the same time to study deeply the learned but very obscure mathematical
+work on the theory of music by R. Smith. This treatise, either
+explicitly or implicitly, supposed the reader to possess some knowledge
+of algebra and of geometry, which Herschel did not possess, but of which
+he made himself master in a very short time.
+
+In 1766, Herschel obtained the appointment of organist to the Octagon
+Chapel at Bath. This was a more lucrative post than that of Halifax, but
+new obligations also devolved on the able pianist. He had to play
+incessantly either at the Oratorios, or in the rooms at the baths, at
+the theatre, and in the public concerts. Then, being immersed in the
+most fashionable circle in England, Herschel could no longer refuse the
+numerous pupils who wished to be instructed in his school. It is
+difficult to imagine how, among so many duties, so many distractions of
+various kinds, Herschel could continue so many studies, which already at
+Halifax had required in him so much resolution, so much perseverance,
+and a very uncommon degree of talent. We have already seen that it was
+by music that Herschel was led to mathematics; mathematics in their turn
+led him to optics, the principal and fertile source of his illustrious
+career. The hour finally struck, when his theoretic knowledge was to
+guide the young musician into a laborious application of principles
+quite foreign to his habits; and the brilliant success of which, as well
+as their excessive hardihood, will excite reasonable astonishment.
+
+A telescope, a simple telescope, only two English feet in length, falls
+into the hands of Herschel during his residence at Bath. This
+instrument, however imperfect, shows him a multitude of stars in the sky
+that the naked eye cannot discern; shows him also some of the known
+objects, but now under their true dimensions; reveals forms to him that
+the richest imaginations of antiquity had never suspected. Herschel is
+transported with enthusiasm. He will, without delay, have a similar
+instrument but of larger dimensions. The answer from London is delayed
+for some days: these few days appear as many centuries to him. When the
+answer arrives, the price that the optician demands proves to be much
+beyond the pecuniary resources of a mere organist. To any other man this
+would have been a clap of thunder. This unexpected difficulty on the
+contrary, inspired Herschel with fresh energy; he cannot buy a
+telescope, then he will construct one with his own hands. The musician
+of the Octagon Chapel rushes immediately into a multitude of
+experiments, on metallic alloys that reflect light with the greatest
+intensity, on the means of giving the parabolic figure to the mirrors,
+on the causes that in the operation of polishing affect the regularity
+of the figure, &c. So rare a degree of perseverance at last receives its
+reward. In 1774 Herschel has the happiness of being able to examine the
+heavens with a Newtonian telescope of five English feet focus, entirely
+made by himself. This success tempts him to undertake still more
+difficult enterprises. Other telescopes of seven, of eight, of ten, and
+even of twenty feet focal distance, crown his efforts. As if to answer
+in advance those critics who would have accused him of a superfluity of
+apparatus, of unnecessary luxury, in the large size of the new
+instruments, and his extreme minutiæ in their execution, Nature granted
+to the astronomical musician, on the 13th of March 1781, the unheard-of
+honour of commencing his career of observation with the discovery of a
+new planet, situated on the confines of our solar system. Dating from
+that moment, Herschel's reputation, no longer in his character of
+musician, but as a constructor of telescopes and as an astronomer,
+spread throughout the world. The King, George III., a great lover of
+science, and much inclined besides to protect and patronize both men and
+things of Hanoverian origin, had Herschel presented to him; he was
+charmed with the simple yet lucid and modest account that he gave of his
+repeated endeavours; he caught a glimpse of the glory that so
+penetrating an observer might reflect on his reign, ensured to him a
+pension of 300 guineas a year, and moreover a residence near Windsor
+Castle, first at Clay Hall and then at Slough. The visions of George
+III. were completely realized. We may confidently assert, relative to
+the little house and garden of Slough, that it is the spot of all the
+world where the greatest number of discoveries have been made. The name
+of that village will never perish; science will transmit it religiously
+to our latest posterity.
+
+I will avail myself of this opportunity to rectify a mistake, of which
+ignorance and idleness wish to make a triumphant handle, or, at all
+events, to wield in their cause as an irresistible justification. It has
+been repeated to satiety, that at the time when Herschel entered on his
+astronomical career he knew nothing of mathematics. But I have already
+said, that during his residence at Bath, the organist of the Octagon
+Chapel had familiarized himself with the principles of geometry and
+algebra; and a still more positive proof of this is, that a difficult
+question on the vibration of strings loaded with small weights had been
+proposed for discussion in 1779: Herschel undertook to solve it, and his
+dissertation was inserted in several scientific collections of the year
+1780.
+
+The anecdotic life of Herschel, however, is now closed. The great
+astronomer will not quit his observatory any more, except to go and
+submit the sublime results of his laborious vigils to the Royal Society
+of London. These results are contained in his memoirs; they constitute
+one of the principal riches of the celebrated collection known under the
+title of _Philosophical Transactions_.
+
+Herschel belonged to the principal Academies of Europe, and about 1816
+he was named Knight of the Guelphic order of Hanover. According to the
+English habit, from the time of that nomination the title of Sir William
+took the place, in all this illustrious astronomer's memoirs, already
+honoured with so much celebrity, of the former appellation of Doctor
+William. Herschel had been named a Doctor (of laws) in the University of
+Oxford in 1786. This dignity, by special favour, was conferred on him
+without any of the obligatory formalities of examination, disputation,
+or pecuniary contribution, usual in that learned corporation.
+
+I should wound the elevated sentiments that Herschel professed all his
+life, if I were not here to mention two indefatigable assistants that
+this fortunate astronomer found in his own family. The one was Alexander
+Herschel, endowed with a remarkable talent for mechanism, always at his
+brother's orders, and who enabled him to realize without delay any ideas
+that he had conceived;[15] the other was Miss Caroline Herschel, who
+deserves a still more particular and detailed mention.
+
+Miss Caroline Lucretia Herschel went to England as soon as her brother
+became special astronomer to the king. She received the appellation
+there of Assistant Astronomer, with a moderate salary. From that moment
+she unreservedly devoted herself to the service of her brother, happy
+in contributing night and day to his rapidly increasing scientific
+reputation. Miss Caroline shared in all the night-watches of her
+brother, with her eye constantly on the clock, and the pencil in her
+hand; she made all the calculations without exception; she made three or
+four copies of all the observations in separate registers; coördinated,
+classed, and analyzed them. If the scientific world saw with
+astonishment how Herschel's works succeeded each other with unexampled
+rapidity during so many years, they were specially indebted for it to
+the ardour of Miss Caroline. Astronomy, moreover, has been directly
+enriched by several comets through this excellent and respectable lady.
+After the death of her illustrious brother, Miss Caroline retired to
+Hanover, to the house of Jahn Dietrich Herschel, a musician of high
+reputation, and the only surviving brother of the astronomer.
+
+William Herschel died without pain on the 23d of August 1822, aged
+eighty-three. Good fortune and glory never altered in him the fund of
+infantine candour, inexhaustible benevolence, and sweetness of
+character, with which nature had endowed him. He preserved to the last
+both his brightness of mind and vigour of intellect. For some years
+Herschel enjoyed with delight the distinguished success of his only
+son,[16] Sir John Herschel. At his last hour he sunk to rest with the
+pleasing conviction that his beloved son, heir of a great name, would
+not allow it to fall into oblivion, but adorn it with fresh lustre, and
+that great discoveries would honour his career also. No prediction of
+the illustrious astronomer has been more completely verified.
+
+The English journals gave an account of the means adopted by the family
+of William Herschel, for preserving the remains of the great telescope
+of thirty-nine English feet (twelve metres) constructed by that
+celebrated astronomer.
+
+The metal tube of the instrument carrying at one end the recently
+cleaned mirror of four feet ten inches in diameter, has been placed
+horizontally in the meridian line, on solid piers of masonry, in the
+midst of the circle, where formerly stood the mechanism requisite for
+manoeuvring the telescope. The first of January 1840, Sir John
+Herschel, his wife, their children, seven in number, and some old family
+servants, assembled at Slough. Exactly at noon, the party walked several
+times in procession round the instrument; they then entered the tube of
+the telescope, seated themselves on benches that had been prepared for
+the purpose, and sung a requiem, with English words composed by Sir John
+Herschel himself. After their exit, the illustrious family ranged
+themselves around the great tube, the opening of which was then
+hermetically sealed. The day concluded with a party of intimate friends.
+
+I know not whether those persons who will only appreciate things from
+the peculiar point of view from which they have been accustomed to look,
+may think there was something strange in several of the details of the
+ceremony that I have just described. I affirm at least that the whole
+world will applaud the pious feeling which actuated Sir John Herschel;
+and that all the friends of science will thank him for having
+consecrated the humble garden where his father achieved such immortal
+labours, by a monument more expressive in its simplicity than pyramids
+or statues.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] When age and infirmities obliged Alexander Herschel to
+give up his profession as a musician, he quitted Bath, and
+returned to Hanover, very generously provided by Sir William
+with a comfortable independence for life.
+
+[16] Sir W. Herschel had married Mary, the widow of John Pitt,
+Esq., possessed of a considerable jointure, and the union
+proved a remarkable accession of domestic happiness. This lady
+survived Sir William by several years. They had but this
+son.--_Translator's Note_.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
+
+OF THE MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM HERSCHEL.[17]
+
+
+     1780. _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. lxx.--Astronomical
+     Observations on the Periodical Star in the Neck of the
+     Whale.--Astronomical Observations relative to the Lunar Mountains.
+
+     1781. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxi.--Astronomical Observations on the
+     Rotation of the Planets on their Axes, made with a View to decide
+     whether the Daily Rotation of the Earth be always the same.--On the
+     Comet of 1781, afterwards called the _Georgium Sidus_.
+
+     1782. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxii.--On the Parallax of the Fixed
+     Stars.--Catalogue of Double Stars.--Description of a Lamp
+     Micrometer, and the Method of using it.--Answers to the Doubts that
+     might be raised to the high magnifying Powers used by Herschel.
+
+     1783. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxiii.--Letter to Sir Joseph Banks on
+     the Name to be given to the new Planet.--On the Diameter of the
+     Georgium Sidus, followed by the Description of a Micrometer with
+     luminous or dark Disks.--On the proper Motion of the Solar System,
+     and the various Changes that have occurred among the Fixed Stars
+     since the Time of Flamsteed.
+
+     1784. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxiv.--On some remarkable Appearances
+     in the Polar Regions of Mars, the Inclination of its Axis, the
+     Position of its Poles, and its Spheroïdal Form.--Some Details on
+     the real Diameter of Mars, and on its Atmosphere.--Analysis of some
+     Observations on the Constitution of the Heavens.
+
+     1785. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxv.--Catalogue of Double Stars.--On
+     the Constitution of the Heavens.
+
+     1786. _Phil Trans._, vol., lxxvi.--Catalogue of a Thousand Nebulæ
+     and Clusters of Stars.--Researches on the Cause of a Defect of
+     Definition in Vision, which has been attributed to the Smallness of
+     the Optic Pencils.
+
+     1787. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxvii.--Remarks on the new
+     Comet.--Discovery of Two Satellites revolving round George's
+     Planet.--On Three Volcanoes in the Moon.
+
+     1788. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxviii.--On George's Planet (Uranus)
+     and its Satellites.
+
+     1789. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxix.--Observations on a Comet.
+     Catalogue of a Second Thousand new Nebulæ and Clusters of
+     Stars.--Some Preliminary Remarks on the Constitution of the
+     Heavens.
+
+     1790. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxx.--Discovery of Saturn's Sixth and
+     Seventh Satellites; with Remarks on the Constitution of the Ring,
+     on the Planet's Rotation round an Axis, on its Spheroïdal Form, and
+     on its Atmosphere.--On Saturn's Satellites, and the Rotation of the
+     Ring round an Axis.
+
+     1791. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxi.--On the Nebulous Stars and the
+     Suitableness of this Epithet.
+
+     1792. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxii.--On Saturn's Ring, and the
+     Rotation of the Planet's Fifth Satellite round an Axis.--Mixed
+     Observations.
+
+     1793. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxiii.--Observations on the Planet
+     Venus.
+
+     1794. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxiv.--Observations on a Quintuple
+     Band in Saturn.--On some Peculiarities observed during the last
+     Solar Eclipse.--On Saturn's Rotation round an Axis.
+
+     1795. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxv.--On the Nature and Physical
+     Constitution of the Sun and Stars.--Description of a Reflecting
+     Telescope forty feet in length.
+
+     1796. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxvi.--Method of observing the Changes
+     that happen to the Fixed Stars; Remarks on the Stability of our
+     Sun's Light.--Catalogue of Comparative Brightness, to determine the
+     Permanency of the Lustre of Stars.--On the Periodical Star _a_
+     Herculis, with Remarks tending to establish the Rotatory Motion of
+     the Stars on their Axes; to which is added a second Catalogue of
+     the Brightness of the Stars.
+
+     1797. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxvii.--A Third Catalogue of the
+     comparative Brightness of the Stars; with an Introductory Account
+     of an Index to Mr. Flamsteed's Observations of the Fixed Stars,
+     contained in the Second Volume of the Historia Coelestis to which
+     are added several useful Results derived from that
+     Index.--Observations of the changeable Brightness of the Satellites
+     of Jupiter, and of the Variation in their apparent Magnitudes; with
+     a Determination of the Time of their rotary Motions on their Axes,
+     to which is added a Measure of the Diameter of the Second
+     Satellite, and an Estimate of the comparative Size of the Fourth.
+
+     1798. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxviii.--On the Discovery of Four
+     additional Satellites of the Georgium Sidus. The retrograde Motion
+     of its old Satellites announced; and the Cause of their
+     Disappearance at certain Distances from the Planet explained.
+
+     1799. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxix.--A Fourth Catalogue of the
+     comparative Brightness of the Stars.
+
+     1800. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xc.--On the Power of penetrating into
+     Space by Telescopes, with a comparative Determination of the Extent
+     of that Power in Natural Vision, and in Telescopes of various Sizes
+     and Constructions; illustrated by select
+     Observations.--Investigation of the Powers of the Prismatic Colours
+     to heat and illuminate Objects; with Remarks that prove the
+     different Refrangibility of radiant Heat; to which is added an
+     Inquiry into the Method of viewing the Sun advantageously with
+     Telescopes of large Apertures and high magnifying
+     Powers.--Experiments on the Refrangibility of the Invisible Rays of
+     the Sun.--Experiments on the Solar and on the Terrestrial Rays that
+     occasion Heat; with a comparative View of the Laws to which Light
+     and Heat, or rather the Rays which occasion them, are subject, in
+     order to determine whether they are the same or different.
+
+     1801. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xci.--Observations tending to
+     investigate the Nature of the Sun, in order to find the Causes or
+     Symptoms of its variable Emission of Light and Heat; with Remarks
+     on the Use that may possibly be drawn from Solar
+     Observations.--Additional Observations tending to investigate the
+     Symptoms of the variable Emission of the Light and Heat of the Sun;
+     with Trials to set aside darkening Glasses, by transmitting the
+     Solar Rays through Liquids, and a few Remarks to remove Objections
+     that might be made against some of the Arguments contained in the
+     former paper.
+
+     1802. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcii.--Observations on the two lately
+     discovered celestial Bodies (Ceres and Pallas).--Catalogue of 500
+     new Nebulæ and Clusters of Stars, with Remarks on the Construction
+     of the Heavens.
+
+     1803. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xciii.--Observations of the Transit of
+     Mercury over the Disk of the Sun; to which is added an
+     Investigation of the Causes which often prevent the proper Action
+     of Mirrors.--Account of the Changes that have happened during the
+     last Twenty-five Years in the relative Situation of Double Stars;
+     with an Investigation of the Cause to which they are owing.
+
+     1804. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xciv.--Continuation of an Account of the
+     Changes that have happened in the relative Situation of Double
+     Stars.
+
+     1805. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcv.--Experiments for ascertaining how
+     far Telescopes will enable us to determine very small Angles, and
+     to distinguish the real from the spurious Diameters of Celestial
+     and Terrestrial Objects: with an Application of the Result of these
+     Experiments to a Series of Observations on the Nature and Magnitude
+     of Mr. Harding's lately discovered Star.--On the Direction and
+     Velocity of the Motion of the Sun and Solar System.--Observation on
+     the singular Figure of the Planet Saturn.
+
+     1806. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcvi.--On the Quantity and Velocity of
+     the Solar Motion.--Observations on the Figure, the Climate, and the
+     Atmosphere of Saturn and its Ring.
+
+     1807. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcvii.--Experiments for investigating
+     the Cause of the Coloured Concentric Rings, discovered by Sir Isaac
+     Newton between two Object-glasses laid one upon
+     another.--Observations on the Nature of the new celestial Body
+     discovered by Dr. Olbers, and of the Comet which was expected to
+     appear last January in its Return from the Sun.
+
+     1808. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcviii.--Observations of a Comet, made
+     with a view to investigate its Magnitude, and the Nature of its
+     Illumination. To which is added, an Account of a new Irregularity
+     lately perceived in the Apparent Figure of the Planet Saturn.
+
+     1809. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcix.--Continuation of Experiments for
+     investigating the Cause of Coloured Concentric Rings, and other
+     Appearances of a similar Nature.
+
+     1810. _Phil. Trans._, vol. c.--Supplement to the First and Second
+     Part of the Paper of Experiments for investigating the Cause of
+     Coloured Concentric Rings between Object-glasses, and other
+     Appearances of a similar Nature.
+
+     1811. _Phil. Trans._, vol. ci.--Astronomical Observations relating
+     to the Construction of the Heavens, arranged for the Purpose of a
+     critical Examination, the Result of which appears to throw some new
+     Light upon the Organization of the Celestial Bodies.
+
+     1812. _Phil. Trans._, vol. cii.--Observations of a Comet, with
+     Remarks on the Construction of its different Parts.--Observations
+     of a Second Comet, with Remarks on its Construction.
+
+     1814. _Phil. Trans._, vol. civ.--Astronomical Observations relating
+     to the Sidereal Part of the Heavens, and its Connection with the
+     Nebulous Part; arranged for the Purpose of a critical Examination.
+
+     1815. _Phil. Trans._, vol. cv.--A Series of Observations of the
+     Satellites of the Georgian Planet, including a Passage through the
+     Node of their Orbits; with an Introductory Account of the
+     Telescopic Apparatus that has been used on this Occasion, and a
+     final Exposition of some calculated Particulars deduced from the
+     Observations.
+
+     1817. _Phil. Trans._, vol. cvii.--Astronomical Observations and
+     Experiments tending to investigate the Local Arrangement of the
+     Celestial Bodies in Space, and to determine the Extent and
+     Condition of the Milky Way.
+
+     1818. _Phil. Trans._, vol. cviii.--Astronomical Observations and
+     Experiments selected for the Purpose of ascertaining the relative
+     Distances of Clusters of Stars, and of investigating how far the
+     Power of Telescopes may be expected to reach into Space, when
+     directed to ambiguous Celestial Objects.
+
+     1822. _Memoirs of the Astronomical Society of London._--On the
+     Positions of 145 new Double Stars.
+
+
+The chronological and detailed analysis of so many labours would throw
+us into numerous repetitions. A systematic order will be preferable; it
+will more distinctly fix the eminent place that Herschel will never
+cease to occupy in the small group of our contemporary men of genius,
+whilst his name will reëcho to the most distant posterity. The variety
+and splendour of Herschel's labours vie with their extent. The more we
+study them, the more we must admire them. It is with great men, as it is
+with great movements in the arts, we cannot understand them without
+studying them under various points of view.
+
+Let us here again make a general reflection. The memoirs of Herschel
+are, for the greater part, pure and simple extracts from his
+inexhaustible journals of observations at Slough, accompanied by a few
+remarks. Such a table would not suit historical details. In these
+respects the author has left almost every thing to his biographers to do
+for him. And they must impose on themselves the task of assigning to the
+great astronomer's predecessors the portion that legitimately belongs to
+them, out of the mass of discoveries, which the public (we must say) has
+got into an erroneous habit of referring too exclusively to Herschel.
+
+At one time I thought of adding a note to the analysis of each of the
+illustrious observer's memoirs, containing a detailed indication of the
+improvements or corrections that the progressive march of science has
+brought on. But in order to avoid an exorbitant length in this
+biography, I have been obliged to give up my project. In general I shall
+content myself with pointing out what belongs to Herschel, referring to
+my _Treatise on Popular Astronomy_ for the historical details. The life
+of Herschel had the rare advantage of forming an epoch in an extensive
+branch of astronomy; it would require us almost to write a special
+treatise on astronomy, to show thoroughly the importance of all the
+researches that are due to him.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[17] These titles are copied direct from the Philosophical
+Transactions, instead of being retranslated.--_Translator's
+Note_.
+
+
+
+
+IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS OF OBSERVATION.
+
+The improvements that Herschel made in the construction and management
+of telescopes have contributed so directly to the discoveries with which
+that observer enriched astronomy, that we cannot hesitate to bring them
+forward at once.
+
+I read the following passage in a Memoir by Lalande, printed in 1783,
+and forming part of the preface to vol. viii. of the _Ephemerides of the
+Celestial Motions_.
+
+"Each time that Herschel undertakes to polish a mirror (of a telescope),
+he condemns himself to ten, or twelve, or even fourteen hours' constant
+work. He does not quit his workshop for a minute, not even to eat, but
+receives from the hands of his sister that nourishment without which one
+could not undergo such prolonged fatigue. Nothing in the world would
+induce Herschel to abandon his work; for, according to him, it would be
+to spoil it."
+
+The advantages that Herschel found in 1783, 1784, and 1785, in
+employing telescopes of twenty feet and with large apertures, made him
+wish to construct much larger still. The expense would be considerable;
+King George III. provided for it. The work, begun about the close of
+1785, was finished in August, 1789. This instrument had an iron
+cylindrical tube, thirty-nine feet four inches English in length, and
+four feet ten inches in diameter. Such dimensions are enormous compared
+with those of telescopes made till then. They will appear but small,
+however, to persons who have heard the report of a pretended ball given
+in the Slough telescope. The propagators of this popular rumour had
+confounded the astronomer Herschel with the brewer Meux, and a cylinder
+in which a man of the smallest stature could scarcely stand upright,
+with certain wooden vats, as large as a house, in which beer is made and
+kept in London.
+
+Herschel's telescope, forty English feet[18] in length, allowed of the
+realization of an idea, the advantages of which would not be
+sufficiently appreciated if I did not here recall to mind some facts.
+
+In any telescope, whether refracting or reflecting, there are two
+principal parts: the part that forms the aërial images of the distant
+objects, and the small lens by the aid of which these images are
+enlarged just as if they consisted of radiating matter. When the image
+is produced by means of a lenticular glass, the place it occupies will
+be found in the prolongation of the line that extends from the object to
+the centre of the lens. The astronomer, furnished with an eye-piece, and
+wishing to examine that image, must necessarily place himself _beyond_
+the point where the rays that form it have crossed each other; _beyond_,
+let us carefully remark, means _farther off_ from the object-glass. The
+observer's head, his body, cannot then injure the formation or the
+brightness of the image, however small may be the distance from which we
+have to study it. But it is no longer thus with the image formed by
+means of reflection. For the image is now placed between the object and
+the reflecting mirror; and when the astronomer approaches in order to
+examine it, he inevitably intercepts, if not the totality, at least a
+very considerable portion of the luminous rays, which would otherwise
+have contributed to give it great splendour. It will now be understood,
+why in optical instruments where the images of distant objects are
+formed by the reflection of light, it has been necessary to carry the
+images, by the aid of a second reflection, out of the tube that contains
+and sustains the principal mirror. When the small mirror, on the surface
+of which the second reflection is effected, is plane, and inclined at an
+angle of 45° to the axis of the telescope; when the image is reflected
+laterally, through an opening made near the edge of the tube and
+furnished with an eye-piece; when, in a word, the astronomer looks
+definitively in a direction perpendicular to the line described by the
+luminous rays coming from the object and falling on the centre of the
+great mirror, then the telescope is called _Newtonian_. But in the
+_Gregorian_ telescope, the image formed by the principal mirror falls on
+a second mirror, which is very small, slightly curved, and parallel to
+the first. The small mirror reflects the first image and throws it
+beyond the large mirror, through an opening made in the middle of that
+principal mirror.
+
+Both in the one and in the other of these two telescopes, the small
+mirror interposed between the object and the great mirror forms relative
+to the latter a sort of screen which prevents its entire surface from
+contributing towards forming the image. The small mirror, also, in
+regard to intensity, gives some trouble.
+
+Let us suppose, in order to clear up our ideas, that the material of
+which the two mirrors are made, reflects only half of the incident
+light. In the course of the first reflection, the immense quantity of
+rays that the aperture of the telescope had received, may be considered
+as reduced to half. Nor is the diminution less on the small mirror. Now,
+half of half is a quarter. Therefore the instrument will send to the eye
+of the observer only a quarter of the incident light that its aperture
+had received. These two causes of diminished light not existing in a
+refracting telescope, it would give, under parity of dimensions, four
+times more[19] light than a Newtonian or Gregorian telescope gives.
+
+Herschel did away with the small mirror in his large telescope. The
+large mirror is not mathematically centred in the large tube that
+contains it, but is placed rather obliquely in it. This slight obliquity
+causes the images to be formed not in the axis of the tube, but very
+near its circumference, or outer mouth, we may call it. The observer may
+therefore look at them there direct, merely by means of an eye-piece. A
+small portion of the astronomer's head, it is true, then encroaches on
+the tube; it forms a screen, and interrupts some incident rays. Still,
+in a large telescope, the loss does not amount to half by a great deal;
+which it would inevitably do if the small mirror were there.
+
+Those telescopes, in which the observer, placed at the anterior
+extremity of the tube, looks direct into the tube and turns his back to
+the objects, were called by Herschel _front view telescopes_. In vol.
+lxxvi. of the _Philosophical Transactions_ he says, that the idea of
+this construction occurred to him in 1776, and that he then applied it
+unsuccessfully to a ten-foot telescope; that during the year 1784, he
+again made a fruitless trial of it in a twenty-foot telescope. Yet I
+find that on the 7th of September 1784, he recurred to a _front view_ in
+observing some nebulæ and groups of stars. However discordant these
+dates may be, we cannot without injustice neglect to remark, that a
+front view telescope was already described in 1732, in volume vi. of the
+collection entitled _Machines and Inventions approved by the Academy of
+Sciences_. The author of this innovation is Jaques Lemaire, who has been
+unduly confounded with the English Jesuit, Christopher Maire, assistant
+to Boscovitch, in measuring the meridian comprised between Rome and
+Rimini. Jaques Lemaire having only telescopes of moderate dimensions in
+view, was obliged, in order not to sacrifice any of the light, to place
+the great mirror so obliquely, that the image formed by its surface
+should fall entirely outside the tube of the instrument. So great a
+degree of inclination would certainly deform the objects. The _front
+view_ construction is admissible only in very large telescopes.
+
+I find in the _Transactions_ for 1803, that in solar observations,
+Herschel sometimes employed telescopes, the great mirror of which was
+made of glass. It was a telescope of this sort that he used for
+observing the transit of Mercury on the 9th of November, 1802. It was
+seven English feet long, and six inches and three tenths in diameter.
+
+Practical astronomers know how much the mounting of a telescope
+contributes to produce correct observations. The difficulty of a solid
+yet very movable mounting, increases rapidly with the dimensions and
+weight of an instrument. We may then conceive that Herschel had to
+surmount many obstacles, to mount a telescope suitably, of which the
+mirror alone weighed upwards of 1000 kilogrammes (_a ton_). But he
+solved this problem to his entire satisfaction by the aid of a
+combination of spars, of pulleys, and of ropes, of all which a correct
+idea may be formed by referring to the woodcut we have given in our
+_Treatise on Popular Astronomy_ (vol. i.). This great apparatus, and the
+entirely different stands that Herschel imagined for telescopes of
+smaller dimensions, assign to that illustrious observer a distinguished
+place amongst the most ingenious mechanics of our age.
+
+Persons in general, I may even say the greater part of astronomers, know
+not what was the effect that the great forty-foot telescope had in the
+labours and discoveries of Herschel. Still, we are not less mistaken
+when we fancy that the observer of Slough always used this telescope,
+than in maintaining with Baron von Zach (see _Monatliche Correspondenz_,
+January, 1802), that the colossal instrument was of no use at all, that
+it did not contribute to any one discovery, that it must be considered
+as a mere object of curiosity. These assertions are distinctly
+contradicted by Herschel's own words. In the volume of _Philosophical
+Transactions_ for the year 1795 (p. 350), I read for example: "On the
+28th of August 1789, having directed my telescope (of forty feet) to the
+heavens, I discovered the sixth satellite of Saturn, and I perceived the
+spots on that planet, better than I had been able to do before." (See
+also, relative to this sixth satellite, the _Philosophical
+Transactions_ for 1790, p. 10.) In that same volume of 1790, p. 11, I
+find: "The great light of my forty-foot telescope was then so useful,
+that on the 17th of September 1789, I remarked the seventh satellite,
+then situated at its greatest western elongation."
+
+The 10th of October, 1791, Herschel saw the ring of Saturn and the
+fourth satellite, looking in at the mirror of his forty-foot telescope,
+with his naked eye, without any sort of eye-piece.
+
+Let us acknowledge the true motives that prevented Herschel from oftener
+using his telescope of forty feet. Notwithstanding the excellence of the
+mechanism, the manoeuvring of that instrument required the constant
+aid of two labourers, and that of another person charged with noting the
+time at the clock. During some nights when the variation of temperature
+was considerable, this telescope, on account of its great mass, was
+always behindhand with the atmosphere in thermometric changes, which was
+very injurious to the distinctness of the images.
+
+Herschel found that in England, there are not above a hundred hours in a
+year during which the heavens can be advantageously observed with a
+telescope of forty feet, furnished with a magnifying power of a
+thousand. This remark led the celebrated astronomer to the conclusion,
+that, to take a complete survey of the heavens with his large
+instrument, though each successive field should remain only for an
+instant under inspection, would not require less than eight hundred
+years.
+
+Herschel explains in a very natural way the rare occurrence of the
+circumstances in which it is possible to make good use of a telescope of
+forty feet, and of very large aperture.
+
+A telescope does not magnify real objects only, but magnifies also the
+apparent irregularities arising from atmospheric refractions; now, all
+other things being equal, these irregularities of refraction must be so
+much the stronger, so much the more frequent, as the stratum of air is
+thicker through which the rays have passed to go and form the image.
+
+Astronomers experienced extreme surprise, when in 1782, they learned
+that Herschel had applied linear magnifying powers of a thousand, of
+twelve hundred, of two thousand two hundred, of two thousand six
+hundred, and even of six thousand times, to a reflecting telescope of
+seven feet in length. The Royal Society of London experienced this
+surprise, and officially requested Herschel to give publicity to the
+means he had adopted for ascertaining such amounts of magnifying power
+in his telescopes. Such was the object of a memoir that he inserted in
+vol. lxxii. of the _Philosophical Transactions_; and it dissipated all
+doubts. No one will be surprised that magnifying powers, which it would
+seem ought to have shown the Lunar mountains, as the chain of Mont Blanc
+is seen from Maçon, from Lyons, and even from Geneva, were not easily
+believed in. They did not know that Herschel had never used magnifying
+powers of three thousand, and six thousand times, except in observing
+brilliant stars; they had not remembered that light reflected by
+planetary bodies, is too feeble to continue distinct under the same
+degree of magnifying power as the actual light of the fixed stars does.
+
+Opticians had given up, more from theory than from careful experiments,
+attempting high magnifying powers, even for reflecting telescopes. They
+thought that the image of a small circle cannot be distinct, cannot be
+sharp at the edges, unless the pencil of rays coming from the object in
+nearly parallel lines, and which enters the eye after having passed
+through the eye-piece, be sufficiently broad. This being once granted,
+the inference followed, that an image ceases to be well defined, when it
+does not strike at least two of the nervous filaments of the retina with
+which that organ is supposed to be overspread. These gratuitous
+circumstances, grafted on each other, vanished in presence of Herschel's
+observations. After having put himself on his guard against the effects
+of diffraction, that is to say, against the scattering that light
+undergoes when it passes the terminal angles of bodies, the illustrious
+astronomer proved, in 1786, that objects can be seen well defined by
+means of pencils of light whose diameter does not equal five tenths of a
+millimetre.
+
+Herschel looked on the almost unanimous opinion of the double lens
+eye-piece being preferable to the single lens eye-piece, as a very
+injurious prejudice in science. For experience proved to him,
+notwithstanding all theoretic deductions, that with equal magnifying
+powers, in reflecting telescopes at least (and this restriction is of
+some consequence), the images were brighter and better defined with
+single than with double eye-pieces. On one occasion, this latter
+eye-piece would not show him the bands of Saturn, whilst by the aid of a
+single lens they were perfectly visible. Herschel said: "The double
+eye-piece must be left to amateurs and to those who, for some particular
+object, require a large field of vision." (_Philosophical Transactions,
+1782, pages 94 and 95._)
+
+It is not only relative to the comparative merit of single or double
+eye-pieces that Herschel differs from the general opinions of opticians;
+he thinks, moreover, that he has proved by decisive experiments, that
+concave eye-pieces (like that used by Galileo) surpass the convex
+eye-piece by a great deal, both as regards clearness and definition.
+
+Herschel assigns the date of 1776 to the experiments which he made to
+decide this question. (_Philosophical Transactions_, year 1815, p. 297.)
+Plano-concave and double concave lenses produced similar effects. In
+what did these lenses differ from the double convex lenses? In one
+particular only: the latter received the rays reflected by the large
+mirror of the telescope, after their union at the focus, whereas the
+concave lenses received the same rays before that union. When the
+observer made use of a convex lens, the rays that went to the back of
+the eye to form an image on the retina, had crossed each other before in
+the air; but no crossing of this kind took place when the observer used
+a concave lens. Holding the double advantage of this latter sort of lens
+over the other, as quite proved, one would be inclined, like Herschel,
+to admit, "that a certain mechanical effect, injurious to clearness and
+definition, would accompany the focal crossing of the rays of
+light."[20]
+
+This idea of the crossing of the rays suggested an experiment to the
+ingenious astronomer, the result of which deserves to be recorded.
+
+A telescope of ten English feet was directed towards an advertisement
+covered with very small printing, and placed at a sufficient distance.
+The convex lens of the eye-piece was carried not by a tube properly so
+called, but by four rigid fine wires placed at right angles. This
+arrangement left the focus open in almost every direction. A concave
+mirror was then placed so that it threw a very condensed image of the
+sun laterally on the very spot where the image of the advertisement was
+formed. The solar rays, after having crossed each other, finding nothing
+on their route, went on and lost themselves in space. A screen, however,
+allowed the rays to be intercepted at will before they united.
+
+This done, having applied the eye to the eye-piece and directed all his
+attention to the telescopic image of the advertisement, Herschel did not
+perceive that the taking away and then replacing the screen made the
+least change in the brightness or definition of the letters. It was
+therefore of no consequence, in the one instance as well as in the
+other, whether the immense quantity of solar rays crossed each other at
+the very place where, _in another direction_, the rays united that
+formed the image of the letters. I have marked in Italics the words that
+especially show in what this curious experiment differs from the
+previous experiments, and yet does not entirely contradict them. In this
+instance the rays of various origin, those coming from the advertisement
+and from the sun, crossed each other respectively in almost rectangular
+directions; during the comparative examination of the stars with convex
+and with concave eye-pieces, the rays that seemed to have a mutual
+influence, had a common origin and crossed each other at very acute
+angles. There seems to be nothing, then, in the difference of the
+results at which we need to be much surprised.
+
+Herschel increased the catalogue, already so extensive, of the mysteries
+of vision, when he explained in what manner we must endeavour to
+distinguish separately the two members of certain double stars very
+close to each other. He said if you wish to assure yourself that _ê_
+Coronæ is a double star, first direct your telescope to _a_ Geminorum,
+to _z_ Aquarii, to _m_ Draconis, to _r_ Herculis, to _a_ Piscium, to _e_
+Lyræ. Look at those stars for a long time, so as to acquire the habit of
+observing such objects. Then pass on to _x_ Ursæ majoris, where the
+closeness of the two members is still greater. In a third essay select
+_i_ Bootis (marked 44 by Flamsteed and _i_ in Harris's maps)[21], the
+star that precedes _a_ Orionis, _n_ of the same constellation, and you
+will then be prepared for the more difficult observation of _ê_ Coronæ.
+Indeed _ê_ Coronæ is a sort of miniature of _i_ Bootis, which may itself
+be considered as a miniature of _a_ Gem. (_Philosophical Transactions_,
+1782, p. 100.)
+
+As soon as Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding had discovered three of the
+numerous telescopic planets now known, Herschel proposed to himself to
+determine their real magnitudes; but telescopes not having then been
+applied to the measurement of excessively small angles, it became
+requisite, in order to avoid any illusion, to try some experiments
+adapted to giving a scale of the powers of those instruments. Such was
+the labour of that indefatigable astronomer, of which I am going to give
+a compressed abridgment.
+
+The author relates first, that in 1774, he endeavoured to ascertain
+experimentally, with the naked eye and at the distance of distinct
+vision, what angle a circle must subtend to be distinguished by its form
+from a square of similar dimensions. The angle was never smaller than 2'
+17"; therefore at its maximum it was about one fourteenth of the angle
+subtended by the diameter of the moon.
+
+Herschel did not say, either of what nature the circles and squares of
+paper were that he used, nor on what background they were projected. It
+is a lacuna to be regretted, for in those phenomena the intensity of
+light must be an important feature. However it may have been, the
+scrupulous observer not daring to extend to telescopic vision what he
+had discovered relative to vision with the naked eye, he undertook to do
+away with all doubt, by direct observations.
+
+On examining some pins' heads placed at a distance in the open air, with
+a three-foot telescope, Herschel could easily discern that those bodies
+were round, when the subtended angles became, after their enlargement,
+2' 19". This is almost exactly the result obtained with the naked eye.
+
+When the globules were darker; when, instead of pins' heads, small
+globules of sealing-wax were used, their spherical form did not begin to
+be distinctly visible till the moment when the subtended magnified
+angles, that is, the moment when the natural angle multiplied by the
+magnifying power, amounted to five minutes.
+
+In a subsequent series of experiments, some globules of silver placed
+very far from the observer, allowed their globular form to be perceived,
+even when the magnified angle remained below two minutes.
+
+Under equality of subtended angle, then, the telescopic vision with
+strong magnifying powers showed itself superior to the naked eye vision.
+This result is not unimportant.
+
+If we take notice of the magnifying powers used by Herschel in these
+laborious researches, powers that often exceeded five hundred times, it
+will appear to be established that the telescopes possessed by modern
+astronomers, may serve to verify the round form of distant objects, the
+form of celestial bodies even when the diameters of those bodies do not
+subtend naturally (to the naked eye), angles of above three tenths of a
+second: and 500, multiplied by three tenths of a second, give 2' 30".
+
+Refracting telescopes were still ill understood instruments, the result
+of chance, devoid of certain theory, when they already served to reveal
+brilliant astronomical phenomena. Their theory, in as far as it depended
+on geometry and optics, made rapid progress. These two early phases of
+the problem leave but little more to be wished for; it is not so with a
+third phase, hitherto a good deal neglected, connected with physiology,
+and with the action of light on the nervous system. Therefore, we should
+search in vain in old treatises on optics and on astronomy, for a strict
+and complete discussion on the comparative effect that the size and
+intensity of the images, that the magnifying power and the aperture of a
+telescope may have, by night and by day, on the visibility of the
+faintest stars. This lacuna Herschel tried to fill up in 1799; such was
+the aim of the memoir entitled, _On the space-penetrating Power of
+Telescopes_.
+
+This memoir contains excellent things; still, it is far from exhausting
+the subject. The author, for instance, entirely overlooks the
+observations made by day. I also find, that the hypothetical part of
+the discussion is not perhaps so distinctly separated from the rigorous
+part as it might be; that disputable numbers, though given with a degree
+of precision down to the smallest decimals, do not look well as terms of
+comparison with some results which; on the contrary, rest on
+observations bearing mathematical evidence.
+
+Whatever may be thought of these remarks, the astronomer or the
+physicist who would like again to undertake the question of visibility
+with telescopes, will find some important facts in Herschel's memoir,
+and some ingenious observations, well adapted to serve them as guides.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] Conforming to general usage, and to Sir W. Herschel himself, we
+shall allude to this instrument as the _forty-foot_ telescope, though M.
+Arago adheres to thirty-nine feet and drops the inches, probably because
+the Parisian foot is rather longer than the English.--_Translator's
+Note_.
+
+[19] It would be more correct to say four times _as much_
+light.--_Translator_.
+
+[20] On comparing the Cassegrain telescopes with a small convex mirror,
+to the Gregorian telescopes with a small concave mirror, Captain Kater
+found that the former, in which the luminous rays do not cross each
+other before falling on the small mirror, possess, as to intensity, a
+marked advantage over the latter, in which this crossing takes place.
+
+[21] In the selection of _i_ Bootis as a test, Arago has taken the
+precaution of giving its corresponding denomination in other catalogues,
+and Bailey appends the following note, No. 2062, to 44 Bootis. "In the
+British Catalogue this star is not denoted by any letter: but Bayer
+calls it _i_, and on referring to the earliest MS. Catalogue in MSS.
+vol. xxv., I find it is there so designated; I have therefore restored
+the letter." (See Bailey's Edition of Flamsteed's British Catalogue of
+Stars, 1835.) The distance between the two members of this double star
+is 3".7 and position 23°.5. See "Bedford Cycle."--_Translator_.
+
+
+
+
+LABOURS IN SIDEREAL ASTRONOMY.
+
+The curious phenomenon of a periodical change of intensity in certain
+stars, very early excited a keen attention in Herschel. The first memoir
+by that illustrious observer presented to the Royal Society of London
+and inserted in the _Philosophical Transactions_ treats precisely of the
+changes of intensity of the star _o_ in the neck of the Whale.
+
+This memoir was still dated from Bath, May, 1780. Eleven years after, in
+the month of December, 1791, Herschel communicated a second time to that
+celebrated English Society the remarks that he had made by sometimes
+directing his telescopes to the mysterious star. At both those epochs
+the observer's attention was chiefly applied to the absolute values of
+the _maxima_ and _minima_ of intensity.
+
+The changeable star in the Whale was not the only periodical star with
+which Herschel occupied himself. His observations of 1795 and of 1796
+proved that _a_ Herculis also belongs to the category of variable stars,
+and that the time requisite for the accomplishment of all the changes
+of intensity, and for the star's return to any given state, was sixty
+days and a quarter. When Herschel obtained this result, about ten
+changeable stars were already known; but they were all either of very
+long or very short periods. The illustrious astronomer considered that,
+by introducing between two groups that exhibited very short and very
+long periods, a star of somewhat intermediate conditions,--for instance,
+one requiring sixty days to accomplish all its variations of
+intensity,--he had advanced the theory of these phenomena by an
+essential step; the theory at least that attributes every thing to a
+movement of rotation round their centres which the stars may undergo.
+
+Sir William Herschel's catalogues of double stars offer a considerable
+number to which he ascribes a decided green or blue tint. In binary
+combinations, when the small star appears very blue or very green, the
+large one is usually yellow or red. It does not appear that the great
+astronomer took sufficient interest in this circumstance. I do not find,
+indeed, that the almost constant association of two complementary
+colours (of yellow and blue, or of red and green), ever led him to
+suspect that one of those colours might not have any thing real in it,
+that it often might be a mere illusion, a mere result of contrast. It
+was only in 1825, that I showed that there are stars whose contrast
+really explains their apparent colour; but I have proved besides, that
+blue is incontestably the colour of certain insulated stars, or stars
+that have only white ones, or other blue ones in their vicinity. Red is
+the only colour that the ancients ever distinguished from white in their
+catalogues.
+
+Herschel also endeavoured to introduce numbers in the classification of
+stars as to magnitude; he has endeavoured, by means of numbers, to show
+the comparative intensity of a star of first magnitude, with one of
+second, or one of third magnitude, &c.
+
+In one of the earliest of Herschel's memoirs, we find, that the apparent
+sidereal diameters are proved to be for the greater part factitious,
+even when the best made telescopes are used. Diameters estimated by
+seconds, that is to say, reduced according to the magnifying power,
+diminish as the magnifying power is increased. These results are of the
+greatest importance.
+
+In the course of his investigation of sidereal parallax, though without
+finding it, Herschel made an important discovery; that of the proper
+motion of our system. To show distinctly the direction of the motion of
+the solar system, not only was a displacement of the sidereal
+perspective required, but profound mathematical knowledge, and a
+peculiar tact. This peculiar tact Herschel possessed in an eminent
+degree. Moreover, the result deduced from the very small number of
+proper motions known at the beginning of 1783, has been found almost to
+agree with that found recently by clever astronomers, by the application
+of subtile analytical formulæ, to a considerable number of exact
+observations.
+
+The proper motions of the stars have been known and proved for more than
+a century, and already Fontenelle used to say in 1738, that the sun
+probably also moved in a similar way. The idea of partly attributing the
+displacement of the stars to a motion of the sun, had suggested itself
+to Bradley and to Mayer. And Lambert especially had been very explicit
+on the subject. Until then, however, there were only conjectures and
+mere probabilities. Herschel passed those limits. He himself proved
+that the sun positively moves; and that, in this respect also, that
+immense and dazzling body must be ranged among the stars; that the
+apparently inextricable irregularities of numerous sidereal proper
+motions arise in great measure from the displacement of the solar
+system; that, in short, the point of space towards which we are annually
+advancing, is situated in the constellation of Hercules.
+
+These are magnificent results. The discovery of the proper motion of our
+system will always be accounted among Herschel's highest claims to
+glory, even after the mention that my duty as historian has obliged me
+to make of the anterior conjectures by Fontenelle, by Bradley, by Mayer,
+and by Lambert.
+
+By the side of this great discovery we should place another, that seems
+likely to expand in future. The results which it allows us to hope for
+will be of extreme importance. The discovery here alluded to was
+announced to the learned world in 1803; it is that of the reciprocal
+dependence of several stars, connected the one with the other, as the
+several planets and their satellites of our system are with the sun.
+
+Let us to these immortal labours add the ingenious ideas that we owe to
+Herschel on the nebulæ, on the constitution of the Milky-way, on the
+universe as a whole; ideas which almost by themselves constitute the
+actual history of the formation of the worlds, and we cannot but have a
+deep reverence for that powerful genius that has scarcely ever erred,
+notwithstanding an ardent imagination.
+
+
+
+
+LABOURS RELATIVE TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM.
+
+Herschel occupied himself very much with the sun, but only relative to
+its physical constitution. The observations that the illustrious
+astronomer made on this subject, the consequences that he deduced from
+them, equal the most ingenious discoveries for which the sciences are
+indebted to him.
+
+In his important memoir in 1795, the great astronomer declares himself
+convinced that the substance by the intermediation of which the sun
+shines, cannot be either a liquid, or an elastic fluid. It must be
+analogous to our clouds, and float in the transparent atmosphere of that
+body. The sun has, according to him, two atmospheres, endowed with
+motions quite independent of each other. An elastic fluid of an unknown
+nature is being constantly formed on the dark surface of the sun, and
+rising up on account of its specific lightness, it forms the _pores_ in
+the stratum of reflecting clouds; then, combining with other gases, it
+produces the wrinkles in the region of luminous clouds. When the
+ascending currents are powerful, they give rise to the _nuclei_, to the
+_penumbræ_, to the _faculæ_. If this explanation of the formation of
+solar spots is well founded, we must expect to find that the sun does
+not constantly emit similar quantities of light and heat. Recent
+observations have verified this conclusion. But large nuclei, large
+penumbræ, wrinkles, faculæ, do they indicate an abundant luminous and
+calorific emission, as Herschel thought; that would be the result of his
+hypothesis on the existence of very active ascending currents, but
+direct experience seems to contradict it.
+
+The following is the way in which a learned man, Sir David Brewster,
+appreciates this view of Herschel's: "It is not conceivable that
+luminous clouds, ceding to the lightest impulses and in a state of
+constant change, can be the source of the sun's devouring flame and of
+the dazzling light which it emits; nor can we admit besides, that the
+feeble barrier formed by planetary clouds would shelter the objects that
+it might cover, from the destructive effects of the superior elements."
+
+Sir D. Brewster imagines that the non-luminous rays of caloric, which
+form a constituent part of the solar light, are emitted by the dark
+nucleus of the sun; whilst the visible coloured rays proceed from the
+luminous matter by which the nucleus is surrounded. "From thence," he
+says, "proceeds the reason of light and heat always appearing in a state
+of combination: the one emanation cannot be obtained without the other.
+With this hypothesis we should explain naturally why it is hottest when
+there are most spots, because the heat of the nucleus would then reach
+us without having been weakened by the atmosphere that it usually has to
+traverse." But it is far from being an ascertained fact, that we
+experience increased heat during the apparition of solar spots; the
+inverse phenomenon is more probably true.
+
+Herschel occupied himself also with the physical constitution of the
+moon. In 1780, he sought to measure the height of our satellite's
+mountains. The conclusion that he drew from his observations was, that
+few of the lunar mountains exceed 800 metres (or 2600 feet). More recent
+selenographic studies differ from this conclusion. There is reason to
+observe on this occasion how much the result surmised by Herschel
+differs from any tendency to the extraordinary or the gigantic, that
+has been so unjustly assigned as the characteristic of the illustrious
+astronomer.
+
+At the close of 1787, Herschel presented a memoir to the Royal Society,
+the title of which must have made a strong impression on people's
+imaginations. The author therein relates that on the 19th of April,
+1787, he had observed in the non-illuminated part of the moon, that is,
+in the then dark portion, three volcanoes in a state of ignition. Two of
+these volcanoes appeared to be on the decline, the other appeared to be
+active. Such was then Herschel's conviction of the reality of the
+phenomenon, that the next morning he wrote thus of his first
+observation: "The volcano burns with more violence than last night." The
+real diameter of the volcanic light was 5000 metres (16,400 English
+feet). Its intensity appeared very superior to that of the nucleus of a
+comet then in apparition. The observer added: "The objects situated near
+the crater are feebly illuminated by the light that emanates from it."
+Herschel concludes thus: "In short, this eruption very much resembles
+the one I witnessed on the 4th of May, 1783."
+
+How happens it, after such exact observations, that few astronomers now
+admit the existence of active volcanoes in the moon? I will explain this
+singularity in a few words.
+
+The various parts of our satellite are not all equally reflecting. Here,
+it may depend on the form, elsewhere, on the nature of the materials.
+Those persons who have examined the moon with telescopes, know how very
+considerable the difference arising from these two causes may be, how
+much brighter one point of the moon sometimes is than those around it.
+Now, it is quite evident that the relations of intensity between the
+faint parts and the brilliant parts must continue to exist, whatever be
+the origin of the illuminating light. In the portion of the lunar globe
+that is illuminated by the sun, there are, everybody knows, some points,
+the brightness of which is extraordinary compared to those around them;
+those same points, when they are seen in that portion of the moon that
+is only lighted by the earth, or in the ash-coloured part, will still
+predominate over the neighbouring regions by their comparative
+intensity. Thus we may explain the observations of the Slough
+astronomer, without recurring to volcanoes. Whilst the great observer
+was studying in the non-illuminated portion of the moon, the supposed
+volcano of the 20th of April, 1787, his nine-foot telescope showed him
+in truth, by the aid of the secondary rays proceeding from the earth,
+even the darkest spots.
+
+Herschel did not recur to the discussion of the supposed actually
+burning lunar volcanoes, until 1791. In the volume of the _Philosophical
+Transactions_ for 1792, he relates that, in directing a twenty-foot
+telescope, magnifying 360 times, to the entirely eclipsed moon on the
+22d of October, 1790, there were visible, over the whole face of the
+satellite, about a hundred and fifty very luminous red points. The
+author declares that he will observe the greatest reserve relative to
+the similarity of all these points, their great brightness, and their
+remarkable colour.
+
+Yet is not red the usual colour of the moon when eclipsed, and when it
+has not entirely disappeared? Could the solar rays reaching our
+satellite by the effect of refraction, and after an absorption
+experienced in the lowest strata of the terrestrial atmosphere, receive
+another tint? Are there not in the moon, when freely illuminated, and
+opposite to the sun, from one to two hundred little points, remarkable
+by the brightness of their light? Would it be possible for those little
+points not to be also distinguishable in the moon, when it receives only
+the portion of solar light which is refracted and coloured by our
+atmosphere?
+
+Herschel was more successful in his remarks on the absence of a lunar
+atmosphere. During the solar eclipse of the 5th September, 1793, the
+illustrious astronomer particularly directed his attention to the shape
+of the acute horn resulting from the intersection of the limbs of the
+moon and of the sun. He deduced from his observation that if towards the
+point of the horn there had been a deviation of only one second,
+occasioned by the refraction of the solar light in the lunar atmosphere,
+it would not have escaped him.
+
+Herschel made the planets the object of numerous researches. Mercury was
+the one with which he least occupied himself; he found its disk
+perfectly round on observing it during its projection, that is to say,
+in astronomical language, during its transit over the sun on the 9th of
+November, 1802. He sought to determine the time of the rotation of Venus
+since the year 1777. He published two memoirs relative to Mars, the one
+in 1781, the other in 1784, and the discovery of its being flattened at
+the poles we owe to him. After the discovery of the small planets,
+Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, by Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding, Herschel
+applied himself to measuring their angular diameter. He concluded from
+his researches that those four new bodies did not deserve the name of
+planets, and he proposed to call them asteroïds. This epithet was
+subsequently adopted; though bitterly criticized by a historian of the
+Royal Society of London, Dr. Thomson, who went so far as to suppose
+that the learned astronomer "had wished to deprive the first observers
+of those bodies, of all idea of rating themselves as high as him
+(Herschel) in the scale of astronomical discoverers." I should require
+nothing farther to annihilate such an imputation, than to put it by the
+side of the following passage, extracted from a memoir by this
+celebrated astronomer, published in the _Philosophical Transactions_,
+for the year 1805: "The specific difference existing between planets and
+asteroïds appears now, by the addition of a third individual of the
+latter species, to be more completely established, and that
+circumstance, in my opinion, has added more to the _ornament_ of our
+system than the discovery of a new planet could have done."
+
+Although much has not resulted from Herschel's having occupied himself
+with the physical constitution of Jupiter, astronomy is indebted to him
+for several important results relative to the duration of that planet's
+rotation. He also made numerous observations on the intensities and
+comparative magnitudes of its satellites.
+
+The compression of Saturn, the duration of its rotation, the physical
+constitution of this planet and that of its ring, were, on the part of
+Herschel, the object of numerous researches which have much contributed
+to the progress of planetary astronomy. But on this subject two
+important discoveries especially added new glory to the great
+astronomer.
+
+Of the five known satellites of Saturn at the close of the 17th century,
+Huygens had discovered the fourth; Cassini the others.
+
+The subject seemed to be exhausted, when news from Slough showed what a
+mistake this was.
+
+On the 28th of August, 1789, the great forty-foot telescope revealed to
+Herschel a satellite still nearer to the ring than the other five
+already observed. According to the principles of the nomenclature
+previously adopted, the small body of the 28th August ought to have been
+called the first satellite of Saturn, the numbers indicating the places
+of the other five would then have been each increased by a unity. But
+the fear of introducing confusion into science by these continual
+changes of denomination, induced a preference for calling the new
+satellite the sixth.
+
+Thanks to the prodigious powers of the forty-foot telescope, a last
+satellite, the seventh, showed itself on the 17th of September, 1789,
+between the sixth and the ring.
+
+This seventh satellite is extremely faint. Herschel, however, succeeding
+in seeing it whenever circumstances were very favourable, even by the
+aid of the twenty-foot telescope.
+
+The discovery of the planet Uranus, the detection of its satellites,
+will always occupy one of the highest places among those by which modern
+astronomy is honoured.
+
+On the 13th of March, 1781, between ten and eleven o'clock at night,
+Herschel was examining the small stars near H Geminorum with a
+seven-foot telescope, bearing a magnifying power of 227 times. One of
+these stars seemed to him to have an unusual diameter. The celebrated
+astronomer, therefore, thought it was a comet. It was under this
+denomination that it was then discussed at the Royal Society of London.
+But the researches of Herschel and of Laplace showed later that the
+orbit of the new body was nearly circular, and Uranus was elevated to
+the rank of a planet.
+
+The immense distance of Uranus, its small angular diameter, the
+feebleness of its light, did not allow the hope, that if that body had
+satellites, the magnitudes of which were, relatively to its own size,
+what the satellites of Jupiter, of Saturn are, compared to those two
+large planets, any observer could perceive them, from the earth.
+Herschel was not a man to be deterred by such discouraging conjectures.
+Therefore, since powerful telescopes of the ordinary construction, that
+is to say, with two mirrors conjugated, had not enabled him to discover
+any thing, he substituted, in the beginning of January, 1787, _front
+view_ telescopes, that is, telescopes throwing much more light on the
+objects, the small mirror being then suppressed, and with it one of the
+causes of loss of light is got rid of.
+
+By patient labour, by observations requiring a rare perseverance,
+Herschel attained (from the 11th of January, 1787, to the 28th of
+February, 1794,) to the discovery of the six satellites of his planet,
+and thus to complete the _world_ of a system that belongs entirely to
+himself.
+
+There are several of Herschel's memoirs on comets. In analyzing them, we
+shall see that this great observer could not touch any thing without
+making further discoveries in the subject.
+
+Herschel applied some of his fine instruments to the study of the
+physical constitution of a comet discovered by Mr. Pigott, on the 28th
+September, 1807.
+
+The nucleus was round and well determined. Some measures taken on the
+day when the nucleus subtended only an angle of a single second, gave as
+its real angle 6/100 of the diameter of the earth.
+
+Herschel saw no phase at an epoch when only 7/10 of the nucleus could
+be illuminated by the sun. The nucleus then must shine by its own light.
+
+This is a legitimate inference in the opinion of every one who will
+allow, on one hand, that the nucleus is a solid body, and on the other,
+that it would have been possible to observe a phase of 8/10 on a disk
+whose apparent total diameter did not exceed one or two seconds of a
+degree.
+
+Very small stars seemed to grow much paler when they were seen through
+the coma or through the tail of the comet.
+
+This faintness may have only been apparent, and might arise from the
+circumstance of the stars being then projected on a luminous background.
+Such is, indeed, the explanation adopted by Herschel. A gaseous medium,
+capable of reflecting sufficient solar light to efface that of some
+stars, would appear to him to possess in each stratum a sensible
+quantity of matter, and to be, for that reason, a cause of real
+diminution of the light transmitted, though nothing reveals the
+existence of such a cause.
+
+This argument, offered by Herschel in favour of the system which
+transforms comets into self-luminous bodies, has not, as we may
+perceive, much force. I might venture to say as much of many other
+remarks by this great observer. He tells us that the comet was very
+visible in the telescope on the 21st of February, 1808; now, on that
+day, its distance from the sun amounted to 2.7 times the mean radius of
+the terrestrial orbit; its distance from the observer was 2.9: "What
+probability would there be that rays going to such distances, from the
+sun to the comet, could, after their reflection, be seen by an eye
+nearly three times more distant from the comet than from the sun?"
+
+It is only numerical determinations that could give value to such an
+argument. By satisfying himself with vague reasoning, Herschel did not
+even perceive that he was committing a great mistake by making the
+comet's distance from the observer appear to be an element of
+visibility. If the comet be self-luminous, its intrinsic splendour (its
+brightness for unity of surface) will remain constant at any distance,
+as long as the subtended angle remains sensible. If the body shines by
+borrowed light, its brightness will vary only according to its change of
+distance from the sun; nor will the distance of the observer occasion
+any change in the visibility; always, let it be understood, with the
+restriction that the apparent diameter shall not be diminished below
+certain limits.
+
+Herschel finished his observations of a comet that was visible in
+January, 1807, with the following remark:--
+
+"Of the sixteen telescopic comets that I have examined, fourteen had no
+solid body visible at their centre; the other two exhibited a central
+light, very ill defined, that might be termed a nucleus, but a light
+that certainly could not deserve the name of a disk."
+
+The beautiful comet of 1811 became the object of that celebrated
+astronomer's conscientious labour. Large telescopes showed him, in the
+midst of the gazeous head, a rather reddish body of planetary
+appearance, which bore strong magnifying powers, and showed no sign of
+phase. Hence Herschel concluded that it was self-luminous. Yet if we
+reflect that the planetary body under consideration was not a second in
+diameter, the absence of a phase does not appear a demonstrative
+argument.
+
+The light of the head had a blueish-green tint. Was this a real tint, or
+did the central reddish body, only through contrast, make the
+surrounding vapour appear to be coloured? Herschel did not examine the
+question in this point of view.
+
+The head of the comet appeared to be enveloped at a certain distance, on
+the side towards the sun, by a brilliant narrow zone, embracing about a
+semicircle, and of a yellowish colour. From the two extremities of the
+semicircle there arose, towards the region away from the sun, two long
+luminous streaks which limited the tail. Between the brilliant circular
+semi-ring and the head, the cometary substance seemed dark, very rare,
+and very diaphanous.
+
+The luminous semi-ring always presented similar appearances in all the
+positions of the comet; it was not then possible to attribute to it
+really the annular form, the shape of Saturn's ring, for example.
+Herschel sought whether a spherical demi-envelop of luminous matter, and
+yet diaphanous, would not lead to a natural explanation of the
+phenomenon. In this hypothesis, the visual rays, which on the 6th of
+October, 1811, made a section of the envelop, or bore almost
+tangentially, traversed a thickness of matter of about 399,000
+kilometres, (248,000 English miles,) whilst the visual rays near the
+head of the comet did not meet above 80,000 kilometres (50,000 miles) of
+it. As the brightness must be proportional to the quantity of matter
+traversed, there could not fail to be an appearance around the comet, of
+a semi-ring five times more luminous than the central regions. This
+semi-ring, then, was an effect of projection, and it has revealed a
+circumstance to us truly remarkable in the physical constitution of
+comets.
+
+The two luminous streaks that outlined the tail at its two limits, may
+be explained in a similar manner; the tail was not flat as it appeared
+to be; it had the form of a conoid, with its sides of a certain
+thickness. The visual lines which traversed those sides almost
+tangentially, evidently met much more matter than the visual lines
+passing across. This maximum of matter could not fail of being
+represented by a maximum of light.
+
+The luminous semi-ring floated; it appeared one day to be suspended in
+the diaphanous atmosphere by which the head of the comet was surrounded,
+at a distance of 518,000 kilometres (322,000 English miles) from the
+nucleus.
+
+This distance was not constant. The matter of the semi-annular envelop
+seemed even to be precipitated by slow degrees through the diaphanous
+atmosphere; finally it reached the nucleus; the earlier appearances
+vanished; the comet was reduced to a globular nebula.
+
+During its period of dissolution, the ring appeared sometimes to have
+several branches.
+
+The luminous shreds of the tail seemed to undergo rapid, frequent, and
+considerable variations of length. Herschel discerned symptoms of a
+movement of rotation both in the comet and in its tail. This rotatory
+motion carried unequal shreds from the centre towards the border, and
+reciprocally. On looking from time to time at the same region of the
+tail, at the border, for example, sensible changes of length must have
+been perceptible, which however had no reality in them. Herschel
+thought, as I have already said, that the beautiful comet of 1811, and
+that of 1807, were self-luminous. The second comet of 1811 appeared to
+him to shine only by borrowed light. It must be acknowledged that these
+conjectures did not rest on any thing demonstrative.
+
+In attentively comparing the comet of 1807 with the beautiful comet of
+1811, relative to the changes of distance from the sun, and the
+modifications resulting thence, Herschel put it beyond doubt that these
+modifications have something individual in them, something relative to a
+special state of the nebulous matter. On one celestial body the changes
+of distance produce an enormous effect, on another the modifications are
+insignificant.
+
+
+
+
+OPTICAL LABOURS.
+
+I shall say very little on the discoveries that Herschel made in
+physics. In short, everybody knows them. They have been inserted into
+special treatises, into elementary works, into verbal instruction; they
+must be considered as the starting-point of a multitude of important
+labours with which the sciences have been enriched during several years.
+
+The chief of these is that of the dark radiating heat which is found
+mixed with light.
+
+In studying the phenomena, no longer with the eye, like Newton, but with
+a thermometer, Herschel discovered that the solar spectrum is prolonged
+on the red side far beyond the visible limits. The thermometer sometimes
+rose higher in that dark region, than in the midst of brilliant zones.
+The light of the sun then, contains, besides the coloured rays so well
+characterized by Newton, some invisible rays, still less refrangible
+than the red, and whose warming power is very considerable. A world of
+discoveries has arisen from this fundamental fact.
+
+The dark heat emanating from terrestrial objects more or less heated,
+became also subjects of Herschel's investigations. His work contained
+the germs of a good number of beautiful experiments since erected upon
+it in our own day.
+
+By successively placing the same objects in all parts of the solar
+spectrum Herschel determined the illuminating powers of the various
+prismatic rays. The general result of these experiments may be thus
+enunciated:
+
+The illuminating power of the red rays is not very great; that of the
+orange rays surpasses it, and is in its turn surpassed by the power of
+the yellow rays. The maximum power of illumination is found between the
+brightest yellow and the palest green. The yellow and the green possess
+this power equally. A like assimilation may be laid down between the
+blue and the red. Finally, the power of illumination in the indigo rays,
+and above all in the violet, is very weak.
+
+Yet the memoirs of Herschel on Newton's coloured rings, though
+containing a multitude of exact experiments, have not much contributed
+to advance the theory of those curious phenomena. I have learnt from
+good authority, that the great astronomer held the same opinion on this
+topic. He said that it was the only occasion on which he had reason to
+regret having, according to his constant method, published his labours
+immediately, as fast as they were performed.
+
+
+
+
+LAPLACE.
+
+
+Having been appointed to draw up the report of a committee of the
+Chamber of Deputies which was nominated in 1842, for the purpose of
+taking into consideration the expediency of a proposal submitted to the
+Chamber by the Minister of Public Instruction, relative to the
+publication of a new edition of the works of Laplace at the public
+expense, I deemed it to be my duty to embody in the report a concise
+analysis of the works of our illustrious countryman. Several persons,
+influenced, perhaps, by too indulgent a feeling towards me, having
+expressed a wish that this analysis should not remain buried amid a heap
+of legislative documents, but that it should be published in the
+_Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes_, I took advantage of this
+circumstance to develop it more fully so as to render it less unworthy
+of public attention. The scientific part of the report presented to the
+Chamber of Deputies will be found here entire. It has been considered
+desirable to suppress the remainder. I shall merely retain a few
+sentences containing an explanation of the object of the proposed law,
+and an announcement of the resolutions which were adopted by the three
+powers of the State.
+
+"Laplace has endowed France, Europe, the scientific world, with three
+magnificent compositions: the _Traité de Mécanique Céleste_, the
+_Exposition du Système du Monde_, and the _Théorie Analytique des
+Probabilités_. In the present day (1842) there is no longer to be found
+a single copy of this last work at any bookseller's establishment in
+Paris. The edition of the _Mécanique Céleste_ itself will soon be
+exhausted. It was painful then to reflect that the time was close at
+hand when persons engaged in the study of the higher mathematics would
+be compelled, for want of the original work, to inquire at Philadelphia,
+at New York, or at Boston for the English translation of the _chef
+d'oeuvre_ of our countryman by the excellent geometer Bowditch. These
+fears, let us hasten to state, were not well founded. To republish the
+_Mécanique Céleste_ was, on the part of the family of the illustrious
+geometer, to perform a pious duty. Accordingly, Madame de Laplace, who
+is so justly, so profoundly attentive to every circumstance calculated
+to enhance the renown of the name which she bears, did not hesitate
+about pecuniary considerations. A small property near Pont l'Evêque was
+about to change hands, and the proceeds were to have been applied so
+that Frenchmen should not be deprived of the satisfaction of exploring
+the treasures of the _Mécanique Céleste_ through the medium of the
+vernacular tongue.
+
+"The republication of the complete works of Laplace rested upon an
+equally sure guarantee. Yielding at once to filial affection, to a noble
+feeling of patriotism, and to the enthusiasm for brilliant discoveries
+which a course of severe study inspired, General Laplace had long since
+qualified himself for becoming the editor of the seven volumes which are
+destined to immortalize his father.
+
+"There are glorious achievements of a character too elevated, of a
+lustre too splendid, that they should continue to exist as objects of
+private property. Upon the State devolves the duty of preserving them
+from indifference and oblivion: of continually holding them up to
+attention, of diffusing a knowledge of them through a thousand channels;
+in a word, of rendering them subservient to the public interests.
+
+"Doubtless the Minister of Public Instruction was influenced by these
+considerations, when upon the occasion of a new edition of the works of
+Laplace having become necessary, he demanded of you to substitute the
+great French family for the personal family of the illustrious geometer.
+We give our full and unreserved adhesion to this proposition. It springs
+from a feeling of patriotism which will not be gainsayed by any one in
+this assembly."
+
+In fact, the Chamber of Deputies had only to examine and solve this
+single question: "Are the works of Laplace of such transcendent, such
+exceptional merit, that their republication ought to form the subject of
+deliberation of the great powers of the State?" An opinion prevailed,
+that it was not enough merely to appeal to public notoriety, but that it
+was necessary to give an exact analysis of the brilliant discoveries of
+Laplace in order to exhibit more fully the importance of the resolution
+about to be adopted. Who could hereafter propose on any similar occasion
+that the Chamber should declare itself without discussion, when a desire
+was felt, previous to voting in favour of a resolution so honourable to
+the memory of a great man, to fathom, to measure, to examine minutely
+and from every point of view monuments such as the _Mécanique Céleste_
+and the _Exposition du Système du Monde_? It has appeared to me that the
+report drawn up in the name of a committee of one of the three great
+powers of the State might worthily close this series of biographical
+notices of eminent astronomers.[22]
+
+The Marquis de Laplace, peer of France, one of the forty of the French
+Academy, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the _Bureau des
+Longitudes_, an associate of all the great Academies or Scientific
+Societies of Europe, was born at Beaumont-en-Auge of parents belonging
+to the class of small farmers, on the 28th of March, 1749; he died on
+the 5th of March, 1827.
+
+The first and second volumes of the _Mécanique Céleste_ were published
+in 1799; the third volume appeared in 1802, the fourth volume in 1805;
+as regards the fifth volume, Books XI. and XII. were published in 1823,
+Books XIII. XIV. and XV. in 1824, and Book XVI. in 1825. The _Théorie
+des Probabilités_ was published in 1812. We shall now present the reader
+with the history of the principal astronomical discoveries contained hi
+these immortal works.
+
+Astronomy is the science of which the human mind may most justly boast.
+It owes this indisputable preëminence to the elevated nature of its
+object, to the grandeur of its means of investigation, to the certainty,
+the utility, and the unparalleled magnificence of its results.
+
+From the earliest period of the social existence of mankind, the study
+of the movements of the heavenly bodies has attracted the attention of
+governments and peoples. To several great captains, illustrious
+statesmen, philosophers, and eminent orators of Greece and Rome it
+formed a subject of delight. Yet, let us be permitted to state,
+astronomy truly worthy of the name is quite a modern science. It dates
+only from the sixteenth century.
+
+Three great, three brilliant phases, have marked its progress.
+
+In 1543 Copernicus overthrew with a firm and bold hand, the greater part
+of the antique and venerable scaffolding with which the illusions of the
+senses and the pride of successive generations had filled the universe.
+The earth ceased to be the centre, the pivot of the celestial movements;
+it henceforward modestly ranged itself among the planets; its material
+importance, amid the totality of the bodies of which our solar system is
+composed, found itself reduced almost to that of a grain of sand.
+
+Twenty-eight years had elapsed from the day when the Canon of Thorn
+expired while holding in his faltering hands the first copy of the work
+which was to diffuse so bright and pure a flood of glory upon Poland,
+when Würtemberg witnessed the birth of a man who was destined to achieve
+a revolution in science not less fertile in consequences, and still more
+difficult of execution. This man was Kepler. Endowed with two qualities
+which seemed incompatible with each other, a volcanic imagination, and a
+pertinacity of intellect which the most tedious numerical calculations
+could not daunt, Kepler conjectured that the movements of the celestial
+bodies must be connected together by simple laws, or, to use his own
+expressions, by _harmonic_ laws. These laws he undertook to discover. A
+thousand fruitless attempts, errors of calculation inseparable from a
+colossal undertaking, did not prevent him a single instant from
+advancing resolutely towards the goal of which he imagined he had
+obtained a glimpse. Twenty-two years were employed by him in this
+investigation, and still he was not weary of it! What, in reality, are
+twenty-two years of labour to him who is about to become the legislator
+of worlds; who shall inscribe his name in ineffaceable characters upon
+the frontispiece of an immortal code; who shall be able to exclaim in
+dithyrambic language, and without incurring the reproach of any one,
+"The die is cast; I have written my book; it will be read either in the
+present age or by posterity, it matters not which; it may well await a
+reader, since God has waited six thousand years for an interpreter of
+his works?"[23]
+
+To investigate a physical cause capable of making the planets revolve in
+closed curves; to place the principle of the stability of the universe
+in mechanical forces and not in solid supports such as the spheres of
+crystal which our ancestors had dreamed of; to extend to the revolutions
+of the heavenly bodies the general principles of the mechanics of
+terrestrial bodies,--such were the questions which remained to be solved
+after Kepler had announced his discoveries to the world.
+
+Very distinct traces of these great problems are perceived here and
+there among the ancients as well as the moderns, from Lucretius and
+Plutarch down to Kepler, Bouillaud, and Borelli. It is to Newton,
+however, that we must award the merit of their solution. This great man,
+like several of his predecessors, conceived the celestial bodies to have
+a tendency to approach towards each other in virtue of an attractive
+force, deduced the mathematical characteristics of this force from the
+laws of Kepler, extended it to all the material molecules of the solar
+system, and developed his brilliant discovery in a work which, even in
+the present day, is regarded as the most eminent production of the human
+intellect.
+
+The heart aches when, upon studying the history of the sciences, we
+perceive so magnificent an intellectual movement effected without the
+coöperation of France. Practical astronomy increased our inferiority.
+The means of investigation were at first inconsiderately entrusted to
+foreigners, to the prejudice of Frenchmen abounding in intelligence and
+zeal. Subsequently, intellects of a superior order struggled with
+courage, but in vain, against the unskilfulness of our artists. During
+this period, Bradley, more fortunate on the other side of the Channel,
+immortalized himself by the discovery of aberration and nutation.
+
+The contribution of France to these admirable revolutions in
+astronomical science, consisted, in 1740, of the experimental
+determination of the spheroidal figure of the earth, and of the
+discovery of the variation of gravity upon the surface of our planet.
+These were two great results; our country, however, had a right to
+demand more: when France is not in the first rank she has lost her
+place.[24]
+
+This rank, which was lost for a moment, was brilliantly regained, an
+achievement for which we are indebted to four geometers.
+
+When Newton, giving to his discoveries a generality which the laws of
+Kepler did not imply, imagined that the different planets were not only
+attracted by the sun, but that they also attract each other, he
+introduced into the heavens a cause of universal disturbance.
+Astronomers could then see at the first glance that in no part of the
+universe whether near or distant would the Keplerian laws suffice for
+the exact representation of the phenomena; that the simple, regular
+movements with which the imaginations of the ancients were pleased to
+endue the heavenly bodies would experience numerous, considerable,
+perpetually changing perturbations.
+
+To discover several of these perturbations, to assign their nature, and
+in a few rare cases their numerical values, such was the object which
+Newton proposed to himself in writing the _Principia Mathematica
+Philosophiæ Naturalis_.
+
+Notwithstanding the incomparable sagacity of its author the Principia
+contained merely a rough outline of the planetary perturbations. If this
+sublime sketch did not become a complete portrait we must not attribute
+the circumstance to any want of ardour or perseverance; the efforts of
+the great philosopher were always superhuman, the questions which he did
+not solve were incapable of solution in his time. When the
+mathematicians of the continent entered upon the same career, when they
+wished to establish the Newtonian system upon an incontrovertible basis,
+and to improve the tables of astronomy, they actually found in their way
+difficulties which the genius of Newton had failed to surmount.
+
+Five geometers, Clairaut, Euler, D'Alembert, Lagrange, and Laplace,
+shared between them the world of which Newton had disclosed the
+existence. They explored it in all directions, penetrated into regions
+which had been supposed inaccessible, pointed out there a multitude of
+phenomena which observation had not yet detected; finally, and it is
+this which constitutes their imperishable glory, they reduced under the
+domain of a single principle, a single law, every thing that was most
+refined and mysterious in the celestial movements. Geometry had thus the
+boldness to dispose of the future; the evolutions of ages are
+scrupulously ratifying the decisions of science.
+
+We shall not occupy our attention with the magnificent labours of Euler,
+we shall, on the contrary, present the reader with a rapid analysis of
+the discoveries of his four rivals, our countrymen.[25]
+
+If a celestial body, the moon, for example, gravitated solely towards
+the centre of the earth, it would describe a mathematical ellipse; it
+would strictly obey the laws of Kepler, or, which is the same thing, the
+principles of mechanics expounded by Newton in the first sections of his
+immortal work.
+
+Let us now consider the action of a second force. Let us take into
+account the attraction which the sun exercises upon the moon, in other
+words, instead of two bodies, let us suppose three to operate on each
+other, the Keplerian ellipse will now furnish merely a rough indication
+of the motion of our satellite. In some parts the attraction of the sun
+will tend to enlarge the orbit, and will in reality do so; in other
+parts the effect will be the reverse of this. In a word, by the
+introduction of a third attractive body, the greatest complication will
+succeed to a simple regular movement upon which the mind reposed with
+complacency.
+
+If Newton gave a complete solution of the question of the celestial
+movements in the case wherein two bodies attract each other, he did not
+even attempt an analytical investigation of the infinitely more
+difficult problem of three bodies. The problem of three bodies (this is
+the name by which it has become celebrated), the problem for determining
+the movement of a body subjected to the attractive influence of two
+other bodies, was solved for the first time, by our countryman
+Clairaut.[26] From this solution we may date the important improvements
+of the lunar tables effected in the last century.
+
+The most beautiful astronomical discovery of antiquity, is that of the
+precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus, to whom the honour of it is
+due, gave a complete and precise statement of all the consequences which
+flow from this movement. Two of these have more especially attracted
+attention.
+
+By reason of the precession of the equinoxes, it is not always the same
+groups of stars, the same constellations, which are perceived in the
+heavens at the same season of the year. In the lapse of ages the
+constellations of winter will become those of summer and reciprocally.
+
+By reason of the precession of the equinoxes, the pole does not always
+occupy the same place in the starry vault. The moderately bright star
+which is very justly named in the present day, the pole star, was far
+removed from the pole in the time of Hipparchus; in the course of a few
+centuries it will again appear removed from it. The designation of pole
+star has been, and will be, applied to stars very distant from each
+other.
+
+When the inquirer in attempting to explain natural phenomena has the
+misfortune to enter upon a wrong path, each precise observation throws
+him into new complications. Seven spheres of crystal did not suffice for
+representing the phenomena as soon as the illustrious astronomer of
+Rhodes discovered precession. An eighth sphere was then wanted to
+account for a movement in which all the stars participated at the same
+time.
+
+Copernicus having deprived the earth of its alleged immobility, gave a
+very simple explanation of the most minute circumstances of precession.
+He supposed that the axis of rotation does not remain exactly parallel
+to itself; that in the course of each complete revolution of the earth
+around the sun, the axis deviates from its position by a small quantity;
+in a word, instead of supposing the circumpolar stars to advance in a
+certain way towards the pole, he makes the pole advance towards the
+stars. This hypothesis divested the mechanism of the universe of the
+greatest complication which the love of theorizing had introduced into
+it. A new Alphonse would have then wanted a pretext to address to his
+astronomical synod the profound remark, so erroneously interpreted,
+which history ascribes to the king of Castile.
+
+If the conception of Copernicus improved by Kepler had, as we have just
+seen, introduced a striking improvement into the mechanism of the
+heavens, it still remained to discover the motive force which, by
+altering the position of the terrestrial axis during each successive
+year, would cause it to describe an entire circle of nearly 50° in
+diameter, in a period of about 26,000 years.
+
+Newton conjectured that this force arose from the action of the sun and
+moon upon the redundant matter accumulated in the equatorial regions of
+the earth: thus he made the precession of the equinoxes depend upon the
+spheroidal figure of the earth; he declared that upon a round planet no
+precession would exist.
+
+All this was quite true, but Newton did not succeed in establishing it
+by a mathematical process. Now this great man had introduced into
+philosophy the severe and just rule: Consider as certain only what has
+been demonstrated. The demonstration of the Newtonian conception of the
+precession of the equinoxes was, then, a great discovery, and it is to
+D'Alembert that the glory of it is due.[27] The illustrious geometer
+gave a complete explanation of the general movement, in virtue of which
+the terrestrial axis returns to the same stars in a period of about
+26,000 years. He also connected with the theory of gravitation the
+perturbation of precession discovered by Bradley, that remarkable
+oscillation which the earth's axis experiences continually during its
+movement of progression, and the period of which, amounting to about
+eighteen years, is exactly equal to the time which the intersection of
+the moon's orbit with the ecliptic employs in describing the 360° of the
+entire circumference.
+
+Geometers and astronomers are justly occupied as much with the figure
+and physical constitution which the earth might have had in remote ages
+as with its present figure and constitution.
+
+As soon as our countryman Richer discovered that a body, whatever be its
+nature, weighs less when it is transported nearer the equatorial
+regions, everybody perceived that the earth, if it was originally
+fluid, ought to bulge out at the equator. Huyghens and Newton did more;
+they calculated the difference between the greatest and least axes, the
+excess of the equatorial diameter over the line of the poles.[28]
+
+The calculation of Huyghens was founded upon hypothetic properties of
+the attractive force which were wholly inadmissible; that of Newton upon
+a theorem which he ought to have demonstrated; the theory of the latter
+was characterized by a defect of a still more serious nature: it
+supposed the density of the earth during the original state of fluidity,
+to be homogeneous.[29] When in attempting the solution of great problems
+we have recourse to such simplifications; when, in order to elude
+difficulties of calculation, we depart so widely from natural and
+physical conditions, the results relate to an ideal world, they are in
+reality nothing more than flights of the imagination.
+
+In order to apply mathematical analysis usefully to the determination of
+the figure of the earth it was necessary to abandon all idea of
+homogeneity, all constrained resemblance between the forms of the
+superposed and unequally dense strata; it was necessary also to examine
+the case of a central solid nucleus. This generality increased tenfold
+the difficulties of the problem; neither Clairaut nor D'Alembert was,
+however, arrested by them. Thanks to the efforts of these two eminent
+geometers, thanks to some essential developments due to their immediate
+successors, and especially to the illustrious Legendre, the theoretical
+determination of the figure of the earth has attained all desirable
+perfection. There now reigns the most satisfactory accordance between
+the results of calculation and those of direct measurement. The earth,
+then, was originally fluid: analysis has enabled us to ascend to the
+earliest ages of our planet.[30]
+
+In the time of Alexander comets were supposed by the majority of the
+Greek philosophers to be merely meteors generated in our atmosphere.
+During the middle ages, persons, without giving themselves much concern
+about the nature of those bodies, supposed them to prognosticate
+sinister events. Regiomontanus and Tycho Brahé proved by their
+observations that they are situate beyond the moon; Hevelius, Dörfel,
+&c., made them revolve around the sun; Newton established that they move
+under the immediate influence of the attractive force of that body, that
+they do not describe right lines, that, in fact, they obey the laws of
+Kepler. It was necessary, then, to prove that the orbits of comets are
+curves which return into themselves, or that the same comet has been
+seen on several distinct occasions. This discovery was reserved for
+Halley. By a minute investigation of the circumstances connected with
+the apparitions of all the comets to be met with in the records of
+history, in ancient chronicles, and in astronomical annals, this eminent
+philosopher was enabled to prove that the comets of 1682, of 1607, and
+of 1531, were in reality so many successive apparitions of one and the
+same body.
+
+This identity involved a conclusion before which more than one
+astronomer shrunk. It was necessary to admit that the time of a complete
+revolution of the comet was subject to a great variation, amounting to
+as much as two years in seventy-six.
+
+Were such great discordances due to the disturbing action of the
+planets?
+
+The answer to this question would introduce comets into the category of
+ordinary planets or would exclude them for ever. The calculation was
+difficult: Clairaut discovered the means of effecting it. While success
+was still uncertain, the illustrious geometer gave proof of the greatest
+boldness, for in the course of the year 1758 he undertook to determine
+the time of the following year when the comet of 1682 would reappear. He
+designated the constellations, nay the stars, which it would encounter
+in its progress.
+
+This was not one of those remote predictions which astrologers and
+others formerly combined very skilfully with the tables of mortality, so
+that they might not be falsified during their lifetime: the event was
+close at hand. The question at issue was nothing less than the creation
+of a new era in cometary astronomy, or the casting of a reproach upon
+science, the consequences of which it would long continue to feel.
+
+Clairaut found by a long process of calculation, conducted with great
+skill, that the action of Jupiter and Saturn ought to have retarded the
+movement of the comet; that the time of revolution compared with that
+immediately preceding, would be increased 518 days by the disturbing
+action of Jupiter, and 100 days by the action of Saturn, forming a
+total of 618 days, or more than a year and eight months.
+
+Never did a question of astronomy excite a more intense, a more
+legitimate curiosity. All classes of society awaited with equal interest
+the announced apparition. A Saxon peasant, Palitzch, first perceived the
+comet. Henceforward, from one extremity of Europe to the other, a
+thousand telescopes traced each night the path of the body through the
+constellations. The route was always, within the limits of precision of
+the calculations, that which Clairaut had indicated beforehand. The
+prediction of the illustrious geometer was verified in regard both to
+time and space: astronomy had just achieved a great and important
+triumph, and, as usual, had destroyed at one blow a disgraceful and
+inveterate prejudice. As soon as it was established that the returns of
+comets might be calculated beforehand, those bodies lost for ever their
+ancient prestige. The most timid minds troubled themselves quite as
+little about them as about eclipses of the sun and moon, which are
+equally subject to calculation. In fine, the labours of Clairaut had
+produced a deeper impression on the public mind than the learned,
+ingenious, and acute reasoning of Bayle.
+
+The heavens offer to reflecting minds nothing more curious or more
+strange than the equality which subsists between the movements of
+rotation and revolution of our satellite. By reason of this perfect
+equality the moon always presents the same side to the earth. The
+hemisphere which we see in the present day is precisely that which our
+ancestors saw in the most remote ages; it is exactly the hemisphere
+which future generations will perceive.
+
+The doctrine of final causes which certain philosophers have so
+abundantly made use of in endeavouring to account for a great number of
+natural phenomena was in this particular case totally inapplicable. In
+fact, how could it be pretended that mankind could have any interest in
+perceiving incessantly the same hemisphere of the moon, in never
+obtaining a glimpse of the opposite hemisphere? On the other hand, the
+existence of a perfect, mathematical equality between elements having no
+necessary connection--such as the movements of translation and rotation
+of a given celestial body--was not less repugnant to all ideas of
+probability. There were besides two other numerical coincidences quite
+as extraordinary; an identity of direction, relative to the stars, of
+the equator and orbit of the moon; exactly the same precessional
+movements of these two planes. This group of singular phenomena,
+discovered by J.D. Cassini, constituted the mathematical code of what is
+called the _Libration of the Moon_.
+
+The libration of the moon formed a very imperfect part of physical
+astronomy when Lagrange made it depend on a circumstance connected with
+the figure of our satellite which was not observable from the earth, and
+thereby connected it completely with the principles of universal
+gravitation.
+
+At the time when the moon was converted into a solid body, the action of
+the earth compelled it to assume a less regular figure than if no
+attracting body had been situate in its vicinity. The action of our
+globe rendered elliptical an equator which otherwise would have been
+circular. This disturbing action did not prevent the lunar equator from
+bulging out in every direction, but the prominence of the equatorial
+diameter directed towards the earth became four times greater than that
+of the diameter which we see perpendicularly.
+
+The moon would appear then, to an observer situate in space and
+examining it transversely, to be elongated towards the earth, to be a
+sort of pendulum without a point of suspension. When a pendulum deviates
+from the vertical, the action of gravity brings it back; when the
+principal axis of the moon recedes from its usual direction, the earth
+in like manner compels it to return.
+
+We have here, then, a complete explanation of a singular phenomenon,
+without the necessity of having recourse to the existence of an almost
+miraculous equality between two movements of translation and rotation,
+entirely independent of each other. Mankind will never see but one face
+of the moon. Observation had informed us of this fact; now we know
+further that this is due to a physical cause which may be calculated,
+and which is visible only to the mind's eye,--that it is attributable to
+the elongation which the diameter of the moon experienced when it passed
+from the liquid to the solid state under the attractive influence of the
+earth.
+
+If there had existed originally a slight difference between the
+movements of rotation and revolution of the moon, the attraction of the
+earth would have reduced these movements to a rigorous equality. This
+attraction would have even sufficed to cause the disappearance of a
+slight want of coincidence in the intersections of the equator and orbit
+of the moon with the plane of the ecliptic.
+
+The memoir in which Lagrange has so successfully connected the laws of
+libration with the principles of gravitation, is no less remarkable for
+intrinsic excellence than style of execution. After having perused this
+production, the reader will have no difficulty in admitting that the
+word _elegance_ may be appropriately applied to mathematical researches.
+
+In this analysis we have merely glanced at the astronomical discoveries
+of Clairaut, D'Alembert, and Lagrange. We shall be somewhat less concise
+in noticing the labours of Laplace.
+
+After having enumerated the various forces which must result from the
+mutual action of the planets and satellites of our system, even the
+great Newton did not venture to investigate the general nature of the
+effects produced by them. In the midst of the labyrinth formed by
+increases and diminutions of velocity, variations in the forms of the
+orbits, changes of distances and inclinations, which these forces must
+evidently produce, the most learned geometer would fail to discover a
+trustworthy guide. This extreme complication gave birth to a
+discouraging reflection. Forces so numerous, so variable in position, so
+different in intensity, seemed to be incapable of maintaining a
+condition of equilibrium except by a sort of miracle. Newton even went
+so far as to suppose that the planetary system did not contain within
+itself the elements of indefinite stability; he was of opinion that a
+powerful hand must intervene from time to time, to repair the
+derangements occasioned by the mutual action of the various bodies.
+Euler, although farther advanced than Newton in a knowledge of the
+planetary pertubations, refused also to admit that the solar system was
+constituted so as to endure for ever.
+
+Never did a greater philosophical question offer itself to the inquiries
+of mankind. Laplace attacked it with boldness, perseverance, and
+success. The profound and long-continued researches of the illustrious
+geometer established with complete evidence that the planetary ellipses
+are perpetually variable; that the extremities of their major axes make
+the tour of the heavens; that, independently of an oscillatory motion,
+the planes of their orbits experienced a displacement in virtue of which
+their intersections with the plane of the terrestrial orbit are each
+year directed towards different stars. In the midst of this apparent
+chaos there is one element which remains constant or is merely subject
+to small periodic changes; namely, the major axis of each orbit, and
+consequently the time of revolution of each planet. This is the element
+which ought to have chiefly varied, according to the learned
+speculations of Newton and Euler.
+
+The principle of universal gravitation suffices for preserving the
+stability of the solar system. It maintains the forms and inclinations
+of the orbits in a mean condition which is subject to slight
+oscillations; variety does not entail disorder; the universe offers the
+example of harmonious relations, of a state of perfection which Newton
+himself doubted. This depends on circumstances which calculation
+disclosed to Laplace, and which, upon a superficial view of the subject,
+would not seem to be capable of exercising so great an influence.
+Instead of planets revolving all in the same direction in slightly
+eccentric orbits, and in planes inclined at small angles towards each
+other, substitute different conditions and the stability of the universe
+will again be put in jeopardy, and according to all probability there
+will result a frightful chaos.[31]
+
+Although the invariability of the mean distances of the planetary
+orbits has been more completely demonstrated since the appearance of the
+memoir above referred to, that is to say by pushing the analytical
+approximations to a greater extent, it will, notwithstanding, always
+constitute one of the admirable discoveries of the author of the
+_Mécanique Céleste_. Dates, in the case of such subjects, are no luxury
+of erudition. The memoir in which Laplace communicated his results on
+the invariability of the mean motions or mean distances, is dated
+1773.[32] It was in 1784 only, that he established the stability of the
+other elements of the system from the smallness of the planetary masses,
+the inconsiderable eccentricity of the orbits, and the revolution of the
+planets in one common direction around the sun.
+
+The discovery of which I have just given an account to the reader
+excluded at least from the solar system the idea of the Newtonian
+attraction being a cause of disorder. But might not other forces, by
+combining with attraction, produce gradually increasing perturbations as
+Newton and Euler dreaded? Facts of a positive nature seemed to justify
+these fears.
+
+A comparison of ancient with modern observations revealed the existence
+of a continual acceleration of the mean motions of the moon and the
+planet Jupiter, and an equally striking diminution of the mean motion
+of Saturn. These variations led to conclusions of the most singular
+nature.
+
+In accordance with the presumed cause of these perturbations, to say
+that the velocity of a body increased from century to century was
+equivalent to asserting that the body continually approached the centre
+of motion; on the other hand, when the velocity diminished, the body
+must be receding from the centre.
+
+Thus, by a strange arrangement of nature, our planetary system seemed
+destined to lose Saturn, its most mysterious ornament,--to see the
+planet accompanied by its ring and seven satellites, plunge gradually
+into unknown regions, whither the eye armed with the most powerful
+telescopes has never penetrated. Jupiter, on the other hand, the planet
+compared with which the earth is so insignificant, appeared to be moving
+in the opposite direction, so as to be ultimately absorbed in the
+incandescent matter of the sun. Finally, the moon seemed as if it would
+one day precipitate itself upon the earth.
+
+There was nothing doubtful or speculative in these sinister forebodings.
+The precise dates of the approaching catastrophes were alone uncertain.
+It was known, however, that they were very distant. Accordingly, neither
+the learned dissertations of men of science nor the animated
+descriptions of certain poets produced any impression upon the public
+mind.
+
+It was not so with our scientific societies, the members of which
+regarded with regret the approaching destruction of our planetary
+system. The Academy of Sciences called the attention of geometers of all
+countries to these menacing perturbations. Euler and Lagrange descended
+into the arena. Never did their mathematical genius shine with a
+brighter lustre. Still, the question remained undecided. The inutility
+of such efforts seemed to suggest only a feeling of resignation on the
+subject, when from two disdained corners of the theories of analysis,
+the author of the _Mécanique Céleste_ caused the laws of these great
+phenomena clearly to emerge. The variations of velocity of Jupiter,
+Saturn, and the Moon flowed then from evident physical causes, and
+entered into the category of ordinary periodic perturbations depending
+upon the principle of attraction. The variations in the dimensions of
+the orbits which were so much dreaded resolved themselves into simple
+oscillations included within narrow limits. Finally, by the powerful
+instrumentality of mathematical analysis, the physical universe was
+again established on a firm foundation.
+
+I cannot quit this subject without at least alluding to the
+circumstances in the solar system upon which depend the so long
+unexplained variations of velocity of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn.
+
+The motion of the earth around the sun is mainly effected in an ellipse,
+the form of which is liable to vary from the effects of planetary
+perturbation. These alterations of form are periodic; sometimes the
+curve, without ceasing to be elliptic, approaches the form of a circle,
+while at other times it deviates more and more from that form. From the
+epoch of the earliest recorded observations, the eccentricity of the
+terrestrial orbit has been diminishing from year to year; at some future
+epoch the orbit, on the contrary, will begin to deviate from the form of
+a circle, and the eccentricity will increase to the same extent as it
+previously diminished, and according to the same laws.
+
+Now, Laplace has shown that the mean motion of the moon around the
+earth is connected with the form of the ellipse which the earth
+describes around the sun; that a diminution of the eccentricity of the
+ellipse inevitably induces an increase in the velocity of our satellite,
+and _vice versâ_; finally, that this cause suffices to explain the
+numerical value of the acceleration which the mean motion of the moon
+has experienced from the earliest ages down to the present time.[33]
+
+The origin of the inequalities in the mean motions of Jupiter and Saturn
+will be, I hope, as easy to conceive.
+
+Mathematical analysis has not served to represent in finite terms the
+values of the derangements which each planet experiences in its movement
+from the action of all the other planets. In the present state of
+science, this value is exhibited in the form of an indefinite series of
+terms diminishing rapidly in magnitude. In calculation, it is usual to
+neglect such of those terms as correspond in the order of magnitude to
+quantities beneath the errors of observation. But there are cases in
+which the order of the term in the series does not decide whether it be
+small or great. Certain numerical relations between the primitive
+elements of the disturbing and disturbed planets may impart sensible
+values to terms which usually admit of being neglected. This case occurs
+in the perturbations of Saturn produced by Jupiter, and in those of
+Jupiter produced by Saturn. There exists between the mean motions of
+these two great planets a simple relation of commensurability, five
+times the mean motion of Saturn, being, in fact, very nearly equal to
+twice the mean motion of Jupiter. It happens, in consequence, that
+certain terms, which would otherwise be very small, acquire from this
+circumstance considerable values. Hence arise in the movements of these
+two planets, inequalities of long duration which require more than 900
+years for their complete development, and which represent with
+marvellous accuracy all the irregularities disclosed by observation.
+
+Is it not astonishing to find in the commensurability of the mean
+motions of two planets, a cause of perturbation of so influential a
+nature; to discover that the definitive solution of an immense
+difficulty--which baffled the genius of Euler, and which even led
+persons to doubt whether the theory of gravitation was capable of
+accounting for all the phenomena of the heavens--should depend upon the
+fortuitous circumstance of five times the mean motion of Saturn being
+equal to twice the mean motion of Jupiter? The beauty of the conception
+and the ultimate result are here equally worthy of admiration.[34]
+
+We have just explained how Laplace demonstrated that the solar system
+can experience only small periodic oscillations around a certain mean
+state. Let us now see in what way he succeeded in determining the
+absolute dimensions of the orbits.
+
+What is the distance of the sun from the earth? No scientific question
+has occupied in a greater degree the attention of mankind;
+mathematically speaking, nothing is more simple. It suffices, as in
+common operations of surveying, to draw visual lines from the two
+extremities of a known base to an inaccessible object. The remainder is
+a process of elementary calculation. Unfortunately, in the case of the
+sun, the distance is great and the bases which can be measured upon the
+earth are comparatively very small. In such a case the slightest errors
+in the direction of the visual lines exercise an enormous influence upon
+the results.
+
+In the beginning of the last century Halley remarked that certain
+interpositions of Venus between the earth and the sun, or, to use an
+expression applied to such conjunctions, that the _transits_ of the
+planet across the sun's disk, would furnish at each observatory an
+indirect means of fixing the position of the visual ray very superior in
+accuracy to the most perfect direct methods.[35]
+
+Such was the object of the scientific expeditions undertaken in 1761 and
+1769, on which occasions France, not to speak of stations in Europe, was
+represented at the Isle of Rodrigo by Pingré, at the Isle of St. Domingo
+by Fleurin, at California by the Abbé Chappe, at Pondicherry by
+Legentil. At the same epochs England sent Maskelyne to St. Helena, Wales
+to Hudson's Bay, Mason to the Cape of Good Hope, Captain Cooke to
+Otaheite, &c. The observations of the southern hemisphere compared with
+those of Europe, and especially with the observations made by an
+Austrian astronomer Father Hell at Wardhus in Lapland, gave for the
+distance of the sun the result which has since figured in all treatises
+on astronomy and navigation.
+
+No government hesitated in furnishing Academies with the means, however
+expensive they might be, of conveniently establishing their observers in
+the most distant regions. We have already remarked that the
+determination of the contemplated distance appeared to demand
+imperiously an extensive base, for small bases would have been totally
+inadequate to the purpose. Well, Laplace has solved the problem
+numerically without a base of any kind whatever; he has deduced the
+distance of the sun from observations of the moon made in one and the
+same place!
+
+The sun is, with respect to our satellite, the cause of perturbations
+which evidently depend on the distance of the immense luminous globe
+from the earth. Who does not see that these perturbations would diminish
+if the distance increased; that they would increase on the contrary, if
+the distance diminished; that the distance finally determines the
+magnitude of the perturbations?
+
+Observation assigns the numerical value of these perturbations; theory,
+on the other hand, unfolds the general mathematical relation which
+connects them with the solar parallax, and with other known elements.
+The determination of the mean radius of the terrestrial orbit then
+becomes one of the most simple operations of algebra. Such is the happy
+combination by the aid of which Laplace has solved the great, the
+celebrated problem of parallax. It is thus that the illustrious geometer
+found for the mean distance of the sun from the earth, expressed in
+radii of the terrestrial orbit, a value differing only in a slight
+degree from that which was the fruit of so many troublesome and
+expensive voyages. According to the opinion of very competent judges the
+result of the indirect method might not impossibly merit the
+preference.[36]
+
+The movements of the moon proved a fertile mine of research to our
+great geometer. His penetrating intellect discovered in them unknown
+treasures. He disentangled them from every thing which concealed them
+from vulgar eyes with an ability and a perseverance equally worthy of
+admiration. The reader will excuse me for citing another of such
+examples.
+
+The earth governs the movements of the moon. The earth is flattened, in
+other words its figure is spheroidal. A spheroidal body does not attract
+like a sphere. There ought then to exist in the movement, I had almost
+said in the countenance of the moon, a sort of impression of the
+spheroidal figure of the earth. Such was the idea as it originally
+occurred to Laplace.
+
+It still remained to ascertain (and here consisted the chief
+difficulty), whether the effects attributable to the spheroidal figure
+of the earth were sufficiently sensible not to be confounded with the
+errors of observation. It was accordingly necessary to find the general
+formula of perturbations of this nature, in order to be able, as in the
+case of the solar parallax, to eliminate the unknown quantity.
+
+The ardour of Laplace, combined with his power of analytical research,
+surmounted all obstacles. By means of an investigation which demanded
+the most minute attention, the great geometer discovered in the theory
+of the moon's movements, two well-defined perturbations depending on the
+spheroidal figure of the earth. The first affected the resolved element
+of the motion of our satellite which is chiefly measured with the
+instrument known in observatories by the name of the transit instrument;
+the second, which operated in the direction north and south, could only
+be effected by observations with a second instrument termed the mural
+circle. These two inequalities of very different magnitudes connected
+with the cause which produces them by analytical combinations of totally
+different kinds have, however, both conducted to the same value of the
+ellipticity. It must be borne in mind, however, that the ellipticity
+thus deduced from the movements of the moon, is not the ellipticity
+corresponding to such or such a country, the ellipticity observed in
+France, in England, in Italy, in Lapland, in North America, in India, or
+in the region of the Cape of Good Hope, for the earth's materials having
+undergone considerable upheavings at different times and in different
+places, the primitive regularity of its curvature has been sensibly
+disturbed by this cause. The moon, and it is this circumstance which
+renders the result of such inestimable value, ought to assign, and has
+in reality assigned the general ellipticity of the earth; in other
+words, it has indicated a sort of mean value of the various
+determinations obtained at enormous expense, and with infinite labour,
+as the result of long voyages undertaken by astronomers of all the
+countries of Europe.
+
+I shall add a few brief remarks, for which I am mainly indebted to the
+author of the _Mécanique Céleste_. They seem to be eminently adapted for
+illustrating the profound, the unexpected, and almost paradoxical
+character of the methods which I have just attempted to sketch.
+
+What are the elements which it has been found necessary to confront with
+each other in order to arrive at results expressed even to the precision
+of the smallest decimals?
+
+On the one hand, mathematical formulæ, deduced from the principle of
+universal attraction; on the other hand, certain irregularities observed
+in the returns of the moon to the meridian.
+
+An observing geometer who, from his infancy, had never quitted his
+chamber of study, and who had never viewed the heavens except through a
+narrow aperture directed north and south, in the vertical plane in which
+the principal astronomical instruments are made to move,--to whom
+nothing had ever been revealed respecting the bodies revolving above his
+head, except that they attract each other according to the Newtonian law
+of gravitation,--would, however, be enabled to ascertain that his narrow
+abode was situated upon the surface of a spheroidal body, the equatorial
+axis of which surpassed the polar axis by a _three hundred and sixth
+part_; he would have also found, in his isolated immovable position, his
+true distance from the sun.
+
+I have stated at the commencement of this Notice, that it is to
+D'Alembert we owe the first satisfactory mathematical explanation of the
+phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes. But our illustrious
+countryman, as well as Euler, whose solution appeared subsequently to
+that of D'Alembert, omitted all consideration of certain physical
+circumstances, which, however, did not seem to be of a nature to be
+neglected without examination. Laplace has supplied this deficiency. He
+has shown that the sea, notwithstanding its fluidity, and that the
+atmosphere, notwithstanding its currents, exercise the same influence on
+the movements of the terrestrial axis as if they formed solid masses
+adhering to the terrestrial spheroid.
+
+Do the extremities of the axis around which the earth performs an entire
+revolution once in every twenty-four hours, correspond always to the
+same material points of the terrestrial spheroid? In other words, do the
+poles of rotation, which from year to year correspond to different
+stars, undergo also a displacement at the surface of the earth?
+
+In the case of the affirmative, the equator is movable as well as the
+poles; the terrestrial latitudes are variable; no country during the
+lapse of ages will enjoy, even on an average, a constant climate;
+regions the most different will, in their turn, become circumpolar.
+Adopt the contrary supposition, and every thing assumes the character of
+an admirable permanence.
+
+The question which I have just suggested, one of the most important in
+Astronomy, cannot be solved by the aid of mere observation on account of
+the uncertainty of the early determinations of terrestrial latitude.
+Laplace has supplied this defect by analysis. The great geometer has
+demonstrated that no circumstance depending on universal gravitation can
+sensibly displace the poles of the earth's axis relatively to the
+surface of the terrestrial spheroid. The sea, far from being an obstacle
+to the invariable rotation of the earth upon its axis, would, on the
+contrary, reduce the axis to a permanent condition in consequence of the
+mobility of the waters and the resistance which their oscillations
+experience.
+
+The remarks which I have just made with respect to the position of the
+terrestrial axis are equally applicable to the time of the earth's
+rotation which is the unit, the true standard of time. The importance of
+this element induced Laplace to examine whether its numerical value
+might not be liable to vary from internal causes such as earthquakes and
+volcanoes. It is hardly necessary for me to state that the result
+obtained was negative.
+
+The admirable memoir of Lagrange upon the libration of the moon seemed
+to have exhausted the subject. This, however, was not the case.
+
+The motion of revolution of our satellite around the earth is subject to
+perturbations, technically termed _secular_, which were either unknown
+to Lagrange or which he neglected. These inequalities eventually place
+the body, not to speak of entire circumferences, at angular distances of
+a semi-circle, a circle and a half, &c., from the position which it
+would otherwise occupy. If the movement of rotation did not participate
+in such perturbations, the moon in the lapse of ages would present in
+succession all the parts of its surface to the earth.
+
+This event will not occur. The hemisphere of the moon which is actually
+invisible, will remain invisible for ever. Laplace, in fact, has shown
+that the attraction of the earth introduces into the rotatory motion of
+the lunar spheroid the secular inequalities which exist in the movement
+of revolution.
+
+Researches of this nature exhibit in full relief the power of
+mathematical analysis. It would have been very difficult to have
+discovered by synthesis truths so profoundly enveloped in the complex
+action of a multitude of forces.
+
+We should be inexcusable if we omitted to notice the high importance of
+the labours of Laplace on the improvement of the lunar tables. The
+immediate object of this improvement was, in effect, the promotion of
+maritime intercourse between distant countries, and, what was indeed far
+superior to all considerations of mercantile interest, the preservation
+of the lives of mariners.
+
+Thanks to a sagacity without parallel, to a perseverance which knew no
+limits, to an ardour always youthful and which communicated itself to
+able coadjutors, Laplace solved the celebrated problem of the longitude
+more completely than could have been hoped for in a scientific point of
+view, with greater precision than the art of navigation in its utmost
+refinement demanded. The ship, the sport of the winds and tempests, has
+no occasion, in the present day, to be afraid of losing itself in the
+immensity of the ocean. An intelligent glance at the starry vault
+indicates to the pilot, in every place and at every time, his distance
+from the meridian of Paris. The extreme perfection of the existing
+tables of the moon entitles Laplace to be ranked among the benefactors
+of humanity.[37]
+
+In the beginning of the year 1611, Galileo supposed that he found in the
+eclipses of Jupiter's satellites a simple and rigorous solution of the
+famous problem of the longitude, and active negotiations were
+immediately commenced with the view of introducing the new method on
+board the numerous vessels of Spain and Holland. These negotiations
+failed. From the discussion it plainly appeared that the accurate
+observation of the eclipses of the satellites would require powerful
+telescopes; but such telescopes could not be employed on board a ship
+tossed about by the waves.
+
+The method of Galileo seemed, at any rate, to retain all its advantages
+when applied on land, and to promise immense improvements to geography.
+These expectations were found to be premature. The movements of the
+satellites of Jupiter are not by any means so simple as the immortal
+inventor of the method of longitudes supposed them to be. It was
+necessary that three generations of astronomers and mathematicians
+should labour with perseverance in unfolding their most considerable
+perturbations. It was necessary, in fine, that the tables of those
+bodies should acquire all desirable and necessary precision, that
+Laplace should introduce into the midst of them the torch of
+mathematical analysis.
+
+In the present day, the nautical ephemerides contain, several years in
+advance, the indication of the times of the eclipses and reappearances
+of Jupiter's satellites. Calculation does not yield in precision to
+direct observation. In this group of satellites, considered as an
+independent system of bodies, Laplace found a series of perturbations
+analogous to those which the planets experience. The rapidity of the
+revolutions unfolds, in a sufficiently short space of time, changes in
+this system which require centuries for their complete development in
+the solar system.
+
+Although the satellites exhibit hardly an appreciable diameter even when
+viewed in the best telescopes, our illustrious countryman was enabled to
+determine their masses. Finally, he discovered certain simple relations
+of an extremely remarkable character between the movements of those
+bodies, which have been called _the laws of Laplace_. Posterity will not
+obliterate this designation; it will acknowledge the propriety of
+inscribing in the heavens the name of so great an astronomer beside that
+of Kepler.
+
+Let us cite two or three of the laws of Laplace:--
+
+If we add to the mean longitude of the first satellite twice that of the
+third, and subtract from the sum three times the mean longitude of the
+second, the result will be exactly equal to 180°.
+
+Would it not be very extraordinary if the three satellites had been
+placed originally at the distances from Jupiter, and in the positions,
+with respect to each other, adapted for constantly and rigorously
+maintaining the foregoing relation? Laplace has replied to this question
+by showing that it is not necessary that this relation should have been
+rigorously true at the origin. The mutual action of the satellites would
+necessarily have reduced it to its present mathematical condition, if
+once the distances and the positions satisfied the law approximately.
+
+This first law is equally true when we employ the synodical elements. It
+hence plainly results, that the first three satellites of Jupiter can
+never be all eclipsed at the same time. Bearing this in mind, we shall
+have no difficulty in apprehending the import of a celebrated
+observation of recent times, during which certain astronomers perceived
+the planet for a short time without any of his four satellites. This
+would not by any means authorize us in supposing the satellites to be
+eclipsed. A satellite disappears when it is projected upon the central
+part of the luminous disk of Jupiter, and also when it passes behind the
+opaque body of the planet.
+
+The following is another very simple law to which the mean motions of
+the same satellites of Jupiter are subject:
+
+If we add to the mean motion of the first satellite twice the mean
+motion of the third, the sum is exactly equal to three times the mean
+motion of the second.[38]
+
+This numerical coincidence, which is perfectly accurate, would be one of
+the most mysterious phenomena in the system of the universe if Laplace
+had not proved that the law need only have been approximate at the
+origin, and that the mutual action of the satellites has sufficed to
+render it rigorous.
+
+The illustrious geometer, who always pursued his researches to their
+most remote ramifications, arrived at the following result: The action
+of Jupiter regulates the movements of rotation of the satellites so
+that, without taking into account the secular perturbations, the time of
+rotation of the first satellite plus twice the time of rotation of the
+third, forms a sum which is constantly equal to three times the time of
+rotation of the second.
+
+Influenced by a deference, a modesty, a timidity, without any plausible
+motive, our artists in the last century surrendered to the English the
+exclusive privilege of constructing instruments of astronomy. Thus, let
+us frankly acknowledge the fact, at the time when Herschel was
+prosecuting his beautiful observations on the other side of the Channel,
+there existed in France no instruments adapted for developing them; we
+had not even the means of verifying them. Fortunately for the scientific
+honour of our country, mathematical analysis is also a powerful
+instrument. Laplace gave ample proof of this on a memorable occasion
+when from the retirement of his chamber he predicted, he minutely
+announced, what the excellent astronomer of Windsor would see with the
+largest telescopes which were ever constructed by the hand of man.
+
+When Galileo, in the beginning of the year 1610, directed towards Saturn
+a telescope of very low power which he had just executed with his own
+hands, he perceived that the planet was not an ordinary globe, without
+however being able to ascertain its real form. The expression
+_tri-corporate_, by which the illustrious Florentine designated the
+appearance of the planet, implied even a totally erroneous idea of its
+structure. Our countryman Roberval entertained much sounder views on the
+subject, but from not having instituted a detailed comparison between
+his hypothesis and the results of observation, he abandoned to Huyghens
+the honour of being regarded as the author of the true theory of the
+phenomena presented by the wonderful planet.
+
+Every person knows, in the present day, that Saturn consists of a globe
+about 900 times greater than the earth, and a ring. This ring does not
+touch the ball of the planet, being everywhere removed from it at a
+distance of 20,000 (English) miles. Observation indicates the breadth of
+the ring to be 54,000 miles. The thickness certainly does not exceed 250
+miles. With the exception of a black streak which divides the ring
+throughout its whole contour into two parts of unequal breadth and of
+different brightness, this strange colossal bridge without piles had
+never offered to the most experienced or skilful observers either spot
+or protuberance adapted for deciding whether it was immovable or endued
+with a movement of rotation.
+
+Laplace considered it to be very improbable, if the ring was immovable,
+that its constituent parts should be capable of resisting by their mere
+cohesion the continual attraction of the planet. A movement of rotation
+occurred to his mind as constituting the principle of stability, and he
+hence deduced the necessary velocity. The velocity thus found was
+exactly equal to that which Herschel subsequently deduced from a course
+of extremely delicate observations.
+
+The two parts of the ring being placed at different distances from the
+planet, could not fail to experience from the action of the sun,
+different movements of rotation. It would hence seem that the planes of
+both rings ought to be generally inclined towards each other, whereas
+they appear from observation always to coincide. It was necessary then
+that some physical cause should exist which would be capable of
+neutralizing the action of the sun. In a memoir published in February,
+1789, Laplace found that this cause must reside in the ellipticity of
+Saturn produced by a rapid movement of rotation of the planet, a
+movement the existence of which Herschel announced in November, 1789.
+
+The reader cannot fail to remark how, on certain occasions, the eyes of
+the mind can supply the want of the most powerful telescopes, and lead
+to astronomical discoveries of the highest importance.
+
+Let us descend from the heavens upon the earth. The discoveries of
+Laplace will appear not less important, not less worthy of his genius.
+
+The phenomena of the tides, which an ancient philosopher designated in
+despair as _the tomb of human curiosity_, were connected by Laplace with
+an analytical theory in which the physical conditions of the question
+figure for the first time. Accordingly calculators, to the immense
+advantage of the navigation of our maritime coasts, venture in the
+present day to predict several years in advance the details of the time
+and height of the full tides without more anxiety respecting the result
+than if the question related to the phases of an eclipse.
+
+There exists between the different phenomena of the ebb and flow of the
+tides and the attractive forces which the sun and moon exercise upon the
+fluid sheet which covers three fourths of the globe, an intimate and
+necessary connection from which Laplace, by the aid of a series of
+twenty years of observations executed at Brest, deduced the value of the
+mass of our satellite. Science knows in the present day that
+seventy-five moons would be necessary to form a weight equivalent to
+that of the terrestrial globe, and it is indebted for this result to an
+attentive and minute study of the oscillations of the ocean. We know
+only one means of enhancing the admiration which every thoughtful mind
+will entertain for theories capable of leading to such conclusions. An
+historical statement will supply it. In the year 1631, the illustrious
+Galileo, as appears from his _Dialogues_, was so far from perceiving the
+mathematical relations from which Laplace deduced results so beautiful,
+so unequivocal, and so useful, that he taxed with frivolousness the
+vague idea which Kepler entertained of attributing to the moon's
+attraction a certain share in the production of the diurnal and
+periodical movements of the waters of the ocean.
+
+Laplace did not confine himself to extending so considerably, and
+improving so essentially, the mathematical theory of the tides; he
+considered the phenomenon from an entirely new point of view; it was he
+who first treated of the stability of the ocean. Systems of bodies,
+whether solid or fluid, are subject to two kinds of equilibrium, which
+we must carefully distinguish from each other. In the case of stable
+equilibrium the system, when slightly disturbed, tends always to return
+to its original condition. On the other hand, when the system is in
+unstable equilibrium, a very insignificant derangement might occasion an
+enormous dislocation in the relative positions of its constituent parts.
+
+If the equilibrium of waves is of the latter kind, the waves engendered
+by the action of winds, by earthquakes, and by sudden movements from the
+bottom of the ocean, have perhaps risen in past times and may rise in
+the future to the height of the highest mountains. The geologist will
+have the satisfaction of deducing from these prodigious oscillations a
+rational explanation of a great multitude of phenomena, but the public
+will thereby be exposed to new and terrible catastrophes.
+
+Mankind may rest assured: Laplace has proved that the equilibrium of the
+ocean is stable, but upon the express condition (which, however, has
+been amply verified by established facts), that the mean density of the
+fluid mass is less than the mean density of the earth. Every thing else
+remaining the same, let us substitute an ocean of mercury for the actual
+ocean, and the stability will disappear, and the fluid will frequently
+surpass its boundaries, to ravage continents even to the height of the
+snowy regions which lose themselves in the clouds.
+
+Does not the reader remark how each of the analytical investigations of
+Laplace serves to disclose the harmony and duration of the universe and
+of our globe!
+
+It was impossible that the great geometer, who had succeeded so well in
+the study of the tides of the ocean, should not have occupied his
+attention with the tides of the atmosphere; that he should not have
+submitted to the delicate and definitive tests of a rigorous calculus,
+the generally diffused opinions respecting the influence of the moon
+upon the height of the barometer and other meteorological phenomena.
+
+Laplace, in effect, has devoted a chapter of his splendid work to an
+examination of the oscillations which the attractive force of the moon
+is capable of producing in our atmosphere. It results from these
+researches, that, at Paris, the lunar tide produces no sensible effect
+upon the barometer. The height of the tide, obtained by the discussion
+of a long series of observations, has not exceeded two-hundredths of a
+millimètre, a quantity which, in the present state of meteorological
+science, is less than the probable error of observation.
+
+The calculation to which I have just alluded, may be cited in support
+of considerations to which I had recourse when I wished to establish,
+that if the moon alters more or less the height of the barometer,
+according to its different phases, the effect is not attributable to
+attraction.
+
+No person was more sagacious than Laplace in discovering intimate
+relations between phenomena apparently very dissimilar; no person showed
+himself more skilful in deducing important conclusions from those
+unexpected affinities.
+
+Towards the close of his days, for example, he overthrew with a stroke
+of the pen, by the aid of certain observations of the moon, the
+cosmogonic theories of Buffon and Bailly, which were so long in favour.
+
+According to these theories, the earth was inevitably advancing to a
+state of congelation which was close at hand. Laplace, who never
+contented himself with a vague statement, sought to determine in numbers
+the rapid cooling of our globe which Buffon had so eloquently but so
+gratuitously announced. Nothing could be more simple, better connected,
+or more demonstrative, than the chain of deductions of the celebrated
+geometer.
+
+A body diminishes in volume when it cools. According to the most
+elementary principles of mechanics, a rotating body which contracts in
+dimensions ought inevitably to turn upon its axis with greater and
+greater rapidity. The length of the day has been determined in all ages
+by the time of the earth's rotation; if the earth is cooling, the length
+of the day must be continually shortening. Now there exists a means of
+ascertaining whether the length of the day has undergone any variation;
+this consists in examining, for each century, the arc of the celestial
+sphere described by the moon during the interval of time which the
+astronomers of the existing epoch called a day,--in other words, the
+time required by the earth to effect a complete rotation on its axis,
+the velocity of the moon being in fact independent of the time of the
+earth's rotation.
+
+Let us now, after the example of Laplace, take from the standard tables
+the least considerable values, if you choose, of the expansions or
+contractions which solid bodies experience from changes of temperature;
+search then the annals of Grecian, Arabian, and modern astronomy for the
+purpose of finding in them the angular velocity of the moon, and the
+great geometer will prove, by incontrovertible evidence founded upon
+these data, that during a period of two thousand years the mean
+temperature of the earth has not varied to the extent of the hundredth
+part of a degree of the centigrade thermometer. No eloquent declamation
+is capable of resisting such a process of reasoning, or withstanding the
+force of such numbers. The mathematics have been in all ages the
+implacable adversaries of scientific romances.
+
+The fall of bodies, if it was not a phenomenon of perpetual occurrence,
+would justly excite in the highest degree the astonishment of mankind.
+What, in effect, is more extraordinary than to see an inert mass, that
+is to say, a mass deprived of will, a mass which ought not to have any
+propensity to advance in one direction more than in another, precipitate
+itself towards the earth as soon as it ceased to be supported!
+
+Nature engenders the gravity of bodies by a process so recondite, so
+completely beyond the reach of our senses and the ordinary resources of
+human intelligence, that the philosophers of antiquity, who supposed
+that they could explain every thing mechanically according to the
+simple evolutions of atoms, excepted gravity from their speculations.
+
+Descartes attempted what Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and their
+followers thought to be impossible.
+
+He made the fall of terrestrial bodies depend upon the action of a
+vortex of very subtle matter circulating around the earth. The real
+improvements which the illustrious Huyghens applied to the ingenious
+conception of our countryman were far, however, from imparting to it
+clearness and precision, those characteristic attributes of truth.
+
+Those persons form a very imperfect estimate of the meaning of one of
+the greatest questions which has occupied the attention of modern
+inquirers, who regard Newton as having issued victorious from a struggle
+in which his two immortal predecessors had failed. Newton did not
+discover the cause of gravity any more than Galileo did. Two bodies
+placed in juxtaposition approach each other. Newton does not inquire
+into the nature of the force which produces this effect. The force
+exists, he designates it by the term attraction; but, at the same time,
+he warns the reader that the term as thus used by him does not imply any
+definite idea of the physical process by which gravity is brought into
+existence and operates.
+
+The force of attraction being once admitted as a fact, Newton studies it
+in all terrestrial phenomena, in the revolutions of the moon, the
+planets, satellites, and comets; and, as we have already stated, he
+deduced from this incomparable study the simple, universal, mathematical
+characteristics of the forces which preside over the movements of all
+the bodies of which our solar system is composed.
+
+The applause of the scientific world did not prevent the immortal
+author of the _Principia_ from hearing some persons refer the principle
+of gravitation to the class of occult qualities. This circumstance
+induced Newton and his most devoted followers to abandon the reserve
+which they had hitherto considered it their duty to maintain. Those
+persons were then charged with ignorance who regarded attraction as an
+essential property of matter, as the mysterious indication of a sort of
+charm; who supposed that two bodies may act upon each other without the
+intervention of a third body. This force was then either the result of
+the tendency of an ethereal fluid to move from the free regions of
+space, where its density is a maximum, towards the planetary bodies
+around which there exists a greater degree of rarefaction, or the
+consequence of the impulsive force of some fluid medium.
+
+Newton never expressed a definitive opinion respecting the origin of the
+impulse which occasioned the attractive force of matter, at least in our
+solar system. But we have strong reasons for supposing, in the present
+day, that in using the word _impulse_, the great geometer was thinking
+of the systematic ideas of Varignon and Fatio de Duillier, subsequently
+reinvented and perfected by Lesage: these ideas, in effect, had been
+communicated to him before they were published to the world.
+
+According to Lesage, there are, in the regions of space, bodies moving
+in every possible direction, and with excessive rapidity. The author
+applied to these the name of ultra-mundane corpuscles. Their totality
+constituted the gravitative fluid, if indeed, the designation of a fluid
+be applicable to an assemblage of particles having no mutual connexion.
+
+A single body placed in the midst of such an ocean of movable
+particles, would remain at rest although it were impelled equally in
+every direction. On the other hand, two bodies ought to advance towards
+each other, since they would serve the purpose of mutual screens, since
+the surfaces facing each other would no longer be hit in the direction
+of their line of junction by the ultra-mundane particles, since there
+would then exist currents, the effect of which would no longer be
+neutralized by opposite currents. It will be easily seen, besides, that
+two bodies plunged into the gravitative fluid, would tend to approach
+each other with an intensity which would vary in the inverse proportion
+of the square of the distance.
+
+If attraction is the result of the impulse of a fluid, its action ought
+to employ a finite time in traversing the immense spaces which separate
+the celestial bodies. If the sun, then, were suddenly extinguished, the
+earth after the catastrophe would, mathematically speaking, still
+continue for some time to experience its attractive influence. The
+contrary would happen on the occasion of the sudden birth of a planet; a
+certain time would elapse before the attractive force of the new body
+would make itself felt on the earth.
+
+Several geometers of the last century were of opinion that the force of
+attraction is not transmitted instantaneously from one body to another;
+they even assigned to it a comparatively inconsiderable velocity of
+propagation. Daniel Bernoulli, for example, in attempting to explain how
+the spring tide arrives upon our coasts a day and a half after the
+sizygees, that is to say, a day and a half after the epochs when the sun
+and moon are most favourably situated for the production of this
+magnificent phenomenon, assumed that the disturbing force required all
+this time (a day and a half) for its propagation from the moon to the
+ocean. So feeble a velocity was inconsistent with the mechanical
+explanation of attraction of which we have just spoken. The explanation,
+in effect, necessarily supposes that the proper motions of the celestial
+bodies are insensible compared with the motion of the gravitative fluid.
+
+After having discovered that the diminution of the eccentricity of the
+terrestrial orbit is the real cause of the observed acceleration of the
+motion of the moon, Laplace, on his part, endeavoured to ascertain
+whether this mysterious acceleration did not depend on the gradual
+propagation of attraction.
+
+The result of calculation was at first favourable to the plausibility of
+the hypothesis. It showed that the gradual propagation of the attractive
+force would introduce into the movement of our satellite a perturbation
+proportional to the square of the time which elapsed from the
+commencement of any epoch; that in order to represent numerically the
+results of astronomical observations it would not be necessary to assign
+a feeble velocity to attraction; that a propagation eight millions of
+times more rapid than that of light would satisfy all the phenomena.
+
+Although the true cause of the acceleration of the moon is now well
+known, the ingenious calculation of which I have just spoken does not
+the less on that account maintain its place in science. In a
+mathematical point of view, the perturbation depending on the gradual
+propagation of the attractive force which this calculation indicates has
+a certain existence. The connexion between the velocity of perturbation
+and the resulting inequality is such that one of the two quantities
+leads to a knowledge of the numerical value of the other. Now, upon
+assigning to the inequality the greatest value which is consistent with
+the observations after they have been corrected for the effect due to
+the variation of the eccentricity of the terrestrial orbit, we find the
+velocity of the attractive force to be fifty millions of times the
+velocity of light!
+
+If it be borne in mind, that this number is an inferior limit, and that
+the velocity of the rays of light amounts to 77,000 leagues (192,000
+English miles) per second, the philosophers who profess to explain the
+force of attraction by the impulsive energy of a fluid, will see what
+prodigious velocities they must satisfy.
+
+The reader cannot fail again to remark the sagacity with which Laplace
+singled out the phenomena which were best adapted for throwing light
+upon the most obscure points of celestial physics; nor the success with
+which he explored their various parts, and deduced from them numerical
+conclusions in presence of which the mind remains confounded.
+
+The author of the _Mécanique Céleste_ supposed, like Newton, that light
+consists of material molecules of excessive tenuity and endued in empty
+space with a velocity of 77,000 leagues in a second. However, it is
+right to warn those who would be inclined to avail themselves of this
+imposing authority, that the principal argument of Laplace, in favour of
+the system of emission, consisted in the advantage which it afforded of
+submitting every question to a process of simple and rigorous
+calculation; whereas, on the other hand, the theory of undulations has
+always offered immense difficulties to analysts. It was natural that a
+geometer who had so elegantly connected the laws of simple refraction
+which light undergoes in its passage through the atmosphere, and the
+laws of double refraction which it is subject to in the course of its
+passage through certain crystals, with the action of attractive and
+repulsive forces, should not have abandoned this route, before he
+recognized the impossibility of arriving by the same path, at plausible
+explanations of the phenomena of diffraction and polarization. In other
+respects, the care which Laplace always employed, in pursuing his
+researches, as far as possible, to their numerical results, will enable
+those who are disposed to institute a complete comparison between the
+two rival theories of light, to derive from the _Mécanique Céleste_ the
+materials of several interesting relations.
+
+Is light an emanation from the sun? Does this body launch out
+incessantly in every direction a part of its own substance? Is it
+gradually diminishing in volume and mass? The attraction exercised by
+the sun upon the earth will, in that case, gradually become less and
+less considerable. The radius of the terrestrial orbit, on the other
+hand, cannot fail to increase, and a corresponding effect will be
+produced on the length of the year.
+
+This is the conclusion which suggests itself to every person upon a
+first glance at the subject. By applying analysis to the question, and
+then proceeding to numerical computations, founded upon the most
+trustworthy results of observation relative to the length of the year in
+different ages, Laplace has proved that an incessant emission of light,
+going on for a period of two thousand years, has not diminished the mass
+of the sun by the two-millionth part of its original value.
+
+Our illustrious countryman never proposed to himself any thing vague or
+indefinite. His constant object was the explanation of the great
+phenomena of nature, according to the inflexible principles of
+mathematical analysis. No philosopher, no mathematician, could have
+maintained himself more cautiously on his guard against a propensity to
+hasty speculation. No person dreaded more the scientific errors which
+the imagination gives birth to, when it ceases to remain within the
+limits of facts, of calculation, and of analogy. Once, and once only,
+did Laplace launch forward, like Kepler, like Descartes, like Leibnitz,
+like Buffon, into the region of conjectures. His conception was not then
+less than a cosmogony.
+
+All the planets revolve around the sun, from west to east, and in planes
+which include angles of inconsiderable magnitude.
+
+The satellites revolve around their respective primaries in the same
+direction as that in which the planets revolve around the sun, that is
+to say, from west to east.
+
+The planets and satellites which have been found to have a rotatory
+motion, turn also upon their axes from west to east. Finally, the
+rotation of the sun is directed from west to east. We have here then an
+assemblage of forty-three movements, all operating in the same
+direction. By the calculus of probabilities, the odds are four thousand
+millions to one, that this coincidence in the direction of so many
+movements is not the effect of accident.
+
+It was Buffon, I think, who first attempted to explain this singular
+feature of our solar system. Having wished, in the explanation of
+phenomena, to avoid all recourse to causes which were not warranted by
+nature, the celebrated academician investigated a physical origin of the
+system in what was common to the movements of so many bodies differing
+in magnitude, in form, and in distance from the principal centre of
+attraction. He imagined that he discovered such an origin by making
+this triple supposition: a comet fell obliquely upon the sun; it pushed
+before it a torrent of fluid matter; this substance transported to a
+greater or less distance from the sun according to its mass formed by
+concentration all the known planets.
+
+The bold hypothesis of Buffon is liable to insurmountable difficulties.
+I proceed to indicate, in a few words, the cosmogonic system which
+Laplace substituted for that of the illustrious author of the _Histoire
+Naturelle_.
+
+According to Laplace, the sun was at a remote epoch the central nucleus
+of an immense nebula, which possessed a very high temperature, and
+extended far beyond the region in which Uranus revolves in the present
+day. No planet was then in existence.
+
+The solar nebula was endued with a general movement of revolution
+directed from west to east. As it cooled it could not fail to experience
+a gradual condensation, and, in consequence, to rotate with greater and
+greater rapidity. If the nebulous matter extended originally in the
+plane of the equator as far as the limit at which the centrifugal force
+exactly counterbalanced the attraction of the nucleus, the molecules
+situate at this limit ought, during the process of condensation, to
+separate from the rest of the atmospheric matter and form an equatorial
+zone, a ring revolving separately and with its primitive velocity. We
+may conceive that analogous separations were effected in the higher
+strata of the nebula at different epochs, that is to say, at different
+distances from the nucleus, and that they give rise to a succession of
+distinct rings, included almost in the same plane and endued with
+different velocities.
+
+This being once admitted, it is easy to see that the indefinite
+stability of the rings would have required a regularity of structure
+throughout their whole contour, which is very improbable. Each of them
+accordingly broke in its turn into several masses, which were plainly
+endued with a movement of rotation, coinciding in direction with the
+common movement of revolution, and which in consequence of their
+fluidity assumed spheroidal forms.
+
+In order, then, that one of those spheroids might absorb all the others
+belonging to the same ring, it will be sufficient to assign to it a mass
+greater than that of any other spheroid.
+
+Each of the planets, while in the vaporous condition to which we have
+just alluded, would manifestly have a central nucleus gradually
+increasing in magnitude and mass, and an atmosphere offering, at its
+successive limits, phenomena entirely similar to those which the solar
+atmosphere, properly so called, had exhibited. We here witness the birth
+of satellites, and that of the ring of Saturn.
+
+The system, of which I have just given an imperfect sketch, has for its
+object to show how a nebula endued with a general movement of rotation
+must eventually transform itself into a very luminous central nucleus (a
+sun) and into a series of distinct spheroidal planets, situate at
+considerable distances from each other, revolving all around the central
+sun in the direction of the original movement of the nebula; how these
+planets ought also to have movements of rotation operating in similar
+directions; how, finally, the satellites, when any of such are formed,
+cannot fail to revolve upon their axes and around their respective
+primaries, in the direction of rotation of the planets and of their
+movement of revolution around the sun.
+
+We have just found, conformably to the principles of mechanics, the
+forces with which the particles of the nebula were originally endued, in
+the movements of rotation and revolution of the compact and distinct
+masses which these particles have brought into existence by their
+condensation. But we have thereby achieved only a single step. The
+primitive movement of rotation of the nebula is not connected with the
+simple attraction of the particles. This movement seems to imply the
+action of a primordial impulsive force.
+
+Laplace is far from adopting, in this respect, the almost universal
+opinion of philosophers and mathematicians. He does not suppose that the
+mutual attractions of originally immovable bodies must ultimately reduce
+all the bodies to a state of rest around their common centre of gravity.
+He maintains, on the contrary, that three bodies, in a state of rest,
+two of which have a much greater mass than the third, would concentrate
+into a single mass only in certain exceptional cases. In general, the
+two most considerable bodies would unite together, while the third would
+revolve around their common centre of gravity. Attraction would thus
+become the cause of a sort of movement which would seem to be explicable
+solely by an impulsive force.
+
+It might be supposed, indeed, that in explaining this part of his system
+Laplace had before his eyes the words which Rousseau has placed in the
+mouth of the vicar of Savoy, and that he wished to refute them: "Newton
+has discovered the law of attraction," says the author of _Emile_, "but
+attraction alone would soon reduce the universe to an immovable mass:
+with this law we must combine a projectile force in order to make the
+celestial bodies describe curve lines. Let Descartes reveal to us the
+physical law which causes his vortices to revolve; and let Newton show
+us the hand which launched the planets along the tangents of their
+orbits."
+
+According to the cosmogonic ideas of Laplace, comets did not originally
+form part of the solar system; they are not formed at the expense of the
+matter of the immense solar nebula; we must consider them as small
+wandering nebulæ which the attractive force of the sun has caused to
+deviate from their original route. Such of those comets as penetrated
+into the great nebula at the epoch of condensation and of the formation
+of planets fell into the sun, describing spiral curves, and must by
+their action have caused the planetary orbits to deviate more or less
+from the plane of the solar equator, with which they would otherwise
+have exactly coincided.
+
+With respect to the zodiacal light, that rock against which so many
+reveries have been wrecked, it consists of the most volatile parts of
+the primitive nebula. These molecules not having united with the
+equatorial zones successively abandoned in the plane of the solar
+equator, continued to revolve at their original distances, and with
+their original velocities. The circumstance of this extremely rare
+substance being included wholly within the earth's orbit, and even
+within that of Venus, seemed irreconcilable with the principles of
+mechanics; but this difficulty occurred only when the zodiacal substance
+being conceived to be in a state of direct and intimate dependence on
+the solar photosphere properly so called, an angular movement of
+rotation was impressed on it equal to that of the photosphere, a
+movement in virtue of which it effected an entire revolution in
+twenty-five days and a half. Laplace presented his conjectures on the
+formation of the solar system with the diffidence inspired by a result
+which was not founded upon calculation and observation.[39] Perhaps it
+is to be regretted that they did not receive a more complete
+development, especially in so far as concerns the division of the matter
+into distinct rings; perhaps it would have been desirable if the
+illustrious author had expressed himself more fully respecting the
+primitive physical condition, the molecular condition of the nebula at
+the expense of which the sun, planets, and satellites, of our system
+were formed. It is perhaps especially to be regretted that Laplace
+should have only briefly alluded to what he considered the obvious
+possibility of movements of revolution having their origin in the action
+of simple attractive forces, and to other questions of a similar nature.
+
+Notwithstanding these defects, the ideas of the author of the _Mécanique
+Céleste_ are still the only speculations of the kind which, by their
+magnitude, their coherence, and their mathematical character, may be
+justly considered as forming a physical cosmogony; those alone which in
+the present day derive a powerful support from the results of the recent
+researches of astronomers on the nebulæ of every form and magnitude,
+which are scattered throughout the celestial vault.
+
+In this analysis, we have deemed it right to concentrate all our
+attention upon the _Mécanique Céleste_. The _Système du Monde_ and the
+_Théorie Analytique des Probabilités_ would also require detailed
+notices.
+
+The _Exposition du Système du Monde_ is the _Mécanique Céleste_ divested
+of the great apparatus of analytical formulæ which ought to be
+attentively perused by every astronomer who, to use an expression of
+Plato, is desirous of knowing the numbers which govern the physical
+universe. It is in the _Exposition du Systéme du Monde_ that persons
+unacquainted with mathematical studies will obtain an exact and
+competent knowledge of the methods to which physical astronomy is
+indebted for its astonishing progress. This work, written with a noble
+simplicity of style, an exquisite propriety of expression, and a
+scrupulous accuracy, is terminated by a sketch of the history of
+astronomy, universally ranked in the present day among the finest
+monuments of the French language.
+
+A regret has been often expressed, that Cæsar, in his immortal
+_Commentaries_, should have confined himself to a narration of his own
+campaigns: the astronomical commentaries of Laplace ascend to the origin
+of communities. The labours undertaken in all ages for the purpose of
+extracting new truths from the heavens, are there justly, clearly, and
+profoundly analyzed; it is genius presiding as the impartial judge of
+genius. Laplace has always remained at the height of his great mission;
+his work will be read with respect so long as the torch of science shall
+continue to throw any light.
+
+The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits, ought
+to interest, in an equal degree, the mathematician, the experimentalist,
+and the statesman. From the time when Pascal and Fermat established its
+first principles, it has rendered and continues daily to render services
+of the most eminent kind. It is the calculus of probabilities, which,
+after having suggested the best arrangements of the tables of population
+and mortality, teaches us to deduce from those numbers, in general so
+erroneously interpreted, conclusions of a precise and useful character:
+it is the calculus of probabilities which alone can regulate justly the
+premiums to be paid for assurances; the reserve funds for the
+disbursement of pensions, annuities, discounts, &c.: it is under its
+influence that lotteries, and other shameful snares cunningly laid for
+avarice and ignorance, have definitively disappeared. Laplace has
+treated these questions, and others of a much more complicated nature,
+with his accustomed superiority. In short, the _Théorie Analytique des
+Probabilités_ is worthy of the author of the _Mécanique Céleste_.
+
+A philosopher, whose name is associated with immortal discoveries, said
+to his audience who had allowed themselves to be influenced by ancient
+and consecrated authorities, "Bear in mind, Gentlemen, that in questions
+of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning
+of a single individual." Two centuries have passed over these words of
+Galileo without depreciating their value, or obliterating their truthful
+character. Thus, instead of displaying a long list of illustrious
+admirers of the three beautiful works of Laplace, we have preferred
+glancing briefly at some of the sublime truths which geometry has there
+deposited. Let us not, however, apply this principle in its utmost
+rigour, and since chance has put into our hands some unpublished letters
+of one of those men of genius, whom nature has endowed with the rare
+faculty of seizing at a glance the salient points of an object, we may
+be permitted to extract from them two or three brief and characteristic
+appreciations of the _Mécanique Céleste_ and the _Traité des
+Probabilités_.
+
+On the 27th Vendemiaire in the year X., General Bonaparte, after having
+received a volume of the _Mécanique Céleste_, wrote to Laplace in the
+following terms:--"The first _six months_ which I shall have at my
+disposal will be employed in reading your beautiful work." It would
+appear that the words, the first _six months_, deprive the phrase of the
+character of a common-place expression of thanks, and convey a just
+appreciation of the importance and difficulty of the subject-matter.
+
+On the 5th Frimaire in the year XI., the reading of some chapters of the
+volume, which Laplace had dedicated to him, was to the general "a new
+occasion for regretting, that the force of circumstances had directed
+him into a career which removed him from the pursuit of science."
+
+"At all events," added he, "I have a strong desire that future
+generations, upon reading the _Mécanique Céleste_, shall not forget the
+esteem and friendship which I have entertained towards its author."
+
+On the 17th Prairial in the year XIII., the general, now become emperor,
+wrote from Milan: "The _Mécanique Céleste_ appears to me destined to
+shed new lustre on the age in which we live."
+
+Finally, on the 12th of August, 1812, Napoleon, who had just received
+the _Traité du Calcul des Probabilités_, wrote from Witepsk the letter
+which we transcribe textually:--
+
+"There was a time when I would have read with interest your _Traité du
+Calcul des Probabilités_. For the present I must confine myself to
+expressing to you the satisfaction which I experience every time that I
+see you give to the world new works which serve to improve and extend
+the most important of the sciences, and contribute to the glory of the
+nation. The advancement and the improvement of mathematical science are
+connected with the prosperity of the state."
+
+I have now arrived at the conclusion of the task which I had imposed
+upon myself. I shall be pardoned for having given so detailed an
+exposition of the principal discoveries for which philosophy, astronomy,
+and navigation are indebted to our geometers.
+
+It has appeared to me that in thus tracing the glorious past I have
+shown our contemporaries the full extent of their duty towards the
+country. In fact, it is for nations especially to bear in remembrance
+the ancient adage: _noblesse obligé_!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[22] The author here refers to the series of biographies contained in
+tome III. of the _Notices Biographiques_.--_Translator_.
+
+[23] These celebrated laws, known in astronomy as the laws of Kepler,
+are three in number. The first law is, that the planets describe
+ellipses around the sun in their common focus; the second, that a line
+joining the planet and the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times;
+the third, that the squares of the periodic times of the planets are
+proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun. The
+first two laws were discovered by Kepler in the course of a laborious
+examination of the theory of the planet Mars; a full account of this
+inquiry is contained in his famous work _De Stella Martis_, published in
+1609. The discovery of the third law was not effected until, several
+years afterwards, Kepler announced it to the world in his treatise on
+Harmonics (1628). The passage quoted below is extracted from that
+work.--_Translator_.
+
+[24] The spheroidal figure of the earth was established by the
+comparison of an arc of the meridian that had been measured in France,
+with a similar arc measured in Lapland, from which it appeared that the
+length of a degree of the meridian increases from the equator towards
+the poles, conformably to what ought to result upon the supposition of
+the earth having the figure of an oblate spheroid. The length of the
+Lapland arc was determined by means of an expedition which the French
+Government had despatched to the North of Europe for that purpose. A
+similar expedition had been despatched from France about the same time
+to Peru in South America, for the purpose of measuring an arc of the
+meridian under the equator, but the results had not been ascertained at
+the time to which the author alludes in the text. The variation of
+gravity at the surface of the earth was established by Richer's
+experiments with the pendulum at Cayenne, in South America (1673-4),
+from which it appeared that the pendulum oscillates more slowly--and
+consequently the force of gravity is less intense--under the equator
+than in the latitude of Paris.--_Translator_.
+
+[25] It may perhaps be asked why we place Lagrange among the French
+geometers? This is our reply: It appears to us that the individual who
+was named Lagrange Tournier, two of the most characteristic French names
+which it is possible to imagine, whose maternal grandfather was M. Gros,
+whose paternal great-grandfather was a French officer, a native of
+Paris, who never wrote except in French, and who was invested in our
+country with high honours during a period of nearly thirty years;--ought
+to be regarded as a Frenchman although born at Turin.--_Author_.
+
+[26] The problem of three bodies was solved independently about the same
+time by Euler, D'Alembert, and Clairaut. The two last-mentioned
+geometers communicated their solutions to the Academy of Sciences on the
+same day, November 15, 1747. Euler had already in 1746 published tables
+of the moon, founded on his solution of the same problem, the details of
+which he subsequently published in 1753.--_Translator_.
+
+[27] It must be admitted that M. Arago has here imperfectly represented
+Newton's labours on the great problem of the precession of the
+equinoxes. The immortal author of the Principia did not merely
+_conjecture_ that the conical motion of the earth's axis is due to the
+disturbing action of the sun and moon upon the matter accumulated around
+the earth's equator: he _demonstrated_ by a very beautiful and
+satisfactory process that the movement must necessarily arise from that
+cause; and although the means of investigation, in his time, were
+inadequate to a rigorous computation of the quantitative effect, still,
+his researches on the subject have been always regarded as affording one
+of the most striking proofs of sagacity which is to be found in all his
+works.--_Translator_.
+
+[28] It would appear that Hooke had conjectured that the figure of the
+earth might be spheroidal before Newton or Huyghens turned their
+attention to the subject. At a meeting of the Royal Society on the 28th
+of February, 1678, a discussion arose respecting the figure of Mercury
+which M. Gallet of Avignon had remarked to be oval on the occasion of
+the planet's transit across the sun's disk on the 7th of November, 1677.
+Hooke was inclined to suppose that the phenomenon was real, and that it
+was due to the whirling of the planet on an axis "which made it somewhat
+of the shape of a turnip, or of a solid made by an ellipsis turned round
+upon its shorter diameter." At the meeting of the Society on the 7th of
+March, the subject was again discussed. In reply to the objection
+offered to his hypothesis on the ground of the planet being a solid
+body, Hooke remarked that "although it might now be solid, yet that at
+the beginning it might have been fluid enough to receive that shape; and
+that although this supposition should not be granted, it would be
+probable enough that it would really run into that shape and make the
+same appearance; _and that it is not improbable but that the water here
+upon the earth might do it in some measure by the influence of the
+diurnal motion, which, compounded with that of the moon, he conceived to
+be the cause of the Tides_." (Journal Book of the Royal Society, vol.
+vi. p. 60.) Richer returned from Cayenne in the year 1674, but the
+account of his observations with the pendulum during his residence
+there, was not published until 1679, nor is there to be found any
+allusion to them during the intermediate interval, either in the volumes
+of the Academy of Sciences or any other publication. We have no means of
+ascertaining how Newton was first induced to suppose that the figure of
+the earth is spheroidal, but we know, upon his own authority, that as
+early as the year 1667, or 1668, he was led to consider the effects of
+the centrifugal force in diminishing the weight of bodies at the
+equator. With respect to Huyghens, he appears to have formed a
+conjecture respecting the spheroidal figure of the earth independently
+of Newton; but his method for computing the ellipticity is founded upon
+that given in the Principia.--_Translator_.
+
+[29] Newton assumed that a homogeneous fluid mass of a spheroidal form
+would be in equilibrium if it were endued with an adequate rotatory
+motion and its constituent particles attracted each other in the inverse
+proportion of the square of the distance. Maclaurin first demonstrated
+the truth of this theorem by a rigorous application of the ancient
+geometry.--_Translator_.
+
+[30] The results of Clairaut's researches on the figure of the earth are
+mainly embodied in a remarkable theorem discovered by that geometer, and
+which may be enunciated thus:--_The sum of the fractions expressing the
+ellipticity and the increase of gravity at the pole is equal to two and
+a half times the fraction expressing the centrifugal force at the
+equator, the unit of force being represented by the force of gravity at
+the equator._ This theorem is independent of any hypothesis with respect
+to the law of the densities of the successive strata of the earth. Now
+the increase of gravity at the pole may be ascertained by means of
+observations with the pendulum in different latitudes. Hence it is plain
+that Clairaut's theorem furnishes a practical method for determining the
+value of the earth's ellipticity.--_Translator_.
+
+[31] The researches on the secular variations of the eccentricities and
+inclinations of the planetary orbits depend upon the solution of an
+algebraic equation equal in degree to the number of planets whose mutual
+action is considered, and the coefficients of which involve the values
+of the masses of those bodies. It may be shown that if the roots of this
+equation be equal or imaginary, the corresponding element, whether the
+eccentricity or the inclination, will increase indefinitely with the
+time in the case of each planet; but that if the roots, on the other
+hand, be real and unequal, the value of the element will oscillate in
+every instance within fixed limits. Laplace proved by a general
+analysis, that the roots of the equation are real and unequal, whence it
+followed that neither the eccentricity nor the inclination will vary in
+any case to an indefinite extent. But it still remained uncertain,
+whether the limits of oscillation were not in any instance so far apart
+that the variation of the element (whether the eccentricity or the
+inclination) might lead to a complete destruction of the existing
+physical condition of the planet. Laplace, indeed, attempted to prove,
+by means of two well-known theorems relative to the eccentricities and
+inclinations of the planetary orbits, that if those elements were once
+small, they would always remain so, provided the planets all revolved
+around the sun in one common direction and their masses were
+inconsiderable. It is to these theorems that M. Arago manifestly alludes
+in the text. Le Verrier and others have, however, remarked that they are
+inadequate to assure the permanence of the existing physical condition
+of several of the planets. In order to arrive at a definitive conclusion
+on this subject, it is indispensable to have recourse to the actual
+solution of the algebraic equation above referred to. This was the
+course adopted by the illustrious Lagrange in his researches on the
+secular variations of the planetary orbits. (_Mem. Acad. Berlin_,
+1783-4.) Having investigated the values of the masses of the planets, he
+then determined, by an approximate solution, the values of the several
+roots of the algebraic equation upon which the variations of the
+eccentricities and inclinations of the orbits depended. In this way, he
+found the limiting values of the eccentricity and inclination for the
+orbit of each of the principal planets of the system. The results
+obtained by that great geometer have been mainly confirmed by the recent
+researches of Le Verrier on the same subject. (_Connaissance des Temps_,
+1843.)--_Translator_.
+
+[32] Laplace was originally led to consider the subject of the
+perturbations of the mean motions of the planets by his researches on
+the theory of Jupiter and Saturn. Having computed the numerical value of
+the secular inequality affecting the mean motion of each of those
+planets, neglecting the terms of the fourth and higher orders relative
+to the eccentricities and inclinations, he found it to be so small that
+it might be regarded as totally insensible. Justly suspecting that this
+circumstance was not attributable to the particular values of the
+elements of Jupiter and Saturn, he investigated the expression for the
+secular perturbation of the mean motion by a general analysis,
+neglecting, as before, the fourth and higher powers of the
+eccentricities and inclinations, and he found in this case, that the
+terms which were retained in the investigation absolutely destroyed each
+other, so that the expression was reduced to zero. In a memoir which he
+communicated to the Berlin Academy of Sciences, in 1776, Lagrange first
+showed that the mean distance (and consequently the mean motion) was not
+affected by any secular inequalities, no matter what were the
+eccentricities or inclinations of the disturbing and disturbed
+planets.--_Translator_.
+
+[33] Mr. Adams has recently detected a remarkable oversight committed by
+Laplace and his successors in the analytical investigation of the
+expression for this inequality. The effect of the rectification rendered
+necessary by the researches of Mr. Adams will be to diminish by about
+one sixth the coefficient of the principal term of the secular
+inequality. This coefficient has for its multiplier the square of the
+number of centuries which have elapsed from a given epoch; its value was
+found by Laplace to be 10".18. Mr. Adams has ascertained that it must be
+diminished by 1".66. This result has recently been verified by the
+researches of M. Plana. Its effect will be to alter in some degree the
+calculations of ancient eclipses. The Astronomer Royal has stated in his
+last Annual Report, to the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory,
+(June 7, 1856,) that steps have recently been taken at the Observatory,
+for calculating the various circumstances of those phenomena, upon the
+basis of the more correct data furnished by the researches of Mr.
+Adams.--_Translator_.
+
+[34] [Illustration]
+
+The origin of this famous inequality may be best understood by reference
+to the mode in which the disturbing forces operate. Let P Q R, P' Q' R'
+represent the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, and let us suppose, for the
+sake of illustration, that they are both situate in the same plane. Let
+the planets be in conjunction at P, P', and let them both be revolving
+around the sun S, in the direction represented by the arrows. Assuming
+that the mean motion of Jupiter is to that of Saturn exactly in the
+proportion of five to two, it follows that when Jupiter has completed
+one revolution, Saturn will have advanced through two fifths of a
+revolution. Similarly, when Jupiter has completed a revolution and a
+half, Saturn will have effected three fifths of a revolution. Hence when
+Jupiter arrives at T, Saturn will be a little in advance of T'. Let us
+suppose that the two planets come again into conjunction at Q, Q'. It is
+plain that while Jupiter has completed one revolution, and, advanced
+through the angle P S Q (measured in the direction of the arrow), Saturn
+has simply described around S the angle P' S' Q'. Hence the _excess_ of
+the angle described around S, by Jupiter, over the angle similarly
+described by Saturn, will amount to one complete revolution, or, 360°.
+But since the mean motions of the two planets are in the proportion of
+five to two, the angles described by them around S in any given time
+will be in the same proportion, and therefore the _excess_ of the angle
+described by Jupiter over that described by Saturn will be to the angle
+described by Saturn in the proportion of three to two. But we have just
+found that the excess of these two angles in the present case amounts to
+360°, and the angle described by Saturn is represented by P' S' Q';
+consequently 360° is to the angle P' S' Q' in the proportion of three to
+two, in other words P' S' Q' is equal to two thirds of the circumference
+or 240°. In the same way it may be shown that the two planets will come
+into conjunction again at R, when Saturn has described another arc of
+240°. Finally, when Saturn has advanced through a third arc of 240°, the
+two planets will come into conjunction at P, P', the points whence they
+originally set out; and the two succeeding conjunctions will also
+manifestly occur at Q, Q' and R, R'. Thus we see, that the conjunctions
+will always occur in three given points of the orbit of each planet
+situate at angular distances of 120° from each other. It is also
+obvious, that during the interval which elapses between the occurrence
+of two conjunctions in the same points of the orbits, and which includes
+three synodic revolutions of the planets, Jupiter will have accomplished
+five revolutions around the sun, and Saturn will have accomplished two
+revolutions. Now if the orbits of both planets were perfectly circular,
+the retarding and accelerating effects of the disturbing force of either
+planet would neutralize each other in the course of a synodic
+revolution, and therefore both planets would return to the same
+condition at each successive conjunction. But in consequence of the
+ellipticity of the orbits, the retarding effect of the disturbing force
+is manifestly no longer exactly compensated by the accelerative effect,
+and hence at the close of each synodic revolution, there remains a
+minute outstanding alteration in the movement of each planet. A similar
+effect will he produced at each of the three points of conjunction; and
+as the perturbations which thus ensue do not generally compensate each
+other, there will remain a minute outstanding perturbation as the result
+of every three conjunctions. The effect produced being of the same kind
+(whether tending to accelerate or retard the movement of the planet) for
+every such triple conjunction, it is plain that the action of the
+disturbing forces would ultimately lead to a serious derangement of the
+movements of both planets. All this is founded on the supposition that
+the mean motions of the two planets are to each other as two to five;
+but in reality, this relation does not exactly hold. In fact while
+Jupiter requires 21,663 days to accomplish five revolutions, Saturn
+effects two revolutions in 21,518 days. Hence when Jupiter, after
+completing his fifth revolution, arrives at P, Saturn will have advanced
+a little beyond P', and the conjunction of the two planets will occur at
+P, P' when they have both described around S an additional arc of about
+8°. In the same way it may be shown that the two succeeding conjunctions
+will take place at the points _q, q', r, r'_ respectively 8° in advance
+of Q, Q', R, R'. Thus we see that the points of conjunction will travel
+with extreme slowness in the same direction as that in which the planets
+revolve. Now since the angular distance between P and R is 120°, and
+since in a period of three synodic revolutions or 21,758 days, the line
+of conjunction travels through an arc of 8°, it follows that in 892
+years the conjunction of the two planets will have advanced from P, P'
+to R, R'. In reality, the time of travelling from P, P' to R, R' is
+somewhat longer from the indirect effects of planetary perturbation,
+amounting to 920 years. In an equal period of time the conjunction of
+the two planets will advance from Q, Q' to R, R' and from R, R' to P,
+P'. During the half of this period the perturbative effect resulting
+from every triple conjunction will lie constantly in one direction, and
+during the other half it will lie in the contrary direction; that is to
+say, during a period of 460 years the mean motion of the disturbed
+planet will be continually accelerated, and, in like manner, during an
+equal period it will be continually retarded. In the case of Jupiter
+disturbed by Saturn, the inequality in longitude amounts at its maximum
+to 21'; in the converse case of Saturn disturbed by Jupiter, the
+inequality is more considerable in consequence of the greater mass of
+the disturbing planet, amounting at its maximum to 49'. In accordance
+with the mechanical principle of the equality of action and reaction, it
+happens that while the mean motion of one planet is increasing, that of
+the other is diminishing, and _vice versâ_. We have supposed that the
+orbits of both planets are situate in the same plane. In reality,
+however, they are inclined to each other, and this circumstance will
+produce an effect exactly analogous to that depending on the
+eccentricities of the orbits. It is plain that the more nearly the mean
+motions of the two planets approach a relation of commensurability, the
+smaller will be the displacement of every third conjunction, and
+consequently the longer will be the duration, and the greater the
+ultimate accumulation, of the inequality.--_Translator_.
+
+[35] The utility of observations of the transits of the inferior planets
+for determining the solar parallax, was first pointed out by James
+Gregory (_Optica Promota_, 1663).--_Translator_.
+
+[36] Mayer, from the principles of gravitation (_Theoria Lunæ_, 1767),
+computed the value of the solar parallax to be 7".8. He remarked that
+the error of this determination did not amount to one twentieth of the
+whole, whence it followed that the true value of the parallax could not
+exceed 8".2. Laplace, by an analogous process, determined the parallax
+to be 8".45. Encke, by a profound discussion of the observations of the
+transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, found the value of the same element
+to be 8".5776.--_Translator_.
+
+[37] The theoretical researches of Laplace formed the basis of
+Burckhardt's Lunar Tables, which are chiefly employed in computing the
+places of the moon for the Nautical Almanac and other Ephemerides. These
+tables were defaced by an empiric equation, suggested for the purpose of
+representing an inequality of long period which seemed to affect the
+mean longitude of the moon. No satisfactory explanation of the origin of
+this inequality could be discovered by any geometer, although it formed
+the subject of much toilsome investigation throughout the present
+century, until at length M. Hansen found it to arise from a combination
+of two inequalities due to the disturbing action of Venus. The period of
+one of these inequalities is 273 years, and that of the other is 239
+years. The maximum value of the former is 27".4, and that of the latter
+is 23".2.--_Translator_.
+
+[38] This law is necessarily included in the law already enunciated by
+the author relative to the mean longitudes. The following is the most
+usual mode of expressing these curious relations: 1st, the mean motion
+of the first satellite, plus twice the mean motion of the third, minus
+three times the mean motion of the second, is rigorously equal to zero;
+2d, the mean longitude of the first satellite, plus twice the mean
+longitude of the third, minus three times the mean longitude of the
+second, is equal to 180°. It is plain that if we only consider the mean
+longitude here to refer to a _given epoch_, the combination of the two
+laws will assure the existence of an analogous relation between the mean
+longitudes _for any instant of time whatever_, whether past or future.
+Laplace has shown, as the author has stated in the text, that if these
+relations had only been approximately true at the origin, the mutual
+attraction of the three satellites would have ultimately rendered them
+rigorously so; under such circumstances, the mean longitude of the first
+satellite, plus twice the mean longitude of the third, minus three times
+the mean longitude of the second, would continually oscillate about 180°
+as a mean value. The three satellites would participate in this
+libratory movement, the extent of oscillation depending in each case on
+the mass of the satellite and its distance from the primary, but the
+period of libration is the same for all the satellites, amounting to
+2,270 days 18 hours, or rather more than six years. Observations of the
+eclipses of the satellites have not afforded any indications of the
+actual existence of such a libratory motion, so that the relations
+between the mean motions and mean longitudes may be presumed to be
+always rigorously true.--_Translator_.
+
+[39] Laplace has explained this theory in his _Exposition du Système du
+Monde_ (liv. iv. note vii.).--_Translator_.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+(A.)
+
+THE FOLLOWING IS A BRIEF NOTICE OF SOME OTHER INTERESTING RESULTS OF THE
+RESEARCHES OF LAPLACE WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN MENTIONED IN THE TEXT.
+
+
+_Method for determining the orbits of comets._--Since comets are
+generally visible only during a few days or weeks at the utmost, the
+determination of their orbits is attended with peculiar difficulties.
+The method devised by Newton for effecting this object was in every
+respect worthy of his genius. Its practical value was illustrated by the
+brilliant researches of Halley on cometary orbits. It necessitated,
+however, a long train of tedious calculations, and, in consequence, was
+not much used, astronomers generally preferring to attain the same end
+by a tentative process. In the year 1780, Laplace communicated to the
+Academy of Sciences an analytical method for determining the elements of
+a comet's orbit. This method has been extensively employed in France.
+Indeed, previously to the appearance of Olber's method, about the close
+of the last century, it furnished the easiest and most expeditious
+process hitherto devised, for calculating the parabolic elements of a
+comet's orbit.
+
+_Invariable plane of the solar system._--In consequence of the mutual
+perturbations of the different bodies of the planetary system, the
+planes of the orbits in which they revolve are perpetually varying in
+position. It becomes therefore desirable to ascertain some fixed plane
+to which the movements of the planets in all ages may be referred, so
+that the observations of one epoch might be rendered readily comparable
+with those of another. This object was accomplished by Laplace, who
+discovered that notwithstanding the perpetual fluctuations of the
+planetary orbits, there exists a fixed plane, to which the positions of
+the various bodies may at any instant be easily referred. This plane
+passes through the centre of gravity of the solar system, and its
+position is such, that if the movements of the planets be projected upon
+it, and if the mass of each planet be multiplied by the area which it
+describes in a given time, the sum of such products will be a maximum.
+The position of the plane for the year 1750 has been calculated by
+referring it to the ecliptic of that year. In this way it has been found
+that the inclination of the plane is 1° 35' 31", and that the longitude
+of the ascending node is 102° 57' 30". The position of the plane when
+calculated for the year 1950, with respect to the ecliptic of 1750,
+gives 1° 35' 31" for the inclination, and 102° 57' 15" for the longitude
+of the ascending node. It will be seen that a very satisfactory
+accordance exists between the elements of the position of the invariable
+plane for the two epochs.
+
+_Diminution of the obliquity of the ecliptic._--The astronomers of the
+eighteenth century had found, by a comparison of ancient with modern
+observations, that the obliquity of the ecliptic is slowly diminishing
+from century to century. The researches of geometers on the theory of
+gravitation had shown that an effect of this kind must be produced by
+the disturbing action of the planets on the earth. Laplace determined
+the secular displacement of the plane of the earth's orbit due to each
+of the planets, and in this way ascertained the whole effect of
+perturbation upon the obliquity of the ecliptic. A comparison which he
+instituted between the results of his formula and an ancient observation
+recorded in the Chinese Annals exhibited a most satisfactory accordance.
+The observation in question indicated the obliquity of the ecliptic for
+the year 1100 before the Christian era, to be 23° 54' 2".5. According to
+the principles of the theory of gravitation, the obliquity for the same
+epoch would be 23° 51' 30".
+
+_Limits of the obliquity of the ecliptic modified by the action of the
+sun and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid._--The ecliptic will not
+continue indefinitely to approach the equator. After attaining a certain
+limit it will then vary in the opposite direction, and the obliquity
+will continually increase in like manner as it previously diminished.
+Finally, the inclination of the equator and the ecliptic will attain a
+certain maximum value, and then the obliquity will again diminish. Thus
+the angle contained between the two planes will perpetually oscillate
+within certain limits. The extent of variation is inconsiderable.
+Laplace found that, in consequence of the spheroidal figure of the
+earth, it is even less than it would otherwise have been. This will be
+readily understood, when we state that the disturbing action of the sun
+and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid produces an oscillation of the
+earth's axis which occasions a periodic variation of the obliquity of
+the ecliptic. Now, as the plane of the ecliptic approaches the equator,
+the mean disturbing action of the sun and moon upon the redundant matter
+accumulated around the latter will undergo a corresponding variation,
+and hence will arise an inconceivably slow movement of the plane of the
+equator, which will necessarily affect the obliquity of the ecliptic.
+Laplace found that if it were not for this cause, the obliquity of the
+ecliptic would oscillate to the extent of 4° 53' 33" on each side of a
+mean value, but that when the movements of both planes are taken into
+account, the extent of oscillation is reduced to 1° 33' 45".
+
+_Variation of the length of the tropical year._--The disturbing action
+of the sun and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid occasions a continual
+_regression_ of the equinoctial points, and hence arises the distinction
+between the sidereal and tropical year. The effect is modified in a
+small degree by the variation of the plane of the ecliptic, which tends
+to produce a _progression_ of the equinoxes. If the movement of the
+equinoctial points arising from these combined causes was uniform, the
+length of the tropical year would be manifestly invariable. Theory,
+however, indicates that for ages past the rate of regression has been
+slowly increasing, and, consequently, the length of the tropical year
+has been gradually diminishing. The rate of diminution is exceedingly
+small. Laplace found that it amounts to somewhat less than half a second
+in a century. Consequently, the length of the tropical year is now about
+ten seconds less than it was in the time of Hipparchus.
+
+_Limits of variation of the tropical year modified by the disturbing
+action of the sun and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid._--The tropical
+year will not continue indefinitely to diminish in length. When it has
+once attained a certain minimum value, it will then increase until
+finally having attained an extreme value in the opposite direction, it
+will again begin to diminish, and thus it will perpetually oscillate
+between certain fixed limits. Laplace found that the extent to which the
+tropical year is liable to vary from this cause, amounts to thirty-eight
+seconds. If it were not for the effect produced upon the inclination of
+the equator to the ecliptic by the mean disturbing action of the sun and
+moon upon the terrestrial spheroid, the extent of variation would amount
+to 162 seconds.
+
+_Motion of the perihelion of the terrestrial orbit._--The major axis of
+the orbit of each planet is in a state of continual movement from the
+disturbing action of the other planets. In some cases, it makes the
+complete tour of the heavens; in others, it merely oscillates around a
+mean position. In the case of the earth's orbit, the perihelion is
+slowly advancing in the same direction as that in which all the planets
+are revolving around the sun. The alteration of its position with
+respect to the stars amounts to about 11" in a year, but since the
+equinox is regressing in the opposite direction at the rate of 50" in a
+year, the whole annual variation of the longitude of the terrestrial
+perihelion amounts to 61". Laplace has considered two remarkable epochs
+in connection with this fact; viz: the epoch at which the major axis of
+the earth's orbit coincided with the line of the equinoxes, and the
+epoch at which it stood perpendicular to that line. By calculation, he
+found the former of these epochs to be referable to the year 4107,
+B.C., and the latter to the year 1245, A.D. He accordingly suggested
+that the latter should be used as a universal epoch for the regulation
+of chronological occurrences.
+
+
+
+
+(B.)
+
+The _Mécanique Céleste_.--This stupendous monument of intellectual
+research consists, as stated by the author, of five quarto volumes. The
+subject-matter is divided into sixteen books, and each book again is
+subdivided into several chapters. Vol. I. contains the first and second
+books of the work; Vol. II. contains the third, fourth, and fifth books;
+Vol. III. contains the sixth and seventh books; Vol. IV. contains the
+eighth, ninth, and tenth books; and, finally, Vol. V. contains the
+remaining six books. In the first book the author treats of the general
+laws of equilibrium and motion. In the second book he treats of the law
+of gravitation, and the movements of the centres of gravity of the
+celestial bodies. In the third book he investigates the subject of the
+figures of the celestial bodies. In the fourth book he considers the
+oscillations of the ocean and the atmosphere, arising from the
+disturbing action of the celestial bodies. The fifth book is devoted to
+the investigation of the movements of the celestial bodies around their
+centres of gravity. In this book the author gives a solution of the
+great problems of the precession of the equinoxes and the libration of
+the moon, and determines the conditions upon which the stability of
+Saturn's ring depends. The sixth book is devoted to the theory of the
+planetary movements; the seventh, to the lunar theory; the eighth, to
+the theory of the satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus; and the
+ninth, to the theory of comets. In the tenth book the author
+investigates various subjects relating to the system of the universe.
+Among these may be mentioned the theory of astronomical refractions;
+the determination of heights by the barometer; the investigation of the
+effects produced on the movements of the planets and comets by a
+resisting medium; and the determination of the values of the masses of
+the planets and satellites. In the six books forming the fifth volume of
+the work, the author, besides presenting his readers with an historical
+exposition of the labours of Newton and his successors on the theory of
+gravitation, gives an account of various researches relative to the
+system of the universe, which had occupied his attention subsequently to
+the publication of the previous volumes. In the eleventh book he
+considers the subjects of the figure and rotation of the earth. In the
+twelfth book he investigates the attraction and repulsion of spheres,
+and the laws of equilibrium and motion of elastic fluids. The thirteenth
+book is devoted to researches on the oscillations of the fluids which
+cover the surfaces of the planets; the fourteenth, to the subject of the
+movements of the celestial bodies around their centres of gravity; the
+fifteenth, to the movements of the planets and comets; and the
+sixteenth, to the movements of the satellites. The author published a
+supplement to the third volume, containing the results of certain
+researches on the planetary theory, and a supplement to the tenth book,
+in which he investigates very fully the theory of capillary attraction.
+There was also published a posthumous supplement to the fifth volume,
+the manuscript of which was found among his papers after his death.
+
+
+
+
+JOSEPH FOURIER.
+
+BIOGRAPHY READ AT A PUBLIC ASSEMBLY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, ON THE
+18TH OF NOVEMBER, 1833.
+
+
+Gentlemen,--In former times one academician differed from another only
+in the number, the nature, and the brilliancy of his discoveries. Their
+lives, thrown in some respects into the same mould, consisted of events
+little worthy of remark. A boyhood more or less studious; progress
+sometimes slow, sometimes rapid; inclinations thwarted by capricious or
+shortsighted parents; inadequacy of means, the privations which it
+introduces in its train; thirty years of a laborious professorship and
+difficult studies,--such were the elements from which the admirable
+talents of the early secretaries of the Academy were enabled to execute
+those portraits, so piquant, so lively, and so varied, which form one of
+the principal ornaments of your learned collections.
+
+In the present day, biographies are less confined in their object. The
+convulsions which France has experienced in emancipating herself from
+the swaddling-clothes of routine, of superstition and of privilege, have
+cast into the storms of political life citizens of all ages, of all
+conditions, and of all characters. Thus has the Academy of Sciences
+figured during forty years in the devouring arena, wherein might and
+right have alternately seized the supreme power by a glorious sacrifice
+of combatants and victims!
+
+Recall to mind, for example, the immortal National Assembly. You will
+find at its head a modest academician, a patern of all the private
+virtues, the unfortunate Bailly, who, in the different phases of his
+political life, knew how to reconcile a passionate affection for his
+country with a moderation which his most cruel enemies themselves have
+been compelled to admire.
+
+When, at a later period, coalesced Europe launched against France a
+million of soldiers; when it became necessary to organize for the crisis
+fourteen armies, it was the ingenious author of the _Essai sur les
+Machines_ and of the _Géométrie des Positions_ who directed this
+gigantic operation. It was, again, Carnot, our honourable colleague, who
+presided over the incomparable campaign of seventeen months, during
+which French troops, novices in the profession of arms, gained eight
+pitched battles, were victorious in one hundred and forty combats,
+occupied one hundred and sixteen fortified places and two hundred and
+thirty forts or redoubts, enriched our arsenals with four thousand
+cannon and seventy thousand muskets, took a hundred thousand prisoners,
+and adorned the dome of the Invalides with ninety flags. During the same
+time the Chaptals, the Fourcroys, the Monges, the Berthollets rushed
+also to the defence of French independence, some of them extracting from
+our soil, by prodigies of industry, the very last atoms of saltpetre
+which it contained; others transforming, by the aid of new and rapid
+methods, the bells of the towns, villages, and smallest hamlets into a
+formidable artillery, which our enemies supposed, as indeed they had a
+right to suppose, we were deprived of. At the voice of his country in
+danger, another academician, the young and learned Meunier, readily
+renounced the seductive pursuits of the laboratory; he went to
+distinguish himself upon the ramparts of Königstein, to contribute as a
+hero to the long defence of Mayence, and met his death, at the age of
+forty years only, after having attained the highest position in a
+garrison wherein shone the Aubert-Dubayets, the Beaupuys, the Haxos, the
+Klebers.
+
+How could I forget here the last secretary of the original Academy?
+Follow him into a celebrated Assembly, into that Convention, the
+sanguinary delirium of which we might almost be inclined to pardon, when
+we call to mind how gloriously terrible it was to the enemies of our
+independence, and you will always see the illustrious Condorcet occupied
+exclusively with the great interests of reason and humanity. You will
+hear him denounce the shameful brigandage which for two centuries laid
+waste the African continent by a system of corruption; demand in a tone
+of profound conviction that the Code be purified of the frightful stain
+of capital punishment, which renders the error of the judge for ever
+irreparable. He is the official organ of the Assembly on every occasion
+when it is necessary to address soldiers, citizens, political parties,
+or foreign nations in language worthy of France; he is not the tactician
+of any party, he incessantly entreats all of them to occupy their
+attention less with their own interests and a little more with public
+matters; he replies, finally, to unjust reproaches of weakness by acts
+which leave him the only alternative of the poison cup or the scaffold.
+
+The French Revolution thus threw the learned geometer, whose discoveries
+I am about to celebrate, far away from the route which destiny appeared
+to have traced out for him. In ordinary times it would be about Dom[40]
+Joseph Fourier that the secretary of the Academy would have deemed it
+his duty to have occupied your attention. It would be the tranquil, the
+retired life of a Benedictine which he would have unfolded to you. The
+life of our colleague, on the contrary, will be agitated and full of
+perils; it will pass into the fierce contentions of the forum and amid
+the hazards of war; it will be a prey to all the anxieties which
+accompany a difficult administration. We shall find this life intimately
+associated with the great events of our age. Let us hasten to add, that
+it will be always worthy and honourable, and that the personal qualities
+of the man of science will enhance the brilliancy of his discoveries.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[40] An abbreviation of Dominus, equivalent to the English prefix
+Reverend.--_Translator_.
+
+
+
+
+BIRTH OF FOURIER.--HIS YOUTH.
+
+Fourier was born at Auxerre on the 21st of March, 1768. His father, like
+that of the illustrious geometer Lambert, was a tailor. This
+circumstance would formerly have occupied a large place in the _éloge_
+of our learned colleague; thanks to the progress of enlightened ideas, I
+may mention the circumstance as a fact of no importance: nobody, in
+effect, thinks in the present day, nobody even pretends to think, that
+genius is the privilege of rank or fortune.
+
+Fourier became an orphan at the age of eight years. A lady who had
+remarked the amiability of his manners and his precocious natural
+abilities, recommended him to the Bishop of Auxerre. Through the
+influence of this prelate, Fourier was admitted into the military school
+which was conducted at that time by the Benedictines of the Convent of
+St. Mark. There he prosecuted his literary studies with surprising
+rapidity and success. Many sermons very much applauded at Paris in the
+mouth of high dignitaries of the Church were emanations from the pen of
+the schoolboy of twelve years of age. It would be impossible in the
+present day to trace those first compositions of the youth Fourier,
+since, while divulging the plagiarism, he had the discretion never to
+name those who profited by it.
+
+At thirteen years Fourier had the petulance, the noisy vivacity of most
+young people of the same age; but his character changed all at once, and
+as if by enchantment, as soon as he was initiated in the first
+principles of mathematics, that is to say, as soon as he became sensible
+of his real vocation. The hours prescribed for study no longer sufficed
+to gratify his insatiable curiosity. Ends of candles carefully collected
+in the kitchen, the corridors and the refectory of the college, and
+placed on a hearth concealed by a screen, served during the night to
+illuminate the solitary studies by which Fourier prepared himself for
+those labours which were destined, a few years afterwards, to adorn his
+name and his country.
+
+In a military school directed by monks, the minds of the pupils
+necessarily waver only between two careers in life--the church and the
+sword. Like Descartes, Fourier wished to be a soldier; like that
+philosopher, he would doubtless have found the life of a garrison very
+wearisome. But he was not permitted to make the experiment. His demand
+to undergo the examination for the artillery, although strongly
+supported by our illustrious colleague Legendre, was rejected with a
+severity of expression of which you may judge yourselves: "Fourier,"
+replied the minister, "not being noble, could not enter the artillery,
+although he were a second Newton."
+
+Gentlemen, there is in the strict enforcement of regulations, even when
+they are most absurd, something respectable which I have a pleasure in
+recognizing; in the present instance nothing could soften the odious
+character of the minister's words. It is not true in reality that no one
+could formerly enter into the artillery who did not possess a title of
+nobility; a certain fortune frequently supplied the want of parchments.
+Thus it was not a something undefinable, which, by the way, our
+ancestors the Franks had not yet invented, that was wanting to young
+Fourier, but rather an income of a few hundred livres, which the men who
+were then placed at the head of the country would have refused to
+acknowledge the genius of Newton as a just equivalent for! Treasure up
+these facts, Gentlemen; they form an admirable illustration of the
+immense advances which France has made during the last forty years.
+Posterity, moreover, will see in this, not the excuse, but the
+explanation of some of those sanguinary dissensions which stained our
+first revolution.
+
+Fourier not having been enabled to gird on the sword, assumed the habit
+of a Benedictine, and repaired to the Abbey of St. Benoît-sur-Loire,
+where he intended to pass the period of his noviciate. He had not yet
+taken any vows when, in 1789, every mind was captivated with beautifully
+seductive ideas relative to the social regeneration of France. Fourier
+now renounced the profession of the Church; but this circumstance did
+not prevent his former masters from appointing him to the principal
+chair of mathematics in the Military School of Auxerre, and bestowing
+upon him numerous tokens of a lively and sincere affection. I venture to
+assert that no event in the life of our colleague affords a more
+striking proof of the goodness of his natural disposition and the
+amiability of his manners. It would be necessary not to know the human
+heart to suppose that the monks of St. Benoît did not feel some chagrin
+upon finding themselves so abruptly abandoned, to imagine especially
+that they should give up without lively regret the glory which the order
+might have expected from the ingenious colleague who had just escaped
+from them.
+
+Fourier responded worthily to the confidence of which he had just become
+the object. When his colleagues were indisposed, the titular professor
+of mathematics occupied in turns the chairs of rhetoric, of history, and
+of philosophy; and whatever might be the subject of his lectures, he
+diffused among an audience which listened to him with delight, the
+treasures of a varied and profound erudition, adorned with all the
+brilliancy which the most elegant diction could impart to them.
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIR ON THE RESOLUTION OF NUMERICAL EQUATIONS.
+
+About the close of the year 1789 Fourier repaired to Paris and read
+before the Academy of Sciences a memoir on the resolution of numerical
+equations of all degrees. This work of his early youth our colleague, so
+to speak, never lost sight of. He explained it at Paris to the pupils of
+the Polytechnic School; he developed it upon the banks of the Nile in
+presence of the Institute of Egypt; at Grenoble, from the year 1802, it
+was his favourite subject of conversation with the Professors of the
+Central School and of the Faculty of Sciences; this finally, contained
+the elements of the work which Fourier was engaged in seeing through the
+press when death put an end to his career.
+
+A scientific subject does not occupy so much space in the life of a man
+of science of the first rank without being important and difficult. The
+subject of algebraic analysis above mentioned, which Fourier had studied
+with a perseverance so remarkable, is not an exception to this rule. It
+offers itself in a great number of applications of calculation to the
+movements of the heavenly bodies, or to the physics of terrestrial
+bodies, and in general in the problems which lead to equations of a high
+degree. As soon as he wishes to quit the domain of abstract relations,
+the calculator has occasion to employ the roots of these equations; thus
+the art of discovering them by the aid of an uniform method, either
+exactly or by approximation, did not fail at an early period to excite
+the attention of geometers.
+
+An observant eye perceives already some traces of their efforts in the
+writings of the mathematicians of the Alexandrian School. These traces,
+it must be _acknowledged_, are so slight and so imperfect, that we
+should truly be justified in referring the origin of this branch of
+analysis only to the excellent labours of our countryman Vieta.
+Descartes, to whom we render very imperfect justice when we content
+ourselves with saying that he taught us much when he taught us to doubt,
+occupied his attention also for a short time with this problem, and left
+upon it the indelible impress of his powerful mind. Hudde gave for a
+particular but very important case rules to which nothing has since been
+added; Rolle, of the Academy of Sciences, devoted to this one subject
+his entire life. Among our neighbours on the other side of the channel,
+Harriot, Newton, Maclaurin, Stirling, Waring, I may say all the
+illustrious geometers which England produced in the last century, made
+it also the subject of their researches. Some years afterwards the names
+of Daniel Barnoulli, of Euler, and of Fontaine came to be added to so
+many great names. Finally, Lagrange in his turn embarked in the same
+career, and at the very commencement of his researches he succeeded in
+substituting for the imperfect, although very ingenious, essays of his
+predecessors, a complete method which was free from every objection.
+From that instant the dignity of science was satisfied; but in such a
+case it would not be permitted to say with the poet:
+
+     "Le temps ne fait rien à l'affaire."
+
+Now although the processes invented by Lagrange, simple in principle and
+applicable to every case, have theoretically the merit of leading to the
+result with certainty, still, on the other hand, they demand
+calculations of a most repulsive length. It remained then to perfect the
+practical part of the question; it was necessary to devise the means of
+shortening the route without depriving it in any degree of its
+certainty. Such was the principal object of the researches of Fourier,
+and this he has attained to a great extent.
+
+Descartes had already found, in the order according to which the signs
+of the different terms of any numerical equation whatever succeed each
+other, the means of deciding, for example, how many real positive roots
+this equation may have. Fourier advanced a step further; he discovered a
+method for determining what number of the equally positive roots of
+every equation may be found included between two given quantities. Here
+certain calculations become necessary, but they are very simple, and
+whatever be the precision desired, they lead without any trouble to the
+solutions sought for.
+
+I doubt whether it were possible to cite a single scientific discovery
+of any importance which has not excited discussions of priority. The new
+method of Fourier for solving numerical equations is in this respect
+amply comprised within the common law. We ought, however, to acknowledge
+that the theorem which serves as the basis of this method, was first
+published by M. Budan; that according to a rule which the principal
+Academies of Europe have solemnly sanctioned, and from which the
+historian of the sciences dares not deviate without falling into
+arbitrary assumptions and confusion, M. Budan ought to be considered as
+the inventor. I will assert with equal assurance that it would be
+impossible to refuse to Fourier the merit of having attained the same
+object by his own efforts. I even regret that, in order to establish
+rights which nobody has contested, he deemed it necessary to have
+recourse to the certificates of early pupils of the Polytechnic School,
+or Professors of the University. Since our colleague had the modesty to
+suppose that his simple declaration would not be sufficient, why (and
+the argument would have had much weight) did he not remark in what
+respect his demonstration differed from that of his competitor?--an
+admirable demonstration, in effect, and one so impregnated with the
+elements of the question, that a young geometer, M. Sturm, has just
+employed it to establish the truth of the beautiful theorem by the aid
+of which he determines not the simple limits, but the exact number of
+roots of any equation whatever which are comprised between two given
+quantities.
+
+
+
+
+PART PLAYED BY FOURIER IN OUR REVOLUTION.--HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE CORPS
+OF PROFESSORS OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL AND THE POLYTECHNIC
+SCHOOL.--EXPEDITION TO EGYPT.
+
+We had just left Fourier at Paris, submitting to the Academy of Sciences
+the analytical memoir of which I have just given a general view. Upon
+his return to Auxerre, the young geometer found the town, the
+surrounding country, and even the school to which he belonged, occupied
+intensely with the great questions relative to the dignity of human
+nature, philosophy, and politics, which were then discussed by the
+orators of the different parties of the National Assembly. Fourier
+abandoned himself also to this movement of the human mind. He embraced
+with enthusiasm the principles of the Revolution, and he ardently
+associated himself with every thing grand, just, and generous which the
+popular impulse offered. His patriotism made him accept the most
+difficult missions. We may assert, that never, even when his life was at
+stake, did he truckle to the base, covetous, and sanguinary passions
+which displayed themselves on all sides.
+
+A member of the popular society of Auxerre, Fourier exercised there an
+almost irresistible ascendency. One day--all Burgundy has preserved the
+remembrance of it--on the occasion of a levy of three hundred thousand
+men, he made the words honour, country, glory, ring so eloquently, he
+induced so many voluntary enrolments, that the ballot was not deemed
+necessary. At the command of the orator the contingent assigned to the
+chief town of the Yonne formed in order, assembled together within the
+very enclosure of the Assembly, and marched forthwith to the frontier.
+Unfortunately these struggles of the forum, in which so many noble lives
+then exercised themselves, were far from having always a real
+importance. Ridiculous, absurd, and burlesque motions injured
+incessantly the inspirations of a pure, sincere, and enlightened
+patriotism. The popular society of Auxerre would furnish us, in case of
+necessity, with more than one example of those lamentable contrasts.
+Thus I might say that in the very same apartment wherein Fourier knew
+how to excite the honourable sentiments which I have with pleasure
+recalled to mind, he had on another occasion to contend with a certain
+orator, perhaps of good intentions, but assuredly a bad astronomer, who,
+wishing to escape, said he, from _the good pleasure_ of municipal
+rulers, proposed that the names of the north, east, south, and west
+quarters should be assigned by lot to the different parts of the town of
+Auxerre.
+
+Literature, the fine arts, and the sciences appeared for a moment to
+flourish under the auspicious influence of the French Revolution.
+Observe, for example, with what grandeur of conception the reformation
+of weights and measures was planned; what geometers, what astronomers,
+what eminent philosophers presided over every department of this noble
+undertaking! Alas! frightful revolutions in the interior of the country
+soon saddened this magnificent spectacle. The sciences could not prosper
+in the midst of the desperate contest of factions. They would have
+blushed to owe any obligations to the men of blood, whose blind passions
+immolated a Saron, a Bailly, and a Lavoisière.
+
+A few months after the 9th Thermidor, the Convention being desirous of
+diffusing throughout the country ideas of order, civilization, and
+internal prosperity, resolved upon organizing a system of public
+instruction, but a difficulty arose in finding professors. The members
+of the corps of instruction had become officers of artillery, of
+engineering, or of the staff, and were combating the enemies of France
+at the frontiers. Fortunately at this epoch of intellectual exaltation,
+nothing seemed impossible. Professors were wanting; it was resolved
+without delay to create some, and the Normal School sprung into
+existence. Fifteen hundred citizens of all ages, despatched from the
+principal district towns, assembled together, not to study in all their
+ramifications the different branches of human knowledge, but in order to
+learn the art of teaching under the greatest masters.
+
+Fourier was one of these fifteen hundred pupils. It will, no doubt,
+excite some surprise that he was elected at St. Florentine, and that
+Auxerre appeared insensible to the honour of being represented at Paris
+by the most illustrious of her children. But this indifference will be
+readily understood. The elaborate scaffolding of calumny which it has
+served to support will fall to the ground as soon as I recall to mind,
+that after the 9th Thermidor the capital, and especially the provinces,
+became a prey to a blind and disorderly reaction, as all political
+reactions invariably are; that crime (the crime of having changed
+opinions--it was nothing less hideous) usurped the place of justice;
+that excellent citizens, that pure, moderate, and conscientious patriots
+were daily massacred by hired bands of assassins in presence of whom the
+inhabitants remained mute with fear. Such are, Gentlemen, the formidable
+influences which for a moment deprived Fourier of the suffrages of his
+countrymen; and caricatured, as a partisan of Robespierre, the
+individual whom St. Just, making allusion to his sweet and persuasive
+eloquence, styled a _patriot in music_; who was so often thrown into
+prison by the decemvirs; who, at the very height of the Reign of Terror,
+offered before the Revolutionary Tribunal the assistance of his
+admirable talents to the mother of Marshal Davoust, accused of the crime
+of having at that unrelenting epoch sent some money to the emigrants;
+who had the incredible boldness to shut up at the inn of Tonnerre an
+agent of the Committee of Public Safety, into the secret of whose
+mission he penetrated, and thus obtained time to warn an honourable
+citizen that he was about to be arrested; who, finally, attaching
+himself personally to the sanguinary proconsul before whom every one
+trembled in Yonne, made him pass for a madman, and obtained his recall!
+You see, Gentlemen, some of the acts of patriotism, of devotion, and of
+humanity which signalized the early years of Fourier. They were, you
+have seen, repaid with ingratitude. But ought we in reality to be
+astonished at it? To expect gratitude from the man who cannot make an
+avowal of his feelings without danger, would be to shut one's eyes to
+the frailty of human nature, and to expose one's self to frequent
+disappointments.
+
+In the Normal School of the Convention, discussion from time to time
+succeeded ordinary lectures. On those days an interchange of characters
+was effected; the pupils interrogated the professors. Some words
+pronounced by Fourier at one of those curious and useful meetings
+sufficed to attract attention towards him. Accordingly, as soon as a
+necessity was felt to create Masters of Conference, all eyes were turned
+towards the pupil of St. Florentine. The precision, the clearness, and
+the elegance of his lectures soon procured for him the unanimous
+applause of the fastidious and numerous audience which was confided to
+him.
+
+When he attained the height of his scientific and literary glory,
+Fourier used to look back with pleasure upon the year 1794, and upon the
+sublime efforts which the French nation then made for the purpose of
+organizing a Corps of Public Instruction. If he had ventured, the title
+of Pupil of the original Normal School would have been beyond doubt that
+which he would have assumed by way of preference. Gentlemen, that school
+perished of cold, of wretchedness, and of hunger, and not, whatever
+people may say, from certain defects of organization which time and
+reflection would have easily rectified. Notwithstanding its short
+existence, it imparted to scientific studies quite a new direction which
+has been productive of the most important results. In supporting this
+opinion at some length, I shall acquit myself of a task which Fourier
+would certainly have imposed upon me, if he could have suspected, that
+with just and eloquent eulogiums of his character and his labours there
+should mingle within the walls of this apartment, and even emanate from
+the mouth of one of his successors, sharp critiques of his beloved
+Normal School.
+
+It is to the Normal School that we must inevitably ascend if we would
+desire to ascertain the earliest public teaching of _descriptive
+Geometry_, that fine creation of the genius of Monge. It is from this
+source that it has passed almost without modification to the Polytechnic
+School, to foundries, to manufactories, and the most humble workshops.
+
+The establishment of the Normal School accordingly indicates the
+commencement of a veritable revolution in the study of pure mathematics;
+with it demonstrations, methods, and important theories, buried in
+academical collections, appeared for the first time before the pupils,
+and encouraged them to recast upon new bases the works destined for
+instruction.
+
+With some rare exceptions, the philosophers engaged in the cultivation
+of science constituted formerly in France a class totally distinct from
+that of the professors. By appointing the first geometers, the first
+philosophers, and the first naturalists of the world to be professors,
+the Convention threw new lustre upon the profession of teaching, the
+advantageous influence of which is felt in the present day. In the
+opinion of the public at large a title which a Lagrange, a Laplace, a
+Monge, a Berthollet, had borne, became a proper match to the finest
+titles. If under the empire, the Polytechnic School counted among its
+active professors councillors of state, ministers, and the president of
+the senate, you must look for the explanation of this fact in the
+impulse given by the Normal School.
+
+You see in the ancient great colleges, professors concealed in some
+degree behind their portfolios, reading as from a pulpit, amid the
+indifference and inattention of their pupils, discourses prepared
+beforehand with great labour, and which reappear every year in the same
+form. Nothing of this kind existed at the Normal School; oral lessons
+alone were there permitted. The authorities even went so far as to
+require of the illustrious savans appointed to the task of instruction
+the formal promise never to recite any lectures which they might have
+learned by heart. From that time the chair has become a tribune where
+the professor, identified, so to speak, with his audience, sees in
+their looks, in their gestures, in their countenance, sometimes the
+necessity for proceeding at greater speed, sometimes, on the contrary,
+the necessity of retracing his steps, of awakening the attention by some
+incidental observations, of clothing in a new form the thought which,
+when first expressed, had left some doubts in the minds of his audience.
+And do not suppose that the beautiful impromptu lectures with which the
+amphitheatre of the Normal School resounded, remained unknown to the
+public. Short-hand writers paid by the State reported them. The sheets,
+after being revised by the professors, were sent to the fifteen hundred
+pupils, to the members of Convention, to the consuls and agents of the
+Republic in foreign countries, to all governors of districts. There was
+in this something certainly of profusion compared with the parsimonious
+and mean habits of our time. Nobody, however, would concur in this
+reproach, however slight it may appear, if I were permitted to point out
+in this very apartment an illustrious Academician, whose mathematical
+genius was awakened by the lectures of the Normal School in an obscure
+district town!
+
+The necessity of demonstrating the important services, ignored in the
+present day, for which the dissemination of the sciences is indebted to
+the first Normal School, has induced me to dwell at greater length on
+the subject than I intended. I hope to be pardoned; the example in any
+case will not be contagious. Eulogiums of the past, you know, Gentlemen,
+are no longer fashionable. Every thing which is said, every thing which
+is printed, induces us to suppose that the world is the creation of
+yesterday. This opinion, which allows to each a part more or less
+brilliant in the cosmogonic drama, is under the safeguard of too many
+vanities to have any thing to fear from the efforts of logic.
+
+I have already stated that the brilliant success of Fourier at the
+Normal School assigned to him a distinguished place among the persons
+whom nature has endowed in the highest degree with the talent of public
+tuition. Accordingly, he was not forgotten by the founders of the
+Polytechnic School. Attached to that celebrated establishment, first
+with the title of Superintendent of Lectures on Fortification,
+afterwards appointed to deliver a course of lectures on Analysis,
+Fourier has left there a venerated name, and the reputation of a
+professor distinguished by clearness, method, and erudition; I shall add
+even the reputation of a professor full of grace, for our colleague has
+proved that this kind of merit may not be foreign to the teaching of
+mathematics.
+
+The lectures of Fourier have not been collected together. The Journal of
+the Polytechnic School contains only one paper by him, a memoir upon the
+"principle of virtual velocities." This memoir, which probably had
+served for the text of a lecture, shows that the secret of our
+celebrated professor's great success consisted in the combination of
+abstract truths, of interesting applications, and of historical details
+little known, and derived, a thing so rare in our days, from original
+sources.
+
+We have now arrived at the epoch when the peace of Leoben brought back
+to the metropolis the principal ornaments of our armies. Then the
+professors and the pupils of the Polytechnic School had sometimes the
+distinguished honour of sitting in their amphitheatres beside Generals
+Desaix and Bonaparte. Every thing indicated to them then an active
+participation in the events which each foresaw, and which in fact were
+not long of occurring.
+
+Notwithstanding the precarious condition of Europe, the Directory
+decided upon denuding the country of its best troops, and launching them
+upon an adventurous expedition. The five chiefs of the Republic were
+then desirous of removing from Paris the conqueror of Italy, of thereby
+putting an end to the popular demonstrations of which he everywhere
+formed the object, and which sooner or later would become a real danger.
+
+On the other hand, the illustrious general did not dream merely of the
+momentary conquest of Egypt; he wished to restore to that country its
+ancient splendour; he wished to extend its cultivation, to improve its
+system of irrigation, to create new branches of industry, to open to
+commerce numerous outlets, to stretch out a helping hand to the
+unfortunate inhabitants, to rescue them from the galling yoke under
+which they had groaned for ages, in a word, to bestow upon them without
+delay all the benefits of European civilization. Designs of such
+magnitude could not have been accomplished with the mere _personnel_ of
+an ordinary army. It was necessary to appeal to science, to literature,
+and to the fine arts; it was necessary to ask the coöperation of several
+men of judgment and of experience. Monge and Berthollet, both members of
+the Institute and Professors in the Polytechnic School, became, with a
+view to this object, the principal recruiting aids to the chief of the
+expedition. Were our colleagues really acquainted with the object of
+this expedition? I dare not reply in the affirmative; but I know at all
+events that they were not permitted to divulge it. We are going to a
+distant country; we shall embark at Toulon; we shall be constantly with
+you; General Bonaparte will command the army, such was in form and
+substance the limited amount of confidential information which had been
+imperiously traced out to them. Upon the faith of words so vague, with
+the chances of a naval battle, with the English hulks in perspective, go
+in the present day and endeavour to enroll a father of a family, a
+savant already known by useful labours and placed in some honourable
+position, an artist in possession of the esteem and confidence of the
+public, and I am much mistaken if you obtain any thing else than
+refusals; but in 1798, France had hardly emerged from a terrible crisis,
+during which her very existence was frequently at stake. Who, besides,
+had not encountered imminent personal danger? Who had not seen with his
+own eyes enterprises of a truly desperate nature brought to a fortunate
+issue? Is any thing more wanted to explain that adventurous character,
+that absence of all care for the morrow, which appears to have been one
+of the most distinguishing features of the epoch of the Directory.
+Fourier accepted then without hesitation the proposals which his
+colleagues brought to him in the name of the Commander-in-Chief; he
+quitted the agreeable duties of a professor of the Polytechnic School,
+to go--he knew not where, to do--he knew not what.
+
+Chance placed Fourier during the voyage in the vessel in which Kléber
+sailed. The friendship which the philosopher and the warrior vowed to
+each other from that moment was not without some influence upon the
+events of which Egypt was the theatre after the departure of Napoleon.
+
+He who signed his orders of the day, the _Member of the Institute,
+Commander-in-Chief of the Army in the East_, could not fail to place an
+Academy among the means of regenerating the ancient kingdom of the
+Pharaohs. The valiant army which he commanded had barely conquered at
+Cairo, on the occasion of the memorable battle of the Pyramids, when the
+Institute of Egypt sprung into existence. It consisted of forty-eight
+members, divided into four sections. Monge had the honour of being the
+first president. As at Paris, Bonaparte belonged to the section of
+Mathematics. The situation of perpetual secretary, the filling up of
+which was left to the free choice of the Society, was unanimously
+assigned to Fourier.
+
+You have seen the celebrated geometer discharge the same duty at the
+Academy of Sciences; you have appreciated his liberality of mind, his
+enlightened benevolence, his unvarying affability, his straightforward
+and conciliatory disposition: add in imagination to so many rare
+qualities the activity which youth, which health can alone give, and you
+will have again conjured into existence the Secretary of the Institute
+of Egypt; and yet the portrait which I have attempted to draw of him
+would grow pale beside the original.
+
+Upon the banks of the Nile, Fourier devoted himself to assiduous
+researches on almost every branch of knowledge which the vast plan of
+the Institute embraced. The _Decade_ and the _Courier of Egypt_ will
+acquaint the reader with the titles of his different labours. I find in
+these journals a memoir upon the general solution of algebraic
+equations; researches on the methods of elimination; the demonstration
+of a new theorem of algebra; a memoir upon the indeterminate analysis;
+studies on general mechanics; a technical and historical work upon the
+aqueduct which conveys the waters of the Nile to the Castle of Cairo;
+reflections upon the Oases; the plan of statistical researches to be
+undertaken with respect to the state of Egypt; programme of an intended
+exploration of the site of the ancient Memphis, and of the whole extent
+of burying-places; a descriptive account of the revolutions and manners
+of Egypt, from the time of its conquest by Selim.
+
+I find also in the Egyptian _Decade_, that, on the first complementary
+day of the year VI., Fourier communicated to the Institute the
+description of a machine designed to promote irrigation, and which was
+to be driven by the power of wind.
+
+This work, so far removed from the ordinary current of the ideas of our
+colleague, has not been printed. It would very naturally find a place in
+a work of which the Expedition to Egypt might again furnish the subject,
+notwithstanding the many beautiful publications which it has already
+called into existence. It would be a description of the manufactories of
+steel, of arms, of powder, of cloth, of machines, and of instruments of
+every kind which our army had to prepare for the occasion. If, during
+our infancy, the expedients which Robinson Crusoe practised in order to
+escape from the romantic dangers which he had incessantly to encounter,
+excite our interest in a lively degree, how, in mature age, could we
+regard with indifference a handful of Frenchmen thrown upon the
+inhospitable shores of Africa, without any possible communication with
+the mother country, obliged to contend at once with the elements and
+with formidable armies, destitute of food, of clothing, of arms, and of
+ammunition, and yet supplying every want by the force of genius!
+
+The long route which I have yet to traverse, will hardly allow me to add
+a few words relative to the administrative services of the illustrious
+geometer. Appointed French Commissioner at the Divan of Cairo, he
+became the official medium between the General-in-Chief and every
+Egyptian who might have to complain of an attack against his person, his
+property, his morals, his habits, or his creed. An invariable sauvity of
+manner, a scrupulous regard for prejudices to oppose which directly
+would have been vain, an inflexible sentiment of justice, had given him
+an ascendency over the Mussulman population, which the precepts of the
+Koran could not lead any one to hope for, and which powerfully
+contributed to the maintenance of friendly relations between the
+inhabitants of Cairo and the French soldiers. Fourier was especially
+held in veneration by the Cheiks and the Ulémas. A single anecdote will
+serve to show that this sentiment was the offspring of genuine
+gratitude.
+
+The Emir Hadgey, or Prince of the Caravan, who had been nominated by
+General Bonaparte upon his arrival in Cairo, escaped during the campaign
+of Syria. There existed strong grounds at the time for supposing that
+four _Cheiks Ulémas_ had rendered themselves accomplices of the treason.
+Upon his return to Egypt, Bonaparte confided the investigation of this
+grave affair to Fourier. "Do not," said he, "submit half measures to me.
+You have to pronounce judgment upon high personages: we must either cut
+off their heads or invite them to dinner." On the day following that on
+which this conversation took place, the four Cheiks dined with the
+General-in-Chief. By obeying the inspirations of his heart, Fourier did
+not perform merely an act of humanity; it was moreover one of excellent
+policy. Our learned colleague, M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, to whom I am
+indebted for this anecdote, has stated in fact that Soleyman and
+Fayoumi, the principal of the Egyptian chiefs, whose punishment, thanks
+to our colleague, was so happily transformed into a banquet, seized
+every occasion of extolling among their countrymen the generosity of the
+French.
+
+Fourier did not display less ability when our generals confided
+diplomatic missions to him. It is to his tact and urbanity that our army
+is indebted for an offensive and defensive treaty of alliance with
+Mourad Bey. Justly proud of this result, Fourier omitted to make known
+the details of the negotiation. This is deeply to be regretted, for the
+plenipotentiary of Mourad was a woman, the same Sitty Nefiçah whom
+Kléber has immortalized by proclaiming her _beneficence_, _her noble
+character_, in the bulletin of Heliopolis, and who moreover was already
+celebrated from one extremity of Asia to the other, in consequence of
+the bloody revolutions which her unparalleled beauty had excited among
+the Mamelukes.
+
+The incomparable victory which Kléber gained over the army of the Grand
+Vizier did not damp the energy of the Janissaries, who had seized upon
+Cairo while the war was raging at Heliopolis. They defended themselves
+from house to house with heroic courage. The besieged had to choose
+between the entire destruction of the city and an honourable
+capitulation. The latter alternative was adopted. Fourier, charged, as
+usual, with the negotiations, conducted them to a favourable issue; but
+on this occasion the treaty was not discussed, agreed to, and signed
+within the mysterious precincts of a harem, upon downy couches, under
+the shade of balmy groves. The preliminary discussions were held in a
+house half ruined by bullets and grape-shot; in the centre of the
+quarter of which the insurgents valiantly disputed the possession with
+our soldiers; before even it would have been possible to agree to the
+basis of a treaty of a few hours. Accordingly, when Fourier was
+preparing to celebrate the welcome of the Turkish commissioner
+conformably to oriental usages, a great number of musket-shots were
+fired from the house in front, and a ball passed through the coffee-pot
+which he was holding in his hand. Without calling in question the
+bravery of any person, do you not think, Gentlemen, that if diplomatists
+were usually placed in equally perilous positions, the public would have
+less reason to complain of their proverbial slowness?
+
+In order to exhibit, under one point of view, the various administrative
+duties of our indefatigable colleague, I should have to show him to you
+on board the English fleet, at the instant of the capitulation of Menou,
+stipulating for certain guarantees in favour of the members of the
+Institute of Egypt; but services of no less importance and of a
+different nature demand also our attention. They will even compel us to
+retrace our steps, to ascend even to the epoch of glorious memory when
+Desaix achieved the conquest of Upper Egypt, as much by the sagacity,
+the moderation, and the inflexible justice of all his acts, as by the
+rapidity and boldness of his military operations. Bonaparte then
+appointed two numerous commissions to proceed to explore in those remote
+regions, a multitude of monuments of which the moderns hardly suspected
+the existence. Fourier and Costas were the commandants of these
+commissions; I say the commandants, for a sufficiently imposing military
+force had been assigned to them; since it was frequently after a combat
+with the wandering tribes of Arabs that the astronomer found in the
+movements of the heavenly bodies the elements of a future geographical
+map; that the naturalist collected unknown plants, determined the
+geological constitution of the soil, occupied himself with troublesome
+dissections; that the antiquary measured the dimensions of edifices,
+that he attempted to take a faithful sketch of the fantastic images with
+which every thing was covered in that singular country,--from the
+smallest pieces of furniture, from the simple toys of children, to those
+prodigious palaces, to those immense façades, beside which the vastest
+of modern constructions would hardly attract a look.
+
+The two learned commissions studied with scrupulous care the magnificent
+temple of the ancient Tentyris, and especially the series of
+astronomical signs which have excited in our days such lively
+discussions; the remarkable monuments of the mysterious and sacred Isle
+of Elephantine; the ruins of Thebes, with her hundred gates, before
+which (and yet they are nothing but ruins) our whole army halted, in a
+state of astonishment, to applaud.
+
+Fourier also presided in Upper Egypt over these memorable works, when
+the Commander-in-Chief suddenly quitted Alexandria and returned to
+France with his principal friends. Those persons then were very much
+mistaken who, upon not finding our colleague on board the frigate
+_Muiron_ beside Monge and Berthollet, imagined that Bonaparte did not
+appreciate his eminent qualities. If Fourier was not a passenger, this
+arose from the circumstance of his having been a hundred leagues from
+the Mediterranean when the _Muiron_ set sail. The explanation contains
+nothing striking, but it is true. In any case, the friendly feeling of
+Kléber towards the Secretary of the Institute of Egypt, the influence
+which he justly granted to him on a multitude of delicate occasions,
+amply compensated him for an unjust omission.
+
+I arrive, Gentlemen, at the epoch so suggestive of painful
+recollections, when the _Agas_ of the Janissaries who had fled into
+Syria, having despaired of vanquishing our troops so admirably
+commanded, by the honourable arms of the soldier, had recourse to the
+dagger of the assassin. You are aware that a young fanatic, whose
+imagination had been wrought up to a high state of excitement in the
+mosques by a month of prayers and abstinence, aimed a mortal blow at the
+hero of Heliopolis at the instant when he was listening, without
+suspicion, and with his usual kindness, to a recital of pretended
+grievances, and was promising redress.
+
+This sad misfortune plunged our colony into profound grief. The
+Egyptians themselves mingled their tears with those of the French
+soldiers. By a delicacy of feeling which we should be wrong in supposing
+the Mahometans not to be capable of, they did not then omit, they have
+not since omitted, to remark, that the assassin and his three
+accomplices were not born on the banks of the Nile.
+
+The army, to mitigate its grief, desired that the funeral of Kléber
+should be celebrated with great pomp. It wished, also, that on that
+solemn day, some person should recount the long series of brilliant
+actions which will transmit the name of the illustrious general to the
+remotest posterity. By unanimous consent this honourable and perilous
+mission was confided to Fourier.
+
+There are very few individuals, Gentlemen, who have not seen the
+brilliant dreams of their youth wrecked one after the other against the
+sad realities of mature age. Fourier was one of those few exceptions.
+
+In effect, transport yourselves mentally back to the year 1789, and
+consider what would be the future prospects of the humble convert of St.
+Benoît-sur-Loire. No doubt a small share of literary glory; the favour
+of being heard occasionally in the churches of the metropolis; the
+satisfaction of being appointed to eulogize such or such a public
+personage. Well! nine years have hardly passed and you find him at the
+head of the Institute of Egypt, and he is the oracle, the idol of a
+society which counted among its members Bonaparte, Berthollet, Monge,
+Malus, Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Conté, &c.; and the generals rely upon
+him for overcoming apparently insurmountable difficulties, and the army
+of the East, itself so rich in adornments of all kinds, would desire no
+other interpreter when it is necessary to recount the lofty deeds of the
+hero which it had just lost.
+
+It was upon the breach of a bastion which our troops had recently taken
+by assault, in sight of the most majestic of rivers, of the magnificent
+valley which it fertilizes, of the frightful desert of Lybia, of the
+colossal pyramids of Gizeh; it was in presence of twenty populations of
+different origins which Cairo unites together in its vast basin; in
+presence of the most valiant soldiers that had ever set foot on a land,
+wherein, however, the names of Alexander and of Cæsar still resound; it
+was in the midst of every thing which could move the heart, excite the
+ideas, or exalt the imagination, that Fourier unfolded the noble life of
+Kléber. The orator was listened to with religious silence; but soon,
+addressing himself with a gesture of his hand to the soldiers ranged in
+battle array before him, he exclaims: "Ah! how many of you would have
+aspired to the honour of throwing yourselves between Kléber and his
+assassin! I call you to witness, intrepid cavalry, who rushed to save
+him upon the heights of Koraïm, and dispelled in an instant the
+multitude of enemies who had surrounded him!" At these words an electric
+tremor thrills throughout the whole army, the colours droop, the ranks
+close, the arms come into collision, a deep sigh escapes from some ten
+thousand breasts torn by the sabre and the bullet, and the voice of the
+orator is drowned amid sobs.
+
+A few months after, upon the same bastion, before the same soldiers,
+Fourier celebrated with no less eloquence the exploits, the virtues of
+the general whom the people conquered in Africa saluted with the name so
+flattering of _Just Sultan_; and who sacrificed his life at Marengo to
+secure the triumph of the French arms.
+
+Fourier quitted Egypt only with the last wreck of the army, in virtue of
+the capitulation signed by Menou. On his return to France, the object of
+his most constant solicitude was to illustrate the memorable expedition
+of which he had been one of the most active and most useful members. The
+idea of collecting together the varied labours of all his colleagues
+incontestibly belongs to him. I find the proof of this in a letter,
+still unpublished, which he wrote to Kléber from Thebes, on the 20th
+Vendémiaire, in the year VII. No public act, in which mention is made of
+this great literary monument, is of an earlier date. The Institute of
+Cairo having adopted the project of a _work upon Egypt_ as early as the
+month of Frimaire, in the year VIII., confided to Fourier the task of
+uniting together the scattered elements of it, of making them consistent
+with each other, and drawing up the general introduction.
+
+This introduction was published under the title of _Historical Preface_:
+Fontanes saw in it the graces of Athens and the wisdom of Egypt united
+together. What could I add to such an eulogium? I shall say only that
+there are to be found there, in a few pages, the principal features of
+the government of the Pharaohs, and the results of the subjection of
+ancient Egypt by the kings of Persia, the Ptolemies, the successors of
+Augustus, the emperors of Byzantium, the first Caliphs, the celebrated
+Saladin, the Mamelukes and the Ottoman princes. The different phases of
+our adventurous expedition are there characterized with the greatest
+care. Fourier carries his scruples to so great a length as _to attempt_
+to prove that it was just. I have said only so far as _to attempt_, for
+in that case there might have been something to deduct from the second
+part of the eulogium of Fontanes. If, in 1797, our countryman
+experienced at Cairo, or at Alexandria, outrages and extortions which
+the Grand Seignior either would not or could not repress, one may in all
+rigour admit that France ought to have exacted justice to herself; that
+she had the right to send a powerful army to bring the Turkish
+Custom-house officers to reason. But this is far from maintaining that
+the divan of Constantinople ought to have favoured the French
+expedition; that our conquest was about to restore to him, _in some
+sort_, Egypt and Syria; that the capture of Alexandria and the battle of
+the _Pyramids would enhance the lustre of the Ottoman name_! However,
+the public hastened to acquit Fourier of what appears hazarded in this
+small part of his beautiful work. The origin of it has been sought for
+in political exigencies. Let us be brief; behind certain sophisms the
+hand of the original Commander-in-Chief of the army of the East was
+suspected to be seen!
+
+Napoleon, then, would appear to have participated by his instructions,
+by his counsels, or, if we choose, by his imperative orders, in the
+composition of the essay of Fourier. What was not long ago nothing more
+than a plausible conjecture, has now become an incontestable fact.
+Thanks to the courtesy of M. Champollion-Figeac, I held in my hands,
+within the last few days, some parts of the first _proof sheets_ of the
+historical preface. These proofs were sent to the Emperor, who wished to
+make himself acquainted with them at leisure before reading them with
+Fourier. They are covered with marginal notes, and the additions which
+they have occasioned amount to almost a third of the original discourse.
+Upon these pages, as in the definitive work given to the public, one
+remarks a complete absence of proper names; the only exception is in the
+case of the three Generals-in-Chief. Thus Fourier had imposed upon
+himself the reserve which certain vanities have blamed so severely. I
+shall add that nowhere throughout the precious proof sheets of M.
+Champollion do we perceive traces of the miserable feelings of jealousy
+which have been attributed to Napoleon. It is true that upon pointing
+out with his finger the word illustrious applied to Kléber, the Emperor
+said to our colleague: "SOME ONE has directed my attention to
+THIS EPITHET;" but, after a short pause, he added, "it is
+desirable that you should leave it, for it is just and well deserved."
+These words, Gentlemen, honoured the monarch still less than they
+branded with disgrace the _some one_ whom I regret not being able to
+designate in more definite terms,--one of those vile courtiers whose
+whole life is occupied in spying out the frailties, the evil passions of
+their masters, in order to make them subservient in conducting
+themselves to honours and fortune!
+
+
+
+
+FOURIER PREFECT OF L'ISÈRE.
+
+Fourier had no sooner returned to Europe, than he was named (January 2,
+1802) Prefect of the Department of l'Isère. The Ancient Dauphiny was
+then a prey to ardent political dissensions. The republicans, the
+partisans of the emigrants, those who had ranged themselves under the
+banners of the consular government, formed so many distinct castes,
+between whom all reconciliation appeared impossible. Well, Gentlemen,
+this impossibility Fourier achieved. His first care was to cause the
+Hôtel of the Prefecture to be considered as a neutral ground, where each
+might show himself without even the appearance of a concession.
+Curiosity alone at first brought the people there, but the people
+returned; for in France they seldom desert the saloons wherein are to be
+found a polished and benevolent host, witty without being ridiculous,
+and learned without being pedantic. What had been divulged of the
+opinions of our colleague, respecting the anti-biblican antiquity of the
+Egyptian monuments, inspired the religious classes especially with
+lively apprehensions; they were very adroitly informed that the new
+prefect counted a _Saint_ in his family; that the _blessed_ Pierre
+Fourier, who established the religious sisters of the congregation of
+Notre-Dame, was his grand uncle, and this circumstance effected a
+reconciliation which the unalterable respect of the first magistrate of
+Grenoble for all conscientious opinions cemented every day more and
+more.
+
+As soon as he was assured of a truce with the political and religious
+parties, Fourier was enabled to devote himself exclusively to the duties
+of his office. These duties did not consist with him in heaping up old
+papers to no advantage. He took personal cognizance of the projects
+which were submitted to him; he was the indefatigable promoter of all
+those which narrow-minded persons sought to stifle in their birth; we
+may include in this last class, the superb road from Grenoble to Turin
+by Mount Genèvre, which the events of 1814 have so unfortunately
+interrupted, and especially the drainage of the marshes of Bourgoin.
+
+These marshes, which Louis XIV. had given to Marshal Turenne, were a
+focus of infection to the thirty-seven communes, the lands of which were
+partially covered by them. Fourier directed personally the topographic
+operations which established the possibility of drainage. With these
+documents in his hand he went from village to village, I might almost
+say from house to house, to fix the sacrifice which each family ought to
+impose upon itself for the general interest. By tact and perseverance,
+taking "the _ear of corn always in the right direction_," thirty-seven
+municipal councils were induced to contribute to a common fund, without
+which the projected operation would not even have been commenced.
+Success crowned this rare perseverance. Rich harvests, fat pastures,
+numerous flocks, a robust and happy population now covered an immense
+territory, where formerly the traveller dared not remain more than a few
+hours.
+
+One of the predecessors of Fourier, in the situation of perpetual
+secretary of the Academy of Sciences, deemed it his duty, on one
+occasion, to beg an excuse for having given a detailed account of
+certain researches of Leibnitz, which had not required great efforts of
+the intellect: "We ought," says he, "to be very much obliged to a man
+such as he is, when he condescends, for the public good, to do something
+which does not partake of genius!" I cannot conceive the ground of such
+scruples; in the present day, the sciences are regarded from too high a
+point of view, that we should hesitate in placing in the first rank of
+the labours with which they are adorned, those which diffuse comfort,
+health, and happiness amidst the working population.
+
+In presence of a part of the Academy of Inscriptions, in an apartment
+wherein the name of hieroglyph has so often resounded, I cannot refrain
+from alluding to the service which Fourier rendered to science by
+retaining Champollion. The young professor of history of the Faculty of
+Letters of Grenoble had just attained the twentieth year of his age.
+Fate calls him to shoulder the musket. Fourier exempts him by investing
+him with the title of pupil of the School of Oriental Languages which he
+had borne at Paris. The Minister of War learns that the pupil formerly
+gave in his resignation; he denounces the fraud, and dispatches a
+peremptory order for his departure, which seems even to exclude all idea
+of remonstrance. Fourier, however, is not discouraged; his intercessions
+are skilful and of a pressing nature; finally, he draws so animated a
+portrait of the precocious talent of _his young friend_, that he
+succeeds in wringing from the government an order of special exemption.
+It was not easy, Gentlemen, to obtain such success. At the same time, a
+conscript, a _member of our Academy_, succeeded in obtaining a
+revocation of his order for departure only by declaring that he would
+follow on foot, in the costume of the Institute, the contingent of the
+arrondissement of Paris in which he was classed.
+
+
+
+
+MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF HEAT.
+
+The administrative duties of the prefect of l'Isère hardly interrupted
+the labours of the geometer and the man of letters. It is from Grenoble
+that the principal writings of Fourier are dated; it was at Grenoble
+that he composed the _Théorie Mathématique de la Chaleur_, which forms
+his principal title to the gratitude of the scientific world.
+
+I am far from being unconscious of the difficulty of analyzing that
+admirable work, and yet I shall attempt to point out the successive
+steps which he has achieved in the advancement of science. You will
+listen to me, Gentlemen, with indulgence, notwithstanding several minute
+details which I shall have to recount, since I thereby fulfil the
+mission with which you have honoured me.
+
+The ancients had a taste, let us say rather a passion, for the
+marvellous, which caused them to forget even the sacred duties of
+gratitude. Observe them, for example, grouping together the lofty deeds
+of a great number of heroes, whose names they have not even deigned to
+preserve, and investing the single personage of Hercules with them. The
+lapse of ages has not rendered us wiser in this respect. In our own time
+the public delight in blending fable with history. In every career of
+life, in the pursuit of science especially, they enjoy a pleasure in
+creating Herculeses. According to vulgar opinion, there is no
+astronomical discovery which is not due to Herschel. The theory of the
+planetary movements is identified with the name of Laplace; hardly is a
+passing allusion made to the eminent labours of D'Alembert, of Clairaut,
+of Euler, of Lagrange. Watt is the sole inventor of the steam-engine.
+Chaptal has enriched the arts of Chemistry with the totality of the
+fertile and ingenious processes which constitute their prosperity. Even
+within this apartment has not an eloquent voice lately asserted, that
+before Fourier the phenomenon of heat was hardly studied; that the
+celebrated geometer had alone made more observations than all his
+predecessors put together; that he had with almost a single effort
+invented a new science.
+
+Although he runs the risk of being less lively, the organ of the Academy
+of Sciences cannot permit himself such bursts of enthusiasm. He ought to
+bear in mind, that the object of these solemnities is not merely to
+celebrate the discoveries of academicians; that they are also designed
+to encourage modest merit; that an observer forgotten by his
+contemporaries, is frequently supported in his laborious researches by
+the thought that he will obtain a benevolent look from posterity. Let us
+act, so far as it depends upon us, in such a manner that a hope so just,
+so natural, may not be frustrated. Let us award a just, a brilliant
+homage to those rare men whom nature has endowed with the precious
+privilege of arranging a thousand isolated facts, of making seductive
+theories spring from them; but let us not forget to state, that the
+scythe of the reaper had cut the stalks before one had thought of
+uniting them into sheaves!
+
+Heat presents itself in natural phenomena, and in those which are the
+products of art under two entirely distinct forms, which Fourier has
+separately considered. I shall adopt the same division, commencing
+however with radiant heat, the historical analysis which I am about to
+submit to you.
+
+Nobody doubts that there is a physical distinction which is eminently
+worthy of being studied between the ball of iron at the ordinary
+temperature which may be handled at pleasure, and the ball of iron of
+the same dimensions which the flame of a furnace has very much heated,
+and which we cannot touch without burning ourselves. This distinction,
+according to the majority of physical inquirers, arises from a certain
+quantity of an elastic imponderable fluid, or at least a fluid which has
+not been weighed, with which the second ball has combined during the
+process of heating. The fluid which, upon combining with cold bodies
+renders them hot, has been designated by the name of _heat_ or
+_caloric_.
+
+Bodies unequally heated act upon each other _even at great distances,
+even through empty space_, for the colder becomes more hot, and the
+hotter becomes more cold; for after a certain time they indicate the
+same degree of the thermometer, whatever may have been the difference of
+their original temperatures. According to the hypotheses above
+explained, there is but one way of conceiving this action at a distance;
+this is to suppose that it operates by the aid of certain effluvia which
+traverse space by passing from the hot body to the cold body; that is,
+to admit that a hot body emits in every direction rays of heat, as
+luminous bodies emit rays of light.
+
+The effluvia, the radiating emanations by the aid of which two distant
+bodies form a calorific communication with each other, have been very
+appropriately designated by the name of _radiating caloric_.
+
+Whatever may be said to the contrary, radiating heat had already been
+the object of important experiments before Fourier undertook his
+labours. The celebrated academicians of the _Cimento_ found, nearly two
+centuries ago, that this heat is reflected like light; that, as in the
+case of light, a concave mirror concentrates it at the focus. Upon
+substituting balls of snow for heated bodies, they even went so far as
+to prove that frigorific foci may be formed by way of reflection. Some
+years afterwards Mariotte, a member of this Academy, discovered that
+there exist different kinds of radiating heat; that the heat with which
+rays of light are accompanied traverses all transparent media as easily
+as light does; while, again, the caloric which emanates from a strongly
+heated, but opaque substance, while the rays of heat, which are found
+mingled with the luminous rays of a body moderately incandescent, are
+almost entirely arrested in their passage through the most transparent
+plate of glass!
+
+This striking discovery, let us remark in passing, will show,
+notwithstanding the ridicule of pretended savans, how happily inspired
+were the workmen in founderies, who looked at the incandescent matter of
+their furnaces, only through a plate of ordinary glass, thinking by the
+aid of this artifice to arrest the heat which would have burned their
+eyes.
+
+In the experimental sciences, the epochs of the most brilliant progress
+are almost always separated by long intervals of almost absolute repose.
+Thus, after Mariotte, there elapsed more than a century without history
+having to record any new property of radiating heat. Then, in close
+succession, we find in the solar light obscure calorific rays, the
+existence of which could admit of being established only with the
+thermometer, and which may be completely separated from luminous rays by
+the aid of the prism; we discover, by the aid of terrestrial bodies,
+that the emission of caloric rays, and consequently the cooling of those
+bodies, is considerably retarded by the polish of the surfaces; that the
+colour, the nature, and the thickness of the outer coating of these
+same surfaces, exercise also a manifest influence upon their emissive
+power. Experience, finally, rectifying the vague predictions to which
+the most enlightened minds abandon themselves with so little reserve,
+shows that the calorific rays which emanate from the plane surface of a
+heated body have not the same force, the same intensity in all
+directions; that the _maximum_ corresponds to the perpendicular
+emission, and the _minimum_ to the emissions parallel to the surface.
+
+Between these two extreme positions, how does the diminution of the
+emissive power operate? Leslie first sought the solution of this
+important question. His observations seem to show that the intensities
+of the radiating rays are proportional (it is necessary, Gentlemen, that
+I employ the scientific expression) to the sines of the angles which
+these rays form with the heated surface. But the quantities upon which
+the experimenter had to operate were too feeble; the uncertainties of
+the thermometric estimations compared with the total effect were, on the
+contrary, too great not to inspire a strong degree of distrust: well,
+Gentlemen, a problem before which all the processes, all the instruments
+of modern physics have remained powerless, Fourier has completely solved
+without the necessity of having recourse to any new experiment. He has
+traced the law of the emission of caloric sought for, with a perspicuity
+which one cannot sufficiently admire, in the most ordinary phenomena of
+temperature, in the phenomena which at first sight appeared to be
+entirely independent of it.
+
+Such is the privilege of genius; it perceives, it seizes relations where
+vulgar eyes see only isolated facts.
+
+Nobody doubts, and besides experiment has confirmed the fact, that in
+all the points of a space terminated by any envelop maintained at a
+constant temperature, we ought also to experience a constant
+temperature, and precisely that of the envelop. Now Fourier has
+established, that if the calorific rays emitted were equally intense in
+all directions, if the intensity did not vary proportionally to the sine
+of the angle of emission, the temperature of a body situated in the
+enclosure would depend on the place which it would occupy there: _that
+the temperature of boiling water or of melting iron, for example, would
+exist in certain points of a hollow envelop of glass!_ In all the vast
+domain of the physical sciences, we should be unable to find a more
+striking application of the celebrated method of the _reductio ad
+absurdum_ of which the ancient mathematicians made use, in order to
+demonstrate the abstract truths of geometry.
+
+I shall not quit this first part of the labours of Fourier without
+adding, that he has not contented himself with demonstrating with so
+much felicity the remarkable law which connects the comparative
+intensities of the calorific rays, emanating under all angles from
+heated bodies; he has sought, moreover, the physical cause of this law,
+and he has found it in a circumstance which his predecessors had
+entirely neglected. Let us suppose, says he, that bodies emit heat not
+only from the molecules of their surfaces, but also from the particles
+in the interior. Let us suppose, moreover, that the heat of these latter
+particles cannot arrive at the surface by traversing a certain thickness
+of matter without undergoing some degree of absorption. Fourier has
+reduced these two hypotheses to calculation, and he has hence deduced
+mathematically the experimental law of the sines. After having resisted
+so radical a test, the two hypotheses were found to be completely
+verified, they have become laws of nature; they point out latent
+properties of caloric which could only be discerned by the eye of the
+intellect.
+
+In the second question treated by Fourier, heat presents itself under a
+new form. There is more difficulty in following its movements; but the
+conclusions deducible from the theory are also more general and more
+important.
+
+Heat excited, concentrated into a certain point of a solid body,
+communicates itself by way of conduction, first to the particles nearest
+the heated point, then gradually to all the regions of the body. Whence
+the problem of which the following is the enunciation.
+
+By what routes, and with what velocities, is the propagation of heat
+effected in bodies of different forms and different natures subjected to
+certain initial conditions?
+
+Fundamentally, the Academy of Sciences had already proposed this problem
+as the subject of a prize as early as the year 1736. Then the terms heat
+and caloric were not in use; it demanded _the study of nature, and the
+propagation_ OF FIRE! The word _fire_, thrown thus into the
+programme without any other explanation, gave rise to a mistake of the
+most singular kind. The majority of philosophers imagined that the
+question was to explain in what way _burning_ communicates itself, and
+increases in a mass of combustible matter. Fifteen competitors presented
+themselves; _three_ were crowned.
+
+This competition was productive of very meagre results. However, a
+singular combination of circumstances and of proper names will render
+the recollection of it lasting.
+
+Has not the public a right to be surprised upon reading this Academic
+declaration: "the question affords no handle to geometry!" In matter of
+inventions, to attempt to dive into the future, is to prepare for one's
+self striking mistakes. One of the competitors, the great Euler, took
+these words in their literal sense; the reveries with which his memoir
+abounds, are not compensated in this instance by any of those brilliant
+discoveries in analysis, I had almost said of those sublime
+inspirations, which were so familiar to him. Fortunately Euler appended
+to his memoir a supplement truly worthy of his genius. Father Lozeran de
+Fiesc and the Count of Créqui were rewarded with the high honour of
+seeing their names inscribed beside that of the illustrious geometer,
+although it would be impossible in the present day to discern in their
+memoirs any kind of merit, not even that of politeness, for the courtier
+said rudely to the Academy: "the question, which you have raised,
+interests only the curiosity of mankind."
+
+Among the competitors less favourably treated, we perceive one of the
+greatest writers whom France has produced; the author of the _Henriade_.
+The memoir of Voltaire was, no doubt, far from solving the problem
+proposed; but it was at least distinguished by elegance, clearness, and
+precision of language; I shall add, by a severe style of argument; for
+if the author occasionally arrives at questionable results, it is only
+when he borrows false data from the chemistry and physics of the
+epoch,--sciences which had just sprung into existence. Moreover, the
+anti-Cartesian colour of some of the parts of the memoir of Voltaire was
+calculated to find little favour in a society, where Cartesianism, with
+its incomprehensible vortices, was everywhere held in high estimation.
+
+We should have more difficulty in discovering the causes of the failure
+of a fourth competitor, Madame the Marchioness du Châtelet, for she also
+entered into the contest instituted by the Academy. The work of Emilia
+was not only an elegant portrait of all the properties of heat, known
+then to physical inquirers, there were remarked moreover in it,
+different projects of experiments, among the rest one which Herschel has
+since developed, and from which he has derived one of the principal
+flowers of his brilliant scientific crown.
+
+While such great names were occupied in discussing this question,
+physical inquirers of a less ambitious stamp laid experimentally the
+solid basis of a future mathematical theory of heat. Some established,
+that the same quantity of caloric does not elevate by the same number of
+degrees equal weights of different substances, and thereby introduced
+into the science the important notion of _capacity_. Others, by the aid
+of observations no less certain, proved that heat, applied at the
+extremity of a bar, is transmitted to the extreme parts with greater or
+less velocity or intensity, according to the nature of the substance of
+which the bar is composed; thus they suggested the original idea of
+_conductibility_. The same epoch, if I were not precluded from entering
+into too minute details, would present to us interesting experiments. We
+should find that it is not true that, at all degrees of the thermometer,
+the loss of heat of a body is proportional to the excess of its
+temperature above that of the medium in which it is plunged; but I have
+been desirous of showing you geometry penetrating, timidly at first,
+into questions of the propagation of heat, and depositing there the
+first germs of its fertile methods.
+
+It is to Lambert of Mulhouse, that we owe this first step. This
+ingenious geometer had proposed a very simple problem which any person
+may comprehend. A slender metallic bar is exposed at one of its
+extremities to the constant action of a certain focus of heat. The parts
+nearest the focus are heated first. Gradually the heat communicates
+itself to the more distant parts, and, after a short time, each point
+acquires the maximum temperature which it can ever attain. Although the
+experiment were to last a hundred years, the thermometric state of the
+bar would not undergo any modification.
+
+As might be reasonably expected, this maximum of heat is so much less
+considerable as we recede from the focus. Is there any relation between
+the final temperatures and the distances of the different particles of
+the bar from the extremity directly heated? Such a relation exists. It
+is very simple. Lambert investigated it by calculation, and experience
+confirmed the results of theory.
+
+In addition to the somewhat elementary question of the _longitudinal_
+propagation of heat, there offered itself the more general but much more
+difficult problem of the propagation of heat in a body of three
+dimensions terminated by any surface whatever. This problem demanded the
+aid of the higher analysis. It was Fourier who first assigned the
+equations. It is to Fourier, also, that we owe certain theorems, by
+means of which we may ascend from the differential equations to the
+integrals, and push the solutions in the majority of cases to the final
+numerical applications.
+
+The first memoir of Fourier on the theory of heat dates from the year
+1807. The Academy, to which it was communicated, being desirous of
+inducing the author to extend and improve his researches, made the
+question of the propagation of heat the subject of the great
+mathematical prize which was to be awarded in the beginning of the year
+1812. Fourier did, in effect, compete, and his memoir was crowned. But,
+alas! as Fontenelle said: "In the country even of demonstrations, there
+are to be found causes of dissension." Some restrictions mingled with
+the favourable judgment. The illustrious commissioners of the prize,
+Laplace, Lagrange, and Legendre, while acknowledging the novelty and
+importance of the subject, while declaring that the real differential
+equations of the propagation of heat were finally found, asserted that
+they perceived difficulties in the way in which the author arrived at
+them. They added, that his processes of integration left something to be
+desired, even on the score of rigour. They did not, however, support
+their opinion by any arguments.
+
+Fourier never admitted the validity of this decision. Even at the close
+of his life he gave unmistakable evidence that he thought it unjust, by
+causing his memoir to be printed in our volumes without changing a
+single word. Still, the doubts expressed by the Commissioners of the
+Academy reverted incessantly to his recollection. From the very
+beginning they had poisoned the pleasure of his triumph. These first
+impressions, added to a high susceptibility, explain how Fourier ended
+by regarding with a certain degree of displeasure the efforts of those
+geometers who endeavoured to improve his theory. This, Gentlemen, was a
+very strange aberration of a mind of so elevated an order! Our colleague
+had almost forgotten that it is not allotted to any person to conduct a
+scientific question to a definitive termination, and that the important
+labours of D'Alembert, Clairaut, Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace, while
+immortalizing their authors, have continually added new lustre to the
+imperishable glory of Newton. Let us act so that this example may not be
+lost. While the civil law imposes upon the tribunes the obligation to
+assign the motives of _their judgments_, the academies, which are the
+tribunes of science, cannot have even a pretext to escape from this
+obligation. Corporate bodies, as well as individuals, act wisely when
+they reckon in every instance only upon the authority of reason.
+
+
+
+
+CENTRAL HEAT OF THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE.
+
+At any time the _Théorie Mathématique de la Chaleur_ would have excited
+a lively interest among men of reflection, since, upon the supposition
+of its being complete, it threw light upon the most minute processes of
+the arts. In our time the numerous points of affinity existing between
+it and the curious discoveries of the geologists, have made it, if I may
+use the expression, a work for the occasion. To point out the ultimate
+relation which exists between these two kinds of researches would be to
+present the most important part of the discoveries of Fourier, and to
+show how happily our colleague, by one of those inspirations reserved
+for genius, had chosen the subject of his researches.
+
+The parts of the earth's crust, which the geologists call the
+sedimentary formations, were not formed all at once. The waters of the
+ocean, on several former occasions, covered regions which are situated
+in the present day in the centre of the continent. There they deposited,
+in thin horizontal strata, a series of rocks of different kinds. These
+rocks, although superposed like the layers of stones of a wall, must not
+be confounded together; their dissimilarities are palpable to the least
+practised eye. It is necessary also to note this capital fact, that
+each stratum has a well-defined limit; that no process of transition
+connects it with the stratum which it supports. The ocean, the original
+source of all these deposits, underwent then formerly enormous changes
+in its chemical composition to which it is no longer subject.
+
+With some rare exceptions, resulting from local convulsions the effects
+of which are otherwise manifest, the order of antiquity of the
+successive strata of rocks which form the exterior crust of the globe
+ought to be that of their superposition. The deepest have been formed at
+the most remote epochs. The attentive study of these different envelops
+may aid us in ascending the stream of time, even beyond the most remote
+epochs, and enlightening us with respect to those stupendous revolutions
+which periodically overwhelmed continents beneath the waters of the
+ocean, or again restored them to their former condition. Crystalline
+rocks of granite upon which the sea has effected its original deposits
+have never exhibited any remains of life. Traces of such are to be found
+only in the sedimentary strata.
+
+Life appears to have first exhibited itself on the earth in the form of
+vegetables. The remains of vegetables are all that we meet with in the
+most ancient strata deposited by the waters; still, they belong to
+plants of the simplest structure,--to ferns, to species of rushes, to
+lycopodes.
+
+As we ascend into the upper strata, vegetation becomes more and more
+complex. Finally, near the surface, it resembles the vegetation actually
+existing on the earth, with this characteristic circumstance, however,
+which is well deserving attention, that certain vegetables which grow
+only in southern climates, that the large palm-trees, for example, are
+found in their fossil state in all latitudes, and even in the centre of
+the frozen regions of Siberia.
+
+In the primitive world, these northern regions enjoyed then, in winter,
+a temperature at least equal to that which is experienced in the present
+day under the parallels where the great palms commence to appear: at
+Tobolsk, the inhabitants enjoyed the climate of Alicante or Algiers!
+
+We shall deduce new proofs of this mysterious result from an attentive
+examination of the size of plants.
+
+There exist, in the present day, willow grass or marshy rushes, ferns,
+and lycopodes, in Europe as well as in the tropical regions; but they
+are not met with in large dimensions, except in warm countries. Thus, to
+compare together the dimensions of the same plants is, in reality, to
+compare, in respect to temperature, the regions where they are produced.
+Well, place beside the fossil plants of our coal mines, I will not say
+the analogous plants of Europe, but those which grow in the countries of
+South America, and which are most celebrated for the richness of their
+vegetation, and you will find the former to be of incomparably greater
+dimensions than the latter.
+
+The _fossil flora_ of France, England, Germany, and Scandinavia offer,
+for example, ferns ninety feet high, the stalks being six feet in
+diameter, or eighteen feet in circumference.
+
+The _lycopodes_ which, in the present day, whether in cold or temperate
+climates, are creeping-plants rising hardly to the height of a decimètre
+above the soil; which even at the equator, under the most favourable
+circumstances, do not attain a height of more than _one_ mètre, had in
+Europe, in the primitive world, an altitude of twenty-five mètres.
+
+One must be blind to all reason not to find, in these enormous
+dimensions, a new proof of the high temperature enjoyed by our country
+before the last irruptions of the ocean!
+
+The study of _fossil animals_ is no less fertile in results. I should
+digress from my subject if I were to examine here how the organization
+of animals is developed upon the earth; what modifications, or more
+strictly speaking, what complications it has undergone after each
+cataclysm, or if I even stopped to describe one of those ancient epochs
+during which the earth, the sea, and the atmosphere had for inhabitants
+cold-blooded reptiles of enormous dimensions; tortoises with shells
+three feet in diameter; lizards seventeen mètres long; pterodactyles,
+veritable flying dragons of such strange forms, that they might be
+classed on good grounds either among reptiles, among mammiferous
+animals, or among birds. The object, which I have proposed, does not
+require that I should enter into such details; a single remark will
+suffice.
+
+Among the bones contained in the strata nearest the present surface of
+the earth, are those of the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, and the
+elephant. These remains of animals of warm countries are to be found in
+all latitudes. Travellers have discovered specimens of them even at
+Melville Island, where the temperature descends, in the present day, 50°
+beneath zero. In Siberia they are found in such abundance as to have
+become an article of commerce. Finally, upon the rocky shores of the
+Arctic Ocean, there are to be found not merely fragments of skeletons,
+but whole elephants still covered with their flesh and skin.
+
+I should deceive myself very much, Gentlemen, if I were to suppose that
+each of you had not deduced from these remarkable facts a conclusion no
+less remarkable, to which indeed the fossil flora had already habituated
+us; namely, that as they have grown older, the polar regions of the
+earth have cooled down to a prodigious extent.
+
+In the explanation of so curious a phenomenon, cosmologists have not
+taken into account the existence of possible variations of the intensity
+of the solar heat; and yet the stars, those distant suns, have not the
+constant brightness which the common people attribute to them. Nay, some
+of them have been observed to diminish in a sufficiently short space of
+time to the hundredth part of their original brightness; and several
+have even totally disappeared. They have preferred to attribute every
+thing to an internal or primitive heat with which the earth was at some
+former epoch impregnated, and which is gradually being dissipated in
+space.
+
+Upon this hypothesis the inhabitants of the polar regions, although
+deprived of the sight of the sun for whole months together, must have
+evidently enjoyed, at very ancient epochs, a temperature equal to that
+of the tropical regions, wherein exist elephants in the present day.
+
+It is not, however, as an explanation of the existence of elephants in
+Siberia, that the idea of the intrinsic heat of the globe has entered
+for the first time into science. Some savans had adopted it before the
+discovery of those fossil animals. Thus, Descartes was of opinion that
+originally (I cite his own words,) _the earth did not differ from the
+sun in any other respect than in being smaller_. Upon this hypothesis,
+then, it ought to be considered as an extinct sun.
+
+Leibnitz conferred upon this hypothesis the honour of appropriating it
+to himself. He attempted to deduce from it the mode of formation of the
+different solid envelopes of which the earth consists. Buffon, also,
+imparted to it the weight of his eloquent authority. According to that
+great naturalist, the planets of our system are merely portions of the
+sun, which the shock of a comet had detached from it some tens of
+thousands of years ago.
+
+In support of this igneous origin of the earth, Mairan and Buffon cited
+already the high temperature of deep mines, and, among others, those of
+the mines of Giromagny. It appears evident that if the earth was
+formerly incandescent, we should not fail to meet in the interior
+strata, that is to say, in those which ought to have cooled last, traces
+of their primitive temperature. The observer who, upon penetrating into
+the interior of the earth, did not find an increasing heat, might then
+consider himself amply authorized to reject the hypothetical conceptions
+of Descartes, of Mairan, of Leibnitz, and of Buffon. But has the
+converse proposition the same certainty? Would not the torrents of heat,
+which the sun has continued incessantly to launch for so many ages, have
+diffused themselves into the mass of the earth, so as to produce there a
+temperature increasing with the depth? This a question of high
+importance. Certain easily satisfied minds conscientiously supposed that
+they had solved it, when they stated that the idea of a constant
+temperature was by far the _most natural_; but woe to the sciences if
+they thus included vague considerations which escape all criticism,
+among the motives for admitting and rejecting facts and theories!
+Fontenelle, Gentlemen, would have traced their horoscope in these words,
+so well adapted for humbling our pride, and the truth of which the
+history of discoveries reveals in a thousand places: "When a thing may
+be in two different ways, it is almost always that which appears at
+first the least natural."
+
+Whatever importance these reflections may possess, I hasten to add that,
+instead of the arguments of his predecessors, which have no real value,
+Fourier has substituted proofs, demonstrations; and we know what meaning
+such terms convey to the Academy of Sciences.
+
+In all places of the earth, as soon as we descend to a certain depth,
+the thermometer no longer experiences either diurnal or annual
+variation. It marks the same degree, and the same fraction of a degree,
+from day to day, and from year to year. Such is the fact: what says
+theory?
+
+Let us suppose, for a moment, that the earth has constantly received all
+its heat from the sun. Descend into its mass to a sufficient depth, and
+you will find, with Fourier, by the aid of calculation, a constant
+temperature for each day of the year. You will recognize further, that
+this solar temperature of the inferior strata varies from one climate to
+another; that in each country, finally, it ought to be always the same,
+so long as we do not descend to depths which are too great relatively to
+the earth's radius.
+
+Well, the phenomena of nature stand in manifest contradiction to this
+result. The observations made in a multitude of mines, observations of
+the temperature of hot springs coming from different depths, have all
+given an increase of one degree of the centigrade for every twenty or
+thirty metres of depth. Thus, there was some inaccuracy in the
+hypothesis which we were discussing upon the footsteps of our colleague.
+It is not true that the temperature of the terrestrial strata may be
+attributed solely to the action of the solar rays.
+
+This being established, the increase of heat which is observed in all
+climates when we penetrate into the interior of the globe, is the
+manifest indication of an intrinsic heat. The earth, as Descartes and
+Leibnitz maintained it to be, but without being able to support their
+assertions by any demonstrative reasoning,--thanks to a combination of
+the observations of physical inquirers with the analytical calculations
+of Fourier,--is _an encrusted sun_, the high temperature of which may be
+boldly invoked every time that the explanation of ancient geological
+phenomena will require it.
+
+After having established that there is in our earth an inherent heat,--a
+heat the source of which is not the sun, and which, if we may judge of
+it by the rapid increase which observation indicates, ought to be
+already sufficiently intense at the depth of only seven or eight leagues
+to hold in fusion all known substances,--there arises the question, what
+is its precise value at the surface of the earth; what weight are we to
+attach to it in the determination of terrestrial temperatures; what part
+does it play in the phenomena of life?
+
+According to Mairan, Buffon, and Bailly, this part is immense. For
+France, they estimate the heat which escapes from the interior of the
+earth, at twenty-nine times in summer, and four hundred times in winter,
+the heat which comes to us from the sun. Thus, contrary to general
+opinion, the heat of the body which illuminates us would form only a
+very small part of that whose propitious influence we feel.
+
+This idea was developed with ability and great eloquence in the _Memoirs
+of the Academy_, in the _Epoques sur la Nature_ of Buffon, in the
+letters from Bailly to Voltaire _upon the Origin of the Sciences and
+upon the Atlantide_. But the ingenious romance to which it has served as
+a base, has vanished like a shadow before the torch of mathematical
+science.
+
+Fourier having discovered that the excess of the aggregate temperature
+of the earth's surface above that which would result from the sole
+action of the solar rays, has a determinate relation to the increase of
+temperature at different depths, succeeded in deducing from the
+experimental value of this increase a numerical determination of the
+excess in question. This excess is the thermometric effect which the
+solar heat produces at the surface; now, instead of the large numbers
+adopted by Mairan, Bailly, and Buffon, what has our colleague found? _A
+thirtieth_ of a degree, not more.
+
+The surface of the earth, which originally was perhaps incandescent, has
+cooled then in the course of ages, so as hardly to preserve any sensible
+trace of its primitive heat. However, at great depths, the original heat
+is still enormous. Time will alter sensibly the internal temperature;
+but at the surface (and the phenomena of the surface can alone modify or
+compromise the existence of living beings), all the changes are almost
+accomplished. The frightful freezing of the earth, the epoch of which
+Buffon fixed at the instant when the central heat would be totally
+dissipated, is then a pure dream. At the surface, the earth is no longer
+impregnated except by the solar heat. So long as the sun shall continue
+to preserve the same brightness, mankind will find, from pole to pole,
+under each latitude, the climates which have permitted them to live and
+to establish their residence. These, Gentlemen, are great, magnificent
+results. While recording them in the annals of science, historians will
+not neglect to draw attention to this singular peculiarity: that the
+geometer to whom we owe the first certain demonstration of the existence
+of a heat independent of a solar influence in the interior of the earth,
+has annihilated the immense part which this primitive heat was made to
+play in the explanation of the phenomena of terrestrial temperature.
+
+Besides divesting the theory of climates of an error which occupied a
+prominent place in science, supported as it was by the imposing
+authority of Mairan, of Bailly, and of Buffon, Fourier is entitled to
+the merit of a still more striking achievement: he has introduced into
+this theory a consideration which hitherto had been totally neglected;
+he has pointed out the influence exercised by the _temperature of the
+celestial regions_, amid which the hearth describes its immense orb
+around the sun.
+
+When we perceive, even under the equator, certain mountains covered with
+eternal snow, upon observing the rapid diminution of temperature which
+the strata of the atmosphere undergo during ascents in balloons,
+meteorologists have supposed, that in the regions wherein the extreme
+rarity of the air will always exclude the presence of mankind, and that
+especially beyond the limits of the atmosphere, there ought to prevail a
+prodigious intensity of cold. It was not merely by hundreds, it was by
+thousands of degrees, that they had arbitrarily measured it. But, as
+usual, the imagination (_cette folie de la maison_) had exceeded all
+reasonable limits. The hundreds, the tens of thousands of degrees, have
+dwindled down, after the rigorous researches of Fourier, to fifty or
+sixty degrees only. Fifty or sixty degrees _beneath zero_, such is the
+temperature which the radiation of heat from the stars has established
+in the regions furrowed indefinitely by the planets of our system.
+
+You recollect, Gentlemen, with what delight Fourier used to converse on
+this subject. You know well that he thought himself sure of having
+assigned the temperature of space within eight or ten degrees. By what
+fatality has it happened that the memoir, wherein no doubt our colleague
+had recorded all the elements of that important determination, is not to
+be found? May that irreparable loss prove at least to so many observers,
+that instead of pursuing obstinately an ideal perfection, which it is
+not allotted to man to attain, they will act wisely in placing the
+public, as soon as possible, in the confidence of their labours.
+
+I should have yet a long course to pursue, if, after having pointed out
+some of those problems of which the condition of science enabled our
+learned colleague to give numerical solutions, I were to analyze all
+those which, still enveloped in general formulæ, await merely the data
+of experience to assume a place among the most curious acquisitions of
+modern physics. Time, which is not at my disposal, precludes me from
+dwelling upon such developments. I should be guilty, however, of an
+unpardonable omission, if I did not state that, among the formulas of
+Fourier, there is one which serves to assign the value of the secular
+cooling of the earth, and in which there is involved the number of
+centuries which have elapsed since the origin of this cooling. The
+question of the antiquity of the earth, including even the period of
+incandescence, which has been so keenly discussed, is thus reduced to a
+thermometric determination. Unfortunately this point of theory is
+subject to serious difficulties. Besides, the thermometric
+determination, in consequence of its excessive smallness, must be
+reserved for future ages.
+
+
+
+
+RETURN OF NAPOLEON FROM ELBA.--FOURIER PREFECT OF THE RHONE.--HIS
+NOMINATION TO THE OFFICE OF DIRECTOR OF THE BOARD OF STATISTICS OF THE
+SEINE.
+
+I have just exhibited to you the scientific fruits of the leisure hours
+of the Prefect of l'Isère. Fourier still occupied this situation when
+Napoleon arrived at Cannes. His conduct during this grave conjuncture
+has been the object of a hundred false rumours. I shall then discharge a
+duty by establishing the facts in all their truth, according to what I
+have heard from our colleague's own mouth.
+
+Upon the news of the Emperor having disembarked, the principal
+authorities of Grenoble assembled at the residence of the Prefect. There
+each individual explained ably, but especially, said Fourier, with much
+detail, the difficulties which he perceived. As regards the means of
+vanquishing them, the authorities seemed to be much less inventive.
+Confidence in administrative eloquence was not yet worn out at that
+epoch; it was resolved accordingly to have recourse to proclamations.
+The commanding officer and the Prefect presented each a project. The
+assembly was discussing minutely the terms of them, when an officer of
+the gendarmes, an old soldier of the Imperial armies, exclaimed rudely,
+"Gentlemen, be quick, otherwise all deliberation will become useless.
+Believe me, I speak from experience; Napoleon always follows very
+closely the couriers who announce his arrival." Napoleon was in fact
+close at hand. After a short moment of hesitation, two companies of
+sappers which had been dispatched to cut down a bridge, joined their
+former commander. A battalion of infantry soon followed their example.
+Finally, upon the very glacis of the fortress, in presence of the
+numerous population which crowned the ramparts, the fifth regiment of
+the line to a man assumed the tricolour cockade, substituted for the
+white flag the eagle,--witness of twenty battles,--which it had
+preserved, and departed with shouts of _Vive l'Empereur!_ After such a
+commencement, to attempt to hold the country would have been an act of
+folly. General Marchand caused accordingly the gates of the city to be
+shut. He still hoped, notwithstanding the evidently hostile disposition
+of the inhabitants, to sustain a siege with the sole assistance of the
+third regiment of engineers, the fourth regiment of artillery, and some
+weak detachments of infantry, which had not abandoned him.
+
+From that moment, the civil authority had disappeared. Fourier thought
+then that he might quit Grenoble, and repair to Lyons, where the princes
+had assembled together. At the second restoration, this departure was
+imputed to him as a crime. He was very near being brought before a court
+of assizes, or even a provost's court. Certain personages pretended that
+the presence of the Prefect of the chief place of l'Isère might have
+conjured the storm; that the resistance might have been more animated,
+better arranged. People forgot that nowhere, and at Grenoble even less
+than anywhere else, was it possible to organize even a pretext of
+resistance. Let us see then, finally, how this martial city,--the fall
+of which Fourier might have prevented by his mere presence,--let us see
+how it was taken. It is eight o'clock in the evening. The inhabitants
+and the soldiers garrison the ramparts. Napoleon precedes his little
+troop by some steps; he advances even to the gate; he knocks (be not
+alarmed, Gentlemen, it is not a battle which I am about to describe,)
+_he knocks with his snuff-box!_ "Who is there?" cried the officer of the
+guard. "It is the Emperor! Open!"--"Sire, my duty forbids me."--"Open--I
+tell you; I have no time to lose."--"But, sire, even though I should
+open to you, I could not. The keys are in the possession of General
+Marchand."--"Go, then, and fetch them."--"I am certain that he will
+refuse them to me."--"If the General refuse them, _tell him that I will
+dismiss him_."
+
+These words petrified the soldiers. During the previous two days,
+hundreds of proclamations designated Bonaparte as a wild beast which it
+was necessary to seize without scruple; they ordered everybody to run
+away from him, and yet this man threatened the general with deprivation
+of his command! The single word _dismissal_, effaced the faint line of
+demarcation which separated for an instant the old soldiers from the
+young recruits; one word established the whole garrison in the interest
+of the emperor.
+
+The circumstances of the capture of Grenoble were not yet known when
+Fourier arrived at Lyons. He brought thither the news of the rapid
+advance of Napoleon; that of the revolt of two companies of sappers, of
+a regiment of infantry, and of the regiment commanded by Labédoyère.
+Moreover, he was a witness of the lively sympathy which the country
+people along the whole route displayed in favour of the proscribed exile
+of Elba.
+
+The Count d'Artois gave a very cold reception to the Prefect and his
+communications. He declared that the arrival of Napoleon at Grenoble was
+impossible; that no alarm need be apprehended respecting the disposition
+of the country people. "As regards the facts," said he to Fourier,
+"which would seem to have occurred in your presence at the very gates of
+the city, with respect to the tricoloured cockades substituted for the
+cockade of Henry IV., with respect to the eagles which you say have
+replaced the white flag, I do not suspect your good faith, but the
+uneasy state of your mind must have dazzled your eyes. Prefect, return
+then without delay to Grenoble; you will answer for the city with your
+head."
+
+You see, Gentlemen, after having so long proclaimed the necessity of
+telling the truth to princes, moralists will act wisely by inviting
+princes to be good enough to listen to its language.
+
+Fourier obeyed the order which had just been given him. The wheels of
+his carriage had made only a few revolutions in the direction of
+Grenoble, when he was arrested by hussars, and conducted to the
+head-quarters at Bourgoin. The Emperor, who was engaged in examining a
+large chart with a pair of compasses, said, upon seeing him enter:
+"Well, Prefect, you also have declared war against me?"--"Sire, my oath
+of allegiance made it my duty to do so!"--"A duty you say? and do you
+not see that in Dauphiny nobody is of the same mind? Do not imagine,
+however, that your plan of the campaign will frighten me much. It only
+grieved me to see among my enemies an _Egyptian_, a man who had eaten
+along with me the bread of the bivouac, an old friend!"
+
+It is painful to add that to those kind words succeeded these also:
+"How, moreover, could you have forgotten, Monsieur Fourier, that I have
+made you what you are?"
+
+You will regret with me, Gentlemen, that a timidity, which circumstances
+would otherwise easily explain, should have prevented our colleague from
+at once emphatically protesting against this confusion, which the
+powerful of the earth are constantly endeavouring to establish between
+the perishable bounties of which they are the dispensers, and the noble
+fruits of thought. Fourier was Prefect and Baron by the favour of the
+Emperor; he was one of the glories of France by his own genius!
+
+On the 9th of March, Napoleon, in a moment of anger, ordered Fourier, by
+a mandate, dated from Grenoble, _to quit the territory of the seventh
+military division within five days, under pain of being arrested and
+treated as an enemy of the country!_ On the following day, our colleague
+departed from the Conference of Bourgoin, with the appointment of
+Prefect of the Rhone and the title of _Count_, for the Emperor after his
+return from Elba was again at his old practices.
+
+These unexpected proofs of favour and confidence afforded little
+pleasure to our colleague, but he dared not refuse them, although he
+perceived very distinctly the immense gravity of the events in which he
+was led by the vicissitude of fortune to play a part.
+
+"What do you think of my enterprise?" said the Emperor to him on the day
+of his departure from Lyons. "Sire," replied Fourier, "I am of opinion
+that you will fail. Let but a fanatic meet you on your way, and all is
+at an end."--"Bah!" exclaimed Napoleon, "the Bourbons have nobody on
+their side, not even a fanatic. In connection with this circumstance,
+you have read in the journals that they have excluded me from the
+protection of the law. I shall be more indulgent on my part; I shall
+content myself with excluding them from the Tuileries."
+
+Fourier held the appointment of Prefect of the Rhone only till the 1st
+of May. It has been alleged that he was recalled, because he refused to
+be accessory to the deeds of terrorism which the minister of the hundred
+days enjoined him to execute. The Academy will always be pleased when I
+collect together, and place on record, actions which, while honouring
+its members, throw new lustre around the entire body. I even feel that,
+in such a case, I may be disposed to be somewhat credulous. On the
+present occasion, it was imperatively necessary to institute a most
+rigorous examination. If Fourier honoured himself by refusing to obey
+certain orders, what are we to think of the minister of the interior
+from whom those orders emanated? Now this minister, it must not be
+forgotten, was also an academician, illustrious by his military
+services, distinguished by his mathematical works, esteemed and
+cherished by all his colleagues. Well! I declare, Gentlemen, with a
+satisfaction which you will all share, that a most scrupulous
+investigation of all the acts of the hundred days has not disclosed a
+trace of anything which might detract from the feelings of admiration
+with which the memory of Carnot is associated in your minds.
+
+Upon quitting the Prefecture of the Rhone, Fourier repaired to Paris.
+The Emperor, who was then upon the eve of setting out to join the army,
+perceiving him amid the crowd at the Tuileries, accosted him in a
+friendly manner, informed him that Carnot would explain to him why his
+displacement at Lyons had become indispensable, and promised to attend
+to his interest as soon as military affairs would allow him some leisure
+time. The second restoration found Fourier in the capital without
+employment, and justly anxious with respect to the future. He, who,
+during a period of fifteen years, administered the affairs of a great
+department; who directed works of such an expensive nature; who, in the
+affair of the marshes of Bourgoin, had to contract engagements for so
+many millions, with private individuals, with the communes and with
+public companies, had not _twenty thousand francs_ in his possession.
+This honourable poverty, as well as the recollection of glorious and
+important services, was little calculated to make an impression upon
+ministers influenced by political passion, and subject to the capricious
+interference of foreigners. A demand for a pension was accordingly
+repelled with rudeness. Be reassured, however, France will not have to
+blush for having left in poverty one of her principal ornaments. The
+Prefect of Paris,--I have committed a mistake, Gentlemen, a proper name
+will not be out of place here,--M. Chabrol, learns that his old
+professor at the Polytechnic School, that the Perpetual Secretary of the
+Institute of Egypt, that the author of the _Théorie Analytique de la
+Chaleur_, was reduced, in order to obtain the means of living, to give
+private lessons at the residences of his pupils. The idea of this
+revolts him. He accordingly shows himself deaf to the clamours of party,
+and Fourier receives from him the superior direction of the _Bureau de
+la Statistique_ of the Seine, with a salary of 6,000 francs. It has
+appeared to me, Gentlemen, that I ought not to suppress these details.
+Science may show herself grateful towards all those who give her support
+and protection, when there is some danger in doing so, without fearing
+that the burden should ever become too heavy.
+
+Fourier responded worthily to the confidence reposed in him by M. de
+Chabrol. The memoirs with which he enriched the interesting volumes
+published by the Prefecture of the Seine, will serve henceforth as a
+guide to all those who have the good sense to see in statistics,
+something else than an indigestible mass of figures and tables.
+
+
+
+
+ENTRANCE OF FOURIER INTO THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.--HIS ELECTION TO THE
+OFFICE OF PERPETUAL SECRETARY.--HIS ADMISSION TO THE FRENCH ACADEMY.
+
+The Academy of Sciences seized the first occasion which offered itself
+to attach Fourier to its interests. On the 27th of May, 1816, he was
+nominated a free academician. This election was not confirmed. The
+solicitations and influence of the Dauphin whom circumstances detained
+at Paris, had almost disarmed the authorities, when a courtier exclaimed
+that an amnesty was to be granted to _the civil Labédoyère!_[41] This
+word,--for during many ages past the poor human race has been governed
+by words,--decided the fate of our colleague. Thanks to political
+intrigue, the ministers of Louis XVIII. decided that one of the most
+learned men of France should not belong to the Academy; that a citizen
+who enjoyed the friendship of all the most distinguished persons in the
+metropolis, should be publicly stricken with disapprobation!
+
+In our country, the reign of absurdity does not last long. Accordingly
+in 1817, when the Academy, without being discouraged by the ill success
+of its first attempt, unanimously nominated Fourier to the place which
+had just been vacant in the section of physics, the royal confirmation
+was accorded without difficulty. I ought to add that soon afterwards,
+the ruling authorities whose repugnances were entirely dissipated,
+frankly and unreservedly applauded the happy choice which you made of
+the learned geometer to replace Delambre as perpetual secretary. They
+even went so far as to offer him the Directorship of the Fine Arts; but
+our colleague had the good sense to refuse the appointment.
+
+Upon the death of Lémontey, the French Academy, where Laplace and Cuvier
+already represented the sciences, called also Fourier into its bosom.
+The literary titles of the most eloquent of the writers connected with
+the work on Egypt were incontestable; they even were not contested, and
+still this nomination excited violent discussions in the journals, which
+profoundly grieved our colleague. And yet after all, was it not a fit
+subject for discussion, whether, these double nominations are of any
+real utility? Might it not be maintained, without incurring the reproach
+of paradox, that it extinguishes in youth an emulation which we are
+bound by every consideration to encourage? Besides, with double, triple,
+and quadruple academicians, what would eventually become of the justly
+boasted unity of the Institute? Without insisting further on these
+remarks, the justness of which you will admit if I mistake not, I hasten
+to repeat that the academic titles of Fourier did not form even the
+subject of a doubt. The applause which was lavished upon the eloquent
+éloges of Delambre, of Bréguet, of Charles, and of Herschel, would
+sufficiently evince that, if their author had not been already one of
+the most distinguished members of the Academy of Sciences, the public
+would have invited him to assume a place among the judges of French
+literature.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[41] In allusion to the _military_ traitor Colonel Labédoyère, who was
+condemned to death for espousing the cause of Napoleon.--_Translator_.
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTER OF FOURIER.--HIS DEATH.
+
+Restored at length, after so many vicissitudes, to his favourite
+pursuits, Fourier passed the last years of his life in retirement and
+in the discharge of academic duties. _To converse_ had become the half
+of his existence. Those who have been disposed to consider this the
+subject of just reproach, have no doubt forgotten that constant
+reflection is no less imperiously forbidden to man than the abuse of
+physical powers. Repose, in every thing, recruits our frail machine;
+but, Gentlemen, he who desires repose may not obtain it. Interrogate
+your own recollections and say, if, when you are pursuing a new truth, a
+walk, the intercourse of society, or even sleep, have the privilege of
+distracting you from the object of your thoughts? The extremely
+shattered state of Fourier's health enjoined the most careful attention.
+After many attempts, he only found one means of escaping from the
+contentions of mind which exhausted him: this consisted in speaking
+aloud upon the events of his life; upon his scientific labours, which
+were either in course of being planned, or which were already
+terminated; upon the acts of injustice of which he had reason to
+complain. Every person must have remarked, how insignificant was the
+state which our gifted colleague assigned to those who were in the habit
+of conversing with him; we are now acquainted with the cause of this.
+
+Fourier had preserved, in old age, the grace, the urbanity, the varied
+knowledge which, a quarter of a century previously, had imparted so
+great a charm to his lectures at the Polytechnic School. There was a
+pleasure in hearing him relate the anecdote which the listener already
+knew by heart, even the events in which the individual had taken a
+direct part. I happened to be a witness of the kind of _fascination_
+which he exercised upon his audience, in connection with an incident
+which deserves to be known, for it will prove that the word which I have
+just employed is not in anywise exaggerated.
+
+We found ourselves seated at the same table. The guest from whom I
+separated him was an old officer. Our colleague was informed of this,
+and the question, "Have you been in Egypt?" served as the commencement
+of a conversation between them. The reply was in the affirmative.
+Fourier hastened to add: "As regards myself, I remained in that
+magnificent country until the period of its complete evacuation.
+Although foreign to the profession of arms, I have, in the midst of our
+soldiers, fired against the insurgents of Cairo; I have had the honour
+of hearing the cannon of Heliopolis." Hence to give an account of the
+battle was but a step. This step was soon made, and we were presented
+with four battalions drawn up in squares in the plain of Quoubbéh, and
+manoeuvring, with admirable precision, conformably to the orders of
+the illustrious geometer. My neighbour, with attentive ear, with
+immovable eyes, and with outstretched neck, listened to this recital
+with the liveliest interest. He did not lose a single syllable of it:
+one would have sworn that he had for the first time heard of those
+memorable events. Gentlemen, it is so delightful a task to please! After
+having remarked the effect which he produced, Fourier reverted, with
+still greater detail, to the principal fight of those great days: to the
+capture of the fortified village of Mattaryeh, to the passage of two
+feeble columns of French grenadiers across ditches heaped up with the
+dead and wounded of the Ottoman army. "Generals ancient and modern, have
+sometimes spoken of similar deeds of prowess," exclaimed our colleague,
+"but it was in the hyperbolic style of the bulletin: here the fact is
+materially true,--it is true like geometry. I feel conscious, however,"
+added he, "that in order to induce your belief in it, all my assurances
+will not be more than sufficient."
+
+"Do not be anxious upon this point," replied the officer, who at that
+moment seemed to awaken from a long dream. "In case of necessity, I
+might guarantee the accuracy of your statement. It was I who, at the
+head of the grenadiers of the 13th and 85th semi-brigades, forced the
+entrenchments of Mattaryeh, by passing over the dead bodies of the
+Janissaries!"
+
+My neighbour was General Tarayre: you may imagine much better than I can
+express, the effect of the few words which had just escaped from him.
+Fourier made a thousand excuses, while I reflected upon the seductive
+influence, upon the power of language, which for more than half an hour
+had robbed the celebrated general even of the recollection of the part
+which he had played in the battle of giants he was listening to.
+
+The more our secretary had occasion to converse, the greater repugnance
+he experienced to verbal discussions. Fourier cut short every debate as
+soon as there presented itself a somewhat marked difference of opinion,
+only to resume afterwards the same subject upon the modest pretext of
+making a small step in advance each time. Some one asked Fontaine, a
+celebrated geometer of this Academy, how he occupied his thoughts in
+society, wherein he maintained an almost absolute silence: "I observe,"
+he replied, "the vanity of mankind, to wound it as occasion offers." If,
+like his predecessor, Fourier also studied the baser passions which
+contend for honours, riches, and power, it was not in order to engage in
+hostilities with them: resolved never to compromise matters with them,
+he yet so calculated his movements beforehand, as not to find himself in
+their way. We perceive a wide difference between this disposition and
+the ardent impetuous character of the young orator of the popular
+society of Auxerre. But what purpose would philosophy serve, if it did
+not teach us to conquer our passions? It is not that occasionally the
+natural disposition of Fourier did not display itself in full relief.
+"It is strange," said one day a certain very influential personage of
+the court of Charles X., whom Fourier's servant would not allow to pass
+beyond the antechamber of our colleague,--"it is truly strange that your
+master should be more difficult of access than a minister!" Fourier
+heard the conversation, leaped out of his bed to which he was confined
+by indisposition, opened the door of the chamber, and exclaimed, face to
+face with the courtier: "Joseph, tell Monsieur, that if I was minister,
+I should receive everybody, because it would be my duty to do so; but,
+being a private individual, I receive whomsoever I please, and at what
+hour soever I please!" Disconcerted by the liveliness of the retort, the
+great seignior did not utter one word in reply. We must even believe
+that from that moment he resolved not to visit any but ministers, for
+the plain man of science heard nothing more of him.
+
+Fourier was endowed with a constitution which held forth a promise of
+long life; but what can natural advantages avail against the
+anti-hygienic habits which men arbitrarily acquire! In order to guard
+against slight attacks of rheumatism, our colleague was in the habit of
+clothing himself, even in the hottest season of the year, after a
+fashion which is not practised even by travellers condemned to spend the
+winter amid the snows of the polar regions. "One would suppose me to be
+corpulent," he used to say occasionally with a smile; "be assured,
+however, that there is much to deduct from this opinion. If, after the
+example of the Egyptian mummies, I was subjected to the operation of
+disembowelment,--from which heaven preserve me,--the residue would be
+found to be a very slender body." I might add, selecting also my
+comparison from the banks of the Nile, that in the apartments of
+Fourier, which were always of small extent, and intensely heated even in
+summer, the currents of air to which one was exposed resembled sometimes
+the terrible simoon, that burning wind of the desert, which the caravans
+dread as much as the plague.
+
+The prescriptions of medicine which, in the mouth of M. Larrey, were
+blended with the anxieties of a long and constant friendship, failed to
+induce a modification of of this mortal régime. Fourier had already
+experienced, in Egypt and Grenoble, some attacks of aneurism of the
+heart. At Paris, it was impossible to be mistaken with respect to the
+primary cause of the frequent suffocations which he experienced. A fall,
+however, which he sustained on the 4th of May, 1830, while descending a
+flight of stairs, aggravated the malady to an extent beyond what could
+have been ever feared. Our colleague, notwithstanding pressing
+solicitations, persisted in refusing to combat the most threatening
+symptoms, except by the aid of patience and a high temperature. On the
+16th of May, 1830, about four o'clock in the evening, Fourier
+experienced in his study a violent crisis the serious nature of which he
+was far from being sensible of; for, having thrown himself completely
+dressed upon his bed, he requested M. Petit, a young doctor of his
+acquaintance who carefully attended him, not to go far away, in order,
+said he, that we may presently converse together. But to these words
+succeeded soon the cries, "Quick, quick! some vinegar! I am fainting!"
+and one of the men of science who has shed the brightest lustre upon the
+Academy had ceased to live.
+
+Gentlemen, this cruel event is too recent, that I should recall here
+the grief which the Institute experienced upon losing one of its most
+important members; and those obsequies, on the occasion of which so many
+persons, usually divided by interests and opinions, united together, in
+one common feeling of admiration and regret, around the mortal remains
+of Fourier; and the Polytechnic School swelling in a mass the cortége,
+in order to render homage to one of its earliest, of its most celebrated
+professors; and the words which, on the brink of the tomb, depicted so
+eloquently the profound mathematician, the elegant writer, the upright
+administrator, the good citizen, the devoted friend. We shall merely
+state that Fourier belonged to all the great learned societies of the
+world, that they united with the most touching unanimity in the mourning
+of the Academy, in the mourning of all France: a striking testimony that
+the republic of letters is no longer, in the present day, merely a vain
+name! What, then, was wanting to the memory of our colleague? A more
+able successor than I have been to exhibit in full relief the different
+phases of a life so varied, so laborious, so gloriously interlaced with
+the greatest events of the most memorable epochs of our history.
+Fortunately, the scientific discoveries of the illustrious secretary had
+nothing to dread from the incompetency of the panegyrist. My object will
+have been completely attained if, notwithstanding the imperfection of my
+sketches, each of you will have learned that the progress of general
+physics, of terrestrial physics, and of geology, will daily multiply the
+fertile applications of the _Théorie Analytique de la Chaleur_, and that
+this work will transmit the name of Fourier down to the remotest
+posterity.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+»»Any books in this list will be sent free of
+postage, on receipt of price.
+
+
+BOSTON, 135 WASHINGTON STREET
+JANUARY, 1859.
+
+
+A LIST OF BOOKS
+
+published by
+
+TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
+
+
+Sir Walter Scott.
+
+ILLUSTRATED HOUSEHOLD EDITION OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS. In portable size,
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+This Edition contains all the latest notes and corrections of the
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+
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+     LEGEND OF MONTROSE,     ) 2 vols.
+     HEART OF MID LOTHIAN, 2 vols.
+     BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 2 vols.
+     IVANHOE, 2 vols.
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+     THE PIRATE, 2 vols.
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+     PEVERIL OF THE PEAK, 2 vols.
+     QUENTIN DURWARD, 2 Vols.
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+     REDGAUNTLET, 2 vols.
+     THE BETROTHED,          )
+     THE HIGHLAND WIDOW,     ) 2 vols.
+     THE TALISMAN,                   )
+     TWO DROVERS,                    )
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+     THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER,         )
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+     COUNT ROBERT OF PARIS, 2 vols.
+     THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTER,     )
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+     INDEX AND GLOSSARY.         )
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of BIOGRAPHIES OF DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN, by FRANÇOIS ARAGO.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men
+by Francois Arago
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men
+
+Author: Francois Arago
+
+Translator: W. H. Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant
+
+Release Date: September 30, 2005 [EBook #16775]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Martin Pettit and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>BIOGRAPHIES</h1>
+
+<p class='center'>OF</p>
+
+<h1>DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN.</h1>
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">By</span> FRAN&Ccedil;OIS ARAGO,</h2>
+
+<h3>MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE.</h3>
+
+<h3>TRANSLATED BY</h3>
+
+<h2>ADMIRAL W.H. SMYTH, D.C.L., F.R.S., &amp;c.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE REV. BADEN POWELL, M.A., F.R.S., &amp;c.</h2>
+
+<h3>AND</h3>
+
+<h2>ROBERT GRANT, <span class="smcap">Esq.</span>, M.A., F.R.A.S.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>FIRST SERIES.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>BOSTON:</p>
+
+<p class='center'>TICKNOR AND FIELDS.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>M DCCC LIX.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>PRINTED BY H.O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>TRANSLATORS' PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p class='tbrk'>The present volume of the series of English translations of M. Arago's
+works consists of his own autobiography and a selection of some of his
+memoirs of eminent scientific men, both continental and British.</p>
+
+<p>It does not distinctly appear at what period of his life Arago composed
+the autobiography, but it bears throughout the characteristic stamp of
+his ardent and energetic disposition. The reader will, perhaps, hardly
+suppress a smile at the indications of self-satisfaction with which
+several of the incidents are brought forward, while the air of romance
+which invests some of the adventures may possibly give rise to some
+suspicion of occasional embellishment; on these points, however, we
+leave each reader to judge for himself. In relation to the history of
+science, this memoir gives some interesting particulars, which disclose
+to us much of the interior spirit of the Academy of Sciences, not always
+of a kind the most creditable to some of Arago's former contemporaries.</p>
+
+<p>But a far higher interest will be found to belong to those eloquent
+memoirs, or &eacute;loges of eminent departed men of science, who had attained
+the distinction of being members of the Academy.</p>
+
+<p>In these the reader will find a luminous, eminently simple, and popular
+account of the discoveries of each of those distinguished individuals,
+of a kind constituting in fact a brief history of the particular branch
+of science to which he was devoted. And in the selection included in the
+present volume, which constitutes but a portion of the entire series, we
+have comprised the accounts of men of such varied pursuits as to convey
+no inadequate impression of the progress of discovery throughout a
+considerable range of the whole field of the physical sciences within
+the last half century.</p>
+
+<p>The account given by the author, of the principal discoveries made by
+the illustrious subjects of his memoirs, is in general very luminous,
+but at the same time presupposes a familiarity with some parts of
+science which may not really be possessed by all readers. For the sake
+of a considerable class, then, we have taken occasion, wherever the use
+of new technical terms or other like circumstances seemed to require it,
+to introduce original notes and commentaries, sometimes of considerable
+extent, by the aid of which we trust the scientific principles adverted
+to in the text will be rendered easily intelligible to the general
+reader.</p>
+
+<p>In some few instances also we have found ourselves called upon to adopt
+a more critical tone; where we were disposed to dissent from the view
+taken by the author on particular questions of a controversial kind, or
+when he is arguing in support, or in refutation, of opposing theories on
+some points of science not yet satisfactorily cleared up.</p>
+
+<p>We could have wished that our duty as translators and editors had not
+extended beyond such mere occasional scientific or literary criticism.
+But there unfortunately seemed to be one or two points where, in
+pronouncing on the claims of distinguished individuals, or criticizing
+their inventions, a doubt could not but be felt as to the perfect
+<i>fairness</i> of Arago's judgment, and in which we were constrained to
+express an unfavourable opinion on the manner in which the relative
+pretensions of men of the highest eminence seemed to be decided,
+involving what might sometimes be fairly regarded as undue prejudice,
+or possibly a feeling of personal or even national jealousy. Much as we
+should deprecate the excitement of any feeling of hostility of this
+kind, yet we could not, in our editorial capacity, shrink from the plain
+duty of endeavouring to advocate what appeared to us right and true; and
+we trust that whatever opinion may be entertained as to the
+<i>conclusions</i> to which we have come on such points, we shall not have
+given ground for any complaint that we have violated any due courtesy or
+propriety in our <i>mode</i> of expressing those conclusions, or the reasons
+on which they are founded.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><b>THE HISTORY OF MY YOUTH.</b>
+<ul>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#THE_HISTORY_OF_MY_YOUTH">An Autobiography of Francis Arago</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li><b>BAILLY.</b>
+<ul>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#INFANCY_OF_BAILLY_HIS_YOUTHmdashHIS_LITERARY_ESSAYSmdashHIS_MATHEMATICAL">Infancy Of Bailly.&mdash;His Youth.&mdash;His Literary Essays.&mdash;His Mathematical Studies.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#BAILLY_BECOMES_THE_PUPIL_OF_LACAILLE_HE_IS_ASSOCIATED_WITH_HIM_IN_HIS">Bailly becomes the Pupil of Lacaille.&mdash;He is associated
+with him in his Astronomical Labours.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#BAILLY_A_MEMBER_OF_THE_ACADEMY_OF_SCIENCES_HIS_RESEARCHES_ON_JUPITERS">Bailly a Member of the Academy of Sciences.&mdash;His Researches
+on Jupiter's Satellites.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#BAILLYS_LITERARY_WORKS_HIS_BIOGRAPHIES_OF_CHARLES_VmdashOF">Bailly's Literary Works.&mdash;His Biographies of Charles V.&mdash;of
+Leibnitz&mdash;of Peter Corneille&mdash;of Moli&egrave;re.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#DEBATES_RELATIVE_TO_THE_POST_OF_PERPETUAL_SECRETARY_OF_THE_ACADEMY_OF">Debates relative to the Post of Perpetual Secretary of
+the Academy of Sciences.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#HISTORY_OF_ASTRONOMY_LETTERS_ON_THE_ATLANTIS_OF_PLATO_AND_ON_THE">History of Astronomy.&mdash;Letters on the Atlantis of Plato
+and on the Ancient History of Asia.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#FIRST_INTERVIEW_OF_BAILLY_WITH_FRANKLIN_HIS_ENTRANCE_INTO_THE_FRENCH">First Interview of Bailly with Franklin.&mdash;His Entrance
+into the French Academy in 1783.&mdash;His Reception.&mdash;Discourse.&mdash;His Rupture with Buffon.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#REPORT_ON_ANIMAL_MAGNETISM">Report on Animal Magnetism.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#ELECTION_OF_BAILLY_INTO_THE_ACADEMY_OF_INSCRIPTIONS">Election of Bailly into the Academy of Inscriptions.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#REPORT_ON_THE_HOSPITALS">Report on the Hospitals.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#REPORT_ON_THE_SLAUGHTER-HOUSES">Report on the Slaughter-Houses.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#BIOGRAPHIES_OF_COOK_AND_OF_GRESSET">Biographies of Cook and of Gresset.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#ASSEMBLY_OF_THE_NOTABLES_BAILLY_IS_NAMED_FIRST_DEPUTY_OF_PARIS_AND">Assembly of the Notables.&mdash;Bailly is named First Deputy
+of Paris; and soon after Dean or Senior of the Deputies of the Communes.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#BAILLY_BECOMES_MAYOR_OF_PARIS_SCARCITYmdashMARAT_DECLARES_HIMSELF">Bailly becomes Mayor of Paris.&mdash;Scarcity.&mdash;Marat declares
+himself inimical to the Mayor.&mdash;Events of the 6th of October.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#A_GLANCE_AT_THE_POSTHUMOUS_MEMOIR_OF_BAILLY">A Glance at the Posthumous Memoir of Bailly.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#EXAMINATION_OF_BAILLYS_ADMINISTRATION_AS_MAYOR">Examination of Bailly's Administration as Mayor.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#THE_KINGS_FLIGHT_EVENTS_ON_THE_CHAMP_DE_MARS">The King's Flight.&mdash;Events on the Champ de Mars.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#BAILLY_QUITS_THE_MAYORALTY_THE_12TH_OF_NOVEMBER_1791_THE">Bailly quits the Mayoralty the 12th of November, 1791.&mdash;The
+Eschevins.&mdash;Examination of the Reproaches that might be addressed to the Mayor.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#BAILLYS_JOURNEY_FROM_PARIS_TO_NANTES_AND_THEN_FROM_NANTES_TO_MELUN">Bailly's Journey from Paris to Nantes, and then from
+Nantes to M&eacute;lun.&mdash;His Arrest in this last Town.&mdash;He is transferred to Paris.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#BAILLY_IS_CALLED_AS_A_WITNESS_IN_THE_TRIAL_OF_THE_QUEEN_HIS_OWN_TRIAL">Bailly is called as a Witness in the Trial of the Queen.&mdash;His
+own Trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal.&mdash;His Condemnation to Death.&mdash;His Execution.&mdash;Imaginary
+Details added by ill-informed Historians to what that odious and frightful Event already presented.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#PORTRAIT_OF_BAILLY_HIS_WIFE">Portrait of Bailly.&mdash;His Wife.</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li><b>HERSCHEL.</b>
+<ul>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#HERSCHEL">Personal History.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#CHRONOLOGICAL_TABLE">Chronological Table of the Memoirs of William Herschel.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#IMPROVEMENTS_IN_THE_MEANS_OF_OBSERVATION">Improvements in the Means of Observation.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#LABOURS_IN_SIDEREAL_ASTRONOMY">Labours in Sidereal Astronomy.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#LABOURS_RELATIVE_TO_THE_SOLAR_SYSTEM">Labours relative to the Solar System.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#OPTICAL_LABOURS">Optical Labours.</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li><b>LAPLACE.</b>
+<ul>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#LAPLACE">Preliminary Notice.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem">APPENDIX.</li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#A">(A.) Brief Notice of some other interesting Results
+of the Researches of Laplace which have not been mentioned in the Text.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#B">(B.) The M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste.</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li><b>JOSEPH FOURIER.</b>
+<ul>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#JOSEPH_FOURIER">Preliminary Notice.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#BIRTH_OF_FOURIER_HIS_YOUTH">Birth of Fourier.&mdash;His Youth.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#MEMOIR_ON_THE_RESOLUTION_OF_NUMERICAL_EQUATIONS">Memoir on the Resolution of Numerical Equations.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#PART_PLAYED_BY_FOURIER_IN_OUR_REVOLUTION_HIS_ENTRANCE_INTO_THE_CORPS">Part played by Fourier in our Revolution.&mdash;His Entrance
+into the Corps of Professors of the Normal School and the Polytechnic School.&mdash;Expedition to Egypt.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#FOURIER_PREFECT_OF_LISERE">Fourier Prefect of L'Is&egrave;re.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#MATHEMATICAL_THEORY_OF_HEAT">Mathematical Theory of Heat.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#CENTRAL_HEAT_OF_THE_TERRESTRIAL_GLOBE">Central Heat of the Terrestrial Globe.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#RETURN_OF_NAPOLEON_FROM_ELBA_FOURIER_PREFECT_OF_THE_RHONEmdashHIS">Return of Napoleon from Elba.&mdash;Fourier Prefect of the
+Rhone.&mdash;His Nomination to the Office of Director of the Board of Statistics of the Seine.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#ENTRANCE_OF_FOURIER_INTO_THE_ACADEMY_OF_SCIENCES_HIS_ELECTION_TO_THE">Entrance of Fourier into the Academy of Sciences.&mdash;His
+Election to the Office of Perpetual Secretary.&mdash;His Admission to the French Academy.</a></li>
+	<li class="subitem"><a href="#CHARACTER_OF_FOURIER_HIS_DEATH">Character of Fourier.&mdash;His Death.</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>LIVES</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>OF</p>
+
+<h2>DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="THE_HISTORY_OF_MY_YOUTH" id="THE_HISTORY_OF_MY_YOUTH"></a>THE HISTORY OF MY YOUTH:</h2>
+
+<h3>AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I have not the foolish vanity to imagine that any one, even a short time
+hence, will have the curiosity to find out how my first education was
+given, and how my mind was developed; but some biographers, writing off
+hand and without authority, having given details on this subject utterly
+incorrect, and of a nature to imply negligence on the part of my
+parents, I consider myself bound to put them right.</p>
+
+<p>I was born on the 26th of February, 1786, in the commune of Estagel, an
+ancient province of Roussillon (department of the Eastern Pyrenees). My
+father, a licentiate in law, had some little property in arable land, in
+vineyards, and in plantations of olive-trees, the income from which
+supported his numerous family.</p>
+
+<p>I was thus three years old in 1789, four years old in 1790, five years
+in 1791, six years in 1792, and seven years old in 1793, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The reader has now himself the means of judging whether, as has been
+said, and even stated in print, I had a hand in the excesses of our
+first revolution.</p>
+
+<p>My parents sent me to the primary school in Estagel, where I learnt the
+rudiments of reading and writing. I received, besides, in my father's
+house, some private lessons in vocal music. I was not otherwise either
+more or less advanced than other children of my age. I enter into these
+details merely to show how much mistaken are those who have printed that
+at the age of fourteen or fifteen years I had not yet learnt to read.</p>
+
+<p>Estagel was a halting-place for a portion of the troops who, coming from
+the interior, either went on to Perpignan, or repaired direct to the
+army of the Pyrenees. My parents' house was therefore constantly full of
+officers and soldiers. This, joined to the lively excitement which the
+Spanish invasion had produced within me, inspired me with such decided
+military tastes, that my family was obliged to have me narrowly watched
+to prevent my joining by stealth the soldiers who left Estagel. It often
+happened that they caught me at a league's distance from the village,
+already on my way with the troops.</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion these warlike tastes had nearly cost me dear. It was the
+night of the battle of Peires-Tortes. The Spanish troops in their
+retreat had partly mistaken their road. I was in the square of the
+village before daybreak; I saw a brigadier and five troopers come up,
+who, at the sight of the tree of liberty, called out, "<i>Somos
+perdidos!</i>" I ran immediately to the house to arm myself with a lance
+which had been left there by a soldier of the <i>lev&eacute;e en masse</i>, and
+placing myself in ambush at the corner of a street, I struck with a blow
+of this weapon the brigadier placed at the head of the party. The wound
+was not dangerous; a cut of the sabre, however, was descending to punish
+my hardihood, when some countrymen came to my aid, and, armed with
+forks, overturned the five cavaliers from their saddles, and made them
+prisoners. I was then seven years old.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>My father having gone to reside at Perpignan, as treasurer of the mint,
+all the family quitted Estagel to follow him there. I was then placed as
+an out-door pupil at the municipal college of the town, where I occupied
+myself almost exclusively with my literary studies. Our classic authors
+had become the objects of my favourite reading. But the direction of my
+ideas became changed all at once by a singular circumstance which I will
+relate.</p>
+
+<p>Walking one day on the ramparts of the town, I saw an officer of
+engineers who was directing the execution of the repairs. This officer,
+M. Cressac, was very young; I had the hardihood to approach him, and to
+ask him how he had succeeded in so soon wearing an epaulette. "I come
+from the Polytechnic School," he answered. "What school is that?" "It is
+a school which one enters by an examination." "Is much expected of the
+candidates?" "You will see it in the programme which the Government
+sends every year to the departmental administration; you will find it
+moreover in the numbers of the journal of the school, which are in the
+library of the central school."</p>
+
+<p>I ran at once to the library, and there, for the first time, I read the
+programme of the knowledge required in the candidates.</p>
+
+<p>From this moment I abandoned the classes of the central school, where I
+was taught to admire Corneille, Racine, La Fontaine, Moli&egrave;re, and
+attended only the mathematical course. This course was entrusted to a
+retired ecclesiastic, the Abb&eacute; Verdier, a very respectable man, but
+whose knowledge went no further than the elementary course of La Caille.
+I saw at a glance that M. Verdier's lessons would not be sufficient to
+secure my admission to the Polytechnic School; I therefore decided on
+studying by myself the newest works, which I sent for from Paris. These
+were those of Legendre, Lacroix, and Garnier. In going through these
+works I often met with difficulties which exceeded my powers; happily,
+strange though it be, and perhaps without example in all the rest of
+France, there was a proprietor at Estagel, M. Raynal, who made the study
+of the higher mathematics his recreation. It was in his kitchen, whilst
+giving orders to numerous domestics for the labours of the next day,
+that M. Raynal read with advantage the "Hydraulic Architecture" of
+Prony, the "M&eacute;canique Analytique," and the "M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste." This
+excellent man often gave me useful advice; but I must say that I found
+my real master in the cover of M. Garnier's "Treatise on Algebra." This
+cover consisted of a printed leaf, on the outside of which blue paper
+was pasted. The reading of the page not covered made me desirous to know
+what the blue paper hid from me. I took off this paper carefully, having
+first damped it, and was able to read underneath it the advice given by
+d'Alembert to a young man who communicated to him the difficulties which
+he met with in his studies: "Go on, sir, go on, and conviction will come
+to you."</p>
+
+<p>This gave me a gleam of light; instead of persisting in attempts to
+comprehend at first sight the propositions before me, I admitted their
+truth provisionally; I went on further, and was quite surprised, on the
+morrow, that I comprehended perfectly what overnight appeared to me to
+be encompassed with thick clouds.</p>
+
+<p>I thus made myself master, in a year and a half, of all the subjects
+contained in the programme for admission, and I went to Montpellier to
+undergo the examination. I was then sixteen years of age. M. Monge,
+junior, the examiner, was detained at Toulouse by indisposition, and
+wrote to the candidates assembled at Montpellier that he would examine
+them in Paris. I was myself too unwell to undertake so long a journey,
+and I returned to Perpignan.</p>
+
+<p>There I listened for a moment to the solicitations of my family, who
+pressed me to renounce the prospects which the Polytechnic School
+opened. But my taste for mathematical studies soon carried the day; I
+increased my library with Euler's "Introduction &agrave; l'Analyse
+Infinit&eacute;simale," with the "R&eacute;solution des Equations Num&eacute;riques," with
+Lagrange's "Th&eacute;orie des Fonctions Analytiques," and "M&eacute;canique
+Analytique," and finally with Laplace's "M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste." I gave
+myself up with great ardour to the study of these books. From the
+journal of the Polytechnic School containing such investigations as
+those of M. Poisson on Elimination, I imagined that all the pupils were
+as much advanced as this geometer, and that it would be necessary to
+rise to this height to succeed.</p>
+
+<p>From this moment, I prepared myself for the artillery service,&mdash;the aim
+of my ambition; and as I had heard that an officer ought to understand
+music, fencing, and dancing, I devoted the first hours of each day to
+the cultivation of these accomplishments.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the time I was seen walking in the moats of the citadel of
+Perpignan, seeking by more or less forced transitions to pass from one
+question to another, so as to be sure of being able to show the examiner
+how far my studies had been carried.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>At last the moment of examination arrived, and I went to Toulouse in
+company with a candidate who had studied at the public college. It was
+the first time that pupils from Perpignan had appeared at the
+competition. My intimidated comrade was completely discomfited. When I
+repaired after him to the board, a very singular conversation took
+place between M. Monge (the examiner) and me.</p>
+
+<p>"If you are going to answer like your comrade, it is useless for me to
+question you."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, my comrade knows much more than he has shown; I hope I shall be
+more fortunate than he; but what you have just said to me might well
+intimidate me and deprive me of all my powers."</p>
+
+<p>"Timidity is always the excuse of the ignorant; it is to save you from
+the shame of a defeat that I make you the proposal of not examining
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"I know of no greater shame than that which you now inflict upon me.
+Will you be so good as to question me? It is your duty."</p>
+
+<p>"You carry yourself very high, sir! We shall see presently whether this
+be a legitimate pride."</p>
+
+<p>"Proceed, sir; I wait for you."</p>
+
+<p>M. Monge then put to me a geometrical question, which I answered in such
+a way as to diminish his prejudices. From this he passed on to a
+question in algebra, then the resolution of a numerical equation. I had
+the work of Lagrange at my fingers' ends; I analyzed all the known
+methods, pointing out their advantages and effects; Newton's method, the
+method of recurring series, the method of depression, the method of
+continued fractions,&mdash;all were passed in review; the answer had lasted
+an entire hour. Monge, brought over now to feelings of great kindness,
+said to me, "I could, from this moment, consider the examination at an
+end. I will, however, for my own pleasure, ask you two more questions.
+What are the relations of a curved line to the straight line that is a
+tangent to it?" I looked upon this question as a particular case of the
+theory of osculations which I had studied in Legrange's "Fonctions
+Analytiques." "Finally," said the examiner to me, "how do you determine
+the tension of the various cords of which a funicular machine is
+composed?" I treated this problem according to the method expounded in
+the "M&eacute;canique Analytique." It was clear that Lagrange had supplied all
+the resources of my examination.</p>
+
+<p>I had been two hours and a quarter at the board. M. Monge, going from
+one extreme to the other, got up, came and embraced me, and solemnly
+declared that I should occupy the first place on his list. Shall I
+confess it? During the examination of my comrade I had heard the
+Toulousian candidates uttering not very favourable sarcasms on the
+pupils from Perpignan; and it was principally for the sake of reparation
+to my native town that M. Monge's behaviour and declaration transported
+me with joy.</p>
+
+<p>Having entered the Polytechnic School, at the end of 1803, I was placed
+in the excessively boisterous brigade of the Gascons and Britons. I
+should have much liked to study thoroughly physics and chemistry, of
+which I did not even know the first rudiments; but the behaviour of my
+companions rarely left me any time for it. As for analysis, I had
+already, before entering the Polytechnic School, learnt much more than
+was required for leaving it.</p>
+
+<p>I have just related the strange words which M. Monge, junior, addressed
+to me at Toulouse in commencing my examination for admission. Something
+analogous occurred at the opening of my examination in mathematics for
+passing from one division of the school to another. The examiner, this
+time, was the illustrious geometer Legendre, of whom, a few years after,
+I had the honour of becoming the colleague and the friend.</p>
+
+<p>I entered his study at the moment when M. T&mdash;&mdash;, who was to undergo his
+examination before me, having fainted away, was being carried out in the
+arms of two servants. I thought that this circumstance would have moved
+and softened M. Legendre; but it had no such effect "What is your name,"
+he said to me sharply. "Arago," I answered. "You are not French then?"
+"If I was not French I should not be before you; for I have never heard
+of any one being admitted into the school unless his nationality had
+been proved." "I maintain that he is not French whose name is Arago." "I
+maintain, on my side, that I am French, and a very good Frenchman too,
+however strange my name may appear to you." "Very well; we will not
+discuss the point farther; go to the board."</p>
+
+<p>I had scarcely taken up the chalk, when M. Legendre, returning to the
+first subject of his preoccupations, said to me: "You were born in one
+of the departments recently united to France?" "No, sir; I was born in
+the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, at the foot of the Pyrenees."
+"Oh! why did you not tell me that at once? all is now explained. You are
+of Spanish origin, are you not?" "Possibly; but in my humble family
+there are no authentic documents preserved which could enable me to
+trace back the civil position of my ancestors; each one there is the
+child of his own deeds. I declare to you again that I am French, and
+that ought to be sufficient for you."</p>
+
+<p>The vivacity of this last answer had not disposed M. Legendre in my
+favour. I saw this very soon; for, having put a question to me which
+required the use of double integrals, he stopped me, saying: "The method
+which you are following was not given to you by the professor. Whence
+did you get it?" "From one of your papers." "Why did you choose it? was
+it to bribe me?" "No; nothing was farther from my thoughts. I only
+adopted it because it appeared to me preferable." "If you are unable to
+explain to me the reasons for your preference, I declare to you that you
+shall receive a bad mark, at least as to character."</p>
+
+<p>I then entered upon the details which established, as I thought, that
+the method of double integrals was in all points more clear and more
+rational than that which Lacroix had expounded to us in the
+amphitheatre. From this moment Legendre appeared to me to be satisfied,
+and to relent.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, he asked me to determine the centre of gravity of a
+spherical sector. "The question is easy," I said to him. "Very well;
+since you find it easy, I will complicate it: instead of supposing the
+density constant, I will suppose that it varies from the centre to the
+surface according to a determined function." I got through this
+calculation very happily; and from this moment I had entirely gained the
+favour of the examiner. Indeed, on my retiring, he addressed to me these
+words, which, coming from him, appeared to my comrades as a very
+favourable augury for my chance of promotion: "I see that you have
+employed your time well; go on in the same way the second year, and we
+shall part very good friends."</p>
+
+<p>In the mode of examination adopted at the Polytechnic School in 1804,
+which is always cited as being better than the present organization,
+room was allowed for the exercise of some unjustifiable caprices. Would
+it be believed, for example, that the old M. Barruel examined two pupils
+at a time in physics, and gave them, it is said, the same mark, which
+was the mean between the actual merits of the two? For my part, I was
+associated with a comrade full of intelligence, but who had not studied
+this branch of the course. We agreed that he should leave the answering
+to me, and we found the arrangement advantageous to both.</p>
+
+<p>As I have been led to speak of the school as it was in 1804, I will say
+that its faults were less those of organization than those of personal
+management; for many of the professors were much below their office, a
+fact which gave rise to somewhat ridiculous scenes. The pupils, for
+instance, having observed the insufficiency of M. Hassenfratz, made a
+demonstration of the dimensions of the rainbow, full of errors of
+calculation, but in which the one compensated the other so that the
+final result was true. The professor, who had only this result whereby
+to judge of the goodness of the answer, when he saw it appear on the
+board, did not hesitate to call out, "Good, good, perfectly good!" which
+excited shouts of laughter on all the benches of the amphitheatre.</p>
+
+<p>When a professor has lost consideration, without which it is impossible
+for him to do well, they allow themselves to insult him to an incredible
+extent. Of this I will cite a single specimen.</p>
+
+<p>A pupil, M. Leboullenger, met one evening in company this same M.
+Hassenfratz, and had a discussion with him. When he re&euml;ntered the school
+in the morning, he mentioned this circumstance to us. "Be on your
+guard," said one of our comrades to him; "you will be interrogated this
+evening. Play with caution, for the professor has certainly prepared
+some great difficulties so as to cause laughter at your expense."</p>
+
+<p>Our anticipations were not mistaken. Scarcely had the pupils arrived in
+the amphitheatre, when M. Hassenfratz called to M. Leboullenger, who
+came to the board.</p>
+
+<p>"M. Leboullenger," said the professor to him, "you have seen the moon?"
+"No, sir." "How, sir! you say that you have never seen the moon?" "I can
+only, repeat my answer&mdash;no, sir." Beside himself, and seeing his prey
+escape him, by means of this unexpected answer, M. Hassenfratz addressed
+himself to the inspector charged with the observance of order that day,
+and said to him, "Sir, there is M. Leboullenger, who pretends never to
+have seen the moon." "What would you wish me to do?" stoically replied
+M. Le Brun. Repulsed on this side, the professor turned once more
+towards M. Leboullenger, who remained calm and earnest in the midst of
+the unspeakable amusement of the whole amphitheatre, and cried out with
+undisguised anger, "You persist in maintaining that you have never seen
+the moon?" "Sir," returned the pupil, "I should deceive you if I told
+you that I had not heard it spoken of, but I have never seen it." "Sir,
+return to your place."</p>
+
+<p>After this scene, M. Hassenfratz was but a professor in name; his
+teaching could no longer be of any use.</p>
+
+<p>At the commencement of the second year, I was appointed "<i>chef de
+brigade</i>." Hatchette had been professor of hydrography at Collioure; his
+friends from Roussillon recommended me to him. He received me with great
+kindness, and even gave me a room in his lodgings. It was there that I
+had the pleasure of making Poisson's acquaintance, who lived next to us.
+Every evening the great geometer entered my room, and we passed entire
+hours in conversing on politics and mathematics, which is certainly not
+quite the same thing.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of 1804, the school was a prey to political passions, and
+that through the fault of the government.</p>
+
+<p>They wished forthwith to oblige the pupils to sign an address of
+congratulation on the discovery of the conspiracy in which Moreau was
+implicated. They refused to do so on the ground that it was not for them
+to pronounce on a cause which had been in the hands of justice. It must,
+however, be remarked, that Moreau had not yet dishonoured himself by
+taking service in the Russian army, which had come to attack the French
+under the walls of Dresden.</p>
+
+<p>The pupils were invited to make a manifestation in favour of the
+institution of the Legion of Honour. This again they refused. They knew
+well that the cross, given without inquiry and without control, would
+be, in most cases, the recompense of charlatanism, and not of true
+merit.</p>
+
+<p>The transformation of the Consular into the Imperial Government gave
+rise to very animated discussions in the interior of the school.</p>
+
+<p>Many pupils refused to add their felicitations to the mean adulations of
+the constituted bodies.</p>
+
+<p>General Lacu&eacute;e, who was appointed governor of the school, reported this
+opposition to the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>"M. Lacu&eacute;e," cried Napoleon, in the midst of a group of courtiers, who
+applauded with speech and gesture, "you cannot retain at the school
+those pupils who have shown such ardent Republicanism; you will send
+them away." Then, collecting himself, he added, "I will first know their
+names and their stages of promotion." Seeing the list the next day, he
+did not proceed further than the first name, which was the first in the
+artillery. "I will not drive away the first men in advancement," said
+he. "Ah! if they had been at the bottom of the list! M. Lacu&eacute;e, leave
+them alone."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing was more curious than the <i>s&eacute;ance</i> to which General Lacu&eacute;e came
+to receive the oath of obedience from the pupils. In the vast
+amphitheatre which contained them, one could not discern a trace of the
+gravity which such a ceremony should inspire. The greater part, instead
+of answering, at the call of their names, "I swear it," cried out,
+"Present."</p>
+
+<p>All at once the monotony of this scene was interrupted by a pupil, son
+of the Conventionalist Brissot, who called out in a stentorian voice, "I
+will not take the oath of obedience to the Emperor." Lacu&eacute;e, pale and
+with little presence of mind, ordered a detachment of armed pupils
+placed behind him to go and arrest the recusant. The detachment, of
+which I was at the head, refused to obey. Brissot, addressing himself to
+the General, with the greatest calmness said to him, "Point out the
+place to which you wish me to go; do not force the pupils to dishonour
+themselves by laying hands on a comrade who has no desire to resist."</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Brissot was expelled.</p>
+
+<p>About this time, M. M&eacute;chain, who had been sent to Spain to prolong the
+meridional line as far as Formentera, died at Castellon de la Plana. His
+son, Secretary at the Observatory, immediately gave in his resignation.
+Poisson offered me the situation. I declined his first proposal. I did
+not wish to renounce the military career,&mdash;the object of all my
+predilections, and in which, moreover, I was assured of the protection
+of Marshal Lannes,&mdash;a friend of my father's. Nevertheless I accepted, on
+trial, the position offered me in the Observatory, after a visit which I
+made to M. de Laplace in company with M. Poisson, under the express
+condition that I could re-enter the Artillery if that should suit me. It
+was from this cause that my name remained inscribed on the list of the
+pupils of the school. I was only detached to the Observatory on a
+special service.</p>
+
+<p>I entered this establishment, then, on the nomination of Poisson, my
+friend, and through the intervention of Laplace. The latter loaded me
+with civilities. I was happy and proud when I dined in the Rue de
+Tournon with the great geometer. My mind and my heart were much disposed
+to admire all, to respect all, that was connected with him who had
+discovered the cause of the secular equation of the moon, had found in
+the movement of this planet the means of calculating the ellipticity of
+the earth, had traced to the laws of attraction the long inequalities of
+Jupiter and of Saturn, &amp;c. &amp;c. But what was my disenchantment, when one
+day I heard Madame de Laplace, approaching her husband, say to him,
+"Will you entrust to me the key of the sugar?"</p>
+
+<p>Some days afterwards, a second incident affected me still more vividly.
+M. de Laplace's son was preparing for the examinations of the
+Polytechnic School. He came sometimes to see me at the Observatory. In
+one of his visits I explained to him the method of continued fractions,
+by help of which Lagrange obtains the roots of numerical equations. The
+young man spoke of it to his father with admiration. I shall never
+forget the rage which followed the words of Emile de Laplace, and the
+severity of the reproaches which were addressed to me, for having
+patronized a mode of proceeding which may be very long in theory, but
+which evidently can in no way be found fault with on the score of its
+elegance and precision. Never had a jealous prejudice shown itself more
+openly, or under a more bitter form. "Ah!" said I to myself, "how true
+was the inspiration of the ancients when they attributed weaknesses to
+him who nevertheless made Olympus tremble by a frown!"</p>
+
+<p>Here I should mention, in order of time, a circumstance which might have
+produced the most fatal consequences for me. The fact was this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I have described above, the scene which caused the expulsion of
+Brissot's son from the Polytechnic School. I had entirely lost sight of
+him for several months, when he came to pay me a visit at the
+Observatory, and placed me in the most delicate, the most terrible,
+position that an honest man ever found himself in.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not seen you," he said to me, "because since leaving the school
+I have practised daily firing with a pistol; I have now acquired a skill
+beyond the common, and I am about to employ it in ridding France of the
+tyrant who has confiscated all her liberties. My measures are taken: I
+have hired a small room on the Carrousel, close to the place by which
+Napoleon, on coming out from the court, will pass to review the cavalry;
+from the humble window of my apartment will the ball be fired which will
+go through his head."</p>
+
+<p>I leave it to be imagined with what despair I received this confidence.
+I made every imaginable effort to deter Brissot from his sinister
+project; I remarked how all those who had rushed on enterprises of this
+nature had been branded in history by the odious title of assassin.
+Nothing succeeded in shaking his fatal resolution; I only obtained from
+him a promise on his honour that the execution of it should be postponed
+for a time, and I put myself in quest of means for rendering it
+abortive.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of announcing Brissot's project to the authorities did not
+even enter my thoughts. It seemed a fatality which came to smite me, and
+of which I must undergo the consequences, however serious they might be.</p>
+
+<p>I counted much on the solicitations of Brissot's mother, already so
+cruelly tried during the revolution. I went to her home, in the Rue de
+Cond&eacute;, and implored her earnestly to co&ouml;perate with me in preventing her
+son from carrying out his sanguinary resolution. "Ah, sir," replied this
+lady, who was naturally a model of gentleness, "if Silvain" (this was
+the name of her son) "believes that he is accomplishing a patriotic
+duty, I have neither the intention nor the desire to turn him from his
+project."</p>
+
+<p>It was from myself that I must henceforth draw all my resources. I had
+remarked that Brissot was addicted to the composition of romances and
+pieces of poetry. I encouraged this passion, and every Sunday, above
+all, when I knew that there would be a review, I went to fetch him, and
+drew him into the country, in the environs of Paris. I listened then
+complacently to the reading of those chapters of his romance which he
+had composed during the week.</p>
+
+<p>The first excursions frightened me a little, for armed with his pistols,
+Brissot seized every occasion of showing his great skill; and I
+reflected that this circumstance would lead to my being considered as
+his accomplice, if he ever carried out his project. At last, his
+pretensions to literary fame, which I flattered to the utmost, the hopes
+(though I had none myself) which I led him to conceive of the success of
+an attachment of which he had confided the secret to me, made him
+receive with attention the reflections which I constantly made to him on
+his enterprise. He determined on making a journey beyond the seas, and
+thus relieved me from the most serious anxiety which I have experienced
+in all my life.</p>
+
+<p>Brissot died after having covered the walls of Paris with printed
+handbills in favour of the Bourbon restoration.</p>
+
+<p>I had scarcely entered the Observatory, when I became the
+fellow-labourer of Biot in researches on the refraction of gases,
+already commenced by Borda.</p>
+
+<p>While engaged in this work the celebrated academician and I often
+conversed on the interest there would be in resuming in Spain the
+measurement interrupted by the death of M&eacute;chain. We submitted our
+project to Laplace, who received it with ardour, procured the necessary
+funds, and the Government confided to us two this important mission.</p>
+
+<p>M. Biot, I, and the Spanish commissary Rodriguez departed from Paris in
+the commencement of 1806. We visited, on our way, the stations indicated
+by M&eacute;chain; we made some important modifications in the projected
+triangulation, and at once commenced operations.</p>
+
+<p>An inaccurate direction given to the reflectors established at Iviza, on
+the mountain Campvey, rendered the observations made on the continent
+extremely difficult. The light of the signal of Campvey was very rarely
+seen, and I was, during six months, in the <i>Desierto de las Palmas</i>,
+without being able to see it, whilst at a later period the light
+established at the Desierto, but well directed, was seen every evening
+from Campvey. It will easily be imagined what must be the <i>ennui</i>
+experienced by a young and active astronomer, confined to an elevated
+peak, having for his walk only a space of twenty square metres, and for
+diversion only the conversation of two Carthusians, whose convent was
+situated at the foot of the mountain, and who came in secret,
+infringing the rule of their order.</p>
+
+<p>At the time when I write these lines, old and infirm, my legs scarcely
+able to sustain me, my thoughts revert involuntarily to that epoch of my
+life when, young and vigorous, I bore the greatest fatigues, and walked
+day and night, in the mountainous countries which separate the kingdoms
+of Valencia and Catalonia from the kingdom of Aragon, in order to
+re&euml;stablish our geodesic signals which the storms had overset.</p>
+
+<p>I was at Valencia towards the middle of October, 1806. One morning early
+the French consul entered my room quite alarmed: "Here is sad news,"
+said M. Lanusse to me; "make preparations for your departure; the whole
+town is in agitation; a declaration of war against France has just been
+published; it appears that we have experienced a great disaster in
+Prussia. The Queen, we are assured, has put herself at the head of the
+cavalry and of the royal guard; a part of the French army has been cut
+to pieces; the rest is completely routed. Our lives would not be in
+safety if we remained here; the French ambassador at Madrid will inform
+me as soon as an American vessel now at anchor in the 'Grao' of Valencia
+can take us on board, and I will let you know as soon as the moment is
+come." This moment never came; for a few days afterwards the false news,
+which one must suppose had dictated the proclamation of the Prince of
+the Peace, was replaced by the bulletin of the battle of J&eacute;na. People
+who at first played the braggart and threatened to root us out, suddenly
+became disgracefully cast down; we could walk in the town, holding up
+our heads, without fear henceforth of being insulted.</p>
+
+<p>This proclamation, in which they spoke of the critical circumstances in
+which the Spanish nation was placed; of the difficulties which
+encompassed this people; of the safety of their native country; of
+laurels, and of the god of victory; of enemies with whom they ought to
+fight;&mdash;did not contain the name of France. They availed themselves of
+this omission (will it be believed?) to maintain that it was directed
+against Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon pretended to believe in this absurd interpretation; but from
+this moment it became evident that Spain would sooner or later be
+obliged to render a strict account of the warlike intentions which she
+had suddenly evinced in 1806; this, without justifying the events of
+Bayonne, explains them in a very natural way.</p>
+
+<p>I was expecting M. Biot at Valencia, he having undertaken to bring some
+new instruments with which we were to measure the latitude of
+Formentera. I shall take advantage of these short intervals of repose to
+insert here some details of manners, which may, perhaps, be read with
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>I will recount, in the first instance, an adventure which nearly cost me
+my life under somewhat singular circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>One day, as a recreation, I thought I could go, with a
+fellow-countryman, to the fair at Murviedro, the ancient Saguntum, which
+they told me was very curious. I met in the town the daughter of a
+Frenchman resident at Valencia, Madlle. B&mdash;&mdash;. All the hotels were
+crowded; Madlle. B&mdash;&mdash; invited us to take some refreshments at her
+grandmother's; we accepted; but on leaving the house she informed us
+that our visit had not been to the taste of her betrothed, and that we
+must be prepared for some sort of attack on his part; we went directly
+to an armourer's, bought some pistols, and commenced our return to
+Valencia.</p>
+
+<p>On our way I said to the calezero (driver), a man whom I had employed
+for a long time, and who was much devoted to me:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Isidro, I have some reason to believe that we shall be stopped; I warn
+you of it, so that you may not be surprised at the shots which will be
+fired from the caleza (vehicle)."</p>
+
+<p>Isidro, seated on the shaft, according to the custom of the country,
+answered:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your pistols are completely useless, gentlemen; leave me to act; one
+cry will be enough; my mule will rid us of two, three, or even four
+men."</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely one minute had elapsed after the calezero had uttered these
+words, when two men presented themselves before the mule and seized her
+by the nostrils. At the same instant a formidable cry, which will never
+be effaced from my remembrance,&mdash;the cry of <i>Capitana!</i>&mdash;was uttered by
+Isidro. The mule reared up almost vertically, raising up one of the men,
+came down again, and set off at a rapid gallop. The jolt which the
+carriage made led us to understand too well what had just occurred. A
+long silence succeeded this incident; it was only interrupted by these
+words of the calezero, "Do you not think, gentlemen, that my mule is
+worth more than any pistols?"</p>
+
+<p>The next day the captain-general, Don Domingo Izquierdo, related to me
+that a man had been found crushed on the road to Murviedro. I gave him
+an account of the prowess of Isidro's mule, and no more was said.</p>
+
+<p>One anecdote, taken from among a thousand, will show what an adventurous
+life was led by the delegate of the <i>Bureau of Longitude</i>.</p>
+
+<p>During my stay on a mountain near Cullera, to the north of the mouth of
+the river Xucar, and to the south of the Albuf&eacute;ra, I once conceived the
+project of establishing a station on the high mountains which are in
+front of it. I went to see them. The alcaid of one of the neighbouring
+villages warned me of the danger to which I was about to expose myself.
+"These mountains," said he to me, "form the resort of a band of highway
+robbers." I asked for the national guard, as I had the power to do so.
+My escort was supposed by the robbers to be an expedition directed
+against them, and they dispersed themselves at once over the rich plain
+which is watered by the Xucar. On my return I found them engaged in
+combat with the authorities of Cullera. Wounds had been given on both
+sides, and, if I recollect right, one alguazil was left dead on the
+plain.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning I regained my station. The following night was a
+horrible one; the rain fell in a deluge. Towards night, there was
+knocking at my cabin door. To the question "Who is there?" the answer
+was, "A custom-house guard, who asks of you a shelter for some hours."
+My servant having opened the door to him, I saw a magnificent man enter,
+armed to the teeth. He laid himself down on the earth, and went to
+sleep. In the morning, as I was chatting with him at the door of my
+cabin, his eyes flashed on seeing two persons on the slope of the
+mountain, the alcaid of Cullera and his principal alguazil, who were
+coming to pay me a visit. "Sir," cried he, "nothing less than the
+gratitude which I owe to you, on account of the service which you have
+rendered to me this night, could prevent my seizing this occasion for
+ridding myself, by one shot of this carabine, of my most cruel enemy.
+Adieu, sir!" And he departed, springing from rock to rock as light as a
+gazelle.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the cabin, the alcaid and his alguazil recognized in the
+fugitive the chief of all the brigands in the country.</p>
+
+<p>Some days afterwards, the weather having again become very bad, I
+received a second visit from the pretended custom-house guard, who went
+soundly to sleep in my cabin. I saw that my servant, an old soldier, who
+had heard the recital of the deeds and behaviour of this man, was
+preparing to kill him. I jumped down from my camp bed, and, seizing my
+servant by the throat,&mdash;"Are you mad?" said I to him; "are we to
+discharge the duties of police in this country? Do you not see,
+moreover, that this would expose us to the resentment of all those who
+obey the orders of this redoubted chief? And we should thus render it
+impossible for us to terminate our operations."</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, when the sun rose, I had a conversation with my guest,
+which I will try to reproduce faithfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Your situation is perfectly known to me; I know that you are not a
+custom-house guard; I have learnt from certain information that you are
+the chief of the robbers of the country. Tell me whether I have any
+thing to fear from your confederates?"</p>
+
+<p>"The idea of robbing you did occur to us; but we concluded that all your
+funds would be in the neighbouring towns; that you would carry no money
+to the summit of mountains, where you would not know what to do with it,
+and that our expedition against you could have no fruitful result.
+Moreover, we cannot pretend to be as strong as the King of Spain. The
+King's troops leave us quietly enough to exercise our industry; but on
+the day that we molested an envoy from the Emperor of the French, they
+would direct against us several regiments, and we should soon have to
+succumb. Allow me to add, that the gratitude which I owe to you is your
+surest guarantee."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, I will trust in your words; I shall regulate my conduct by
+your answer. Tell me if I can travel at night? It is fatiguing to me to
+move from one station to another in the day under the burning influence
+of the sun."</p>
+
+<p>"You can do so, sir; I have already given my orders to this purpose;
+they will not be infringed."</p>
+
+<p>Some days afterwards, I left for Denia; it was midnight, when some
+horsemen rode up to me, and addressed these words to me:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Stop there, se&ntilde;or; times are hard; those who have something must aid
+those who have nothing. Give us the keys of your trunks; we will only
+take your superfluities."</p>
+
+<p>I had already obeyed their orders, when it came into my head to call
+out&mdash;"But I have been told, that I could travel without risk."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your name, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don Francisco Arago."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Hombre! vaya usted con Dios</i> (God be with you)."</p>
+
+<p>And our cavaliers, spurring away from us, rapidly lost themselves in a
+field of "algarrobos."</p>
+
+<p>When <i>my friend</i> the robber of Cullera assured me that I had nothing to
+fear from his subordinates, he informed me at the same time that his
+authority did not extend north of Valencia. The banditti of the northern
+part of the kingdom obeyed other chiefs; one of whom, after having been
+taken, was condemned and hung, and his body divided into four quarters,
+which were fastened to posts, on four royal roads, but not without
+their having previously been boiled in oil, to make sure of their longer
+preservation.</p>
+
+<p>This barbarous custom produced no effect; for scarcely was one chief
+destroyed before another presented himself to replace him.</p>
+
+<p>Of all these brigands those had the worst reputation who carried on
+their depredations in the environs of Oropeza. The proprietors of the
+three mules, on which M. Rodriguez, I, and my servant were riding one
+evening in this neighbourhood, were recounting to us the "grand deeds"
+of these robbers, which, even in full daylight, would have made the hair
+of one's head stand on end, when, by the faint light of the moon, we
+perceived a man hiding himself behind a tree; we were six, and yet this
+sentry on horseback had the audacity to demand our purses or our lives:
+my servant, at once answered him&mdash;"You must then believe us to be very
+cowardly; take yourself off, or I will bring you down by one shot of my
+carabine." "I will be off," returned the worthless fellow "but you will
+soon hear news of me." Still full of fright at the remembrance of the
+stories which they had just been relating, the three "arieros" besought
+us to quit the high road and cast ourselves into a wood which was on our
+left. We yielded to their proposal; but we lost our way. "Dismount,"
+said they, "the mules have been obeying the bridle and you have directed
+them wrongly. Let us retrace our way as far as the high road, and leave
+the mules to themselves, they will well know how to find their right way
+again." Scarcely had we effected this man&oelig;uvre, which succeeded
+marvellously well, when we heard a lively discussion taking place at a
+short distance from us. Some were saying: "We must follow the high
+road, and we shall meet with them." Others maintained that they must get
+into the wood on the left. The barking of the dogs, by which these
+individuals were accompanied, added to the tumult. During this time we
+pursued our way silently, more dead than alive. It was two o'clock in
+the morning. All at once we saw a faint light in a solitary house; it
+was like a light-house for the mariner in the midst of the tempest, and
+the only means of safety which remained to us. Arrived at the door of
+the farm, we knocked and asked for hospitality. The inmates, very little
+reassured, feared that we were thieves, and did not hurry themselves to
+open to us.</p>
+
+<p>Impatient at the delay, I cried out, as I had received authority to do
+so, "In the name of the King, open to us!" They obeyed an order thus
+given; we entered pell-mell, and in the greatest haste, men and mules,
+into the kitchen, which was on the ground-floor; and we hurried to
+extinguish the lights, in order not to awaken the suspicions of the
+bandits who were seeking for us. Indeed, we heard them, passing and
+repassing near the house, vociferating with the whole force of their
+lungs against their unlucky fate. We did not quit this solitary house
+until broad day, and we continued our route for Tortosa, not without
+having given a suitable recompense to our hosts. I wished to know by
+what providential circumstance they happened to have a lamp burning at
+that unseasonable hour. "We had killed a pig," they told me, "in the
+course of the day, and we were busy preparing the black puddings." Had
+the pig lived one day more, or had there been no black puddings, I
+should certainly have been no longer in this world, and I should not
+have the opportunity to relate the story of the robbers of Oropeza.</p>
+
+<p>Never could I better appreciate the intelligent measure by which the
+constituent assembly abolished the ancient division of France into
+provinces, and substituted its division into departments, than in
+traversing for my triangulation the Spanish border kingdoms of
+Catalonia, Valencia, and Aragon. The inhabitants of these three
+provinces detested each other cordially, and nothing less than the bond
+of a common hatred was necessary to make them act simultaneously against
+France. Such was their animosity in 1807 that I could scarcely make use
+at the same time of Catalonians, Aragons, and Valencians, when I moved
+with my instruments from one station to another. The Valencians, in
+particular, were treated by the Catalonians as a light, trifling,
+inconsistent people. They were in the habit of saying to me, "<i>En el
+reino de Valencia la carne es verdura, la verdura agua, los hombres
+mugeres, las mugeres nada</i>"; which may be translated thus: "In the
+kingdom of Valencia meat is a vegetable, vegetables are water, men are
+women, and women nothing."</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the Valencians, speaking of the Aragons, used to call
+them "<i>schuros</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Having asked of a herdsman of this province who had brought some goats
+near to one of my stations, what was the origin of this denomination, at
+which his compatriots showed themselves so offended:</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know," said he, smiling cunningly at me, "whether I dare
+answer you." "Go on, go on," I said to him, "I can hear anything without
+being angry." "Well, the word <i>schuros</i> means that, to our great shame,
+we have sometimes been governed by French kings. The sovereign, before
+assuming power, was bound to promise under oath to respect our freedom
+and to articulate in a loud voice the solemn words <i>lo Juro!</i> As he did
+not know how to pronounce the J he said <i>schuro</i>. Are you satisfied,
+se&ntilde;or?" I answered him, "Yes, yes. I see that vanity and pride are not
+dead in this country."</p>
+
+<p>Since I have just spoken of a shepherd, I will say that in Spain, the
+class of individuals of both sexes destined to look after herds,
+appeared to me always less further removed than in France, from the
+pictures which the ancient poets have left us of the shepherds and
+shepherdesses in their pastoral poetry. The songs by which they
+endeavour to while away the tedium of their monotonous life, are more
+remarkable in their form and substance than in the other European
+nations to which I have had access. I never recollect without surprise,
+that being on a mountain situated at the junction-point of the kingdoms
+of Valencia, Aragon, and Catalonia, I was all at once overtaken by a
+violent storm, which forced me to take refuge in my tent, and to remain
+there squatting on the ground. When the storm was over and I came out
+from my retreat, I heard, to my great astonishment, on an isolated peak
+which looked down upon my station, a shepherdess who was singing a song
+of which I only recollect these eight lines, which will give an idea of
+the rest:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>A los que amor no saben</div>
+<div class='i2'>Ofreces las dulzuras</div>
+<div>Y a mi las amarguras</div>
+<div class='i2'>Que s'e lo quo es amar.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>Las gracias al me cert&eacute;</div>
+<div class='i2'>Eran cuadro de flores</div>
+<div>Te cantaban amores</div>
+<div class='i2'>Por hacerte callar.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Oh! how much sap there is in this Spanish nation! What a pity that they
+will not make it yield fruit!</p>
+
+<p>In 1807, the tribunal of the Inquisition existed still at Valencia, and
+at times performed its functions. The reverend fathers, it is true, did
+not burn people, but they pronounced sentences in which the ridiculous
+contended with the odious. During my residence in this town, the holy
+office had to busy itself about a pretended sorceress; it doomed her to
+go through all quarters of the town astride on an ass, her face turned
+towards the tail, and naked down to the waist. Merely to observe the
+commonest rules of decency, the poor woman had been plastered with a
+sticky substance, partly honey, they told me, to which adhered an
+enormous quantity of little feathers, so that to say the truth, the
+victim resembled a fowl with a human head. The procession, whether
+attended by a crowd I leave it to be imagined, stationed itself for some
+time in the cathedral square, where I lived. I was told that the
+sorceress was struck on the back a certain number of blows with a
+shovel; but I do not venture to affirm this, for I was absent at the
+moment when this hideous procession passed before my windows.</p>
+
+<p>We thus see, however, what sort of spectacles were given to the people
+in the commencement of the nineteenth century, in one of the principal
+towns of Spain, the seat of a celebrated university, and the native
+country of numerous citizens distinguished by their knowledge, their
+courage, and their virtues. Let not the friends of humanity and of
+civilization disunite; let them form, on the contrary, an indissoluble
+union, for superstition is always on the watch, and waits for the moment
+again to seize its prey.</p>
+
+<p>I have mentioned in the course of my narrative that two Carthusians
+often left their convent in the <i>Desierto de las Palmas</i>, and came,
+though prohibited, to see me at my station, situated about two hundred
+metres higher. A few particulars will give an idea of what certain monks
+were, in the Peninsula, in 1807.</p>
+
+<p>One of them, Father Trivulce, was old; the other was very young. The
+former, of French origin, had played a part at Marseilles, in the
+counter-revolutionary events of which this town was the theatre, at the
+commencement of our first revolution. His part had been a very active
+one; one might see the proof of this in the scars of sabre cuts which
+furrowed his breast. It was he who was the first to come. When he saw
+his young comrade march up, he hid himself; but as soon as the latter
+had fully entered into conversation with me, Father Trivulce showed
+himself all at once. His appearance had the effect of Medusa's head.
+"Reassure yourself," said he to his young compeer; "only let us not
+denounce each other, for our prior is not a man to pardon us for having
+come here and infringed our vow of silence, and we should both receive a
+punishment, the recollection of which would long remain." The treaty was
+at once concluded, and from that day forward the two Carthusians came
+very often to converse with me.</p>
+
+<p>The youngest of our two visitors was an Aragonian, his family had made
+him a monk against his will. He related to me one day, before M. Biot,
+(then returned from Tarragon, where he had taken refuge to get cured of
+his fever,) some particulars which, according to him, proved that in
+Spain there was no longer more than the ghost of religion. These details
+were mostly borrowed from the secrets of confession. M. Biot manifested
+sharply the displeasure which this conversation caused him; there were
+even in his language some words which led the monk to suppose that M.
+Biot took him for a kind of spy. As soon as this suspicion had entered
+his mind, he quitted us without saying a word, and the next morning I
+saw him come up early, armed with a light gun. The French monk had
+preceded him, and had whispered in my ear the danger that threatened my
+companion. "Join with me," he said, "to turn the young Aragonian monk
+from his murderous project." I need scarcely say that I employed myself
+with ardour in this negotiation, in which I had the happiness to
+succeed. There were here, as must be seen, the materials for a chief of
+<i>guerilleros</i>. I should be much astonished if my young monk did not play
+his part in the war of independence.</p>
+
+<p>The anecdote which I am about to relate will amply prove that religion
+was, with the Carthusian monks of the <i>Desierto de las Palmas</i>, not the
+consequence of elevated sentiments, but a mere compound of superstitious
+practices.</p>
+
+<p>The scene with the gun, always present to my mind, seemed to make it
+clear to me that the Aragon monk, if actuated by his passions, would be
+capable of the most criminal actions. Hence, I had a very disagreeable
+impression when one Sunday, having come down to hear mass, I met this
+monk, who, without saying a word, conducted me by a series of dark
+corridors into a chapel where the daylight penetrated only by a very
+small window. There I found Father Trivulce, who prepared himself to say
+mass for me alone. The young monk assisted. All at once, an instant
+before the consecration, Father Trivulce, turning towards me, said these
+exact words: "We have permission to say mass with white wine; we
+therefore make use of that which we gather from our own vines: this wine
+is very good. Ask the prior to let you taste it, when on leaving this
+you go to breakfast with him. For the rest, you can assure yourself this
+instant of the truth of what I say to you." And he presented me the
+goblet to drink from. I resisted strongly, not only because I considered
+it indecent to give this invitation in the middle of the mass, but
+because, besides, I must own I conceived the thought for a moment that
+the monks wished, by poisoning me, to revenge themselves on me for M.
+Biot having insulted them. I found that I was mistaken, that my
+suspicions had no foundation; for Father Trivulce went on with the
+interrupted mass, drank, and drank largely, of the white wine contained
+in one of the goblets. But when I had got out of the hands of the two
+monks, and was able to breathe the pure air of the country, I
+experienced a lively satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>The right of asylum accorded to some churches was one of the most
+obnoxious privileges among those of which the revolution of 1789 rid
+France. In 1807, this right still existed in Spain, and belonged, I
+believe, to all the cathedrals. I learnt, during my stay at Barcelona,
+that there was, in a little cloister contiguous to the largest church of
+the town, a brigand,&mdash;a man guilty of several assassinations, who lived
+quietly there, guaranteed against all pursuit by the sanctity of the
+place. I wished to assure myself with my own eyes of the reality of the
+fact, and I went with my friend Rodriguez into the little cloister in
+question. The assassin was then eating a meal which a woman had just
+brought him. He easily guessed the object of our visit, and made
+immediately such demonstrations as convinced us that, if the asylum was
+safe for the robber, it would not be so long for us. We retired at once,
+deploring that, in a country calling itself civilized, there should
+still exist such crying, such monstrous abuses.</p>
+
+<p>In order to succeed in our geodesic operations, to obtain the
+c&ouml;operation of the inhabitants of the villages near our stations, it was
+desirable for us to be recommended to the priests. We went,
+therefore,&mdash;M. Lanusse, the French Vice-Consul, M. Biot, and I,&mdash;to pay
+a visit to the Archbishop of Valencia, to solicit his protection. This
+archbishop, a man of very tall figure, was then chief of the
+Franciscans; his costume more than negligent, his gray robe, covered
+with tobacco, contrasted with the magnificence of the archiepiscopal
+palace. He received us with kindness, and promised us all the
+recommendations we desired; but, at the moment of taking leave of him,
+the whole affair seemed to be spoiled. M. Lanusse and M. Biot went out
+of the reception room without kissing the hand of his grace, although he
+had presented it to each of them very graciously. The archbishop
+indemnified himself on my poor person. A movement, which was very near
+breaking my teeth, a gesture which I might justly call a blow of the
+fist, proved to me that the chief of the Franciscans, notwithstanding
+his vow of humility, had taken offence at the want of ceremony in my
+fellow visitors. I was going to complain of the abrupt way in which he
+had treated me, but I had the necessities of our trigonometrical
+operations before my eyes, and I was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this, at the instant when the closed fist of the archbishop was
+applied to my lips, I was still thinking of the beautiful optical
+experiments which it would have been possible to make with the
+magnificent stone which ornamented his pastoral ring. This idea, I must
+frankly declare, had preoccupied me during the whole of the visit.</p>
+
+<p>M. Biot having at last come to seek me again at Valencia, where I
+expected, as I have before said, some new instruments, we went on to
+Formentera, the southern extremity of our arc, of which place we
+determined the latitude. M. Biot quitted me afterwards to return to
+Paris, whilst I made the geodesical junction of the island of Majorca to
+Iviza, and to Formentera, obtaining thus, by means of one single
+triangle, the measure of an arc of parallel of one degree and a half.</p>
+
+<p>I then went to Majorca, to measure there the latitude and the azimuth.</p>
+
+<p>At this epoch, the political fermentation, engendered by the entrance of
+the French into Spain, began to invade the whole Peninsula and the
+islands dependent on it. This ferment had as yet in Majorca only reached
+to the ministers, the partisans, and the relations of the Prince of
+Peace. Each evening, I saw, drawn in triumph in the square of Palma, the
+capital of the island of Majorca, on carriages, the effigies in flames,
+sometimes of the minister Soller, another time those of the bishop, and
+even those of private individuals supposed to be attached to the
+fortunes of the favourite Godo&iuml;. I was far from suspecting then that my
+turn would soon arrive.</p>
+
+<p>My station at Majorca, the <i>Clop de Galazo</i>, a very high mountain, was
+situated exactly over the port where <i>Don Jayme el Conquistator</i>
+disembarked when he went to deliver the Balearic Islands from the Moors.
+The report spread itself through the population that I had established
+myself there in order to favour the arrival of the French army, and that
+every evening I made signals to it. But these reports had nothing
+menacing until the moment of the arrival at Palma, the 27th of May,
+1808, of an ordnance officer from Napoleon. This officer was M.
+Berth&eacute;mie; he carried to the Spanish squadron, at Mahon, the order to go
+in all haste to Toulon. A general rising, which placed the life of this
+officer in danger, followed the news of his mission. The Captain-General
+Viv&eacute;s only saved his life by shutting him up in the strong castle of
+Belver. They then bethought themselves of the Frenchman established on
+the <i>Clop de Galazo</i>, and formed a popular expedition to go and seize
+him.</p>
+
+<p>M. Damian, the owner of a small kind of vessel called a Mistic, which
+the Spanish Government had placed at my disposal, was beforehand with
+them, and brought me a costume by means of which I disguised myself. In
+directing myself towards Palma, in company with this brave seaman, we
+met with the rioters who were going in search of me. They did not
+recognize me, for I spoke Majorcan perfectly. I strongly encouraged the
+men of this detachment to continue their route, and I pursued my way
+towards Palma. At night I went on board the Mistic, commanded by Don
+Manuel de Vacaro, whom the Spanish Government had placed under my
+orders. I asked this officer if he would conduct me to Barcelona,
+occupied by the French, promising him that if they made any attempt to
+keep him there, I would at once return and surrender myself a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>Don Manuel, who up to this time had shown extreme obsequiousness towards
+me, had now no words but those of rudeness and distrust. There occurred
+on the pier where the Mistic was moored a riotous movement, which Vacaro
+assured me was directed against me. "Do not be uneasy," said he to me;
+"if they should penetrate into the vessel you can hide yourself in this
+trunk." I made the attempt; but the chest which he showed me was so
+small that my legs were entirely outside, and the cover could not be
+shut down. I understood perfectly what that meant, and I asked M. Vacaro
+to let me also be shut up in the castle of Belver. The order for
+incarceration having arrived from the captain-general, I got into the
+boat, where the sailors of the Mistic received me with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment of their crossing the harbour the populace perceived me,
+commenced a pursuit, and it was not without much difficulty that I
+reached Belver safe and sound. I had only, indeed, received on my way
+one slight wound from a dagger in the thigh. Prisoners have often been
+seen to run with all speed <i>from</i> their dungeon; I am the first,
+perhaps, to whom it has happened to do the reverse. This took place on
+the 1st or 2d of June, 1808.</p>
+
+<p>The governor of Belver was a very extraordinary personage. If he is
+still alive he may demand of me a certificate as to his priority to the
+modern hydropathists; the grenadier-captain maintained that pure water,
+suitably administered, was a means of treatment for all illnesses, even
+for amputations. By listening very patiently to his theories, and never
+interrupting him, I won his good opinion. It was at his request, and
+from interest in our safety, that a Swiss garrison replaced the Spanish
+troop which until then had been employed as the guard of Belver. It was
+also through him that I one day learnt that a monk had proposed to the
+soldiers who went to bring my food from the town, to put some poison
+into one of the dishes.</p>
+
+<p>All my old Majorcan friends had abandoned me at the moment of my
+detention. I had had a very sharp correspondence with Don Manuel de
+Vacaro in order to obtain the restitution of the passport of safety
+which the English Admiralty had granted to us. M. Rodriguez alone
+ventured to visit me in full daylight, and bring me every consolation in
+his power.</p>
+
+<p>The excellent M. Rodriguez, to while away the monotony of my
+incarceration, remitted to me from time to time the journals which were
+then published at different parts of the Peninsula. He often sent them
+to me without reading them. Once I saw in these journals the recital of
+the horrible massacres of which the town of Valencia&mdash;I make a mistake,
+the <i>square of the Bull-fights</i>&mdash;had been the theatre, and in which
+nearly the whole of the French established in this town (more than 350)
+had disappeared under the pike of the bull-fighter. Another journal
+contained an article bearing this title: "Relacion de la ahorcadura del
+se&ntilde;or Arago e del se&ntilde;or Berth&eacute;mie,"&mdash;literally, "Account of the
+execution of M. Arago and M. Berth&eacute;mie." This account spoke of the two
+executed men in very different terms. M. Berth&eacute;mie was a Huguenot; he
+had been deaf to all exhortations; he had spit in the face of the
+ecclesiastic who was present, and even on the image of Christ. As for
+me, I had conducted myself with much decency, and had allowed myself to
+be hung without giving rise to any scandal. The writer also expressed
+his regret that a young astronomer had been so weak as to associate
+himself with treason, coming under the disguise of science to assist the
+entrance of the French army into a friendly kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>After reading this article I immediately made my decision: "Since they
+talk of my death," said I to my friend Rodriguez, "the event will not be
+long in coming. I should prefer being drowned to being hung. I will make
+my escape from this fortress; it is for you to furnish me with the
+means."</p>
+
+<p>Rodriguez, knowing better than any one how well founded my apprehensions
+were, set himself at once to the work.</p>
+
+<p>He went to the captain-general, and made him feel what would be the
+danger of his position if I should disappear in a popular riot, or even
+if he were forced to give me up. His observations were so much the
+better comprehended, as no one could then predict what might be the
+issue of the Spanish revolution. "I will undertake," said the
+captain-general Viv&eacute;s to my colleague Rodriguez, "to give an order to
+the commander of the fortress, that when the right moment arrives, he
+shall allow M. Arago, and even the two or three other Frenchmen who are
+with him in the castle of Belver, to pass out. They will then have no
+need of the means of escape which they have procured; but I will take no
+part in the preparations which will become necessary to enable the
+fugitives to leave the island; I leave all that to your responsibility."</p>
+
+<p>Rodriguez immediately conferred secretly with the brave commander
+Damian. It was agreed between them that Damian should take the command
+of a half-decked boat, which the wind had driven ashore; that he should
+equip it as if for a fishing expedition; that he should carry us to
+Algiers; after which his re&euml;ntrance at Palmas, with or without fish,
+would inspire no suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>All was executed according to agreement, notwithstanding the
+inquisitorial surveillance which Don Manuel de Vacaro exercised over the
+commander of his "Mistic."</p>
+
+<p>On the 28th July, 1808, we silently descended the hill on which Belver
+is built, at the same moment that the family of the minister Soller
+entered the fortress to escape the fury of the populace. Arrived at the
+shore, we found there Damian, his boat, and three sailors. We embarked
+at once, and set sail. Damian had taken the precaution of bringing with
+us in this frail vessel the instruments of value which he had carried
+off from my station at the Clop de Galazo. The sea was unfavourable;
+Damian thought it prudent to stop at the little island of Cabrera,
+destined to become a short time afterwards so sadly celebrated by the
+sufferings which the soldiers of the army of Dupont experienced after
+the shameful capitulation of Baylen. There a singular incident was very
+near compromising all. Cabrera, tolerably near to the southern extremity
+of Majorca, is often visited by fishermen coming from that part of the
+island. M. Berth&eacute;mie feared, justly enough, that the rumour of our
+escape having spread about, they might dispatch some boats to seize us.
+He looked upon our going into harbour as inopportune; I maintained that
+we must yield to the prudence of the commander. During this discussion,
+the three seamen whom Damian had engaged saw that M. Berth&eacute;mie, whom I
+had endeavoured to pass off as my servant, maintained his opinion
+against me on a footing of equality. They then addressed themselves in
+these terms to the commander:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We only consented to take part in this expedition upon condition that
+the Emperor's aide-de-camp, shut up at Belver, should not be of the
+number of those persons whom we should help off. We only wished to aid
+the flight of the astronomer. Since it seems to be otherwise, you must
+leave this officer here, unless you would prefer to throw him into the
+sea."</p>
+
+<p>Damian at once informed me of the imperative wishes of his boat's crew.
+M. Berth&eacute;mie agreed with me to suffer some abuse such as could only be
+tolerated by a servant threatened by his master; all the suspicions
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Damian, who feared also for himself the arrival of Majorcan fishermen,
+hastened to set sail on the 29th of July, 1808, the first moment that
+was favourable, and we arrived at Algiers on the 3d of August.</p>
+
+<p>Our looks were anxiously directed towards the port, to guess what
+reception might await us. We were reassured by the sight of the
+tri-coloured flag, which was flying on two or three buildings. But we
+were mistaken; these buildings were Dutch. Immediately upon our
+entrance, a Spaniard, whom, from his tone of authority, we took for a
+high functionary of the Regency, came up to Damian, and asked him: "What
+do you bring?" "I bring," answered the commander, "four Frenchmen." "You
+will at once take them back again. I prohibit you from disembarking." As
+we did not seem inclined to obey his order, our Spaniard, who was the
+constructing engineer of the ships of the Dey, armed himself with a
+pole, and commenced battering us with blows. But immediately a Genoese
+seaman, mounted on a neighbouring vessel, armed himself with an oar, and
+struck our assailant both with edge and point. During this animated
+combat we managed to land without any opposition. We had conceived a
+singular idea of the manner in which the police act on the coast of
+Africa.</p>
+
+<p>We pursued our way to the French Consul's, M. Dubois Thainville. He was
+at his country house. Escorted by the janissary of the consulate, we
+went off towards this country house, one of the ancient residences of
+the Dey, situated not far from the gate of Bab-azoum. The consul and his
+family received us with great amity, and offered us hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly transported to a new continent, I looked forward anxiously to
+the rising of the sun to enjoy all that Africa might offer of interest
+to a European, when all at once I believed myself to be engaged in a
+serious adventure. By the faint light of the dawn, I saw an animal
+moving at the foot of my bed. I gave a kick with my foot: all movement
+ceased. After some time, I felt the same movement made under my legs. A
+sharp jerk made this cease quickly. I then heard the fits of laughter of
+the janissary, who lay on the couch in the same room as I did; and I
+soon saw that he had simply placed on my bed a large hedgehog to amuse
+himself by my uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>The consul occupied himself the next day in procuring a passage for us
+on board a vessel of the Regency which was going to Marseilles. M.
+Ferrier, the Chancellor of the French Consulate, was at the same time
+Consul for Austria. He procured for us two false passports, which
+transformed us&mdash;M. Berth&eacute;mie and me&mdash;into two strolling merchants, the
+one from <i>Schwekat</i>, in Hungary, the other from <i>Leoben</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The moment of departure had arrived; the 13th of August, 1808, we were
+on board, but our ship's company was not complete. The captain, whose
+title was Ra&iuml; Braham Ouled Mustapha Goja, having perceived that the Dey
+was on his terrace, and fearing punishment if he should delay to set
+sail, completed his crew at the expense of the idlers who were looking
+on from the pier, and of whom the greater part were not sailors. These
+poor people begged as a favour for permission to go and inform their
+families of this precipitate departure, and to get some clothes. The
+captain remained deaf to their remonstrances. We weighed anchor.</p>
+
+<p>The vessel belonged to the Emir of Seca, Director of the Mint. The real
+commander was a Greek captain, named Spiro Calligero. The cargo
+consisted of a great number of <i>groups</i>. Amongst the passengers there
+were five members of the family which the Bakri had succeeded as kings
+of the Jews; two ostrich-feather merchants, Moroccans; Captain Krog,
+from Berghen in Norway, who had sold his ship at Alicant; two lions sent
+by the Dey to the emperor Napoleon, and a great number of monkeys. Our
+voyage was prosperous. Off Sardinia we met with an American ship coming
+out from Cagliari. A cannon-shot (we were armed with forty pieces of
+small power) warned the captain to come to be recognized. He brought on
+board a certain number of counterparts of passports, one of which agreed
+perfectly with that which we carried. The captain being thus all right,
+was not a little astonished when I ordered him, in the name of Captain
+Braham, to furnish us with tea, coffee, and sugar. The American captain
+protested; he called us brigands, pirates, robbers. Captain Braham
+admitted without difficulty all these qualifications, and persisted none
+the less in the exaction of sugar, coffee, and tea.</p>
+
+<p>The American, then driven to the last stage of exasperation, addressed
+himself to me, who acted as interpreter, and cried out, "Oh! rogue of a
+renegade! if ever I meet you on holy ground I will break your head."
+"Can you then suppose," I answered him, "that I am here for my pleasure,
+and that, notwithstanding your menace, I would not rather go with you,
+if I could?" These words calmed him; he brought the sugar, the coffee,
+and the tea claimed by the Moorish chief, and we again set sail, though
+without having exchanged the usual farewell.</p>
+
+<p>We had already entered the Gulf of Lyons, and were approaching
+Marseilles, when on the 16th August, 1808, we met with a Spanish corsair
+from Palamos, armed at the prow with two twenty-four pounders. We made
+full sail; we hoped to escape it: but a cannon-shot, a ball from which
+went through our sails, taught us that she was a much better sailer than
+we were.</p>
+
+<p>We obeyed an injunction thus expressed, and awaited the great boat from
+the corsair. The captain declared that he made us prisoners, although
+Spain was at peace with Barbary, under the pretext that we were
+violating the blockade which had been lately raised on all the coasts of
+France: he added, that he intended to take us to Rosas, and that there
+the authorities would decide on our fate.</p>
+
+<p>I was in the cabin of the vessel; I had the curiosity to look furtively
+at the crew of the boat, and there I perceived, with a dissatisfaction
+which may easily be imagined, one of the sailors of the "Mistic,"
+commanded by Don Manuel de Vacaro, of the name of Pablo Blanco, of
+Palamos, who had often acted as my servant during my geodesic
+operations. My false passport would become from this moment useless, if
+Pablo should recognize me: I went to bed at once, covered my head with
+the counterpane, and lay as still as a statue.</p>
+
+<p>During the two days which elapsed between our capture and our entrance
+into the roads of Rosas, Pablo, whose curiosity often brought him into
+the room, used to exclaim, "There is one passenger whom I have not yet
+managed to get a sight of."</p>
+
+<p>When we arrived at Rosas it was decided that we should be placed in
+quarantine in a dismantled windmill, situated on the road leading to
+Figueras. I was careful to disembark in a boat to which Pablo did not
+belong. The corsair departed for a new cruise, and I was for a moment
+freed from the harassing thoughts which my old servant had caused me.</p>
+
+<p>Our ship was richly laden; the Spanish authorities were immediately
+desirous to declare it a lawful prize. They pretended to believe that I
+was the proprietor of it, and wished, in order to hasten things, to
+interrogate me, even without awaiting the completion of the quarantine.
+They stretched two cords between the mill and the shore, and a judge
+placed himself in front of me. As the interrogatories were made from a
+good distance, the numerous audience which encircled us took a direct
+part in the questions and answers. I will endeavour to reproduce this
+dialogue with all possible fidelity:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"A poor roving merchant."</p>
+
+<p>"Whence do you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"From a country where you certainly never were."</p>
+
+<p>"In a word, what country is it?"</p>
+
+<p>I was afraid to answer, for the passports, steeped in vinegar, were in
+the hands of the judge-instructor, and I had forgotten whether I was
+from Schwekat or from Leoben. Finally I answered at all hazards:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I come from Schwekat."</p>
+
+<p>And this information happily was found to agree with that of the
+passport.</p>
+
+<p>"You are as much from Schwekat as I am," answered the judge. "You are
+Spanish, and, moreover, a Spaniard from the kingdom of Valencia, as I
+perceive by your accent."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you punish me, sir, because nature has endowed me with the gift
+of languages? I learn with facility the dialects of those countries
+through which I pass in the exercise of my trade; I have learnt, for
+example, the dialect of Iviza."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, you shall be taken at your word. I see here a soldier from
+Iviza; you shall hold a conversation with him."</p>
+
+<p>"I consent; I will even sing the goat song."</p>
+
+<p>Each of the verses of this song (if verses they be) terminates by an
+imitation of the bleating of the goat.</p>
+
+<p>I commenced at once, with an audacity at which I really feel astonished,
+to chant this air, which is sung by all the shepherds of the island.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Ah graciada se&ntilde;ora</div>
+<div>Una canzo bouil canta</div>
+<div class='i2'>B&egrave;, b&egrave;, b&egrave;, b&egrave;.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>No sera gaira pulida</div>
+<div>Nos&eacute; si vos agradara</div>
+<div class='i2'>B&egrave;, b&egrave;, b&egrave;, b&egrave;.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>At once my Ivizacan, upon whom this air had the effect of the <i>ranz des
+vaches</i> on the Swiss, declared, all in tears, that I was a native of
+Iviza.</p>
+
+<p>I then said to the judge that if he would put me in communication with a
+person knowing the French language, he would arrive at just as
+embarrassing a result. An <i>&eacute;migr&eacute;</i> officer of the Bourbon regiment
+offered at once to make the experiment, and, after some phrases
+interchanged between us, affirmed without hesitation that I was French.</p>
+
+<p>The judge, rendered impatient, exclaimed, "Let us put an end to these
+trials which decide nothing. I summon you, sir, to tell me who you are.
+I promise that your life will be safe if you answer me with sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>"My greatest wish would be to give an answer to your satisfaction. I
+will, then, try to do so; but I warn you that I am not going to tell you
+the truth. I am son of the innkeeper at Mataro." "I know that innkeeper;
+you are not his son." "You are right. I announced to you that I should
+vary my answers until one of them should suit you. I retract then, and
+tell you that I am a <i>titiretero</i>, (player of marionettes,) and that I
+practised at Lerida."</p>
+
+<p>A loud shout of laughter from the multitude encircling us greeted this
+answer, and put an end to the questions.</p>
+
+<p>"I swear by the d&mdash;&mdash;l," exclaimed the judge, "that I will discover
+sooner or later who you are!"</p>
+
+<p>And he retired.</p>
+
+<p>The Arabs, the Moroccans, the Jews, who witnessed this interrogatory,
+understood nothing of it; they had only seen that I had not allowed
+myself to be intimidated. At the close of the interview they came to
+kiss my hand, and gave me, from this moment, their entire confidence.</p>
+
+<p>I became their secretary for all the individual or collective
+remonstrances which they thought they had a right to address to the
+Spanish Government; and this right was incontestable. Every day I was
+occupied in drawing up petitions, especially in the name of the two
+ostrich-feather merchants, one of whom called himself a tolerably near
+relation of the Emperor of Morocco. Astonished at the rapidity with
+which I filled a page of my writing, they imagined, doubtless, that I
+should write as fast in Arabic characters, when it should be requisite
+to transcribe passages from the Koran; and that this would form both for
+me and for them the source of a brilliant fortune, and they besought me,
+in the most earnest way, to become a Mahometan.</p>
+
+<p>Very little reassured by the last words of the judge, I sought means of
+safety from another quarter.</p>
+
+<p>I was the possessor of a safe-conduct from the English Admiralty; I
+therefore wrote a confidential letter to the captain of an English
+vessel, The Eagle, I think, which had cast anchor some days before in
+the roads at Rosas. I explained to him my position. "You can," I said to
+him, "claim me, because I have an English passport. If this proceeding
+should cost you too much, have the goodness at least to take my
+manuscripts and to send them to the Royal Society in London."</p>
+
+<p>One of the soldiers who guarded us, and in whom I had fortunately
+inspired some interest, undertook to deliver my letter. The English
+captain came to see me; his name was, if my memory is right, George
+Eyre. We had a private conversation on the shore. George Eyre thought,
+perhaps, that the manuscripts of my observations were contained in a
+register bound in morocco, and with gilt edges to the leaves. When he
+saw that these manuscripts were composed of single leaves, covered with
+figures, which I had hidden under my shirt, disdain succeeded to
+interest, and he quitted me hastily. Having returned on board, he wrote
+me a letter which I could find if needful, in which he said to me,&mdash;"I
+cannot mix myself up in your affairs; address yourself to the Spanish
+Government; I am persuaded that it will do justice to your
+remonstrance, and will not molest you." As I had not the same persuasion
+as Captain George Eyre, I chose to take no notice of his advice.</p>
+
+<p>I ought to mention that some time after having related these particulars
+in England, at Sir Joseph Banks's, the conduct of George Eyre was
+severely blamed; but when a man breakfasts and dines to the sound of
+harmonious music, can he accord his interest to a poor devil sleeping on
+straw and nibbled by vermin, even though he have manuscripts under his
+shirt? I may add that I (unfortunately for me) had to do with a captain
+of an unusual character. For, some days later, a new vessel, The
+Colossus, having arrived in the roads, the Norwegian, Captain Krog,
+although he had not, like me, an Admiralty passport, made an application
+to the commander of this new ship; he was immediately claimed, and
+relieved from captivity.</p>
+
+<p>The report that I was a Spanish deserter, and proprietor of the vessel,
+acquiring more and more credit, and this position being the most
+dangerous of all, I resolved to get out of it. I begged the commandant
+of the place, M. Alloy, to come to receive my declaration, and I
+announced to him that I was French. To prove to him the truth of my
+words, I invited him to send for Pablo Blanco, the sailor in the service
+of the corsair who took us, and who had returned from his cruise a short
+time before. This was done as I wished. In disembarking, Pablo Blanco,
+who had not been warned, exclaimed with surprise: "What! you, Don
+Francisco, mixed up with all these miscreants!" The sailor gave the
+Governor circumstantial evidence as to the mission which I fulfilled
+with two Spanish commissaries. My nationality thus became proved.</p>
+
+<p>That same day Alloy was replaced in the command of the fortress by the
+Irish Colonel of the Ultonian regiment; the corsair left for a fresh
+cruise, taking away Pablo Blanco; and I became once more the roving
+merchant from Schwekat.</p>
+
+<p>From the windmill, where we underwent our quarantine, I could see the
+tricoloured flag flying on the fortress of Figueras. The reconnoitring
+parties of the cavalry came sometimes within five or six hundred metres;
+it would not then have been difficult for me to escape. However, as the
+regulations against those who violate the sanitary laws are very
+rigorous in Spain, as they pronounce the penalty of death against him
+who infringes them, I only determined to make my escape on the eve of
+our admission to pratique.</p>
+
+<p>The night being come I crept on all-fours along the briars, and I should
+soon have got beyond the line of sentinels who guarded us. A noisy
+uproar which I heard among the Moors made me determine to re&euml;nter, and I
+found these poor people in an unspeakable state of uneasiness, thinking
+themselves lost if I left; I therefore remained.</p>
+
+<p>The next day a strong picquet of troops presented itself before the
+mill. The man&oelig;uvres made by it inspired all of us with anxiety, but
+especially Captain Krog.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> "What will they do with us?" he exclaimed.
+"Alas! you will see only too soon," replied the Spanish officer. This
+answer made every one believe that they were going to shoot us. What
+might have strengthened me in this idea was the obstinacy with which
+Captain Krog and two other individuals of small size hid themselves
+behind me. A handling of arms made us think that we had but a few
+seconds to live.</p>
+
+<p>In analyzing the feelings which I experienced on this solemn occasion, I
+have come to the conclusion that the man who is led to death is not as
+unhappy as the public imagines him to be. Fifty ideas presented
+themselves nearly simultaneously to my mind, and I did not rack my brain
+for any of them; I only recollect the two following, which have remained
+engraved on my memory. On turning my head to the right, I saw the
+national flag flying on the bastions of Figueras, and I said to myself,
+"If I were to move a few hundred metres, I should be surrounded by
+comrades, by friends, by fellow citizens, who would receive me
+affectionately. Here, without their being able to impute any crime to
+me, I am going to suffer death at twenty-two years of age." But what
+agitated me more deeply was this: looking towards the Pyrenees, I could
+distinctly see their peaks, and I reflected that my mother, on the other
+side of the chain, might at this awful moment be looking peaceably at
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish authorities, finding that to redeem my life I would not
+declare myself the owner of the vessel, had us conducted without farther
+molestation to the fortress of Rosas. Having to file through nearly all
+the inhabitants of the town, I had wished at first, through a false
+feeling of shame, to leave in the mill the remains of our week's meals.
+But M. Berth&eacute;mie, more prudent than I, carried over his shoulder a great
+quantity of pieces of black bread, tied up with packthread. I imitated
+him. I furnished myself famously from our old stock, set it on my
+shoulder, and it was with this accoutrement that I made my entrance into
+the famous fortress.</p>
+
+<p>They placed us in a casemate, where we had barely the space necessary
+for lying down. In the windmill, they used to bring us, from time to
+time, some provisions, which came from our boat. Here, the Spanish
+government purveyed our food. We received every day some bread and a
+ration of rice; but as we had no means of dressing food, we were in
+reality reduced to dry bread.</p>
+
+<p>Dry bread was very unsubstantial food for one who could see from his
+casemate, at the door of his prison, a sutler selling grapes at two
+farthings a pound, and cooking, under the shelter of half a cask, bacon
+and herrings; but we had no money to bring us into connection with this
+merchant. I then decided, though with very great regret, to sell a watch
+which my father had given me. I was only offered about a quarter of its
+value; but I might well accept it, since there were no competitors for
+it.</p>
+
+<p>As possessors of sixty francs, M. Berth&eacute;mie and I could now appease the
+hunger from which we had long suffered; but we did not like this return
+of fortune to be profitable to ourselves alone, and we made some
+presents, which were very well received by our companions in captivity.
+Though this sale of my watch brought some comfort to us, it was doomed
+at a later period to plunge a family into sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>The town of Rosas fell into the power of the French after a courageous
+resistance. The prisoners of the garrison were sent to France, and
+naturally passed through Perpignan. My father went in quest of news
+wherever Spaniards were to be found. He entered a caf&eacute; at the moment
+when a prisoner officer drew from his fob the watch which I had sold at
+Rosas. My good father saw in this act the proof of my death, and fell
+into a swoon. The officer had got the watch from a third party, and
+could give no account of the fate of the person to whom it had
+originally belonged.</p>
+
+<p>The casemate having become necessary to the defenders of the fortress,
+we were taken to a little chapel, where they deposited for twenty-four
+hours those who had died in the hospital. There we were guarded by
+peasants who had come across the mountain, from various villages, and
+particularly from Cadaqu&egrave;s. These peasants, eager to recount all that
+they had seen of interest during their one day's campaign, questioned me
+as to the deeds and behaviour of all my companions in misfortune. I
+satisfied their curiosity amply, being the only one of the set who could
+speak Spanish.</p>
+
+<p>To enlist their good will, I also questioned them at length upon the
+subject of their village, on the work that they did there, on smuggling,
+their principal sources of employment, &amp;c. &amp;c. They answered my
+questions with the loquacity common to country rustics. The next day our
+guards were replaced by some others who were inhabitants of the same
+village. "In my business of a roving merchant," I said to these last, "I
+have been at Cadaqu&egrave;s;" and then I began to talk to them of what I had
+learnt the night before, of such an individual, who gave himself up to
+smuggling with more success than others, of his beautiful residence, of
+the property which he possessed near the village,&mdash;in short, of a number
+of particulars which it seemed impossible for any but an inhabitant of
+Cadaqu&egrave;s to know. My jest produced an unexpected effect. Such
+circumstantial details, our guards said to themselves, cannot be known
+by a roving merchant; this personage, whom we have found here in such
+singular society, is certainly a native of Cadaqu&egrave;s; and the son of the
+apothecary must be about his age. He had gone to try his fortune in
+America; it is evidently he who fears to make himself known, having been
+found with all his riches in a vessel on its way to France. The report
+spread, became more consistent, and reached the ears of a sister of the
+apothecary established at Rosas. She runs to me, believes she recognizes
+me, and falls on my neck. I protest against the identity. "Well played!"
+said she to me; "the case is serious, as you have been found in a vessel
+coming to France; persist in your denial; circumstances may perhaps take
+a more favourable turn, and I shall profit by them to insure your
+deliverance. In the mean time, my dear nephew, I will let you want for
+nothing." And truly every morning M. Berth&eacute;mie and I received a
+comfortable repast.</p>
+
+<p>The church having become necessary to the garrison to serve as a
+magazine, we were moved on the 25th of September, 1808, to a Trinity
+fort, called the <i>Bouton de Rosas</i>, a citadel situated on a little
+mountain at the entrance of the roads, and we were deposited deep under
+ground, where the light of day did not penetrate on any side. We did not
+long remain in this infected place, not because they had pity upon us,
+but because it offered shelter for a part of the garrison attacked by
+the French. They made us descend by night to the edge of the sea, and
+then transported us on the 17th of October to the port of Palamos. We
+were shut up in a hulk; we enjoyed, however, a certain degree of
+liberty;&mdash;they allowed us to go on land, and to parade our miseries and
+our rags in the town. It was there that I made the acquaintance of the
+dowager Duchess of Orleans, mother of Louis Philippe. She had left the
+town of Figueras, where she resided, because, she told me, thirty-two
+bombs sent from the fortress had fallen in her house. She was then
+intending to take refuge in Algiers, and she asked me to bring the
+captain of the vessel to her, of whom, perhaps, she would have to
+implore protection. I related to my "<i>ra&iuml;s</i>" the misfortunes of the
+Princess; he was moved by them, and I conducted him to her. On entering,
+he took off his slippers from respect, as if he had entered within a
+mosque, and holding them in his hand, he went to kiss the front of the
+dress of Madame d'Orleans. The Princess Was alarmed at the sight of this
+manly figure, wearing the longest beard I ever saw; she quickly
+recovered herself, and the interview proceeded with a mixture of French
+politeness and Oriental courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>The sixty francs from Rosas were expended. Madame D'Orleans would have
+liked much to assist us, but she was herself without money. All that she
+could gratify us with was a piece of sugarbread. The evening of our
+visit I was richer than the Princess. To avoid the fury of the people
+the Spanish Government sent those French who had escaped the first
+massacres back to France in slight boats. One of the <i>cartels</i> came and
+cast anchor by the side of our hulk. One of the unhappy emigrants
+offered me a pinch of snuff. On opening the snuff-box I found there
+"<i>una onza de oro</i>," (an ounce of gold,) the sole remains of his
+fortune. I returned the snuff-box to him, with warm thanks, after having
+shut up in it a paper containing these words:&mdash;"My fellow-countryman who
+carries this note has rendered me a great service;&mdash;treat him as one of
+your children." My petition was naturally favourably received; it was by
+this bit of paper, the size of the <i>onza de oro</i>, that my family learnt
+that I was still in existence, and it enabled my mother&mdash;a model of
+piety&mdash;to cease saying masses for the repose of my soul.</p>
+
+<p>Five days afterwards, one of my hardy compatriots arrived at Palamos,
+after having traversed the line of posts both French and Spanish,
+carrying to a merchant who had friends at Perpignan the proposal to
+furnish me with all I was in need of. The Spaniard showed a great
+inclination to agree to the proposal; but I did not profit by his good
+will, because of the occurrence of events which I shall relate
+presently.</p>
+
+<p>The Observatory at Paris is very near the barrier. In my youth, curious
+to study the manners of the people, I used to walk in sight of the
+public-houses which the desire of escaping payment of the duty has
+multiplied outside the walls of the capital; on these excursions I was
+often humiliated to see men disputing for a piece of bread, just as
+animals might have done. My feelings on this subject have very much
+altered since I have been personally exposed to the tortures of hunger.
+I have discovered, in fact, that a man, whatever may have been his
+origin, his education, and his habits, is governed, under certain
+circumstances, much more by his stomach than by his intelligence and his
+heart. Here is the fact which suggested these reflections to me.</p>
+
+<p>To celebrate the unhoped-for arrival of <i>una onza de oro</i>, M. Berth&eacute;mie
+and I had procured an immense dish of potatoes. The ordnance officer of
+the Emperor was already devouring it with his eyes, when a Moroccan, who
+was making his ablutions near us with one of his companions,
+accidentally filled it with dirt. M. Berth&eacute;mie could not control his
+anger; he darted upon the clumsy Mussulman, and inflicted upon him a
+rough punishment.</p>
+
+<p>I remained a passive spectator of the combat, until the second Moroccan
+came to the aid of his compatriot. The party no longer being equal, I
+also took part in the conflict by seizing the new assailant by the
+beard. The combat ceased at once, because the Moroccan would not raise
+his hand against a man who could write a petition so rapidly. This
+conflict, like the struggles of which I had often been a witness outside
+the barriers of Paris, had originated in a dish of potatoes.</p>
+
+<p>The Spaniards always cherished the idea that the ship and her cargo
+might be confiscated; a commission came from Girone to question us. It
+was composed of two civil judges and one inquisitor. I acted as
+interpreter. When M. Berth&eacute;mie's turn came, I went to fetch him, and
+said to him, "Pretend that you can only talk Styrian, and be at ease; I
+will not compromise you in translating your answers."</p>
+
+<p>It was done as we had agreed; unfortunately the language spoken by M.
+Berth&eacute;mie had but little variety, and the <i>sacrement der Teufel</i>, which
+he had learnt in Germany, when he was aide-de-camp to Hautpoul,
+predominated too much in his discourse. Be that as it may, the judges
+observed that there was too great a conformity between his answers and
+those which I had made myself, to render it necessary to continue an
+interrogatory, which I may say, by the way, disturbed me much. The wish
+to terminate it was still more decided on the part of the judges, when
+it came to the turn of a sailor named Mehemet. Instead of making him
+swear on the Koran to tell the truth, the judge was determined to make
+him place his thumb on the forefinger so as represent the cross. I
+warned him that great offence would thus be given; and, accordingly,
+when Mehemet became aware of the meaning of this sign, he began to spit
+upon it with inconceivable violence. The meeting ended at once.</p>
+
+<p>The next day things had wholly changed their appearance; one of the
+judges from Girone came to declare to us that we were free to depart,
+and to go with our ship wherever we chose. What was the cause of this
+sudden change? It was this.</p>
+
+<p>During our quarantine in the windmill at Rosas, I had written, in the
+name of Captain Braham, a letter to the Dey of Algiers. I gave him an
+account of the illegal arrest of his vessel, and of the death of one of
+the lions which the Dey had sent to the Emperor. This last circumstance
+transported the African monarch with rage. He sent immediately for the
+Spanish Consul, M. Onis, claimed pecuniary damages for his dear lion,
+and threatened war if his ship was not released directly. Spain had then
+to do with too many difficulties to undertake wantonly any new ones, and
+the order to release the vessel so anxiously coveted arrived at Girone,
+and from thence at Palamos.</p>
+
+<p>This solution, to which our Consul at Algiers, M. Dubois Thainville, had
+not remained inattentive, reached us at the moment when we least
+expected it. We at once made preparations for our departure, and on the
+28th of November, 1808, we set sail, steering for Marseilles; but, as
+the Mussulmen on board the vessel declared, it was written above that we
+should not enter that town. We could already perceive the white
+buildings which crown the neighbouring hills of Marseilles, when a gust
+of the "mistral," of great violence, sent us from the north towards the
+south.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know what route we followed, for I was lying in my cabin,
+overcome with sea-sickness; I may therefore, though an astronomer, avow
+without shame, that at the moment when our unqualified pilots supposed
+themselves to be off the Bal&eacute;ares, we landed, on the 5th of December,
+at Bougie.</p>
+
+<p>There, they pretended that during the three months of winter, all
+communication with Algiers, by means of the little boats named
+<i>sandalis</i>, would be impossible, and I resigned myself to the painful
+prospect of so long a stay in a place at that time almost a desert. One
+evening I was making these sad reflections while pacing the deck of the
+vessel, when a shot from a gun on the coast came and struck the side
+planks close to which I was passing. This suggested to me the thought of
+going to Algiers by land.</p>
+
+<p>I went next day, accompanied by M. Berth&eacute;mie and Captain Spiro
+Calligero, to the Ca&iuml;d of the town: "I wish," said I to him, "to go to
+Algiers by land." The man, quite frightened, exclaimed, "I cannot allow
+you to do so; you would certainly be killed on the road; your Consul
+would make a complaint to the Dey, and I should have my head cut off."</p>
+
+<p>"Fear not on that ground. I will give you an acquittance."</p>
+
+<p>It was immediately drawn up in these terms: "We, the undersigned,
+certify that the Ca&iuml;d of Bougie wished to dissuade us from going to
+Algiers by land; that he has assured us that we shall be massacred on
+the road; that notwithstanding his representations, reiterated twenty
+times, we have persisted in our project. We beg the Algerine
+authorities, particularly our Consul, not to make him responsible for
+this event if it should occur. We once more repeat, that the voyage has
+been undertaken against his will.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+<i>Signed</i>: <span class="smcap">Arago</span> and <span class="smcap">Berth&eacute;mie</span>."
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Having given this declaration to the Ca&iuml;d, we considered ourselves quit
+of this functionary; but he came up to me, undid, without saying a word,
+the knot of my cravat, took it off, and put it into his pocket. All this
+was done so quickly that I had not time, I will add that I had not even
+the wish, to reclaim it.</p>
+
+<p>At the conclusion of this audience, which had terminated in so singular
+a manner, we made a bargain with a Mahomedan priest, who promised to
+conduct us to Algiers for the sum of twenty "piastres fortes," and a red
+mantle. The day was occupied in disguising ourselves well or ill, and we
+set out the next morning, accompanied by several Moorish sailors
+belonging to the crew of the ship, after having shown the Mahomedan
+priest that we had nothing with us worth a sou, so that if we were
+killed on the road he would inevitably lose all reward.</p>
+
+<p>I went, at the last moment, to make my bow to the only lion that was
+still alive, and with whom I had lived in very good harmony; I wished
+also to say good-bye to the monkeys, who during nearly five months had
+been equally my companions in misfortune.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> These monkeys during our
+frightful misery had rendered us a service which I scarcely dare
+mention, and which will scarcely be guessed by the inhabitants of our
+cities, who look upon these animals as objects of diversion; they freed
+us from the vermin which infested us, and showed particularly a
+remarkable cleverness in seeking out the hideous insects which lodged
+themselves in our hair.</p>
+
+<p>Poor animals! they seemed to me very unfortunate in being shut up in
+the narrow enclosure of the vessel, when, on the neighbouring coast,
+other monkeys, as if to bully them, came on to the branches of the
+trees, giving innumerable proofs of their agility.</p>
+
+<p>At the commencement of the day, we saw on the road two Kabyls, similar
+to the soldiers of Jugurtha, whose harsh appearance powerfully allayed
+our fancy for wandering. In the evening we witnessed a fearful tumult,
+which appeared to be directed against us. We learnt afterwards that the
+Mahomedan priest had been the object of it; that it originated with some
+Kabyls whom he had disarmed on one of their journeys to Bougie. This
+incident, which appeared likely to be repeated, inspired us for a moment
+with the thought of returning; but the sailors were resolute, and we
+continued our hazardous enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>In proportion as we advanced, our troops became increased by a certain
+number of Kabyls, who wished to go to Algiers to work there in the
+quality of seamen, and who dared not undertake alone this dangerous
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>The third day we encamped in the open air, at the entrance of a forest.
+The Arabs lighted a very large fire in the form of a circle, and placed
+themselves in the middle. Towards eleven o'clock, I was awakened by the
+noise which the mules made, all trying to break their fastenings. I
+asked what was the cause of this disturbance. They answered me that a
+"<i>seb&acirc;&aacute;</i>" had come roaming in the neighbourhood. I was not aware then
+that a "<i>seb&acirc;&aacute;</i>" was a lion, and I went to sleep again. The next day, in
+traversing the forest, the arrangement of the caravan was changed. It
+was grouped in the smallest space possible; one Kabyl was at the head,
+his gun ready for service; another was in the rear, in the same
+position. I inquired of the owner of the mule the cause of these unusual
+precautions. He answered me, that they were dreading an attack from a
+"<i>seb&acirc;&aacute;</i>" and that if this should occur, one of us would be carried off
+without having time to put himself on the defensive. "I would rather be
+a spectator," I said to him, "than an actor in the scene you describe;
+consequently, I will give you two piastres more if you will keep your
+mule always in the centre of the moving group." My proposal was
+accepted. It was then for the first time that I saw that my Arab carried
+a yatagan under his tunic, which he used for pricking on the mule the
+whole time that we were in the thicket. Superfluous cautions! The
+"<i>seb&acirc;&aacute;</i>" did not show himself.</p>
+
+<p>Each village being a little republic, whose territory we could not cross
+without obtaining permission and a passport from the Mahomedan priest
+<i>pr&eacute;sident</i>, the priest who conducted our caravan used to leave us in
+the fields, and went sometimes a good way off to a village to solicit
+the permission without which it would have been dangerous to continue
+our route. He remained entire hours without returning to us, and we then
+had occasion to reflect sadly on the imprudence of our enterprise. We
+generally slept amongst habitations. Once, we found the streets of a
+village barricaded, because they were fearing an attack from a
+neighbouring village. The foremost man of our caravan removed the
+obstacles; but a woman came out of her house like a fury, and belaboured
+us with blows from a pole. We remarked that she was fair, of brilliant
+whiteness, and very pretty.</p>
+
+<p>Another time we lay down in a lurking-place dignified by the beautiful
+name of caravansary. In the morning, when the sun rose, cries of
+"<i>Roumi! Roumi!</i>" warned us that we had been discovered. The sailor,
+Mehemet, he who figured in the scene of the oath at Palamos, entered in
+a melancholy mood the enclosure where we were together, and made us
+understand that the cries of "Roumi!" vociferated under these
+circumstances, were equivalent to a sentence of death. "Wait," said he;
+"a means of saving you has occurred to me." Mehemet entered some moments
+afterwards, told us that his means had succeeded, and invited me to join
+the Kabyls, who were going to say prayers.</p>
+
+<p>I accordingly went out, and prostrated myself towards the East. I
+imitated minutely the gestures which I saw made around me, pronouncing
+the sacred words,&mdash;<i>La elah il Allah! oua Mahommed ra&ccedil;oul Allah!</i> It was
+the scene of Mamamouchi of the "Bourgeois Gentilhomme," which I had so
+often seen acted by Dugazon,&mdash;with this one difference, that this time
+it did not make me laugh. I was, however, ignorant of the consequences
+it might have brought upon me on my arrival at Algiers. After having
+made the profession of faith before Mahomedans&mdash;<i>There is but one God,
+and Mahomet is his prophet</i>, if I had been informed against to the
+mufti, I must inevitably have become Mussulman, and they would not have
+allowed me to go out of the Regency.</p>
+
+<p>I must not forget to relate by what means Mehemet had saved us from
+inevitable death. "You have guessed rightly," said he to the Kabyls;
+"there are two Christians in the caravansary, but they are Mahomedans at
+heart, and are going to Algiers to be adopted by the mufti into our holy
+religion. You will not doubt this when I tell you that I was myself a
+slave to some Christians, and that they redeemed me with their money."</p>
+
+<p>"In cha Allah!" they exclaimed with one voice. And it was then that the
+scene took place which I have just described.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived in sight of Algiers the 25th December, 1808. We took leave of
+the Arab owners of our mules, who walked on foot by the side of us, and
+we spurred them on, in order to reach the town before the closing of the
+gates. On our arrival, we learnt that the Dey, to whom we owed our first
+deliverance, had been beheaded. The guard of the palace before which we
+passed, stopped us and questioned us as to whence we came. We replied
+that we came from Bougie by land. "It is not possible!" exclaimed all
+the janissaries at once; "the Dey himself would not venture to undertake
+such a journey!" "We acknowledge that we have committed a great
+imprudence; that we would not undertake to recommence the journey for
+millions; but the fact that we have just declared is the strict truth."</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the consular house, we were, as on the first occasion, very
+cordially welcomed. We received a visit from a dragoman sent by the Dey,
+who asked whether we persisted in maintaining that Bougie had been our
+point of departure, and not Cape Matifou, or some neighbouring port. We
+again affirmed the truth of our recital; it was confirmed, the next day,
+on the arrival of the proprietors of our mules.</p>
+
+<p>At Palamos, during the various interviews which I had with the dowager
+Duchess of Orleans, one circumstance had particularly affected me. The
+Princess spoke to me unceasingly of the wish she had to go and rejoin
+one of her sons, whom she believed to be alive, but of whose death I had
+been informed by a person belonging to her household. Hence I was
+anxious to do all that lay in my power to mitigate a sorrow which she
+must experience before long.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment when I quitted Spain for Marseilles, the Duchess confided
+to me two letters which I was to forward in safety to their addresses.
+One was destined for the Empress-mother of Russia, the other for the
+Empress of Austria.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had I arrived at Algiers, when I mentioned these two letters to
+M. Dubois Thainville, and begged him to send them to France by the first
+opportunity. "I shall do nothing of the sort," he at once answered me.
+"Do you know that you have behaved in this affair like a young
+inexperienced man, or, to speak out, like a blunderer? I am surprised
+that you did not comprehend that the Emperor, with his pettish spirit,
+might take this much amiss, and consider you, according to the contents
+of the two letters, as the promoter of an intrigue in favour of the
+exiled family of the Bourbons." Thus the paternal advice of the French
+Consul taught me that in all that regards politics, however nearly or
+remotely, one cannot give himself up without danger to the dictates of
+the heart and the reason.</p>
+
+<p>I enclosed my two letters in an envelope bearing the address of a
+trustworthy person, and gave them into the hands of a corsair, who,
+after touching at Algiers, would proceed to France. I have never known
+whether they reached their destination.</p>
+
+<p>The reigning Dey, successor to the beheaded Dey, had formerly filled the
+humble office of "<i>&eacute;pileur</i>"<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> of dead bodies in the mosques. He
+governed the Regency with much gentleness, occupying himself with
+little but his harem. This disgusted those who had raised him to this
+eminent post, and they resolved upon getting rid of him. We became aware
+of the danger which menaced him, by seeing the courts and vestibules of
+the consular house full, according to the custom under such
+circumstances, of Jews, carrying with them whatever they had of most
+value. It was a rule at Algiers, that all that happened in the interval
+comprised between the death of a Dey and the installation of his
+successor, could not be followed up by justice, and must remain
+unpunished. One can imagine, then, why the children of Moses should seek
+safety in the consular houses, the European inhabitants of which had the
+courage to arm themselves for self-defence as soon as the danger was
+apparent, and who, moreover, had a janissary to guard them.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the unfortunate Dey "&eacute;pileur" was being conducted towards the
+place where he was to be strangled, he heard the cannon which announced
+his death and the installation of his successor. "They are in great
+haste," said he; "what will you gain by carrying matters to extremities?
+Send me to the Levant; I promise you never to return. What have you to
+reproach me with?" "With nothing," answered his escort, "but your
+insignificance. However, a man cannot live as a mere private man, after
+having been Dey of Algiers." And the unfortunate man perished by the
+rope.</p>
+
+<p>The communication by sea between Bougie and Algiers was not so
+difficult, even with the "<i>sandalas</i>," as the Ca&iuml;d of the former town
+wished to assure me. Captain Spiro had the cases landed, which belonged
+to me. The Ca&iuml;d sought to discover what they contained; and, having
+perceived through a chink something yellowish, he hastened to send the
+news to the Dey, that the Frenchmen who had come to Algiers by land had
+among their baggage cases filled with zechins, destined to revolutionize
+the Kabylie. They immediately had these cases forwarded to Algiers, and
+at their opening, before the Minister of Naval Affairs, all the
+phantasmagoria of zechins, of treasure, of revolution, disappeared at
+the sight of the stands and the limbs of several repeating circles in
+copper.</p>
+
+<p>We are now going to sojourn several months in Algiers. I will take
+advantage of this to put together some details of manners which may be
+interesting as the picture of a state of things anterior to that of the
+occupation of the Regency by the French. This occupation, it must be
+remarked, has already fundamentally altered the manners and the habits
+of the Algerine population.</p>
+
+<p>I am about to report a curious fact, and one which shows that politics,
+which insinuate themselves and bring discord into the bosom of the most
+united families, had succeeded, strange to say, in penetrating as far as
+the galley-slaves' prison at Algiers. The slaves belonged to three
+nations: there were in 1809 in this prison, Portuguese, Neapolitans, and
+Sicilians; among these two latter classes were counted partisans of
+Murat and those of Ferdinand of Naples. One day, at the beginning of the
+year, a dragoman came in the name of the Dey to beg M. Dubois Thainville
+to go without delay to the prison, where the friends of the French and
+their adversaries had involved themselves in a furious combat; and
+already several had fallen. The weapon with which they struck each other
+was the heavy long chain attached to their legs.</p>
+
+<p>Each Consul, as I said above, had a janissary placed with him as his
+guard; the one belonging to the French Consul was a Candiote; he had
+been surnamed <i>the Terror</i>. Whenever some news unfavourable to France
+was announced in the caf&eacute;s, he came to the Consulate to inform himself
+as to the reality of the fact; and when we told him that the other
+janissaries had propagated false news, he returned to them, and there,
+yatagan in hand, he declared himself ready to enter the lists in combat
+against those who should still maintain the truth of the news. As these
+continual threats might endanger him, (for they had no support beyond
+his mere animal courage,) we had wished to render him expert in the
+handling of arms by giving him some lessons in fencing; but he could not
+endure the idea that Christians should touch him at every turn with
+foils; he therefore proposed to substitute for the simulated duel a real
+combat with the yatagan.</p>
+
+<p>One may gain an exact idea of this savage nature when I mention that,
+having one day heard a pistol-shot, the sound of which proceeded from
+his room, people ran, and found him bathed in his blood; he had just
+shot off a ball into his arm to cure himself of a rheumatic pain.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing with what facility the Deys disappeared, I said one day to our
+janissary, "With this prospect before your eyes, would you consent to
+become Dey?" "Yes, doubtless," answered he. "You seem to count as
+nothing the pleasure of doing all that one likes, if only even for a
+single day!"</p>
+
+<p>When we wished to take a turn in the town of Algiers, we generally took
+care to be escorted by the janissary attached to the consular house; it
+was the only means of escaping insults, affronts, and even acts of
+violence. I have just said it was the only means. I made a mistake;
+there was one other; that was, to go in the company of a French
+"lazarist" of seventy years of age, and whose name, if my memory serves
+me, was Father Joshua; he had lived in this country for half a century.
+This man, of exemplary virtue, had devoted himself with admirable
+self-denial to the service of the slaves of the Regency, and had
+divested himself of all considerations of nationality;&mdash;the Portuguese,
+Neapolitans, Sicilians, all were equally his brethren.</p>
+
+<p>In the times of plague he was seen day and night carrying eager help to
+the Mussulmans; thus, his virtue had conquered even religious hatreds;
+and wherever he passed, he and the persons who might accompany him
+received from multitudes of the people, from the janissaries, and even
+from the officials of the mosques, the most respectful salutations.</p>
+
+<p>During our long hours of sailing on board the Algerine vessel, and our
+compulsory stay in the prisons at Rosas, and on the hulk at Palamos, I
+gathered some ideas as to the interior life of the Moors or the
+Coulouglous, which, even now when Algiers has fallen under the dominion
+of France, would perhaps be yet worth preserving. I shall, however,
+confine myself to recounting, nearly word for word, a conversation which
+I had with Ra&iuml;s Braham, whose father was a "<i>Turc fin</i>," that is to say,
+a Turk born in the Levant.</p>
+
+<p>"How is it that you consent," said I to him, "to marry a young girl whom
+you have never seen, and find in her, perhaps, an excessively ugly
+woman, instead of the beauty whom you had fancied to yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"We never marry without having obtained information from the women who
+serve in the capacity of servants at the public baths. The Jewesses are
+moreover, in these cases, very useful go-betweens."</p>
+
+<p>"How many legitimate wives have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have four, that is to say, the number authorized by the Koran."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they live together on a good understanding?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, sir, my house is a hell. I never enter it without finding them at
+the step of the door, or at the bottom of the stairs; then, each wants
+to be the first to make me listen to the complaints which she has to
+bring against her companions. I am about to utter blasphemy, but I think
+that our holy religion ought to prohibit a plurality of wives to those
+who are not rich enough to give to each a separate habitation."</p>
+
+<p>"But since the Koran allows you to repudiate even legitimate wives, why
+do you not send back three of them to their parents?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why? because that would ruin me. On the day of the marriage the father
+of the young woman to be married stipulates for a dowry, and the half of
+it is paid. The other half may be exacted the day that the woman is
+repudiated. It would then be three half dowries that I should have to
+pay if I sent back three of my wives. I ought, however, to rectify one
+inaccuracy in what I said just now, that my four wives had never agreed
+together. Once, they were agreed among themselves in the feeling of a
+common hatred. In going through the market I had bought a young negress.
+In the evening, when I retired to rest, I perceived that my wives had
+prepared no bed for her, and that the unfortunate girl was extended on
+the ground. I rolled up my trowsers and laid them under her head as a
+kind of pillow. In the morning the distracting cries of the poor slave
+made me run to her, and I found her nearly sinking under the blows of my
+four wives; for once they understood each other marvellously well."</p>
+
+<p>In February, 1809, the new Dey, the successor of the "&eacute;pileur," a short
+time after having entered on his functions, claimed from two to three
+hundred thousand francs,&mdash;I do not remember exactly the sum,&mdash;which he
+pretended was due to him from the French Government. M. Dubois
+Thainville answered that he had received the Emperor's orders not to pay
+one centime.</p>
+
+<p>The Dey was furious, and decided upon declaring war against us. A
+declaration of war at Algiers used to be immediately followed by putting
+all the persons of other nations into prison. This time matters were not
+pushed to this extreme limit. Our names might be figuring on the list of
+the slaves of the Regency; but in fact, so far as I was concerned, I
+remained free in the consular house. By means of a pecuniary guarantee,
+contracted with the Swedish Consul, M. Norderling, I was even permitted
+to live at his country house, situated near the Emperor's fort.</p>
+
+<p>The most insignificant event was sufficient to modify the ideas of these
+barbarians. I had come into the town one day, and was seated at table at
+M. Dubois Thainville's, when the English Consul, Mr. Blankley, arrived
+in great haste, announcing to our Consul the entrance into the port of a
+French prize. "I never will uselessly add," said he, generously, "to the
+severities of war; I came to announce to you, my colleague, that I will
+give up your prisoners on a receipt which will insure me the deliverance
+of an equal number of Englishmen detained in France." "I thank you,"
+answered M. Dubois Thainville; "but I do not the less deplore this event
+that it will retard, indefinitely, perhaps, the settlement of the
+account in which I am engaged with the Dey."</p>
+
+<p>During this conversation, armed with a telescope, I was looking through
+the window of the dining-room, trying to persuade myself at least that
+the captured vessel was not one of much importance. But one must yield
+to evidence. It was pierced for a great number of guns. All at once, the
+wind having displayed the flags, I perceived with surprise the French
+flag over the English flag. I communicated what I observed to Mr.
+Blankley. He answered immediately, "You do not surely pretend to observe
+better with your bad telescope than I did with my <i>Dollond</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"And you cannot pretend," said I to him in <i>my</i> turn, "to see better
+than an astronomer by profession? I am sure of my fact. I beg M.
+Thainville's permission, and will go this instant to visit this
+mysterious prize."</p>
+
+<p>In short, I went there; and this is what I learnt:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>General Duhesme, Governor of Barcelona, wishing to rid himself of the
+most ill-disciplined portion of his garrison, formed the principal part
+into the crew of a vessel, the command of which he gave to a lieutenant
+of Babastre, a celebrated corsair of the Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<p>There were amongst these improvised seamen a hussar, a dragoon, two
+veterans, a miner with his long beard, &amp;c. &amp;c. The vessel, leaving
+Barcelona by night, escaped the English cruiser, and got to the entrance
+of Port Mahon. An English "lettre de marque" was coming out of the port.
+The crew of the French vessel boarded her; and a furious combat on the
+deck ensued, in which the French got the upper hand. It was this "lettre
+de marque" which had now arrived at Algiers.</p>
+
+<p>Invested with full power by M. Dubois Thainville, I announced to the
+prisoners that they were about to be immediately given up to their
+Consul. I respected even the trick of the captain, who, wounded by
+several sabre-cuts, had contrived to cover up his head with his
+principal flag. I re-assured his wife; but my chief care was especially
+devoted to a passenger whom I saw with one arm amputated.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the surgeon," I said to him, "who operated on you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was not our surgeon," he answered. "He basely fled with a part of
+the crew, and saved himself on land."</p>
+
+<p>"Who, then, cut off your arm?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was the hussar whom you see here."</p>
+
+<p>"Unhappy man!" I exclaimed; "what could lead you, when it was not your
+profession, to perform this operation?"</p>
+
+<p>"The pressing request of the wounded man. His arm had already swollen to
+an enormous size. He wanted some one to cut it off for him with a blow
+of a hatchet. I told him that in Egypt, when I was in hospital, I had
+seen several amputations made; that I would imitate what I had seen, and
+might perhaps succeed. That at any rate it would be better than the blow
+of a hatchet. All was agreed; I armed myself with the carpenter's saw;
+and the operation was done."</p>
+
+<p>I went off immediately to the American consul, to claim the assistance
+of the only surgeon worthy of confidence who was then in Algiers. M.
+Triplet&mdash;I think I recollect that that was the name of the man of the
+distinguished art whose aid I invoked&mdash;came at once on board the vessel,
+examined the dressing of the wound, and declared, to my very lively
+satisfaction, that all was going on well, and that the Englishman would
+survive his horrible injury.</p>
+
+<p>The same day we had the wounded men carried on litters to Mr. Blankley's
+house; this operation, executed with somewhat of ceremony, modified,
+though slightly, the feelings of the Dey in our favour, and his
+sentiments became yet more favourable towards us in consequence of
+another maritime occurrence, although a very insignificant one.</p>
+
+<p>One day a corvette was seen in the horizon armed with a very great
+number of guns, and shaping her way towards the port of Algiers; there
+appeared immediately after an English brig of war, in full sail; a
+combat was therefore expected, and all the terraces of the town were
+covered with spectators; the brig appeared to be the best sailer, and
+seemed to us likely to reach the corvette, but the latter tacked about,
+and seemed desirous to engage in battle; the English vessel fled before
+her; the corvette tacked about a second time, and again directed her
+course towards Algiers, where, one would have supposed, she had some
+special mission to execute. The brig, in her turn now changed her
+course, but held herself constantly beyond the reach of shot from the
+corvette; at last the two vessels arrived in succession in the port, and
+cast anchor, to the lively disappointment of the Algerine population,
+who had hoped to be present without danger at a maritime combat between
+the "Christian dogs," belonging to two nations equally detested in a
+religious point of view; but shouts of laughter could not be repressed
+when it was seen that the corvette was a merchant vessel, and that she
+was only armed with wooden imitations of cannon. It was said in the town
+that the English sailors were furious, and had been on the point of
+mutiny against their too prudent captain.</p>
+
+<p>I have very little to tell in favour of the Algerines; hence I must do
+an act of justice by mentioning, that the corvette departed the next day
+for the Antilles, her destination, and that the brig was not permitted
+to set sail until the next day but one.</p>
+
+<p>Bakri often came to the French Consulate to talk of our affairs with M.
+Dubois Thainville: "What can you want?" said the latter, "you are an
+Algerine; you will be the first victim of the Dey's obstinacy. I have
+already written to Livorno that your families and your goods are to be
+seized. When the vessels laden with cotton, which you have in this port,
+arrive at Marseilles, they will be immediately confiscated; it is for
+you to judge whether it would not better suit you to pay the sum which
+the Dey claims, than to expose yourself to tenfold and certain loss."</p>
+
+<p>Such reasoning was unanswerable; and whatever it might cost him, Bakri
+decided on paying the sum that was demanded of France.</p>
+
+<p>Permission to depart was immediately granted to us; I embarked the 21st
+of June, 1809, on board a vessel in which M. Dubois Thainville and his
+family were passengers.</p>
+
+<p>The evening before our departure from Algiers, a corsair deposited at
+the consul's the Majorcan mail, which he had taken from a vessel which
+he had captured. It was a complete collection of the letters which the
+inhabitants of the Bal&eacute;ares had been writing to their friends on the
+Continent.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said M. Dubois Thainville to me, "here is something to
+amuse you during the voyage,&mdash;you who generally keep your room from
+sea-sickness,&mdash;break the seals and read all these letters, and see
+whether they contain any accounts by which we might profit how to aid
+the unhappy soldiers who are dying of misery and despair in the little
+island of Cabrera."</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had we arrived on board the vessel, when I set myself to the
+work, and acted without scruple or remorse the part of an official of
+the black chamber, with this sole difference, that the letters were
+unsealed without taking any precautions. I found amongst them several
+dispatches, in which Admiral Collingwood signified to the Spanish
+Government the ease with which the prisoners might be delivered.
+Immediately on our arrival at Marseilles these letters were sent to the
+minister of naval affairs, who, I believe, did not pay much attention to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>I knew almost every one at Palma, the capital of Majorca. I leave it to
+be imagined with what curiosity I read the missives in which the
+beautiful ladies of the town expressed their hatred against <i>los
+malditos cavachios</i>, (French,) whose presence in Spain had rendered
+necessary the departure for the Continent of a magnificent regiment of
+hussars; how many persons might I not have embroiled, if under a mask I
+had found myself with them at the opera ball!</p>
+
+<p>Many of the letters made mention of me, and were particularly
+interesting to me; I was sure in this instance there was nothing to
+constrain the frankness of those who had written them. It is an
+advantage which few people can boast having enjoyed to the same degree.</p>
+
+<p>The vessel in which I was, although laden with bales of cotton, had some
+corsair papers of the Regency, and was the reputed escort of three
+richly laden merchant vessels which were going to France.</p>
+
+<p>We were off Marseilles on the 1st of July, when an English frigate came
+to stop our passage: "I will not take you," said the English captain;
+"but you will go towards the Hy&egrave;res Islands, and Admiral Collingwood
+will decide on your fate."</p>
+
+<p>"I have received," answered the Barbary captain, "an express commission
+to conduct these vessels to Marseilles, and I will execute it."</p>
+
+<p>"You, individually, can do what may seem to you best," answered the
+Englishman; "as to the merchant vessels under your escort, they will be,
+I repeat to you, taken to Admiral Collingwood." And he immediately gave
+orders to those vessels to set sail to the East.</p>
+
+<p>The frigate had already gone a little distance when she perceived that
+we were steering towards Marseilles. Having then learnt from the crews
+of the merchant vessels that we were ourselves laden with cotton, she
+tacked about to seize us.</p>
+
+<p>She was very near reaching us, when we were enabled to enter the port of
+the little island of Pom&egrave;gue. In the night she put her boats to sea to
+try to carry us off; but the enterprise was too perilous, and she did
+not dare attempt it.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, 2d of July, 1809, I disembarked at the lazaretto.</p>
+
+<p>At the present day they go from Algiers to Marseilles in four days; it
+had taken me eleven months to make the same voyage. It is true that here
+and there I had made involuntary sojourns.</p>
+
+<p>My letters sent from the lazaretto at Marseilles were considered by my
+relatives and friends as certificates of resurrection, they having for a
+long time past supposed me dead. A great geometer had even proposed to
+the Bureau of Longitude no longer to pay my allowance to my authorized
+representative; which appears the more cruel inasmuch as this
+representative was my father.</p>
+
+<p>The first letter which I received from Paris was full of sympathy and
+congratulations on the termination of my laborious and perilous
+adventures; it was from a man already in possession of an European
+reputation, but whom I had never seen: M. de Humboldt, after what he had
+heard of my misfortunes, offered me his friendship. Such was the first
+origin of a connection which dates from nearly forty-two years back,
+without a single cloud ever paving troubled it.</p>
+
+<p>M. Dubois Thainville had numerous acquaintances in Marseilles; his wife
+was a native of that town, and her family resided there. They received,
+therefore, both of them, numerous visits in the parlour of the
+lazaretto. The bell which summoned them, for me alone was dumb; and I
+remained as solitary and forsaken, at the gates of a town peopled with a
+hundred thousand of my countrymen, as if I had been in the heart of
+Africa. One day, however, the parlour-bell rang three times (the number
+of times corresponding to the number of my room); I thought it must be a
+mistake. I did not, however, allow this to appear. I traversed proudly
+under the escort of my guard of health the long space which separates
+the lazaretto, properly so called, from the parlour; and there I found,
+with very lively satisfaction, M. Pons, the director of the Observatory
+at Marseilles, and the most celebrated discoverer of comets of whom the
+annals of Astronomy have ever had to register the success.</p>
+
+<p>At any time a visit from the excellent M. Pons, whom I have since seen
+director of the Observatory at Florence, would have been very agreeable
+to me; but, during my quarantine, I felt it unappreciably valuable. It
+proved to me that I had returned to my native soil.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three days before our admission to freedom, we experienced a loss
+which was deeply felt by each of us. To pass away the heavy time of a
+severe quarantine, the little Algerine colony was in the habit of going
+to an enclosure near the lazaretto, where a very beautiful gazelle,
+belonging to M. Dubois Thainville, was confined; she bounded about there
+in full liberty with a grace which excited our admiration. One of us
+endeavoured to stop this elegant animal in her course; he seized her
+unluckily by the leg, and broke it. We all ran, but only, alas! to
+witness a scene which excited the deepest emotion in us.</p>
+
+<p>The gazelle, lying on her side, raised her head sadly; her beautiful
+eyes (the eyes of a gazelle!) shed torrents of tears; no cry of
+complaint escaped her mouth; she produced that effect upon us which is
+always felt when a person who is suddenly struck by an irreparable
+misfortune, resigns himself to it, and shows his profound anguish only
+by silent tears.</p>
+
+<p>Having ended my quarantine, I went at once to Perpignan, to the bosom of
+my family, where my mother, the most excellent and pious of women,
+caused numerous masses to be said to celebrate my return, as she had
+done before to pray for the repose of my soul, when she thought that I
+had fallen under the daggers of the Spaniards. But I soon quitted my
+native town to return to Paris; and I deposited at the Bureau of
+Longitude and the Academy of Sciences my observations, which I had
+succeeded in preserving amidst the perils and tribulations of my long
+campaign.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after my arrival, on the 18th of September, 1809, I was
+nominated an academician in the place of Lalande. There were fifty-two
+voters; I obtained forty-seven voices, M. Poisson four, and M. Nouet
+one. I was then twenty-three years of age.</p>
+
+<p>A nomination made with such a majority would appear, at first sight, as
+if it could give rise to no serious difficulties; but it proved
+otherwise. The intervention of M. de Laplace, before the day of ballot,
+was active and incessant to have my admission postponed until the time
+when a vacancy, occurring in the geometry section, might enable the
+learned assembly to nominate M. Poisson at the same time as me. The
+author of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> had vowed to the young geometer an
+unbounded attachment, completely justified, certainly, by the beautiful
+researches which science already owed to him. M. de Laplace could not
+support the idea that a young astronomer, younger by five years than M.
+Poisson, a pupil, in the presence of his professor at the Polytechnic
+School, should become an academician before him. He proposed to me,
+therefore, to write to the Academy that I would not stand for election
+until there should be a second place to give to Poisson. I answered by a
+formal refusal, and giving my reasons in these terms: "I care little to
+be nominated at this moment. I have decided upon leaving shortly with M.
+de Humboldt for Thibet. In those savage regions the title of member of
+the Institute will not smooth the difficulties which we shall have to
+encounter. But I would not be guilty of any rudeness towards the
+Academy. If they were to receive the declaration for which I am asked,
+would not the savans who compose this illustrious body have a right to
+say to me: 'How are you certain that we have thought of you? You refuse
+what has not yet been offered to you.'"</p>
+
+<p>On seeing my firm resolution not to lend myself to the inconsiderate
+course which he had advised me to follow, M. de Laplace went to work in
+another way; he maintained that I had not sufficient distinction for
+admission into the Academy. I do not pretend that, at the age of
+three-and-twenty, my scientific attainments were very considerable, if
+estimated in an <i>absolute</i> manner; but when I judged by <i>comparison</i>, I
+regained courage, especially on considering that the three last years of
+my life had been consecrated to the measurement of an arc of the
+meridian in a foreign country; that they were passed amid the storms of
+the war with Spain; often enough in dungeons, or, what was yet worse, in
+the mountains of Kabylia, and at Algiers, at that time a very dangerous
+residence.</p>
+
+<p>Here is, therefore, my statement of accounts for that epoch. I make it
+over to the impartial appreciation of the reader.</p>
+
+<p>On leaving the Polytechnic School, I had made, in conjunction with M.
+Biot, an extensive and very minute research on the determination of the
+coefficient of the tables of atmospheric refraction.</p>
+
+<p>We had also measured the refraction of different gases, which, up to
+that time, had not been attempted.</p>
+
+<p>A determination, more exact than had been previously obtained, of the
+relation of the weight of air to the weight of mercury, had furnished a
+direct value of the coefficient of the barometrical formula which served
+for the calculation of the heights.</p>
+
+<p>I had contributed, in a regular and very assiduous manner, during nearly
+two years, to the observations which were made day and night with the
+transit telescope and with the mural quadrant at the Paris Observatory.</p>
+
+<p>I had undertaken, in conjunction with M. Bouvard, the observations
+relating to the verification of the laws of the moon's libration. All
+the calculations were prepared; it only remained for me to put the
+numbers into the formul&aelig;, when I was, by order of the Bureau of
+Longitude, obliged to leave Paris for Spain. I had observed various
+comets, and calculated their orbits. I had, in concert with M. Bouvard,
+calculated, according to Laplace's formula, the table of refraction
+which has been published in the <i>Recueil des Tables</i> of the Bureau of
+Longitude, and in the <i>Connaissance des Temps</i>. A research on the
+velocity of light, made with a prism placed before the object end of the
+telescope of the mural circle, had proved that the same tables of
+refraction might serve for the sun and all the stars.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, I had just terminated, under very difficult circumstances, the
+grandest triangulation which had ever been achieved, to prolong the
+meridian line from France as far as the island of Formentera.</p>
+
+<p>M. de Laplace, without denying the importance and utility of these
+labours and these researches, saw in them nothing more than indications
+of promise; M. Lagrange then said to him explicitly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Even you, M. de Laplace, when you entered the Academy, had done nothing
+brilliant; you only gave promise. Your grand discoveries did not come
+till afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>Lagrange was the only man in Europe who could with authority address
+such an observation to him.</p>
+
+<p>M. de Laplace did not reply upon the ground of the personal question,
+but he added,&mdash;"I maintain that it is useful to young savans to hold out
+the position of member of the Institute as a future recompense, to
+excite their zeal."</p>
+
+<p>"You resemble," replied M. Hall&eacute;, "the driver of the hackney coach, who,
+to excite his horses to a gallop, tied a bundle of hay at the end of his
+carriage pole; the poor horses redoubled their efforts, and the bundle
+of hay always flew on before them. After all, his plan made them fall
+off, and soon after brought on their death."</p>
+
+<p>Delambre, Legendre, Biot, insisted on the devotion, and what they termed
+the courage, with which I had combated arduous difficulties, whether in
+carrying on the observations, or in saving the instruments and the
+results already obtained. They drew an animated picture of the dangers I
+had undergone. M. de Laplace ended by yielding when he saw that all the
+most eminent men of the Academy had taken me under their patronage, and
+on the day of the election he gave me his vote. It would be, I must own,
+a subject of regret with me even to this day, after a lapse of forty-two
+years, if I had become member of the Institute without having obtained
+the vote of the author of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The Members of the Institute were always presented to the Emperor after
+he had confirmed their nominations. On the appointed day, in company
+with the presidents, with the secretaries of the four classes, and with
+the academicians who had special publications to offer to the Chief of
+the State, they assembled in one of the saloons of the Tuileries. When
+the Emperor returned from mass, he held a kind of review of these
+savans, these artists, these literary men, in green uniform.</p>
+
+<p>I must own that the spectacle which I witnessed on the day of my
+presentation did not edify me. I even experienced real displeasure in
+seeing the anxiety evinced by members of the Institute to be noticed.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very young," said Napoleon to me on coming near me; and without
+waiting for a flattering reply, which it would not have been difficult
+to find, he added,&mdash;"What is your name?" And my neighbour on the right,
+not leaving me time to answer the simple enough question just addressed
+to me, hastened to say,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>His</i> name is Arago?"</p>
+
+<p>"What science do you cultivate?"</p>
+
+<p>My neighbour on the left immediately replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He</i> cultivates astronomy."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done?"</p>
+
+<p>My neighbour on the right, jealous of my left hand neighbour for having
+encroached on his rights at the second question, now hastened to reply,
+and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He</i> has just been measuring the line of the meridian in Spain."</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor imagining doubtless that he had before him either a dumb man
+or an imbecile, passed on to another member of the Institute. This one
+was not a novice, but a naturalist well known through his beautiful and
+important discoveries; it was M. Lamarck. The old man presented a book
+to Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" said the latter, "it is your absurd <i>meteorology</i>, in
+which you rival Matthieu Laensberg. It is this 'annuaire' which
+dishonours your old age. Do something in Natural History, and I should
+receive your productions with pleasure. As to this volume, I only take
+it in consideration of your white hair. Here!" And he passed the book to
+an aide-de-camp.</p>
+
+<p>Poor M. Lamarck, who, at the end of each sharp and insulting sentence of
+the Emperor, tried in vain to say, "It is a work on Natural History
+which I present to you," was weak enough to fall into tears.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor immediately afterwards met with a more energetic antagonist
+in the person of M. Lanjuinais. The latter had advanced, book in hand.
+Napoleon said to him, sneeringly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The entire Senate, then, is to merge in the Institute?" "Sire,"
+replied Lanjuinais, "it is the body of the state to which most time is
+left for occupying itself with literature."</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor, displeased at this answer, at once quitted the civil
+uniforms, and busied himself among the great epaulettes which filled the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after my nomination, I was exposed to strange annoyances on
+the part of the military authorities. I had left for Spain, still
+holding the title of pupil of the Polytechnic School. My name could not
+remain on the books more than four years; consequently I had been
+enjoined to return to France to go through the examinations necessary on
+quitting the school. But in the meantime Lalande died, and thus a place
+in the Bureau of Longitude became vacant. I was named assistant
+astronomer. These places were submitted to the nomination of the
+Emperor. M. Lacu&eacute;e, Director of the Conscription, thought that, through
+this latter circumstance, the law would be satisfied, and I was
+authorized to continue my operations.</p>
+
+<p>M. Matthieu Dumas, who succeeded him, looked at the question from an
+entirely different point of view; he enjoined me either to furnish a
+substitute, or else to set off myself with the contingent of the twelfth
+arrondissement of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>All my remonstrances and those of my friends having been fruitless, I
+announced to the honourable General that I should present myself in the
+Place de l'Estrapade, whence the conscripts had to depart, in the
+costume of a member of the Institute; and that thus I should march on
+foot through the city of Paris. General Matthieu Dumas was alarmed at
+the effect which this scene would produce on the Emperor, himself a
+member of the Institute, and hastened, under fear of my threat, to
+confirm the decision of General Lacu&eacute;e.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1809, I was chosen by the "conseil du perfectionnement" of
+the Polytechnic School, to succeed M. Monge, in his chair of Analysis
+applied to Geometry. The circumstances attending that nomination have
+remained a secret; I seize the first opportunity which offers itself to
+me to make them known.</p>
+
+<p>M. Monge took the trouble to come to me one day, at the Observatory, to
+ask me to succeed him. I declined this honour, because of a proposed
+journey which I was going to make into Central Asia with M. de Humboldt.
+"You will certainly not set off for some months to come," said the
+illustrious geometer; "you could, therefore, take my place temporarily."
+"Your proposal," I replied, "flatters me infinitely; but I do not know
+whether I ought to accept it. I have never read your great work on
+partial differential equations; I do not, therefore, feel certain that I
+should be competent to give lessons to the pupils of the Polytechnic
+School on such a difficult theory." "Try," said he, "and you will find
+that that theory is clearer than it is generally supposed to be."
+Accordingly, I did try; and M. Monge's opinion appeared to me to be well
+founded.</p>
+
+<p>The public could not comprehend, at that time, how it was that the
+benevolent M. Monge obstinately refused to confide the delivery of his
+course to M. Binet, (a private teacher under him,) whose zeal was well
+known. It is this motive which I am going to reveal.</p>
+
+<p>There was then in the "Bois de Boulogne" a residence named the <i>Grey
+House</i>, where there assembled round M. Coessin, the high-priest of a new
+religion, a number of adepts, such as Lesueur, the musician, Colin,
+private teacher of chemistry at the school, M. Binet, &amp;c. A report from
+the prefect of police had signified to the Emperor that the frequenters
+of the Grey House were connected with the Society of Jesuits. The
+Emperor was uneasy and irritated at this. "Well," said he to M. Monge,
+"there are your dear pupils become disciples of Loyola!" And on Monge's
+denial, "You deny it," answered the Emperor; "well, then, know that the
+private teacher of your course is in that clique." Every one can
+understand that after such a remark, Monge could not consent to being
+succeeded by M. Binet.</p>
+
+<p>Having entered the academy, young, ardent, and impassioned, I took much
+greater part in the nominations than may have been suitable for my
+position and my time of life. Arrived at an epoch of life whence I
+examine retrospectively all my actions with calmness and impartiality, I
+can render this amount of justice to myself, that, excepting in three or
+four instances, my vote and interest were always in favour of the most
+deserving candidate, and more than once I succeeded in preventing the
+Academy from making a deplorable choice. Who could blame me for having
+maintained with energy the election of Malus, considering that his
+competitor, M. Girard, unknown as a physicist, obtained twenty-two votes
+out of fifty-three, and that an addition of five votes would have given
+him the victory over the savant who had just discovered the phenomenon
+of polarization by reflection, over the savant whom Europe would have
+named by acclamation? The same remarks are applicable to the nomination
+of Poisson, who would have failed against this same M. Girard if four
+votes had been otherwise given. Does not this suffice to justify the
+unusual ardour of my conduct? Although in a third trial the majority of
+the Academy was decided in favour of the same engineer, I cannot regret
+that I supported up to the last moment with conviction and warmth the
+election of his competitor, M. Dulong.</p>
+
+<p>I do not suppose that, in the scientific world, any one will he disposed
+to blame me for having preferred M. Liouville to M. de Pont&eacute;coulant.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes it happened that the Government wished to influence the choice
+of the Academy; with a strong sense of my rights I invariably resisted
+all dictation. Once this resistance acted unfortunately on one of my
+friends&mdash;the venerable Legendre; as to myself, I had prepared myself
+beforehand for all the persecutions of which I could be made the object.
+Having received from the Minister of the Interior an invitation to vote
+for M. Binet against M. Navier on the occurrence of a vacant place in
+the section of mechanics, Legendre nobly answered that he would vote
+according to his soul and his conscience. He was immediately deprived of
+a pension which his great age and his long services rendered due to him.
+The <i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;</i> of the authorities failed; and, at the time, this result
+was attributed to the activity with which I enlightened the members of
+the Academy as to the impropriety of the Minister's proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion the King wished the Academy to name Dupuytren, the
+eminent surgeon, but whose character at the time lay under grave
+imputations. Dupuytren was nominated, but several blanks protested
+against the interference of the authorities in academic elections.</p>
+
+<p>I said above that I had saved the Academy from some deplorable choices;
+I will only cite a single instance, on which occasion I had the sorrow
+of finding myself in opposition to M. de Laplace. The illustrious
+geometer wished a vacant place in the astronomical section to be granted
+to M. Nicollet,&mdash;a man without talent, and, moreover, suspected of
+misdeeds which reflected on his honour in the most serious degree. At
+the close of a contest, which I maintained undisguisedly,
+notwithstanding the danger which might follow from thus braving the
+powerful protectors of M. Nicollet, the Academy proceeded to the ballot;
+the respected M. Damoiseau, whose election I had supported, obtained
+forty-five votes out of forty-eight. Thus M. Nicollet had collected but
+three.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said M. de Laplace to me, "that it is useless to struggle
+against young people; I acknowledge that the man who is called the
+<i>great elector</i> of the Academy is more powerful than I am."</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied I; "M. Arago can only succeed in counterbalancing the
+opinion justly preponderating for M. de Laplace, when the right is found
+to be without possible contradiction on his side."</p>
+
+<p>A short time afterwards M. Nicollet had run away to America, and the
+Bureau of Longitude had a warrant passed to expel him ignominiously from
+its bosom.</p>
+
+<p>I would warn those savans, who, having early entered the Academy, might
+be tempted to imitate my example, to expect nothing beyond the
+satisfaction of their conscience. I warn them, with a knowledge of the
+case, that gratitude will almost always be found wanting.</p>
+
+<p>The elected academician, whose merits you have sometimes exalted beyond
+measure, pretends that you have done no more than justice to him; that
+you have only fulfilled a duty, and that he therefore owes you no
+thanks.</p>
+
+<p>Delambre died the 19th August, 1822. After the necessary delay, they
+proceeded to fill his place. The situation of Perpetual Secretary is not
+one which can long be left vacant. The Academy named a commission to
+present it with candidates; it was composed of Messrs. de Laplace,
+Arago, Legendre, Rossel, Prony, and Lacroix. The list presented was
+composed of the names of Messrs. Biot, Fourier, and Arago. It is not
+necessary for me to say with what obstinacy I opposed the inscription of
+my name on this list; I was compelled to give way to the will of my
+colleagues, but I seized the first opportunity of declaring publicly
+that I had neither the expectation nor the wish to obtain a single vote;
+that, moreover, I had on my hands already as much work as I could get
+through; that in this respect M. Biot was in the same position; and
+that, in short, I should vote for the nomination of M. Fourier.</p>
+
+<p>It was supposed, but I dare not flatter myself that it was the fact,
+that my declaration exercised a certain influence on the result of the
+ballot. The result was as follows: M. Fourier received thirty-eight
+votes, and M. Biot ten. In a case of this nature each man carefully
+conceals his vote, in order not to run the risk of future disagreement
+with him who may be invested with the authority which the Academy gives
+to the perpetual secretary. I do not know whether I shall be pardoned if
+I recount an incident which amused the Academy at the time.</p>
+
+<p>M. de Laplace, at the moment of voting, took two plain pieces of paper;
+his neighbour was guilty of the indiscretion of looking, and saw
+distinctly that the illustrious geometer wrote the name of Fourier on
+both of them. After quietly folding them up, M. de Laplace put the
+papers into his hat, shook it, and said to this same curious neighbour:
+"You see, I have written two papers; I am going to tear up one, I shall
+put the other into the urn; I shall thus be myself ignorant for which of
+the two candidates I have voted."</p>
+
+<p>All went on as the celebrated academician had said; only that every one
+knew with certainty that his vote had been for Fourier; and "the
+calculation of probabilities" was in no way necessary for arriving at
+this result.</p>
+
+<p>After having fulfilled the duties of secretary with much distinction,
+but not without some feebleness and negligence in consequence of his bad
+health, Fourier died the 16th of May, 1830. I declined several times the
+honour which the Academy appeared willing to do me, in naming me to
+succeed him. I believed, without false modesty, that I had not the
+qualities necessary to fill this important place suitably. When
+thirty-nine out of forty-four voters had appointed me, it was quite time
+that I should give in to an opinion so flattering and so plainly
+expressed. On the 7th of June, 1830, I, therefore, became perpetual
+secretary of the Academy for the Mathematical Sciences; but, conformably
+to the plea of an accumulation of offices, which I had used as an
+argument to support, in November, 1822, the election of M. Fournier, I
+declared that I should give in my resignation of the Professorship in
+the Polytechnic School. Neither the solicitations of Marshal Soult, the
+Minister of War, nor those of the most eminent members of the Academy,
+could avail in persuading me to renounce this resolution.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> With such precocious heroism it is by no means so clear
+that the author might not have had a hand in the revolution, from which
+he endeavours above to exculpate himself.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> M&eacute;chain, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the
+Institute, was charged in 1792 with the prolongation of the measure of
+the arc of the meridian in Spain as far as Barcelona.
+</p><p>
+During his operations in the Pyrenees, in 1794, he had known my father,
+who was one of the administrators of the department of the Eastern
+Pyrenees. Later, in 1803, when the question was agitated as to the
+continuation of the measure of the meridian line as far as the Balearic
+Islands, M. M&eacute;chain went again to Perpignan, and came to pay my father a
+visit. As I was about setting off to undergo the examination for
+admission at the Polytechnic School, my father ventured to ask him
+whether he could not recommend me to M. Monge. "Willingly," answered he;
+"but, with the frankness which is my characteristic, I ought not to
+leave you unaware that it appears to me improbable that your son, left
+to himself, can have rendered himself completely master of the subjects
+of which the programme consists. If, however, he be admitted, let him be
+destined for the artillery, or for the engineers; the career of the
+sciences, of which you have talked to me, is really too difficult to go
+through, and unless he had a special calling for it, your son would only
+find it deceptive." Anticipating a little the order of dates, let us
+compare this advice with what occurred: I went to Toulouse, underwent
+the examination, and was admitted; one year and a half afterwards I
+filled the situation of secretary at the Observatory, which had become
+vacant by the resignation of M. M&eacute;chain's son; one year and a half
+later, that is to say, four years after the Perpignan "horoscope,"
+associated with M. Biot, I filled the place, in Spain, of the celebrated
+academician who had died there, a victim to his labours.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> This appears to be an oversight, as in a preceding page M.
+Arago described the fortunate release of Captain Krog from this
+captivity.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> On my return to Paris I hastened to the Jardin des Plantes
+to pay a visit to the lion, but he received me with a very unamiable
+gnashing of the teeth. Think then of the marvellous history of the
+Florentine lion, the subject of so many engravings, which is offered on
+the stall of every printseller to the eyes of the moved and astonished
+passers-by.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> An "<i>&eacute;pileur</i>" is a person who removes superfluous hairs.
+We have been unable to ascertain what office of this kind is performed
+in Mohammedan funerals.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>BAILLY.</h2>
+
+<h3>BIOGRAPHY READ AT THE PUBLIC SITTING OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, THE
+26TH OF FEBRUARY, 1844.</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h3>
+
+<p>Gentlemen,&mdash;The learned man, illustrious in so many ways, whose life I
+am going to relate, was taken from France half a century ago. I hasten
+to make this remark, so as thoroughly to show that I have selected this
+subject without being deterred by complaints which I look upon as unjust
+and inapplicable. The glory of the members of the early Academy of
+Sciences is an inheritance for the present Academy. We must cherish it
+as we would the glory of later days; we must hallow it with the same
+respect, we must devote to it the same worship: the word <i>prescription</i>
+would here be synonymous with ingratitude.</p>
+
+<p>If it had happened, Gentlemen, that amongst the academicians who
+preceded us, a man, already illustrious by his labours, and, without
+personal ambition, yet thrown, despite himself, into the midst of a
+terrible revolution, exposed to a thousand unrestrained passions, had
+cruelly disappeared in the political effervescence&mdash;oh! then, any
+negligence, any delay in studying the facts would be inexcusable; the
+honourable contemporaries of the victim would soon be no longer there to
+shed the light of their honest and impartial memory on obscure events;
+an existence devoted to the cultivation of reason and of truth would
+come to be appreciated only from documents, on which, for my part, I
+would not blindly draw, until it shall be proved that, in revolutionary
+times, we can trust to the uprightness of parties.</p>
+
+<p>I felt in duty bound, Gentlemen, to give you a sketch of the ideas that
+have led me to present to you a detailed account of the life and labours
+of a member of the early Academy of Sciences. The biographies which will
+soon follow this, will show that the studies I have undertaken
+respecting Carnot, Condorcet, and Bailly, have not prevented me from
+attending seriously to our illustrious contemporaries.</p>
+
+<p>To render them a loyal and truthful homage, is the first duty of the
+secretaries of the Academy, and I will religiously fulfil it; without
+binding myself, however, to observe a strict chronological order, or to
+follow the civil registers step by step.</p>
+
+<p>Eulogies, said an ancient authority, should be deferred until we have
+lost the true measure of the dead. Then we could make giants of them
+without any one opposing us. On the contrary, I am of opinion that
+biographers, especially those of academicians, ought to make all
+possible haste, so that every one may be represented according to his
+true measure, and that well-informed people may have the opportunity of
+rectifying the mistakes which, notwithstanding every care, almost
+inevitably slip into this sort of composition. I regret that our former
+secretaries did not adopt this rule. By deferring from year to year to
+analyze the scientific and political life of Bailly with their scruples,
+and with their usual talents, they allowed time for inconsiderateness,
+prejudice, and passions of every kind, to impregnate our minds with a
+multitude of serious errors, which have added considerably to the
+difficulty of my task. When I was led to form very different opinions
+from those that are found spread through some of the most celebrated
+works, on the events of the great revolution of 1789, in which our
+fellow-academician took an active part, I could not be so conceited as
+to expect to be believed on my own word. To propound my opinions then
+was insufficient; I had also to combat those of the historians with whom
+I differed. This necessity has given to the biography that I am going to
+read an unusual length. I solicit the kind sympathy of the assembly on
+this point. I hope to obtain it, I acknowledge, when I consider that my
+task is to analyze before you the scientific and literary claims of an
+illustrious colleague, to depict the uniformly noble and patriotic
+conduct of the first President of the National Assembly; to follow the
+first Mayor of Paris in all the acts of an administration, the
+difficulties of which appeared to be above human strength; to accompany
+the virtuous magistrate to the very scaffold, to unroll the mournful
+phases of the cruel martyrdom that he was made to undergo; to retrace,
+in a word, some of the greatest, some of the most terrible events of the
+French Revolution.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="INFANCY_OF_BAILLY_HIS_YOUTHmdashHIS_LITERARY_ESSAYSmdashHIS_MATHEMATICAL" id="INFANCY_OF_BAILLY_HIS_YOUTHmdashHIS_LITERARY_ESSAYSmdashHIS_MATHEMATICAL"></a>INFANCY OF BAILLY.&mdash;HIS YOUTH.&mdash;HIS LITERARY ESSAYS.&mdash;HIS MATHEMATICAL STUDIES.</h3>
+
+<p>John Sylvain Bailly was born at Paris in 1736. His parents were James
+Bailly and Cecilia Guichon.</p>
+
+<p>The father of the future astronomer had charge of the king's pictures.
+This post had continued in the obscure but honest family of Bailly for
+upwards of a century.</p>
+
+<p>Sylvain, while young, never quitted his paternal home. His mother would
+not be separated from him; it was not that she could give him the
+instruction required from masters in childhood, but a tenderness,
+allowed to run to the utmost extreme, entirely blinded her. Bailly then
+formed his own mind, under the eye of his parents. Nothing could be
+better, it seemed, than the boyhood of our brother academician, to
+verify the oft-repeated theory, touching the influence of imitation on
+the development of our faculties. Here, the result, attentively
+examined, would not by a great deal agree with the old hypothesis. I
+know not but, every thing considered, whether it would rather furnish
+powerful weapons to whoever would wish to maintain that, in its early
+habits, childhood rather seeks for contrasts.</p>
+
+<p>James Bailly had an idle and light character; whilst young Sylvain from
+the beginning showed strong reasoning powers, and a passion for study.</p>
+
+<p>The grown man felt in his own element while in noisy gayety.</p>
+
+<p>But the boy loved retirement.</p>
+
+<p>To the father, solitude would have been fatal; for to him life consisted
+in motion, sallies, witty conversations, free and easy parties, the
+little gay suppers of those days.</p>
+
+<p>The son, on the contrary, would remain alone and quite silent for whole
+days. His mind sufficed to itself; he never sought the fellowship of
+companions of his own age. Extreme steadiness was at once his habit and
+his taste.</p>
+
+<p>The warder of the king's pictures drew remarkably well, but did not
+appear to have troubled himself much with the principles of art.</p>
+
+<p>His son Sylvain studied those principles deeply, and to some purpose; he
+became a theoretic artist of the first class, but he never could either
+draw or paint even moderately well.</p>
+
+<p>There are few young people who would not, at some time or other, have
+wished to escape from the scrutinizing eyes of their parents. The
+contrary was the case in Bailly's family, for James used sometimes to
+say to his friends or to his servants, "Do not mention this peccadillo
+to my son. Sylvain is worth more than I am; his morals are very strict.
+Under the most respectful exterior, I should perceive in his manner a
+censure which would grieve me. I wish to avoid his tacit reproaches,
+even when he does not say a word."</p>
+
+<p>The two characters resembled each other only in one point&mdash;in their
+taste for poetry, or perhaps we ought to say versification, but even
+here we shall perceive differences.</p>
+
+<p>The father composed songs, little interludes, and farces that were acted
+at the <i>Italian Comedy</i>; but the son commenced at the age of sixteen by
+a serious work of time,&mdash;a tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>This tragedy was entitled <i>Clothaire</i>. The subject, drawn from the early
+centuries of the French History, had led Bailly by a curious and
+touching coincidence to relate the tortures inflicted on a Mayor of
+Paris by a deluded and barbarous multitude. The work was modestly
+submitted to the actor Lanoue, who, although he bestowed flattering
+encouragement on Bailly, dissuaded him frankly from exposing <i>Clothaire</i>
+to the risk of a public representation. On the advice of the
+comedian-author, the young poet took <i>Iphygenia in Tauris</i> for the
+subject of his second composition. Such was his ardour, that by the end
+of three months, he had already written the last line of the fifth act
+of his new tragedy, and hastened to Passy, to solicit the opinion of the
+author of <i>Mahomet II</i>. This time Lanoue thought he perceived that his
+confiding young friend was not intended by nature for the drama, and he
+declared it to him without disguise. Bailly heard the fatal sentence
+with more resignation than could have been expected from a youth whose
+budding self-esteem received so violent a shock. He even threw his two
+tragedies immediately into the fire. Under similar circumstances,
+Fontenelle showed less docility in his youth. If the tragedy of <i>Aspar</i>
+also disappeared in the flames, it was not only in consequence of the
+criticism of a friend; for the author went so far as to call forth the
+noisy judgment of the pit.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly no astronomer will regret that any opinions either off-hand or
+well digested, on the first literary productions of Bailly, contributed
+to throw him into the pursuit of science. Still, for the sake of
+principle, it seems just to protest against the praises given to the
+foresight of Lanoue, to the sureness of his judgment, to the excellence
+of his advice. What was it in fact? A lad of sixteen or seventeen years
+of age, composes two tolerable tragedies, and these essays are made
+irrevocably to decide on his future fate. We have then forgotten that
+Racine had already reached the age of twenty-two, when he first
+appeared, producing <i>Theagenes and Charicles</i>, and the <i>Inimical
+Brothers</i>; that Cr&eacute;billon was nearly forty years of age when he composed
+a tragedy on <i>The Death of the Sons of Brutus</i>, of which not a single
+verse has been preserved; finally, that the two first comedies of
+Moli&egrave;re, <i>The three rival Doctors</i> and <i>The Schoolmaster</i>, are no longer
+known but by their titles. Let us recall to mind that reflection of
+Voltaire's: "It is very difficult to succeed before the age of thirty in
+a branch of literature that requires a knowledge of the world and of the
+human heart."</p>
+
+<p>A happy chance showed that the sciences might open an honourable and
+glorious path to the discouraged poet. M. de Moncaville offered to teach
+him mathematics, in exchange for drawing-lessons that his son received
+from the warder of the king's pictures. The proposal being accepted, the
+progress of Sylvain Bailly in these studies was rapid and brilliant.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="BAILLY_BECOMES_THE_PUPIL_OF_LACAILLE_HE_IS_ASSOCIATED_WITH_HIM_IN_HIS" id="BAILLY_BECOMES_THE_PUPIL_OF_LACAILLE_HE_IS_ASSOCIATED_WITH_HIM_IN_HIS"></a>BAILLY BECOMES THE PUPIL OF LACAILLE.&mdash;HE IS ASSOCIATED WITH HIM IN HIS ASTRONOMICAL LABOURS.</h3>
+
+<p>The mathematical student soon after had one of those providential
+meetings which decide a young man's future fate. Mademoiselle Lejeuneux
+cultivated painting. It was at the house of this female artist, known
+afterwards as Madame La Chenaye, that Lacaille saw Bailly. The
+attentive, serious, and modest demeanour of the student charmed the
+great astronomer. He showed it in a most unequivocal manner, by
+offering, though so avaricious of his time, to become the guide of the
+future observer, and also to put him in communication with Clairaut.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that from his first intercourse with Lacaille, Bailly showed
+a decided vocation for astronomy. This fact appears to me incontestable.
+At his first appearance in this line, I find him associated in the most
+laborious, difficult, and tiresome investigations of that great
+observer.</p>
+
+<p>These epithets may perhaps appear extraordinary; but they will be so
+only to those who have learnt the science of the stars in ancient poems,
+either in verse or in prose.</p>
+
+<p>The Chald&aelig;ans, luxuriously reclining on the perfumed terraced roofs of
+their houses in Babylon, under a constantly azure sky, followed with
+their eyes the general and majestic movements of the starry sphere; they
+ascertained the respective displacements of the planets, the moon, the
+sun; they noted the date and hour of eclipses; they sought out whether
+simple periods would not enable them to foretell these magnificent
+phenomena a long time beforehand. Thus the Chald&aelig;ans created, if I may
+be allowed the expression, <i>Contemplative Astronomy</i>. Their observations
+were neither numerous nor exact; they both made and discussed them
+without labour and without trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Such is not, by a great deal, the position of modern astronomers.
+Science has felt the necessity of the celestial motions being studied in
+their minutest details. Theories must explain these details; it is their
+touchstone; it is by details that theories become confirmed or fall to
+the ground. Besides, in Astronomy, the most important truths, the most
+astonishing results, are based on the measurement of quantities of
+extreme minuteness. Such measures, the present bases of the science,
+require very fatiguing attention, infinite care, to which no learned man
+would bind himself, were he not sustained, and encouraged by the hope of
+attaining some capital determination, through an ardent and decided
+devotion to the subject.</p>
+
+<p>The modern astronomer, really worthy of the name, must renounce the
+distractions of society, and even the refreshment of uninterrupted
+sleep. In our climates during the inclement season, the sky is almost
+constantly overspread by a thick curtain of clouds. Under pain of
+postponing by some centuries the verification of this or that theoretic
+point, we must watch the least clearing off, and avail ourselves of it
+without delay.</p>
+
+<p>A favourable wind arises and dissipates the vapours in the very
+direction where some important phenomenon will manifest itself, and is
+to last only a few seconds. The astronomer, exposed to all the
+transitions of weather, (it is one of the conditions of accuracy,) the
+body painfully bent, directs the telescope of a great graduated circle
+in haste upon the star that he impatiently awaits. His lines for
+measuring are a spider's threads. If in looking he makes a mistake of
+half the thickness of one of these threads, the observation is good for
+nothing; judge what his uneasiness must be; at the critical moment, a
+puff of wind occasioning a vibration in the artificial light adapted to
+his telescope, the threads become almost invisible; the star itself,
+whose rays reach the eye through atmospheric strata of various density,
+temperature, and refrangibility, will appear to oscillate so much as to
+render the true position of it almost unassignable; at the very moment
+when extremely good definition of the object becomes indispensable to
+insure correctness of measures, all becomes confused, either because the
+eye-piece gets steamed with vapour, or that the vicinity of the very
+cold metal occasions an abundant secretion of tears in the eye applied
+to the telescope; the poor observer is then exposed to the alternative
+of abandoning to some other more fortunate person than himself, the
+ascertaining a phenomenon that will not recur during his lifetime, or
+introducing into the science results of problematical correctness.
+Finally, to complete the observation, he must read off the microscopical
+divisions of the graduated circle, and for what opticians call <i>indolent
+vision</i> (the only sort that the ancients ever required) must substitute
+<i>strained vision</i>, which in a few years brings on blindness.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>When he has scarcely escaped from this physical and moral torture, and
+the astronomer wishes to know what degree of utility is deducible from
+his labours, he is obliged to plunge into numerical calculations of
+repelling length and intricacy. Some observations that have been made in
+less than a minute, require a whole day's work in order to be compared
+with the tables.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the view that Lacaille, without any softening, exhibited to his
+young friend; such was the profession into which the adolescent poet
+plunged with great ardour, and without having been at all prepared for
+the transition.</p>
+
+<p>A useful calculation constituted the first claim of our tyro to the
+attention of the learned world.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1759 had been marked by one of those great events, the memory
+of which is religiously preserved in scientific history. A comet, that
+of 1682, had returned at the epoch foretold by Clairaut, and very nearly
+in the region that mathematical analysis had indicated to him. This
+reappearance raised comets out of the category of sublunary meteors; it
+gave them definitely closed curves as orbits, instead of parabolas, or
+even mere straight lines; attraction confined them within its immense
+domain; in short, these bodies ceased for ever to be liable to
+superstition regarding them as prognostics.</p>
+
+<p>The stringency, the importance of these results, would naturally
+increase in proportion as the resemblance between the announced orbit
+and the real orbit became more evident.</p>
+
+<p>This was the motive that determined so many astronomers to calculate the
+orbit of the comet minutely, from the observations made in 1759,
+throughout Europe. Bailly was one of those zealous calculators. In the
+present day, such a labour would scarcely deserve special mention; but
+we must remark that the methods at the close of the eighteenth century
+were far from being so perfect as those that are now in use, and that
+they greatly depended on the personal ability of the individual who
+undertook them.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly resided in the Louvre. Being determined to make the theory and
+practice of astronomy advance together, he had an observatory
+established from the year 1760, at one of the windows in the upper story
+of the south gallery. Perhaps I may occasion surprise by giving the
+pompous name of <i>Observatory</i> to the space occupied by a window, and the
+small number of instruments that it could contain. I admit this feeling,
+provided it be extended to the Royal Observatory of the epoch, to the
+old imposing and severe mass of stone that attracts the attention of the
+promenaders in the great walk of the Luxembourg. There also, the
+astronomers were obliged to stand in the hollow of the windows; there
+also they said, like Bailly: I cannot verify my quadrants either by the
+horizon or by the zenith, for I can neither see the horizon nor the
+zenith. This ought to be known, even if it should disturb the wild
+reveries of two or three writers, who have no scientific authority:
+France did not possess an observatory worthy of her, nor worthy of the
+science, and capable of rivalling the other observatories of Europe,
+until within these ten or twelve years.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest observations made by Bailly, from one of the windows in the
+upper story of the Louvre gallery that looks out on the Pont des Arts,
+are dated in the beginning of 1760. The pupil of Lacaille was not yet
+twenty-four years old. Those observations relate to an opposition of the
+planet Mars. In the same year he determined the oppositions of Jupiter
+and of Saturn, and compared the results of his own determinations with
+the tables.</p>
+
+<p>The subsequent year I see him associated with Lacaille in observing the
+transit of Venus over the sun's disk. It was an extraordinary piece of
+good fortune, Gentlemen, at the very commencement of his scientific
+life, to witness in succession two of the most interesting astronomical
+events: the first predicted and well established return of a comet; and
+one of those partial eclipses of the sun by Venus, that do not recur
+till after the lapse of a hundred and ten years, and from which science
+has deduced the indirect but exact method, without which we should still
+be ignorant of the fact that the sun's mean distance from our earth is
+thirty-eight millions of leagues.</p>
+
+<p>I shall have completed the enumeration of Bailly's astronomical labours
+performed before he became an academician, when I have added, from
+observations of the comet of 1762, the calculation of its parabolic
+orbit; the discussion of forty-two observations of the moon by La Hire,
+a detailed labour destined to serve as a starting point for any person
+occupying himself with the lunar theory; finally, also the reduction of
+515 zodiacal stars, observed by Lacaille in 1760 and 1761.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> This long list of supposed difficulties in making an exact
+observation is hardly worthy of a zealous astronomer. Our author shows
+no enthusiasm for his subject here, and ends by ascribing the whole
+jeremiad to Lacaille, a man of very great practical perseverance. It is
+to be regretted that Arago never refers to observations of his own, but
+constantly quotes from others, nor does he always select the best.
+&mdash;<i>Translator's Note</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="BAILLY_A_MEMBER_OF_THE_ACADEMY_OF_SCIENCES_HIS_RESEARCHES_ON_JUPITERS" id="BAILLY_A_MEMBER_OF_THE_ACADEMY_OF_SCIENCES_HIS_RESEARCHES_ON_JUPITERS"></a>BAILLY A MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.&mdash;HIS RESEARCHES ON JUPITER'S SATELLITES.</h3>
+
+<p>Bailly was named member of the Academy of Sciences the 29th January,
+1763. From that moment his astronomical zeal no longer knew any bounds.
+The laborious life of our fellow-academician might, on occasion, be set
+up against a line, more fanciful than true, by which an ill-natured poet
+stigmatized academical honours. Certainly no one would say of Bailly,
+that after his election,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Il s'endormit et ne fit qu'un somme."</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p>"He fell asleep and made but one nap (or sum)."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>On the contrary, we cannot but be surprised at the multitude of literary
+and scientific labours that he accomplished in a few years.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly's earliest researches on Jupiter's satellites began in 1763.</p>
+
+<p>The subject was happily chosen. Studying it in all its generalities, he
+showed himself both an indefatigable computer, a clear-sighted geometer,
+and an industrious and able observer. Bailly's researches on the
+satellites of Jupiter, will always be his first and chief claim to
+scientific glory. Before him, the Maraldis, the Bradleys, the Wargentins
+had discovered empirically some of the principal perturbations that
+those bodies undergo, in their revolving motions around the powerful
+planet that rules them; but they had not been traced up to the
+principles of universal attraction. The initiative honour in this
+respect belongs to Bailly. Nor is this honour decreased by the ulterior
+and considerable improvements that the science has since received; even
+the discoveries of Lagrange and of Laplace have left this honour intact.</p>
+
+<p>The knowledge of the satellitic motions rests almost entirely on the
+observation of the precise moment when each of those bodies disappears,
+by entering into the conical shadow, which the immense opaque globe of
+Jupiter projects on the opposite side from the sun. In the course of
+discussing a multitude of these eclipses, Bailly was not long in
+perceiving that the computers of the Satellitic Tables worked on
+numerical data that were not at all comparable with each other. This
+seemed of little consequence previous to the birth of the theory; but,
+after the analytical discovery of the perturbations, it became desirable
+to estimate the possible errors of observation, and to suggest means for
+remedying them. This was the object of the very considerable work that
+Bailly presented to the Academy in 1771.</p>
+
+<p>In this beautiful memoir, the illustrious astronomer developes the
+series of experiments, by the aid of which each observation may give the
+instant of the real disappearance of a satellite, distinguished from the
+instant of the apparent disappearance, whatever be the power of the
+telescope used, whatever be the altitude of the eclipsed body above the
+horizon, and consequently, whatever be the transparency of the
+atmospheric strata through which the phenomenon is observed, also
+whatever be the distance from that body to the sun, or to the planet;
+finally, whatever be the sensibility of the observer's sight, all which
+circumstances considerably influence the time of apparent disappearance.
+The same series of ingenious and delicate observations led the author,
+very curiously, to the determination of the true diameters of the
+satellites, that is to say, of small luminous points, which, with the
+telescopes then in use, showed no perceptible diameter.</p>
+
+<p>I will rest contented with these general considerations; only remarking,
+in addition, that the diaphragms used by Bailly were not intended only
+to diminish the quantity of light contributing to the formation of the
+images, but that they considerably increase the diameter, and in a
+variable way, at least in the instance of stars.</p>
+
+<p>Under this new aspect, it will be requisite to submit the question to a
+new examination.</p>
+
+<p>Any geometers and astronomers who wish to know all the extent of
+Bailly's labours, must not content themselves with consulting the
+collections in the Academy of Sciences; for he published, at the
+beginning of 1766, a separate work under the modest title of <i>Essay on
+the Theory of Jupiter's Satellites</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The author commences with the <i>Astronomical History of the Satellites</i>.
+This history contains an almost complete analysis of the discoveries by
+Maraldi, by Bradley, by Wargentin. The labours of Galileo and his
+contemporaries are given with less detail and exactness. I have thought
+that I ought to fill up the lacun&aelig;, by availing myself of some very
+precious documents published a few years since, and which were unknown
+to Bailly.</p>
+
+<p>But this I will do in a separate notice, free from all preconceived
+ideas, and free from all party spirit; I will not forget that an honest
+man ought not to calumniate any one, not even the agents of the
+Inquisition.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="BAILLYS_LITERARY_WORKS_HIS_BIOGRAPHIES_OF_CHARLES_VmdashOF" id="BAILLYS_LITERARY_WORKS_HIS_BIOGRAPHIES_OF_CHARLES_VmdashOF"></a>BAILLY'S LITERARY WORKS.&mdash;HIS BIOGRAPHIES OF CHARLES V.&mdash;OF LEIBNITZ&mdash;OF PETER CORNEILLE&mdash;OF MOLI&Egrave;RE.</h3>
+
+<p>When Bailly entered the Academy of Sciences, the perpetual secretary was
+Grandjean de Fouchy. The bad health of this estimable scholar occasioned
+an early vacancy to be foreseen. D'Alembert cast his views on Bailly,
+hinted to him the survivorship to Fouchy, and proposed to him, by way of
+preparing the way, to write some biographies. Bailly followed the advice
+of the illustrious geometer, and chose as the subject of his studies,
+the &eacute;loges proposed by several academies, though principally by the
+French Academy.</p>
+
+<p>From the year 1671 to the year 1758, the prize subjects proposed by the
+French Academy related to questions of religion and morality. The
+eloquence of the candidates had therefore had to exercise itself
+successively on the knowledge of salvation; on the merit and dignity of
+martyrdom; on the purity of the soul and of the body; on the danger
+there is in certain paths that appear safe, &amp;c. &amp;c. It had even to
+paraphrase the <i>Ave Maria</i>. According to the literal intentions of the
+founder, (Balzac,) each discourse was ended by a short prayer. Duclos
+thought in 1758, that five or six volumes of similar sermons must have
+exhausted the matter, and on his proposal the Academy decided that, in
+future, it would give as the subject of the eloquence prize, the
+eulogiums of the great men of the nation. Marshal Saxe, Duguay Trouin,
+Sully, D'Aguesseau, Descartes, figured first on this list. Later, the
+Academy felt itself authorized to propose the &eacute;loge of kings themselves;
+it entered on this new branch at the beginning of 1767, by asking for
+the &eacute;loge of Charles V.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly entered the lists, but his essay obtained only an honourable
+mention.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more instructive than to search out at what epoch originated
+the principles and opinions of persons who have acted an important part
+on the political scene, and how those opinions developed themselves. By
+a fatality much to be regretted, the elements of these investigations
+are rarely numerous or faithful. We shall not have to express these
+regrets relative to Bailly. Each composition shows us the serene,
+candid, and virtuous mind of the illustrious writer, in a new and true
+point of view. The &eacute;loge of Charles V. was the starting point, followed
+by a long series of works, and it ought to arrest our attention for a
+while.</p>
+
+<p>The writings, crowned with the approbation of the French Academy, did
+not reach the public eye till they had been submitted to the severe
+censure of four Doctors in Theology. A special and digested approbation
+by the high dignitaries of the Church, whom the illustrious assembly
+always possessed among her members, was not a sufficient substitute for
+the humbling formality. If we are sure that we possess the &eacute;loge of
+Charles V. such as it flowed from the author's pen; if we have not
+reason to fear that the thoughts have undergone some mutilation, we owe
+it to the little favour that the discourse of Bailly enjoyed in the
+sitting of the Academy in 1767. Those thoughts, however, would have
+defied the most squeamish mind, the most shadowy susceptibility. The
+panegyrist unrolls with emotion the frightful misfortunes that assailed
+France during the reign of King John. The temerity, the improvidence of
+that monarch; the disgraceful passions of the King of Navarre; his
+treacheries; the barbarous avidity of the nobility; the seditious
+disposition of the people; the sanguinary depredations of the great
+companies; the ever recurring insolence of England; all this is
+expressed without disguise, yet with extreme moderation. No trait
+reveals, no fact even foreshadows in the author, the future President of
+a reforming National Assembly, still less the Mayor of Paris, during a
+revolutionary effervescence. The author may make Charles V. say that he
+will discard favour, and will call in renown to select his
+representatives; it will appear to him that taxes ought to be laid on
+riches and spared on poverty; he may even exclaim that oppression
+awakens ideas of equality. His temerity will not overleap this boundary.
+Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue, made the Chair resound with bold words
+of another description.</p>
+
+<p>I am far from blaming this scrupulous reserve; when moderation is united
+to firmness, it becomes power. In a word, however, Bailly's patriotism
+might, I was about to say ought to, have shown itself more susceptible,
+more ardent, prouder. When in the elegant prosopop&oelig;ia which closes
+the &eacute;loge, the King of England has recalled with arrogance the fatal day
+of Poitiers, ought he not instantly to have restrained that pride within
+just limits? ought he not to have cast a hasty glance on the components
+of the Black Prince's army? to examine whether a body of troops,
+starting from Bordeaux, recruiting in Guienne, did not contain more
+Gascons than English? whether France, now bounded by its natural limits,
+in its magnificent unity, would not have a right, every thing being
+examined, to consider that battle almost as an event of civil war? ought
+he not, in short, to have pointed out, in order to corroborate his
+remarks, that the knight to whom King John surrendered himself, Denys de
+Morbecque, was a French officer banished from Artois?</p>
+
+<p>Self-reliance on the field of battle is the first requisite for
+obtaining success; now, would not our self-reliance be shaken, if the
+men most likely to know the facts, and to appreciate them wisely,
+appeared to think that the Frank race were nationally inferior to other
+races who had peopled this or that region, either neighbouring or
+distant? This, let it be well remarked, is not a puerile susceptibility.
+Great events may, on a given day, depend on the opinion that the nation
+has formed of itself. Our neighbours on the other side of the Channel,
+afford examples on this subject that it would be well to imitate.</p>
+
+<p>In 1767, the Academy of Berlin proposed a prize for an &eacute;loge of
+Leibnitz. The public was somewhat surprised at it. It was generally
+supposed that Leibnitz had been admirably praised by Fontenelle, and
+that the subject was exhausted. But from the moment that Bailly's essay,
+crowned in Prussia, was published, former impressions were quite
+changed. Every one was anxiously asserting that Bailly's appreciation of
+his subject might be read with pleasure and benefit, even after
+Fontenelle's. The &eacute;loge composed by the historian of Astronomy will not,
+certainly, make us forget that written by the first Secretary of the
+Academy of Sciences. The style is, perhaps, too stiff; perhaps it is
+also rather declamatory; but the biography, and the analysis of his
+works, are more complete, especially if we consider the notes; the
+<i>universal</i> Leibnitz is exhibited under more varied points of view.</p>
+
+<p>In 1768, Bailly obtained the award of the prize of eloquence proposed
+by the Academy of Rouen. The subject was the &eacute;loge of Peter Corneille.
+In reading this work of our fellow-academician, we may be somewhat
+surprised at the immense distance that the modest, the timid, the
+sensitive Bailly puts between the great Corneille, his special
+favourite, and Racine.</p>
+
+<p>When the French Academy, in 1768, proposed an &eacute;loge of Moli&egrave;re for
+competition, our candidate was vanquished only by Chamfort. And yet, if
+people had not since that time treated of the author of "Tartufe" to
+satiety, perhaps I would venture to maintain, notwithstanding some
+inferiority of style, that Bailly's discourse offered a neater, truer,
+and more philosophic appreciation of the principal pieces of that
+immortal poet.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="DEBATES_RELATIVE_TO_THE_POST_OF_PERPETUAL_SECRETARY_OF_THE_ACADEMY_OF" id="DEBATES_RELATIVE_TO_THE_POST_OF_PERPETUAL_SECRETARY_OF_THE_ACADEMY_OF"></a>DEBATES RELATIVE TO THE POST OF PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.</h3>
+
+<p>We have seen D'Alembert, ever since the year 1763, encouraging Bailly to
+exercise himself in a style of literary composition then much liked, the
+style of &eacute;loge, and holding out to him in prospect the situation of
+Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. Six years after, the
+illustrious geometer gave the same advice, and perhaps held out the same
+hopes, to the young Marquis de Condorcet. This candidate, docile to the
+voice of his protector, rapidly composed and published the &eacute;loges of the
+early founders of the Academy, of Huyghens, of Mariotte, of Ro&euml;mer, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of 1773, the Perpetual Secretary, Grandjean de Fouchy,
+requested that Condorcet should be nominated his successor, provided he
+survived him. D'Alembert strongly supported this candidateship. Buffon
+supported Bailly with equal energy; the Academy presented for some
+weeks the aspect of two hostile camps. There was at last a strongly
+disputed electoral battle; the result was the nomination of Condorcet.</p>
+
+<p>I should regret if we had to judge of the sentiments of Bailly, after
+this defeat, by those of his adherents. Their anger found vent in terms
+of unpardonable asperity. They said that D'Alembert had "basely betrayed
+friendship, honour, and the first principles of probity."</p>
+
+<p>They here alluded to a promise of protection, support, co&ouml;peration,
+dating ten years back. But was his promise absolute? Engaging himself
+personally to Bailly for a situation that might not become vacant for
+ten or fifteen years, had D'Alembert, contrary to his duty as an
+academician, declared beforehand, that any other candidate, whatever
+might be his talents, would be to him as not existing?</p>
+
+<p>This is what ought to have been ascertained, before giving themselves up
+to such violent and odious imputations.</p>
+
+<p>Was it not quite natural that the geometer D'Alembert, having to
+pronounce his opinion between two honourable learned men, gave the
+preference to the candidate who seemed to him most imbued with the
+higher mathematics? The &eacute;loges of Condorcet were, besides, by their
+style, much more in harmony with those that the Academy had approved
+during three quarters of a century. Before the declaration of the
+vacancy on the 27th of February, 1773, D'Alembert said to Voltaire,
+relative to the recueil by Condorcet, "Some one asked me the other day
+what I thought of that work. I answered by writing on the frontispiece,
+'Justice, propriety, learning, clearness, precision, taste, elegance,
+and nobleness.'" And Voltaire wrote, on the 1st of March, "I have read,
+while dying, the little book by M. de Condorcet; it is as good in its
+departments as the &eacute;loges by Fontenelle. There is a more noble and more
+modest philosophy in it, though bold."</p>
+
+<p>And excitement in words and action could not be legitimately reproached
+in a man who had felt himself supported by a conviction of such distinct
+and powerful influence.</p>
+
+<p>Among the &eacute;loges by Bailly, there is one, that of the Abb&eacute; de Lacaille,
+which not having been written for a literary academy, shows no longer
+any trace of inflation or declamation, and might, it seems to me,
+compete with some of the best &eacute;loges by Condorcet. Yet, it is curious,
+that this excellent biography contributed, perhaps as much as
+D'Alembert's opposition, to make Bailly's claims fail. Vainly did the
+celebrated astronomer flatter himself in his exordium, "that M. de
+Fouchy, who, as Secretary of the Academy, had already paid his tribute
+to Lacaille, would not be displeased at his having followed him in the
+same career ... that he would not be blamed for repeating the praises
+due to an illustrious man."</p>
+
+<p>Bailly, in fact, was not blamed aloud; but when the hour for retreat had
+sounded in M. de Fouchy's ear, without any fuss, without showing himself
+offended in his self-love, remaining apparently modest, this learned
+man, in asking for an assistant, selected one who had not undertaken to
+repeat his &eacute;loges; who had not found his biographies insufficient. This
+preference ought not to be, and was not, uninfluential in the result of
+the competition.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly, if Perpetual Secretary of the Academy, would have been obliged
+to reside constantly at Paris. But Bailly, as member of the Astronomical
+Section, might retire to the country, and thus escape those thieves of
+time, as Byron called them, who especially abound in the metropolis.
+Bailly settled at Chaillot. It was at Chaillot that our
+fellow-academician composed his best works, those that will sail down
+the stream of time.</p>
+
+<p>Nature had endowed Bailly with the most happy memory. He did not write
+his discourses till he had completed them in his head. His first copy
+was always a clean copy. Every morning Bailly started early from his
+humble residence at Chaillot; he went to the Bois de Boulogne, and
+there, walking for many hours at a time, his powerful mind elaborated,
+co&ouml;rdinated, and robed in all the pomps of language, those high
+conceptions destined to charm successive generations. Biographers inform
+us that Cr&eacute;billon composed in a similar way. And this was, according to
+several critics, the cause of the incorrectness, of the asperity of
+style, which disfigure several pieces by that tragic poet. The works of
+Bailly, and especially the discourses that complete the <i>History of
+Astronomy</i>, invalidate this explanation. I could also appeal to the
+elegant and pure productions of that poet whom France has just lost and
+weeps for. No one indeed can be ignorant of his works; Casimir
+Delavigne, like Bailly, never committed his verses to paper until he had
+worked them up in his mind to that harmonious perfection which procured
+for them the unanimous suffrages of all people of taste. Gentlemen,
+pardon this reminiscence. The heart loves to connect such names as those
+of Bailly and of Delavigne; those rare and glorious symbols, in whom we
+find united talent, virtue, and an invariable patriotism.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="HISTORY_OF_ASTRONOMY_LETTERS_ON_THE_ATLANTIS_OF_PLATO_AND_ON_THE" id="HISTORY_OF_ASTRONOMY_LETTERS_ON_THE_ATLANTIS_OF_PLATO_AND_ON_THE"></a>HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY.&mdash;LETTERS ON THE ATLANTIS OF PLATO AND ON THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF ASIA.</h3>
+
+<p>In 1775, Bailly published a quarto volume, entitled <i>History of Ancient
+Astronomy, from its Origin up to the Establishment of the Alexandrian
+School</i>. An analogous work for the lapse of time, comprised between the
+Alexandrian School and 1730, appeared in 1779, in two volumes. An
+additional volume appeared three years later, entitled the <i>History of
+Modern Astronomy up to the Epoch of 1782</i>. The fifth part of this
+immense composition, the <i>History of Indian Astronomy</i>, was published in
+1787.</p>
+
+<p>When Bailly undertook this general history of Astronomy, the science
+possessed nothing of the sort. Erudition had seized upon some special
+questions, some detailed points, but no commanding view had presided
+over these investigations.</p>
+
+<p>Weidler's book, published in 1741, was a mere simple nomenclature of the
+astronomers of every age, and of every country; the dates of their birth
+and death; the titles of their works. The utility of this precise
+enumeration of dates and titles did not alter the character of the book.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly sketches the plan of his work with a masterly hand in a few
+lines; he says, "It is interesting to transport one's self back to the
+times when Astronomy began; to observe how discoveries were connected
+together, how errors have got mixed up with truth, have delayed the
+knowledge of it, and retarded its progress; and, after having followed
+the various epochs and traversed every climate, finally to contemplate
+the edifice founded on the labours of successive centuries and of
+various nations."</p>
+
+<p>This vast plan essentially led to the minute discussion and comparison
+of a multitude of passages both ancient and modern. If the author had
+mixed up these discussions with the body of the work, he would have
+laboured for astronomers only. If he had suppressed all discussions, the
+book would have interested amateurs only. To avoid this double rock,
+Bailly decided on writing a connected narrative with the quintessence of
+the facts, and to place the proofs and the discussions of the merely
+conjectural parts, under the appellation of explanations in separate
+chapters. Bailly's History, without forfeiting the character of a
+serious and erudite work, became accessible to the public in general,
+and contributed to disseminate accurate notions of Astronomy both among
+literary men and among general society.</p>
+
+<p>When Bailly declared, in the beginning of his book, that he would go
+back to the very commencement of Astronomy, the reader might expect some
+pages of pure imagination. I know not, however, whether any body would
+have expected a chapter of the first volume to be entitled, <i>Of
+Antediluvian Astronomy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The principal conclusion to which Bailly comes, after an attentive
+examination of all the positive ideas that antiquity has bequeathed to
+us is, that we find rather the ruins than the elements of a science in
+the most ancient Astronomy of Chald&aelig;a, of India, and of China.</p>
+
+<p>After treating of certain ideas of Pluche, Bailly says, "The country of
+possibilities is immense, and although truth is contained therein, it is
+not often easy to distinguish it."</p>
+
+<p>Words so reasonable would authorize me to inquire whether the
+calculations of our fellow-labourer, intended to establish the immense
+antiquity of the Indian Tables, are beyond all criticism. But the
+question has been sufficiently discussed in a passage of <i>The Exposition
+of the System of the World</i>, on which it would be useless to insist
+here. Whatever came from the pen of M. de Laplace was always marked by
+the stamp of reason and of evidence. In the first lines of his
+magnificent work, after having remarked that "the history of Astronomy
+forms an essential part of the history of the human mind," Bailly
+observes, "that it is perhaps the true measure of man's intelligence,
+and a proof of what he can do with time and genius." I shall allow
+myself to add, that no study offers to reflecting minds more striking or
+more curious relations.</p>
+
+<p>When by measurements, in which the evidence of the method advances
+equally with the precision of the results, the volume of the earth is
+reduced to the millionth part of the volume of the sun; when the sun
+himself, transported to the region of the stars, takes up a very modest
+place among the thousands of millions of those bodies that the telescope
+has revealed to us; when the 38,000,000 of leagues which separate the
+earth from the sun, have become, by reason of their comparative
+smallness, a base totally insufficient for ascertaining the dimensions
+of the visible universe; when even the swiftness of the luminous rays
+(77,000 leagues per second) barely suffices for the common valuations of
+science; when, in short, by a chain of irresistible proofs, certain
+stars have retired to distances that light could not traverse in less
+than a million of years; we feel as if annihilated by such immensities.
+In assigning to man, and to the planet that he inhabits, so small a
+position in the material world, Astronomy seems really to have made
+progress only to humble us.</p>
+
+<p>But if, on the other hand, we regard the subject from the opposite
+point of view, and reflect on the extreme feebleness of the natural
+means by the help of which so many great problems have been attacked and
+solved; if we consider that to obtain and measure the greater part of
+the quantities now forming the basis of astronomical computation, man
+has had greatly to improve the most delicate of his organs, to add
+immensely to the power of his eye; if we remark that it was not less
+requisite for him to discover methods adapted to measuring very long
+intervals of time, up to the precision of tenths of seconds; to combat
+against the most microscopic effects that constant variations of
+temperature produce in metals, and therefore in all instruments; to
+guard against the innumerable illusions that a cold or hot atmosphere,
+dry or humid, tranquil or agitated, impresses on the medium through
+which the observations have inevitably to be made; the feeble being
+resumes all his advantage; by the side of such wonderful labours of the
+mind, what signifies the weakness, the fragility of our body; what
+signify the dimensions of the planet, our residence, the grain of sand
+on which it has happened to us to appear for a few moments!</p>
+
+<p>The thousands of questions on which Astronomy has thrown its dazzling
+light belong to two entirely distinct categories; some offered
+themselves naturally to the mind, and man had only to seek the means for
+solving them; others, according to the beautiful expression of Pliny,
+were enveloped in the majesty of nature! When Bailly lays down in his
+book these two kinds of problems, it is with the firmness, the depth, of
+a consummate astronomer; and when he shows their importance, their
+immensity, it is always with the talent of a writer of the highest
+order; it is sometimes with a bewitching eloquence. If in the beautiful
+work we are alluding to, Astronomy unavoidably assigns to man an
+imperceptible place in the material world, she assigns him, on the other
+hand, a vast share in the intellectual world. The writings which,
+supported by the invincible deductions of science, thus elevate man in
+his own eyes, will find grateful readers in all climes and times.</p>
+
+<p>In 1775, Bailly sent the first volume of his history to Voltaire. In
+thanking him for his present, the illustrious old man addressed to the
+author one of those letters that he alone could write, in which
+flattering and enlivening sentences were combined without effort with
+high reasoning powers. "I have many thanks to return you, (said the
+Patriarch of Ferney,) for having on the same day received a large book
+on medicine and yours, while I was still ill; I have not opened the
+first, I have already read the second almost entirely, and feel better."</p>
+
+<p>Voltaire, indeed, had read Bailly's work pen in hand, and he proposed to
+the illustrious astronomer some queries, which proved both his infinite
+perspicacity, and wonderful variety of knowledge. Bailly then felt the
+necessity of developing some ideas which in his <i>History of Ancient
+Astronomy</i> were only accessories to his principal subject. This was the
+object of the volume that he published in 1776, under the title of
+<i>Letters on the Origin of the Sciences and of the People of Asia,
+addressed to M. de Voltaire</i>. The author modestly announced that "to
+lead the reader by the interest of the style to the interest of the
+question discussed," he would place at the head of his work three
+letters from the author of <i>Merope</i>, and he protested against the idea
+that he had been induced to play with paradoxes.</p>
+
+<p>According to Bailly, the present nations of Asia are heirs of an
+anterior people, who understood Astronomy perfectly. Those Chinese,
+those Hindoos, so renowned for their learning, would thus have been mere
+depositaries; we should have to deprive them of the title of inventors.
+Certain astronomical facts, found in the annals of those southern
+nations, appear to have belonged to a higher latitude. By these means we
+discover the true site on the globe of the primitive people, proving
+against the received opinion that learning came southward from the
+north.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly also found that the ancient fables, considered physically,
+appeared to belong to the northern regions of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>In 1779, Bailly published a second collection, forming a sequel to the
+former, and entitled <i>Letters on the Atlantis of Plato, and on the
+Ancient History of Asia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Voltaire died before these new letters could be communicated to him.
+Bailly did not think that this circumstance ought to make him change the
+form of the discussion already employed in the former series; it is
+still Voltaire whom he addresses.</p>
+
+<p>The philosopher of Ferney thought it strange that there should be no
+knowledge of this ancient people, who, according to Bailly, had
+instructed the Indians. To answer this difficulty, the celebrated
+astronomer undertakes to prove that some nations have disappeared,
+without their existence being known to us by any thing beyond tradition.
+He cites five of these, and in the first rank the Atlantid&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>Aristotle said that he thought Atlantis was a fiction of Plato's: "He
+who created it also destroyed it, like the walls that Homer built on the
+shores of Troy, and then made them disappear." Bailly does not join in
+this skepticism. According to him, Plato spoke seriously to the
+Athenians of a learned, polished people, but destroyed and forgotten.
+Only, he totally repudiates the idea of the Canaries being the remains
+of the ancient country of the Atlantid&aelig;, and now engulfed. Bailly rather
+places that nation at Spitzbergen, Greenland, or Nova Zembla, whose
+climate may have changed. We should also have to seek for the Garden of
+the Hesperides near the Pole; in short, the fable of the Ph&oelig;nix may
+have arisen in the Gulf of the Obi, in a region where we must suppose
+the sun to have been annually absent during sixty-five days.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident, in many passages, that Bailly is himself surprised at the
+singularity of his own conclusions, and fears that his readers may
+rather regard them as jokes. He therefore exclaims, "My pen would not
+find expressions for thoughts which I did not believe to be true." Let
+us add that no effort is painful to him. Bailly calls successively to
+his aid astronomy, history, supported by vast erudition, philology, the
+systems of Mairan, of Buffon, relatively to the heat appertaining to the
+earth. He does not forget, using his own words, "that in the human
+species, still more sensitive than curious, more anxious for pleasure
+than for instruction, nothing pleases generally, or for a long time,
+unless the style is agreeable; that dry truth is killed by ennui!" Yet
+Bailly makes few proselytes; and a species of instinct determines men of
+science to despise the fruits of so persevering a labour; and D'Alembert
+goes so far as to tax them with poverty, even with hollow ideas, with
+vain and ridiculous efforts; he goes so far as to call Bailly,
+relatively to his letters, the <i>illuminated brother</i>. Voltaire is, on
+the contrary, very polite and very academical in his communications with
+our author. The renown of the Brahmins is dear to him; yet this does
+not prevent his discussing closely the proofs, the arguments of the
+ingenious astronomer. We could also now enter into a serious discussion.
+The mysterious veil that in Bailly's time covered the East, is in great
+part raised. We now know the Astronomy of the Chinese and the Hindoos in
+all its detail. We know up to what point the latter had carried their
+mathematical knowledge. The theory of central heat has in a few years
+made an unhoped-for progress; in short, comparative philology,
+prodigiously extended by the invaluable labours of Sacy, R&eacute;musat,
+Quatrem&egrave;re, Burnouf, and Stanislaus Julien, have thrown strong lights on
+some historical and geographical questions, where there reigned before a
+profound darkness. Armed with all these new means of investigation, it
+might easily be established that the systems relative to an ancient
+unknown people, first creator of all the sciences, and relative to the
+Atlantid&aelig;, rest on foundations devoid of solidity. Yet, if Bailly still
+lived, we should be only just in saying to him, as Voltaire did, merely
+changing the tense of a verb, "Your two books <i>were</i>, Sir, treasures of
+the most profound erudition and the most ingenious conjectures, adorned
+with an eloquence of style, which is always suitable to the subject."</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="FIRST_INTERVIEW_OF_BAILLY_WITH_FRANKLIN_HIS_ENTRANCE_INTO_THE_FRENCH" id="FIRST_INTERVIEW_OF_BAILLY_WITH_FRANKLIN_HIS_ENTRANCE_INTO_THE_FRENCH"></a>FIRST INTERVIEW OF BAILLY WITH FRANKLIN.&mdash;HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE FRENCH
+ACADEMY IN 1783.&mdash;HIS RECEPTION.&mdash;DISCOURSE.&mdash;HIS RUPTURE WITH BUFFON.</h3>
+
+<p>Bailly became the particular and intimate friend of Franklin at the end
+of 1777. The personal acquaintance of these two distinguished men began
+in the strangest manner.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most illustrious members of the Institute, Volney, on
+returning from the New World, said: "The Anglo-Americans tax the French
+with lightness, with indiscretion, with chattering." (Volney, preface to
+<i>The Table of the Climate of the United States</i>.) Such is the
+impression, in my opinion very erroneous, at least by comparison, under
+which the Ambassador Franklin arrived in France. All the world knows
+that he halted at Chaillot. As an inhabitant of the Commune, Bailly
+thought it his duty to visit without delay the illustrious guest thus
+received. He was announced, and Franklin, knowing him by reputation,
+welcomed him very cordially, and exchanged with his visitor the eight or
+ten words usual on such occasions. Bailly seated himself by the American
+philosopher, and discreetly awaited some question to be put to him. Half
+an hour passed, and Franklin had not opened his mouth. Bailly drew out
+his snuff-box, and presented it to his neighbour without a word; the
+traveller signed with his hand that he did not take snuff. The dumb
+interview was then prolonged during a whole hour. Bailly finally rose.
+Then Franklin, as if delighted to have found a Frenchman who could
+remain silent, extended his hand to him, pressed his visitor's
+affectionately, exclaiming: "Very well, Monsr. Bailly, very well!"</p>
+
+<p>After having recounted the anecdote as our academician used amusingly to
+relate it, I really fear being asked how I look upon it. Well,
+Gentlemen, whenever this question may be put to me, I shall answer that
+Bailly and Franklin discussing together some scientific question from
+the moment of their meeting, would have appeared to me much more worthy
+of each other, than the two actors of the scene at Chaillot. I will,
+moreover, grant that we may draw the following inference,&mdash;that even men
+of genius are liable to cross humours; but I must at the same time add
+that the example is not dangerous, dumbness not being an efficacious
+method of making one's self valued, or of distinguishing ourselves to
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly was nominated member of the French Academy in the place of M. de
+Tressan, in November, 1783. The same day, M. de Choiseul Gouffier
+succeeded to D'Alembert. Thanks to the coincidence of the two
+nominations, Bailly escaped the sarcasms which the expectant
+academicians never fail to pour out, with or without reason, against
+those who have obtained a double crown. This time they vented their
+spleen exclusively on the great man, thus enabling the astronomer to
+take possession of his new dignity without raising the usual storm. Let
+us carefully collect, Gentlemen, from the early years of our
+academician's life, all that may appear an anticipated compensation for
+the cruel trials that we shall have to relate in the sequel.</p>
+
+<p>The admission of the eloquent author of the <i>History of Astronomy</i> into
+the Academy, was more difficult than could be supposed by those who have
+remarked to what slight works certain early and recent writers have owed
+the same favour. Bailly failed three times. Fontenelle had before him
+unsuccessfully presented himself once oftener; but Fontenelle underwent
+these successive checks without ill-humour, and without being
+discouraged. Bailly, on the contrary, with or without reason, seeing in
+these unfavourable results of the elections the immediate effect of
+D'Alembert's enmity, showed himself much more hurt at it, perhaps, than
+was suitable for a philosopher. In these somewhat envenomed contests,
+Buffon always gave Bailly a cordial and able support.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly pronounced his reception-discourse in February, 1784. The merits
+of M. de Tressan were therein celebrated with grace and delicacy. The
+panegyrist identified himself with his subject. A select public loaded
+with praises various passages wherein just and profound ideas were
+clothed in all the richness of a forcible and harmonious style.</p>
+
+<p>Did any one ever speak with more eloquence of the scientific power
+revealed by a contemporary discovery! Listen, Gentlemen, and judge.</p>
+
+<p>"That which the sciences can add to the privileges of the human race has
+never been more marked than at the present moment. They have acquired
+new domains for man. The air seems to become as accessible to him as the
+waters, and the boldness of his enterprises equals almost the boldness
+of his thoughts. The name of Montgolfier, the names of those hardy
+navigators of the new element, will live through time; but who among us,
+on seeing these superb experiments, has not felt his soul elevated, his
+ideas expanded, his mind enlarged?"</p>
+
+<p>I know not whether, all things considered, the satisfaction of self-love
+which may be attached to academical titles, to his success in public and
+important meetings, ever completely rewarded Bailly for the heartaches
+he experienced in his literary career.</p>
+
+<p>A kind and tender intimacy had grown up between the great naturalist
+Buffon and the celebrated astronomer. An academical nomination broke it
+up. You know it, Gentlemen; amongst us a nomination is the apple of
+discord; notwithstanding the most opposite views, every one then thinks
+that he is acting for the true interest of science or of letters; every
+one thinks that he is proceeding in the line of strict justice; every
+one endeavours earnestly to make proselytes. So far all is legitimate.
+But what is much less so, is forgetting that a vote is a decision, and
+that in this sense the academician, like the magistrate, may say to the
+suitor, whether an academician or not, "I give decrees, and not
+services."</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, considerations of this sort, notwithstanding their
+justice, would make but little impression on the haughty and positive
+mind of Buffon. That great naturalist wished to have the Abb&eacute; Maury
+nominated; his associate Bailly thought he ought to vote for Sedaine.
+Let us place ourselves in the ordinary course of things, and it will
+appear difficult to see in this discordancy a sufficient cause for a
+rupture between two superior men. <i>The Unforeseen Wager</i> and <i>The
+Unconscious Philosopher</i>, considerably balanced the, then very light,
+weight of Maury. The comic poet had already reached his sixty-sixth
+year; the Abb&eacute; was young. The high character, the irreproachable conduct
+of Sedaine, might, without disparagement, be put in comparison with what
+the public knew of the character of the official and the private life of
+the future cardinal. Whence then had the illustrious naturalist derived
+such a great affection for Maury, such violent antipathies against
+Sedaine? It may be surmised that they arose from aristocratic prejudices
+of rank. Nor is it impossible but that M. le Comte de Buffon
+instinctively foresaw, with some repugnance, his approaching
+confraternity with a man formerly a lapidary; but was not Maury the son
+of a shoemaker? This very small incident of our literary history seemed
+doomed to remain in obscurity; chance has, I believe, given me the key
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>You remember, Gentlemen, that aphorism continually quoted by Buffon, and
+of which he seemed very proud,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Style makes the man."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>I have discovered that Sedaine made a counterpart of it. The author of
+<i>Richard C&oelig;ur de Lion</i> and of <i>The Deserter</i> said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Style is nothing, or next to it!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Place this heresy, in imagination, under the eyes of the immortal
+writer, whose days and nights were passed in polishing his style, and if
+you then ask me why he detested Sedaine, I shall have a right to answer:
+You do not know the human heart.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly firmly resisted the imperious solicitations of his former patron,
+and refused even to absent himself from the Academy on the day of the
+nomination. He did not hesitate to sacrifice the attractions and
+advantages of an illustrious friendship to the performance of a duty; he
+answered to him who wanted to be master, "I will be free." Honour be to
+him!</p>
+
+<p>The example of Bailly warns timid men never to listen to mere
+entreaties, whatever may be their source; not to yield but to good
+arguments. Those who have thought so little of their own tranquillity as
+to do any more in academical elections than to give a silent and secret
+vote, will see on their part, in the noble and painful resistance of an
+honest man, how culpable they become in trying to substitute authority
+for persuasion, in wishing to subject conscience to gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>On the occurrence of a similar discord, the astronomer Lemonnier, of the
+Academy of Sciences, said one day to Lalande, his fellow-academician and
+former pupil, "I enjoin you not to put your foot again within my door
+during the semi-revolution of the lunar orbital nodes." Calculation
+shows this to be nine years. Lalande submitted to the punishment with a
+truly astronomical punctuality; but the public, despite the scientific
+form of the sentence, thought it excessively severe. What then will be
+said of that which was pronounced by Buffon?&mdash;"We will never see each
+other more, Sir!" These words will appear at once both harsh and solemn,
+for they were occasioned by a difference of opinion on the comparative
+merits of Sedaine and the Abb&eacute; Maury. Our friend resigned himself to
+this separation, nor ever allowed his just resentment to be perceived. I
+may even remark, that after this brutal disruption he showed himself
+more attentive than ever to seize opportunities of paying a legitimate
+homage to the talents and eloquence of the French Pliny.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="REPORT_ON_ANIMAL_MAGNETISM" id="REPORT_ON_ANIMAL_MAGNETISM"></a>REPORT ON ANIMAL MAGNETISM.</h3>
+
+<p>We are now going to see the astronomer, the savant, the man of letters,
+struggling against passions of every kind, excited by the famous
+question of animal magnetism.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of the year 1778, a German doctor established himself
+at Paris. This physician could not fail of succeeding in what was then
+styled high society. He was a stranger. His government had expelled him;
+acts of the greatest effrontery and unexampled charlatanism were imputed
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>His success, however, exceeded all expectations. The Gluckists and the
+Piccinists themselves forgot their differences, to occupy themselves
+exclusively with the new comer.</p>
+
+<p>Mesmer, since we must call him by his name, pretended to have discovered
+an agent till then totally unknown both in the arts and in physics; an
+universally distributed fluid, and serving thus as a means of
+communication and of influence among the celestial globes;&mdash;a fluid
+capable of flux and reflux, which introduced itself more or less
+abundantly into the substance of the nerves, and acted on them in a
+useful manner,&mdash;thence the name of animal magnetism given to this fluid.</p>
+
+<p>Mesmer said: "Animal magnetism may be accumulated, concentrated,
+transported, without the aid of any intermediate body. It is reflected
+like light; musical sounds propagate and augment it."</p>
+
+<p>Properties so distinct, so precise, seemed as if they must be capable of
+experimental verification. It was requisite, then, to be prepared for
+some instance of want of success, and Mesmer took good care not to
+neglect it. The following was his declaration: "Although the fluid be
+universal, all animated bodies do not equally assimilate it into
+themselves; there are some even, though very few in number, that by
+their very presence destroy the effects of this fluid in the surrounding
+bodies."</p>
+
+<p>So soon as this was admitted, as soon it was allowed to explain
+instances of non-success by the presence of neutralizing bodies, Mesmer
+no longer ran any risk of being embarrassed. Nothing prevented his
+announcing, in full security, "that animal magnetism could immediately
+cure diseases of the nerves, and mediately other diseases; that it
+afforded to doctors the means of judging with certainty of the origin,
+the nature, and the progress of the most complicated maladies; that
+nature, in short, offered in magnetism a universal means of curing and
+preserving mankind."</p>
+
+<p>Before quitting Vienna, Mesmer had communicated his systematic notions
+to the principal learned societies of Europe. The Academy of Sciences at
+Paris, and the Royal Society of London, did not think proper to answer.
+The Academy of Berlin examined the work, and wrote to Mesmer that he was
+in error.</p>
+
+<p>Some time after his arrival in Paris, Mesmer tried again to get into
+communication with the Academy of Sciences. This society even acceded to
+a rendezvous. But, instead of the empty words that were offered them,
+the academicians required experiments. Mesmer stated&mdash;I quote his
+words&mdash;that <i>it was child's play</i>; and the conference had no other
+result.</p>
+
+<p>The Royal Society of Medicine, being called upon to judge of the
+pretended cures performed by the Austrian doctor, thought that their
+agents could not give a well-founded opinion "without having first duly
+examined the patients to ascertain their state." Mesmer rejected this
+natural and reasonable proposal. He wished that the agents should be
+content with the word of honour and attestations of the patients. In
+this respect, also, the severe letters of the worthy Vicq-d'Azyr put an
+end to communications which must have ended unsatisfactorily.</p>
+
+<p>The faculty of medicine showed, we think, less wisdom. It refused to
+examine any thing; it even proceeded in legal form against one of its
+regent doctors who had associated himself, they said, with the
+charlatanism of Mesmer.</p>
+
+<p>These barren debates evidently proved that Mesmer himself was not
+thoroughly sure of his theory, nor of the efficacy of the means of cure
+that he employed. Still the public showed itself blind. The infatuation
+became extreme. French society appeared at one moment divided into
+magnetizers and magnetized. From one end of the kingdom to the other
+agents of Mesmer were seen, who, with receipt in hand, put the weak in
+intellect under contribution.</p>
+
+<p>The magnetizers had had the address to intimate that the mesmeric crises
+manifested themselves only in persons endowed with a certain
+sensitiveness. From that moment, in order not to be ranged among the
+insensible, both men and women, when near the <i>rod</i>, assumed the
+appearance of epileptics.</p>
+
+<p>Was not Father Hervier really in one of those paroxysms of the disease
+when he wrote, "If Mesmer had lived contemporary with Descartes and
+Newton, he would have saved them much labour: those great men suspected
+the existence of the universal fluid; Mesmer has discovered the laws of
+its action"?</p>
+
+<p>Count de G&eacute;belin showed himself stranger still. The new doctrine would
+naturally seduce him by its connection with some of the mysterious
+practices of ancient times; but the author of <i>The Primitive World</i> did
+not content himself with writing in favour of Mesmerism with the
+enthusiasm of an apostle. Frightful pain, violent griefs, rendered life
+insupportable to him; G&eacute;belin saw death approaching with satisfaction,
+so from that moment he begged earnestly that he might not be carried to
+Mesmer's, where assuredly "he could not die." We must just mention,
+however, that his request was not attended to; he was carried to
+Mesmer's, and died while he was being magnetized.</p>
+
+<p>Painting, sculpture, and engraving were constantly repeating the
+features of this Thaumaturgus. Poets wrote verses to be inscribed on the
+pedestals of the busts, or below the portraits. Those by Palisot deserve
+to be quoted, as one of the most curious examples of poetic licences:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Behold that man&mdash;the glory of his age!</div>
+<div>Whose art can all Pandora's ills assuage.</div>
+<div>In skill and tact no rival pow'r is known&mdash;</div>
+<div>E'en Greece, in him, would Esculapius own."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Enthusiasm having thus gone to the last limits in verse, enthusiasm had
+but one way left to become remarkable in prose: that is, violence. Is it
+not thus that we must characterize the words of Bergasse?&mdash;"The
+adversaries of animal magnetism are men who must one day be doomed to
+the execration of all time, and to the punishment of the avenging
+contempt of posterity."</p>
+
+<p>It is rare for violent words not to be followed by violent acts. Here
+every thing proceeded according to the natural course of human events.
+We know, indeed, that some furious admirers of Mesmer attempted to
+suffocate Berthollet in the corner of one of the rooms of the Palais
+Royal, for having honestly said that the scenes he had witnessed did not
+appear to him demonstrative. We have this anecdote from Berthollet
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>The pretensions of the German doctor increased with the number of his
+adherents. To induce him to permit only three learned men to attend his
+meetings, M. de Maurepas offered him, in the name of the king, 20,000
+francs a year for life, and 10,000 annually for house-rent. Yet Mesmer
+did not accept this offer, but demanded, as a national recompense, one
+of the most beautiful ch&acirc;teaux in the environs of Paris, together with
+all its territorial dependencies.</p>
+
+<p>Irritated at finding his claims repulsed, Mesmer quitted France,
+angrily vowing her to the deluge of maladies from which it would have
+been in his power to save her. In a letter written to Marie Antoinette,
+the Thaumaturgus declared that he had refused the government offers
+through austerity.</p>
+
+<p>Through austerity!!! Are we then to believe that, as it was then
+pretended, Mesmer was entirely ignorant of the French language; that in
+this respect his meditations had been exclusively centered on the
+celebrated verse&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Fools are here below for our amusement?"<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>However this may be, the austerity of Mesmer did not prevent his being
+most violently angry when he learnt at Spa that Deslon continued the
+magnetical treatments at Paris. He returned in all haste. His partisans
+received him with enthusiasm, and set on foot a subscription of 100
+louis per head, which produced immediately near 400,000 francs,
+(16,000<i>l.</i>) We now feel some surprise to see, among the names of the
+subscribers, those of Messrs. de Lafayette, de S&eacute;gur, d'Epr&eacute;mesnil.</p>
+
+<p>Mesmer quitted France a second time about the end of 1781, in quest of a
+more enlightened government, who could appreciate superior minds. He
+left behind him a great number of tenacious and ardent adepts, whose
+importunate conduct at last determined the government to submit the
+pretended magnetic discoveries to be examined by four Doctors of the
+Faculty of Paris. These distinguished physicians solicited to have added
+to them some members of the Academy of Sciences. M. de Breteuil then
+recommended Messrs. Le Roy, Bory, Lavoisier, Franklin, and Bailly, to
+form part of the mixed commission. Bailly was finally named reporter.</p>
+
+<p>The work of our brother-academician appeared in August, 1784. Never was
+a complex question reduced to its characteristic traits with more
+penetration and tact; never did more moderation preside at an
+examination, though personal passions seemed to render it impossible;
+never was a scientific subject treated in a more dignified and lucid
+style.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing equals the credulity of men in whatever touches their health.
+This aphorism is an eternal truth. It explains how a portion of the
+public has returned to mesmeric practices; how I shall still perform an
+interesting task by giving a detailed analysis of the magnificent
+labours published by our fellow-academician sixty years ago. This
+analysis will show, besides, how daring those men were, who recently, in
+the bosom of another academy, constituted themselves passionate
+defenders of some old women's tales, which one would have supposed had
+been permanently buried in oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners go in the first place to the treatment by M. Deslon,
+examine the famous rod, describe it carefully, relate the means adopted
+to excite and direct magnetism. Bailly then draws out a varied and truly
+extraordinary table of the state of the sick people. His attention is
+principally attracted by the convulsions that they designated by the
+name of <i>crisis</i>. He remarked that in the number of persons in the
+crisis state, there were always a great many women, and very few men; he
+does not imagine any deceit, however; holds the phenomena as
+established, and passes on to search out their causes.</p>
+
+<p>According to Mesmer and his partisans, the cause of the crisis and of
+the less characteristic effects, resided in a particular fluid. It was
+to search out proofs of the existence of this fluid, that the
+commissioners had first to devote their efforts. Indeed, Bailly said,
+"Animal magnetism may exist without being useful, but it cannot be
+useful if it does not exist."</p>
+
+<p>The animal magnetic fluid is not luminous and visible, like electricity;
+it does not produce marked and manifest effects on inert matter, as the
+fluid of the ordinary magnet does; finally, it has no taste. Some
+magnetizers asserted that it had a smell; but repeated experiments
+proved that they were in error. The existence, then, of the pretended
+fluid, could be established only by its effects on animated beings.</p>
+
+<p>Curative effects would have thrown the commission into an inextricable
+d&aelig;dalus, because nature alone, without any treatment, cures many
+maladies. In this system of observations, they could not have hoped to
+learn the exact part performed by magnetism, until after a great number
+of cures, and after trials oftentimes repeated.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners, therefore, had to limit themselves to instantaneous
+effects of the fluid on the animal organism.</p>
+
+<p>They then submitted themselves to the experiments, but using an
+important precaution. "There is no individual," says Bailly, "in the
+best state of health, who, if he closely attended to himself, would not
+feel within him an infinity of movements and variations, either of
+exceedingly slight pain, or of heat, in the various parts of his
+body.... These variations, which are continually taking place, are
+independent of magnetism.... The first care required of the
+commissioners was, not to be too attentive to what was passing within
+them. If magnetism is a real and powerful cause, we have no need to
+think about it to make it act and manifest itself; it must, so to say,
+force the attention, and make itself perceived by even a purposely
+distracted mind."</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners, magnetized by Deslon, felt no effect. After the
+healthy people, some ailing ones followed, taken of all ages, and from
+various classes of society. Among these sick people, who amounted to
+fourteen, five felt some effects. On the remaining nine, magnetism had
+no effect whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the pompous announcements, magnetism already could no
+longer be considered as a certain indicator of diseases.</p>
+
+<p>Here the reporter made a capital remark: magnetism appeared to have no
+effect on incredulous persons who had submitted to the trials, nor on
+children. Was it not allowable to think, that the effects obtained in
+the others proceeded from a previous persuasion as to the efficacy of
+the means, and that they might be attributed to the influence of
+imagination? Thence arose another system of experiments. It was
+desirable to confirm or to destroy this suspicion; "it became therefore
+requisite to ascertain to what degree imagination influences our
+sensations, and to establish whether it could have been in part or
+entirely the cause of the effects attributed to magnetism."</p>
+
+<p>There could be nothing neater or more demonstrative than this portion of
+the work of the commissioners. They go first to Dr. Jumelin, who, let it
+be observed, obtains the same effects, the same crises as Deslon and
+Mesmer, by magnetizing according to an entirely different method, and
+not restricting himself to any distinction of poles; they select persons
+who seem to feel the magnetic action most forcibly, and put their
+imagination at fault by now and then bandaging their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>What happens then?</p>
+
+<p>When the patients see, the seat of the sensations is exactly the part
+that is magnetized; when their eyes are bandaged, they locate these same
+sensations by chance, sometimes in parts very far away from those to
+which the magnetizer is directing his attention. The patient, whose eyes
+are covered, often feels marked effects at a time when they are not
+magnetizing him, and remains, on the contrary, quite passive while they
+are magnetizing him, without his being aware of it.</p>
+
+<p>Persons of all classes offer similar anomalies. An instructed physician,
+subjected to these experiments, "feels effects whilst nothing is being
+done, and often does not feel effects while he is being acted upon. On
+one occasion, thinking that they had been magnetizing him for ten
+minutes, this same doctor fancied that he felt a heat in his lumbi,
+which he compared to that of a stove."</p>
+
+<p>Sensations thus felt, when no magnetizing was exerted, must evidently
+have been the effect of imagination.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners were too strict logicians to confine themselves with
+these experiments. They had established that imagination, in some
+individuals, can occasion pain, and heat&mdash;even a considerable degree of
+heat&mdash;in all parts of the body; but practical female Mesmerizers did
+more; they agitated certain people to that pitch, that they fell into
+convulsions. Could the effect of imagination go so far?</p>
+
+<p>Some new experiments entirely did away with these doubts.</p>
+
+<p>A young man was taken to Franklin's garden at Passy, and when it was
+announced to him that Deslon, who had taken him there, had magnetized a
+tree, this young man ran about the garden, and fell down in convulsions,
+but it was not under the magnetized tree: the crisis seized him while
+he was embracing another tree, very far from the former.</p>
+
+<p>Deslon selected, in the treatment of poor people, two women who had
+rendered themselves remarkable by their sensitiveness around the famous
+rod, and took them to Passy. These women fell into convulsions whenever
+they thought themselves mesmerized, although they were not. At
+Lavoisier's, the celebrated experiment of the cup gave analogous
+results. Some plain water engendered convulsions occasionally, when
+magnetized water did not.</p>
+
+<p>We must really renounce the use of our reason, not to perceive a proof
+in this collection of experiments, so well arranged that imagination
+alone can produce all the phenomena observed around the mesmeric rod,
+and that mesmeric proceedings, cleared from the delusions of
+imagination, are absolutely without effect. The commissioners, however,
+recommence the examination on these last grounds, multiply the trials,
+adopt all possible precautions, and give to their conclusions the
+evidence of mathematical demonstrations. They establish, finally and
+experimentally, that the action of the imagination can both occasion the
+crises to cease, and can engender their occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>Foreseeing that people with an inert or idle mind would be astonished at
+the important part assigned to the imagination by the commissioners'
+experiments in the production of mesmeric phenomena, Bailly instanced:
+sudden affection disturbing the digestive organs; grief giving the
+jaundice; the fear of fire restoring the use of their legs to paralytic
+patients; earnest attention stopping the hiccough; fright blanching
+people's hair in an instant, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The touching or stroking practised in mesmeric treatments, as
+auxiliaries of magnetism, properly so called, required no direct
+experiments, since the principal agent,&mdash;since magnetism itself, had
+disappeared. Bailly, therefore, confined himself, in this respect, to
+anatomical and physiological considerations, remarkable for their
+clearness and precision. We read, also, with a lively interest, in his
+report, some ingenious reflections on the effects of imitation in those
+assemblages of magnetized people. Bailly compares them to those of
+theatrical representations. He says: "Observe how much stronger the
+impressions are when there are a great many spectators, and especially
+in places where there is the liberty of applauding. This sign of
+particular emotions produces a general emotion, participated in by
+everybody according to their respective susceptibility. This is also
+observed in armies on the day of battle, when the enthusiasm of courage,
+as well as panic-terrors, propagate themselves with so much rapidity.
+The sound of the drum and of military music, the noise of the cannon, of
+the musquetry, the cries, the disorder, stagger the organs, impart the
+same movement to men's minds, and raise their imaginations to a similar
+degree. In this unity of intoxication, an impression once manifested
+becomes universal; it encourages men to charge, or determines men to
+fly." Some very curious examples of imitation close this portion of
+Bailly's report.</p>
+
+<p>The commissioners finally examined whether these convulsions, occasioned
+by the imagination or by magnetism, could be useful in curing or easing
+the suffering persons. The reporter said: "Undoubtedly, the imagination
+of sick people often influences the cure of their maladies very much....
+There are cases in which every thing must first be disordered, to
+enable us to restore order ... but the shock must be unique ... whereas
+in the public treatment by magnetism ... the habit of the crises cannot
+but be injurious."</p>
+
+<p>This thought related to the most delicate considerations. It was
+developed in a report addressed to the king personally. This report was
+to have remained secret, but it was published some years since. It
+should not be regretted; the magnetic treatment, regarded in a certain
+point of view, pleased sick people much; they are now aware of all its
+dangers.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, Bailly's report completely upsets an accredited error.
+This was an important service, nor was it the only one. In searching for
+the imaginary cause of animal magnetism, they ascertained the real power
+that man can exert over man, without the immediate and demonstrable
+intervention of any physical agent; they established that "the most
+simple actions and signs sometimes produce most powerful effects; that
+man's action on the imagination may be reduced to an art ... at least in
+regard to persons who have faith." This work finally showed how our
+faculties should be experimentally studied; in what way psychology may
+one day come to be placed among the exact sciences.</p>
+
+<p>I have always regretted that the commissioners did not judge it
+expedient to add a historical chapter to their excellent work. The
+immense erudition of Bailly would have given it an inestimable value. I
+figure to myself, also, that in seeing the Mesmeric practices that have
+now been in use during upwards of two thousand years, the public would
+have asked itself whether so long an interval of time had ever been
+required to push a good and useful thing forward into estimation. By
+circumscribing himself to this point of view, a few traits would have
+sufficed.</p>
+
+<p>Plutarch, for example, would have come to the aid of the reporter. He
+would have showed him Pyrrhus curing complaints of the spleen, by means
+of frictions made with the great toe of his right foot. Without giving
+one's self up to a wild spirit of interpretation, we might be permitted
+to see in that fact the germ of animal magnetism. I admit that one
+circumstance would have rather unsettled the savant: this was the white
+cock that the King of Macedon sacrificed to the gods before beginning
+these frictions.</p>
+
+<p>Vespasian, in his turn, might have figured among the predecessors of
+Mesmer, in consequence of the extraordinary cures that he effected in
+Egypt by the action of his foot. It is true that the pretended cure of
+an old blindness, only by the aid of a little of that emperor's saliva,
+would have thrown some doubt on the veracity of Suetonius.</p>
+
+<p>Homer and Achilles are not too far back but we might have invoked their
+names. Joachim Camerarius, indeed, asserted having seen, on a very
+ancient copy of the Iliad, some verses that the copyists sacrificed
+because they did not understand them, and in which the poet alluded, not
+to the heel of Achilles (its celebrity has been well established these
+three thousand years,) but to the medical properties possessed by the
+great toe of that same hero's right foot.</p>
+
+<p>What I regret most is, the chapter in which Bailly might have related
+how certain adepts of Mesmer's had the hardihood to magnetize the moon,
+so as, on a given day, to make all the astronomers devoted to observing
+that body fall into a syncope; a perturbation, by the way, that no
+geometer, from Newton to Laplace, had thought of.</p>
+
+<p>The work of Bailly gave rise to trouble, spite, and anger, among the
+Mesmerists. It was for many months the target for their combined
+attacks. All the provinces of France saw refutations of the celebrated
+report arise: sometimes under the form of calm discussions, decent and
+moderate; but generally with all the characteristics of violence, and
+the acrimony of a pamphlet.</p>
+
+<p>It would be labour thrown away now to go to the dusty shelves of some
+special library, to hunt up hundreds of pamphlets, even the titles of
+which are now completely forgotten. The impartial analysis of that
+ardent controversy does not call for such labour; I believe at least
+that I shall attain my aim, by concentrating my attention on two or
+three writings which, by the strength of the arguments, the merit of the
+style, or the reputation of their authors, have left some trace in men's
+minds.</p>
+
+<p>In the first rank of this category of works we must place the elegant
+pamphlet published by Servan, under the title of <i>Doubts of a
+Provincial, proposed to the Gentlemen Medical Commissioners commanded by
+the King to examine into Animal Magnetism</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of this little work of Servan's was saluted in the camp
+of the Mesmerists with cries of triumph and joy. Undecided minds fell
+back into doubt and perplexity. Grimm wrote in Nov. 1784: "No cause is
+desperate. That of magnetism seemed as if it must fall under the
+reiterated attacks of medicine, of philosophy, of experience and of good
+sense.... Well, M. Servan, formerly the Attorney-General at Grenoble,
+has been proving that with talent we may recover from any thing, even
+from ridicule."</p>
+
+<p>Servan's pamphlet seemed at the time the anchor of salvation for the
+Mesmerists. The adepts still borrow from it their principal arguments.
+Let us see, then, whether it has really shaken Bailly's report.</p>
+
+<p>From the very commencing lines, the celebrated Attorney-General puts the
+question in terms deficient in exactness. If we believe him, the
+commissioners were called to establish a parallel between magnetism and
+medicine; "they were to weigh on both sides the errors and the dangers;
+to indicate with wise discernment what it would be desirable to
+preserve, and what to retrench, in the two sciences." Thus, according to
+Servan, the sanative art altogether would have been questioned, and the
+impartiality of the physicians might appear suspicious. The clever
+magistrate took care not to forget, on such an occasion, the eternal
+maxim, no one can be both judge and client. Physicians, then, ought to
+have been excepted.</p>
+
+<p>There then follows a legitimate homage to the non-graduated
+academicians, members of the commission: "Before Franklin and Bailly,"
+says the author, "every knee must bend. The one has invented much, the
+other has discovered much; Franklin belongs to the two worlds, and all
+ages seem to belong to Bailly." But arming himself afterwards with more
+cleverness than uprightness, with these words of the reporter, "The
+commissioners, especially the doctors, made an infinity of experiments,"
+he insinuates under every form that the commissioners accepted of a very
+passive line of conduct. Thus, putting aside the most positive
+declarations, pretending even to forget the name, the titles of the
+reporter, Servan no longer sees before him but one class of adversaries,
+regent doctors of the Faculty of Paris, and then he gives full scope to
+his satirical vein. He holds it even as an honour that they do not
+regard him as impartial. "The doctors have killed me; what it has
+pleased them to leave me of life is not worth, in truth, my seeking a
+milder term.... For these twenty years I have always been worse through
+the remedies administered to me than through my maladies.... Even were
+animal magnetism a chimera, it should be tolerated; it would still be
+useful to mankind, by saving many individuals among them from the
+incontestable dangers of vulgar medicine.... I wish that medicine, so
+long accustomed to deceive itself, should still deceive itself now, and
+that the famous report be nothing but a great error...." Amidst these
+singular declarations, there are hundreds of epigrams still more
+remarkable by their ingenious and lively turn than by their novelty. If
+it were true, Gentlemen, that the medical corps had ever tried,
+knowingly, to impose on the vulgar, to hide the uncertainty of their
+knowledge, the weakness of their theories, the vagueness of their
+conceptions, under an obscure and pedantic jargon, the immortal and
+laughable sarcasms of Moli&egrave;re would not have been more than an act of
+strict justice. In all cases every thing has its day; now, towards the
+end of the eighteenth century, the most delicate, the most thorny points
+of doctrine were discussed with an entire good faith, with perfect
+lucidity, and in a style that placed many members of the faculty in the
+rank Of our best speakers. Servan, however, goes beyond the limits of a
+scientific discussion, when, without any sort of excuse, he accuses his
+adversaries of being anti-mesmerists through esprit de corps, and, what
+is worse, through cupidity.</p>
+
+<p>Servan is more in his element when he points out that the present best
+established medical theories occasioned at their birth prolonged
+debates; when he reminds us that several medicines have been alternately
+proscribed and recommended with vehemence: the author might even have
+more deeply undermined this side of his subject. Instead of some
+unmeaning jokes, why did he not show us, for example, in a neighbouring
+country, two celebrated physicians, Mead and Woodward, deciding, sword
+in hand, the quarrel that had arisen between them as to the purgative
+treatment of a patient? We should then have heard Woodward, pierced
+through and through, rolling on the ground, and drenched in blood, say
+to his adversary with an exhausted voice: "The blow was harsh, but yet I
+prefer it to your medicine!"</p>
+
+<p>It is not truth alone that has the privilege of rendering men
+passionate. Such was the legitimate result of these retrospective views.
+I now ask myself whether, by labouring to put the truth of this aphorism
+in full light, the passionate advocate of Mesmerism showed proof of
+ability!</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, let us put all these personal attacks aside, all these
+recriminations against science and its agents, who unfortunately had not
+succeeded in restoring the health of the morose magistrate. What remains
+then of his pamphlet? Two chapters, only two chapters, in which Bailly's
+report is treated seriously. The medical commissioners and the members
+of the Academy had not seen, in the real effects of Mesmerism anything
+more than was occasioned by imagination. The celebrated magistrate
+exclaims on this subject, "Any one hearing this proposition spoken of
+would suppose, before reading the report, that the commissioners had
+treated and cured, or considerably relieved by the force of imagination,
+large tumours, inveterate obstructions, gutta serenas, and strong
+paralyses." Servan admitted, in short, that magnetism had effected most
+wonderful cures. But there lay all the question. The cures being
+admitted, the rest followed as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>However incredible these cures might be, they must be admitted, they
+said, when numerous witnesses certified their truth. Was it owing to
+chance that attestations were wanting for the miracles at the Cemetery
+of St. M&eacute;dard? Did not the counsellor to the parliament, Montgeron,
+state, in three large quarto volumes, the names of a great multitude of
+individuals who protested on their honour as illuminati, that the tomb
+of the Deacon, P&aacute;ris, had restored sight to the blind, hearing to the
+deaf, strength to the paralytic; that in a twinkling it cured ailing
+people of gouty rheumatism, of dropsy, of epilepsy, of phthisis, of
+abscesses, of ulcers, &amp;c.? Did these attestations, although many
+emanated from persons of distinction, from the Chevalier Folard, for
+example, prevent the convulsionists from becoming the laughingstock of
+Europe? Did they not see the Duchess of Maine herself laugh at their
+prowess in the following witty couplet?&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"A scavenger at the palace-gate</div>
+<div class='i2'>Who, his left heel being lame,</div>
+<div>Obtained as a most special grace,</div>
+<div class='i2'>That his right should ail the same."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Was not government, urged to the utmost, at last obliged to interfere,
+when the multitude, carrying folly to the extremest bounds, was going to
+try to resuscitate the dead? In short, do we not remember the amusing
+distich, affixed at the time to the gate of the Cemetery of St.
+M&eacute;dard?&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"By royal decree, we prohibit the gods</div>
+<div>To work any miracles near to these sods."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Servan must have known better than any one that in regard to testimony,
+and in questions of complex facts, quality always carries the day over
+mere numbers; let us add, that quality does not result either from
+titles of nobility, or from riches, nor from the social position, nor
+even from a certain sort of celebrity. What we must seek for in a
+witness is a calmness of mind and of feeling, a store of knowledge, and
+a very rare thing, notwithstanding the name it bears, common sense; on
+the other hand, what we must most avoid is the innate taste of some
+persons for the extraordinary, the wonderful, the paradoxical. Servan
+did not at all recollect these precepts in the criticism he wrote on
+Bailly's work.</p>
+
+<p>We have already remarked that the Commissioners of the Academy and of
+the Faculty did not assert that the Mesmeric meetings were always
+ineffectual. They only saw in the crises the mere results of
+imagination; nor did any sort of magnetic fluid reveal itself to their
+eyes. I will also prove, that imagination alone generated the refutation
+that Servan gave to Bailly's theory. "You deny," exclaims the
+attorney-general, "you deny, gentlemen commissioners, the existence of
+the fluid which Mesmer has made to act such an important part! I
+maintain, on the contrary, not only that this fluid exists, but also
+that it is the medium by the aid of which all the vital functions are
+excited; I assert that imagination is one of the phenomena engendered by
+this agent; that its greater or less abundance in this or that among our
+organs, may totally change the normal intellectual state of
+individuals."</p>
+
+<p>Everybody agrees that too great a flow of blood towards the brain
+produces a stupefaction of the mind. Analogous or inverse effects might
+evidently be produced by a subtle, invisible, imponderable fluid, by a
+sort of nervous fluid, or magnetic fluid (if this term be preferred),
+circulating through our organs. And the commissioners took good care not
+to speak on this subject of impossibility. Their thesis was more modest;
+they contented themselves with saying that nothing demonstrated the
+existence of such a fluid. Imagination, therefore, had no share in their
+report; but in Servan's refutation, on the contrary, imagination was the
+chief actor.</p>
+
+<p>One thing that was still less proved, if possible, than any of those
+that we have been speaking of, is the influence that the magnetic fluid
+of the magnetizer might exert on the magnetized person.</p>
+
+<p>In magnetism, properly so called, in that which physicists have studied
+with so much care and success, the phenomena are constant. They are
+reproduced exactly under the same conditions of form, of duration, and
+of quantity, when certain bodies, being present to each other, find
+themselves exactly in the same relative positions. That is the essential
+and necessary character of all purely material and mechanical action.
+Was it thus in the pretended phenomena of animal magnetism? In no way.
+To-day the crises would occur in the space of some seconds; to-morrow
+they may require several entire hours; and finally, on another day,
+other circumstances remaining the same, the effect would be positively
+null. A certain magnetizer exercised a brisk action on a certain
+patient, and was absolutely powerless on another who, on the contrary,
+entered into a crisis under the earliest efforts of a second magnetizer.
+Instead of one or two universal fluids, there must, then, to explain the
+phenomena, be as many distinct fluids, and constantly acting, as there
+exist animated or inanimate beings in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The necessity of such a hypothesis evidently upset Mesmerism from its
+very foundations; yet the illuminati did not judge thus. All bodies
+became a focus of special emanations, more or less subtle, more or less
+abundant, and more or less dissimilar. So far the hypothesis found very
+few contradictors, even among rigorous minds; but soon these individual
+corporeal emanations were endowed, relatively towards those, (without
+the least appearance of proof,) either with a great power of
+assimilation, or with a decided antagonism, or with a complete
+neutrality; but they pretended to see in these occult qualities the
+material causes of the most mysterious affections of the soul. Oh! then
+doubt had a legitimate right to take possession of all those minds that
+had been taught by the strict proceedings of science not to rest
+satisfied with vain words. In the singular system that I have been
+explaining, when Corneille says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"There are some secret knots, some sympathies,</div>
+<div>By whose relations sweet assorted souls</div>
+<div>Attach themselves the one to the other...."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>and when the celebrated Spanish Jesuit Balthazar Gracian spoke of the
+natural relationship of minds and hearts, both the one and the other
+alluded, assuredly without suspecting it, to the mixture, penetration,
+and easy crossing of two atmospheres.</p>
+
+<p>"I love thee not, Sabidus," wrote Martial, "and I know not why; all that
+I can tell thee is, that I love thee not." Mesmerists would soon have
+relieved the poet from his doubts. If Martial loved not Sabidus, it was
+because their atmospheres could not intermingle without occasioning a
+kind of storm.</p>
+
+<p>Plutarch informs us that the conqueror of Arminius fainted at the sight
+of a cock. Antiquity was astonished at this phenomenon. What could be
+more simple, however? the corporeal emanations of Germanicus and of the
+cock exercised a repulsive action the one on the other.</p>
+
+<p>The illustrious biographer of Cheronea declares, it is true, that the
+presence of the cock was not requisite, that its crowing produced
+exactly the same effect on the adopted son of Tiberius. Now, the crowing
+may be heard a long way off; the crowing, then, would seem to possess
+the power of transporting the corporeal emanations of the king of the
+lower court with great rapidity through space. The thing may appear
+difficult to believe. As for myself, I think it would be puerile to stop
+at such a difficulty; have we not leaped high over other difficulties
+far more embarrassing?</p>
+
+<p>The Mar&eacute;chal d'Albret was still worse off than Germanicus: the
+atmosphere that made him fall into a syncope exhaled from the head of a
+wild boar. A live, complete, whole wild boar produced no effect; but on
+perceiving the head of the animal detached from the body, the Mar&eacute;chal
+was struck as if with lightning. You see, gentlemen, to what sad trials
+military men would be exposed, if the Mesmerian theory of atmospheric
+conflicts were to regain favour. We ought to be carefully on our guard
+against a ruse de guerre, of which no one till then had ever
+thought,&mdash;that is, against cocks, wild boars, &amp;c.,&mdash;for through them an
+army might suddenly be deprived of its commander-in-chief. "It would
+also be requisite not to entrust command," Montaigne says, "to men who
+would fly from apples more than from arquebusades."</p>
+
+<p>It is not only amongst the corpuscular emanations of living animals that
+the Mesmerists asserted conflicts to occur. They unhesitatingly extended
+their speculations to dead bodies. Some ancients dreamt that a catgut
+cord made of a wolf's intestines would never strike in unison with one
+made from a lamb's intestine; a discord of atmospheres renders the
+phenomenon possible. It is still a conflict of corporeal emanations that
+explains the other aphorism of an ancient philosopher: "The sound of a
+drum made with a wolf's skin takes away all sonorousness from a drum
+made with a lamb's skin."</p>
+
+<p>Here I pause, Gentlemen. Montesquieu said: "When God created the brains
+of human beings, he did not intend to guarantee them."</p>
+
+<p>To conclude: Servan's witty, piquant, agreeably written pamphlet was
+worthy under this triple claim of the reception with which the public
+honoured it; but it did not shake, in any one part, the lucid, majestic,
+elegant report by Bailly. The magistrate of Gr&eacute;noble has said, that in
+his long experience he had met men accustomed to reflect without
+laughing, and other men who only wished to laugh without reflecting.
+Bailly thought of the first class when he wrote his memorable report.
+<i>The Doubts of the Provincial man</i> were destined only for the other
+class.</p>
+
+<p>It was also to these light and laughing souls that Servan exclusively
+addressed himself some time after, if it be true that the <i>Queries of
+the young Doctor Rhubarbini de Purgandis</i> were written by him.</p>
+
+<p>Rhubarbini de Purgandis sets to work manfully. In his opinion the report
+by Franklin, by Lavoisier, by Bailly, is, in the scientific life of
+those learned men, what the <i>Monades</i> were for Leibnitz, the
+<i>Whirlwinds</i> for Descartes, the <i>Commentary on the Apocalypse</i> for
+Newton. These examples may enable us to judge of the rest, and render
+all farther refutation unnecessary.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly's report destroyed root and branch the ideas, the systems, the
+practices of Mesmer and of his adepts. Let us add sincerely that we have
+no right to appeal to him in regard to modern somnambulism. The greater
+portion of the phenomena now grouped around that name were neither known
+nor announced in 1783. A magnetizer certainly says the most improbable
+thing in the world, when he affirms that a given individual in the state
+of somnambulism can see every thing in the most profound darkness, that
+he can read through a wall, and even without the help of his eyes. But
+the improbability of these announcements does not result from the
+celebrated report, for Bailly does not mention such marvels, neither in
+praise nor dispraise; he does not say one word about them. The
+physicist, the doctor, the merely curious man who gives himself up to
+experiments in somnambulism, who thinks he must examine whether, in
+certain states of nervous excitement, some individuals are really
+endowed with extraordinary faculties; with the faculty, for example, of
+reading with their stomach, or with their heel; people who wish to know
+exactly up to what point the phenomena so boldly asserted by the
+magnetizers of our epoch may be within the domain of rogues and sharks;
+all such people, we say, do not at all deny the authority of the subject
+in question, nor do they put themselves really in opposition to the
+Lavoisiers, the Franklins, or the Baillys; they dive into an entirely
+new world, of which those illustrious learned men did not even suspect
+the existence.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot approve of the mystery adopted by some grave learned men, who,
+in the present day, attend experiments on somnambulism. Doubt is a proof
+of diffidence, and has rarely been inimical to the progress of science.
+We could not say the same of incredulity. He who, except in pure
+mathematics, pronounces the word <i>impossible</i>, is deficient in prudence.
+Reserve is especially requisite when we treat of animal organization.</p>
+
+<p>Our senses, notwithstanding twenty-four centuries of study,
+observations, and researches, are far from being an exhausted subject.
+Take, for example, the ear. A celebrated natural philosopher, Wollaston,
+occupied himself with it; and immediately we learn, that with an equal
+sensibility as regards the low notes a certain individual can hear the
+highest tones, whilst another cannot hear them at all; and it becomes
+proved that certain men, with perfectly sound organs, never heard the
+cricket in the chimney-corner, yet did not doubt but that bats
+occasionally utter a piercing cry; and attention being once awakened to
+these singular results, observers have found the most extraordinary
+differences of sensibility between their right ear and their left ear,
+&amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Our vision offers phenomena not less curious, and an infinitely vaster
+field of research. Experience has proved, for example, that some people
+are absolutely blind to certain colours, as red, and enjoy perfect
+vision relatively to yellow, to green, and to blue. If the Newtonian
+theory of emission be true, we must irrevocably admit that a ray ceases
+to be light as soon as we diminish its velocity by one ten thousandth
+part. Thence flow those natural conjectures, which are well worthy of
+experimental examination: all men do not see by the same rays; decided
+differences may exist in this respect in the same individual during
+various nervous states; it is possible that the calorific rays, the dark
+rays of one person, may be the luminous rays of another person, and
+reciprocally; the calorific rays traverse some substances freely, which
+are therefore called diathermal, these substances, thus far, had been
+called opaque, because they transmit no ray commonly called luminous;
+now the words opaque and diathermal have no absolute meaning. The
+diathermals allow those rays to pass through which constitute the light
+of one man; and they stop those which constitute the light of another
+man. Perhaps in this way the key of many phenomena might be found, that
+till now have remained without any plausible explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, in the marvels of somnambulism, raised more doubts than an
+oft-repeated assertion, relative to the power which certain persons are
+said to possess in a state of crisis, of deciphering a letter at a
+distance with the foot, the nape of the neck, or the stomach. The word
+<i>impossible</i> in this instance seemed quite legitimate. Still, I do not
+doubt but some rigid minds would withhold it after having reflected on
+the ingenious experiments by which Moser produces, also at a distance,
+very distinct images of all sorts of objects, on all sorts of bodies,
+and in the most complete darkness.</p>
+
+<p>When we call to mind in what immense proportion electric or magnetic
+actions increase by motion, we shall be less inclined to deride the
+rapid actions of magnetizers.</p>
+
+<p>In here recording these developed reflections, I wished to show that
+somnambulism must not be rejected <i>&agrave; priori</i>, especially by those who
+have kept well up with the recent progress of the physical sciences. I
+have indicated some facts, some resemblances, by which magnetizers might
+defend themselves against those who would think it superfluous to
+attempt new experiments, or even to see them performed. For my part, I
+hesitate not to acknowledge it, although, notwithstanding the
+possibilities that I have pointed out, I do not admit the reality of the
+readings, neither through a wall, nor through any other opaque body, nor
+by the mere intromission of the elbow, or the occiput,&mdash;still, I should
+not fulfil the duties of an academician if I refused to attend the
+meetings where such phenomena were promised me, provided they granted me
+sufficient influence as regards the proofs, for me to feel assured that
+I was not become the victim of mere jugglery.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did Franklin, Lavoisier, or Bailly believe in Mesmeric magnetism
+before they became members of the Government Commission, and yet we may
+have remarked with what minute and scrupulous care they varied the
+experiments. True philosophers ought to have constantly before their
+eyes those two beautiful lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"To suppose that every thing has been discovered is a profound error:</div>
+<div>It is mistaking the horizon for the limits of the world."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Le voil&agrave;, ce mortel, dont le si&egrave;cle s'honore,</div>
+<div>Par qui sont replong&eacute;s au s&eacute;jour infernal</div>
+<div>Tous les fl&eacute;aux vengeurs que d&eacute;cha&icirc;na Pandore;</div>
+<div>Dans son art bienfaisant il n'a pas de rival,</div>
+<div>Et la Gr&egrave;ce l'eut pris pour le dieu d'Epidaure."</div></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a></p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Les sots sont ici-bas pour nos menus plaisirs."</div></div></div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Un d&eacute;crotteur &acirc; la royale,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Du talon gauche estropi&eacute;,</div>
+<div>Obtint pour grace sp&eacute;ciale</div>
+<div class='i2'>D'&ecirc;tre boiteux de l'autre pi&eacute;."</div></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"De par le Roi, d&eacute;fense &agrave; Dieu</div>
+<div>D'op&eacute;rer miracle en ce lieu!"</div></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Il est des n&oelig;uds secrets, il est des sympathies,</div>
+<div>Dont par les doux rapports les &acirc;mes assorties</div>
+<div>S'attachent l'une &agrave; l'autre."</div></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Croire tout d&eacute;couvert est un erreur profonde:</div>
+<div>C'est prendre l'horizon pour les bornes du monde."</div></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="ELECTION_OF_BAILLY_INTO_THE_ACADEMY_OF_INSCRIPTIONS" id="ELECTION_OF_BAILLY_INTO_THE_ACADEMY_OF_INSCRIPTIONS"></a>ELECTION OF BAILLY INTO THE ACADEMY OF INSCRIPTIONS.</h3>
+
+<p>In speaking of the pretended identity of the Atlantis, or of the kingdom
+of Ophir under Solomon with America, Bailly says, in his fourteenth
+letter to Voltaire: "Those ideas belonged to the age of learned men, but
+not to the philosophic age." And elsewhere (in the twenty-first letter)
+we read these words: "Do not fear that I shall fatigue you by heavy
+erudition." To have supposed that erudition could be heavy and be
+deficient in philosophy, was for certain people of a secondary order an
+unpardonable crime. And thus we saw men, excited by a sentiment of hate,
+arm themselves with a critical microscope, and painfully seek out
+imperfections in the innumerable quotations with which Bailly had
+strengthened himself. The harvest was not abundant; yet, these eager
+ferrets succeeded in discovering some weak points, some interpretations
+that might be contested. Their joy then knew no bounds. Bailly was
+treated with haughty disdain: "His literary erudition was very
+superficial; he had not the key of the sanctuary of antiquity; he was
+everywhere deficient in languages."</p>
+
+<p>That it might not be supposed that these reproaches had any reference to
+Oriental literature, Bailly's adversaries added: "that he had not the
+least tincture of the ancient languages; that he did not know Latin."</p>
+
+<p>He did not know Latin? And do you not see, you stupid enemies of the
+great Astronomer, that if it had been possible to compose such learned
+works as <i>The History of Astronomy</i>, and <i>The Letters on the Atlantis</i>,
+without referring to the original texts, by using translations only, you
+would no longer have preserved any importance in the literary world.
+How is it that you did not remark, that by despoiling Bailly (and very
+arbitrarily) of the knowledge of Latin, you showed the inutility of
+studying that language to become both one of your best writers, and one
+of the most illustrious philosophers of the age?</p>
+
+<p>The Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, far from participating
+in these puerile rancours, in the blind prejudices of some lost children
+of erudition, called Bailly to its bosom in 1785. Till then, Fontenelle
+alone had had the honour of belonging to the three great Academies of
+France. Bailly always showed himself very proud of a distinction which
+associated his name in an unusual manner with that of the illustrious
+writer, whose eulogies contributed so powerfully to make science and
+scientific men known and respected.</p>
+
+<p>Independently of this special consideration, Bailly, as member of the
+French Academy, could all the better appreciate the suffrages of the
+Academy of Inscriptions, since there existed at that time between those
+two illustrious Societies a strong and inexplicable feeling of rivalry.
+This had even proceeded so far, that by a most solemn deliberation of
+the Academy of Inscriptions, any of its members would have ceased to
+belong to it, would have been irrevocably expelled, if they had even
+only endeavoured to be received into the French Academy; and the king
+having annulled this deliberation, fifteen academicians bound themselves
+by oath to observe all its stipulations notwithstanding; furthermore, in
+1783, Choiseul Gouffier, who was accused of having adhered to the
+principles of the fifteen confederates, and then of having allowed
+himself to be nominated by the rival Academy, was summoned by Anquetil
+to appear before the Tribunal of the Marshals of France for having
+broken his word of honour.</p>
+
+<p>But, I may be allowed here to remark, superior men have always had the
+privilege of upsetting, by the mere influence of their name, the
+obstacles that routine, prejudices, and jealousy wished to oppose to the
+progress and the union of souls.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="REPORT_ON_THE_HOSPITALS" id="REPORT_ON_THE_HOSPITALS"></a>REPORT ON THE HOSPITALS.</h3>
+
+<p>Scientific tribunals, which should pronounce in the first instance while
+awaiting the definitive judgment of the public, were one of the
+requisites of our epoch; and thus, without any formal prescription of
+its successive regulations, the Academy of Sciences has been gradually
+led on to appoint committees to examine all the papers that have been
+presented to it, and to pronounce on their novelty, merit, and
+importance. This labour is generally an ungrateful one, and without
+glory, but talent has immense privileges; entrust Bailly with those
+simple Academical Reports, and their publication becomes an event.</p>
+
+<p>M. Poyet, architect and comptroller of buildings in Paris, presented to
+Government in the course of the year 1785, a paper wherein he strove to
+establish the necessity of removing the H&ocirc;tel Dieu, and building a new
+hospital in another locality. This document, submitted by order of the
+king to the judgment of the Academy, gave rise, directly or indirectly,
+to three deliberations. The Academic Commissioners were, Lassone, Tenou,
+Tillet, Darcet, Daubenton, Bailly, Coulomb, Laplace, and Lavoisier. It
+was Bailly, however, who constantly held the pen. His reports have been
+honoured with a great and just celebrity. The progress of science would
+now perhaps allow of some modification being made in the ideas of the
+illustrious commissioners. Their views on warming-rooms, on their size,
+on ventilation, on general health, might, for example, receive some real
+ameliorations; but nothing could add to the sentiments of respect
+inspired by Bailly's work. What clearness of exposition! What neatness,
+what simplicity of style! Never did a writer put himself more completely
+out of view; never did a man more sincerely seek to make the sacred
+cause of humanity triumph. The interest that Bailly takes in the poor is
+deep, but always exempt from parade; his words are moderate, full of
+gentleness, even where hasty feelings of anger and indignation would
+have been legitimate. Of anger and of indignation! Yes, Gentlemen;
+listen, and decide!</p>
+
+<p>I have cited the names of the commissioners. At no time, and in no
+country, could more virtue and learning have been united. These select
+men, regulating themselves in this respect according to the most common
+logic, felt that the task of pronouncing on a reform of the H&ocirc;tel Dieu
+imposed on them the necessity of examining that establishment. "We have
+asked," said their interpreter, "we have asked the Board of
+Administration to permit us to see the hospital in detail, and
+accompanied by some one who could guide and instruct us ... we required
+to know several particulars; we asked for them, but we obtained
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>We have obtained nothing! These are the sad, the incredible words, that
+men so worthy of respect are obliged to insert in the first line of
+their report!</p>
+
+<p>What then was the authority that allowed itself to be so deficient in
+the most usual respect towards commissioners invested with the
+confidence of the King, the Academy, and the Public? This authority
+consisted of several administrators (the type of them, it is said, is
+not quite lost), who looked upon the poor as their patrimony, who
+devoted to them a disinterested but unproductive activity; who were
+impatient at any amelioration, the germ of which had not developed
+itself either in their own heads, or in those of certain men,
+philanthropic by nature, or by the privilege of their station. Ah! if by
+enlightened and constant care that vast asylum, opened to poverty and
+sickness, near Notre-Dame, had been then conducted, now sixty years ago,
+only in a tolerable way, we should have understood how, in taking human
+nature into consideration, the promoters of this great benefit would
+have repelled an examination that seemed to throw a doubt on their zeal
+and on their good sense. But alas! let us take from Bailly's work a few
+traits of the moderate and faithful picture that he drew of the H&ocirc;tel
+Dieu, and you shall decide, Gentlemen, whether the susceptibility of the
+administrators was authorized; whether, on the contrary, they ought not
+themselves to have anticipated the unhoped-for help from the king's
+power, united to science, which was now offered to them; whether by
+retarding certain ameliorations by a single day, they did not commit the
+crime of l&egrave;se-humanity.</p>
+
+<p>In 1786, infirmities of all sorts were treated at the H&ocirc;tel Dieu:
+surgical maladies, chronic maladies, contagious maladies, female
+diseases, infantine diseases, &amp;c. Every thing was admitted, but all
+presented an inevitable confusion.</p>
+
+<p>A patient on arriving was often laid in the bed and in the sheets of a
+man who had had the itch, and had just died.</p>
+
+<p>The department reserved for madmen being very confined, two were put to
+sleep together. Two madmen in the same sheets! Nature revolts at the
+very thought of it.</p>
+
+<p>In the ward of St. Francis, reserved exclusively for men having the
+smallpox, there were sometimes, for want of other space, as many as six
+adults or eight children in a bed not a m&egrave;tre and a half wide.</p>
+
+<p>The women attacked with this frightful disease were mixed in the ward of
+St. Monique with others who had only a simple fever, and the latter fell
+an inevitable prey to the hideous contagion, in the very place where,
+full of confidence, they had hoped to recover their health.</p>
+
+<p>Women with child, women in their confinement, were equally crowded,
+pell-mell, on narrow and infected truckle-beds.</p>
+
+<p>Nor let it be supposed that I have borrowed from Bailly's Report some
+purely exceptional cases, belonging to those cruel times, when whole
+populations, suffering under some epidemic, were tried beyond all human
+anticipation. In their usual state, the beds of the H&ocirc;tel Dieu, which
+were not a m&egrave;tre and a half wide, contained four, and often six
+patients; they were placed alternately head and feet, the feet of one
+touching the shoulders of the next; each had only for his share of space
+25 centimetres (9 inches); now, a man of medium size, lying with his
+arms close to his body, is 48 centimetres (16 inches) broad at the
+shoulders. The poor patients then could not keep within the bed but by
+lying on their side perfectly immovable; no one could turn without
+pushing, without waking his neighbour; they therefore used to agree, as
+far as their illness would allow, for some of them to remain up part of
+the night in the space between the beds, whilst the others slept; and
+when the approaches of death nailed these unfortunate people to their
+place, did they not energetically curse that help, which in such a
+situation could only prolong their painful agony.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not only that beds thus placed were a source of discomfort,
+of disgust; that they prevented rest and sleep; that an insupportable
+heat occasioned and propagated diseases of the skin and frightful
+vermin; that the fever patient bedewed his neighbours with his profuse
+perspirations; and that in the critical moment he might be chilled by
+contact with those whose hot fit would occur later, &amp;c. Still more
+serious effects resulted from the presence of many sick in the same bed;
+the food, the medicines, intended for one person, often found their way
+to another. In short, Gentlemen, in those beds of multiple population,
+the dead often lay for hours, and sometimes whole nights, intermingled
+with the living. The principal charitable establishment in Paris thus
+offered those dreadful coincidences, that the poets of Rome, that
+ancient historians have represented under King Mezentius, as the utmost
+extreme of barbarism.</p>
+
+<p>Such was, Gentlemen, the normal state of the old H&ocirc;tel Dieu. One word,
+one word only, will suffice to tell what was the exceptional state: they
+placed some patients on the tops or testers of those same beds, where we
+have found so much suffering, so many authorized maledictions.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Gentlemen, let us, together with our fellow academician, cast a
+glance on the ward of surgical operations.</p>
+
+<p>This ward was full of patients. The operations were performed in their
+presence. Bailly says, "We see there the preparations for the torment;
+there are heard the cries of the tormented. He who has to suffer the
+next day has before him a picture of his own future sufferings; he who
+has passed through this terrible trial, must be deeply moved at those
+cries so similar to his own, and must feel his agonies repeated; and
+these terrors, these emotions, he experiences in the midst of the
+progress of inflammation or suppuration, retarding his recovery, and at
+the hazard of his life." ... "To what purpose," Bailly justly exclaims,
+"would you make an unfortunate man suffer, if there is not a probability
+of saving him, and unless we increase that probability by all possible
+precautions?"</p>
+
+<p>The heart aches, the mind becomes confused, at the sight of so much
+misery; and yet this hospital, so little in harmony with its intended
+purpose, still existed sixty years ago. It is in a capital, the centre
+of the arts, of knowledge, of polished manners; it is in an age renowned
+for the development of public wealth, for the progress of luxury, for
+the ruinous creation of a crowd of establishments devoted to amusements,
+to worldly and futile pleasures; it is by the side of the palace of an
+opulent archbishop; it is at the gate of a sumptuous cathedral, that the
+unfortunate, under the deceitful mask of charity, underwent such
+dreadful tortures. To whom should we impute the long duration of this
+vicious and inhuman organization?</p>
+
+<p>To the professors of the art? No, no, Gentlemen! By an inconceivable
+anomaly the physicians, the surgeons, never obtained more than a
+secondary, a subordinate influence over the administration of the
+hospitals. No, no, the sentiments of the medical body for the poor could
+not be doubted, at an epoch and in a country where Dr. Anthony Petit
+thus answered the irritated queen, Marie Antoinette: "Madam, if I came
+not yesterday to Versailles, it was because I was attending the lying-in
+of a peasant, who was in the greatest danger. Your Majesty errs,
+however, in supposing that I neglect the Dauphin for the poor; I have
+hitherto treated the young child with as much attention and care as if
+he had been the son of one of your grooms."</p>
+
+<p>Preference was granted to the most suffering, to those in most danger,
+disregarding rank and fortune; such was, you see, Gentlemen, the sublime
+rule of the French Medical Corps; and such is still its gospel. I want
+no other proof of it than those admirable words addressed by our fellow
+labourer Larrey, to his friend Tanchou, when wounded at the Battle of
+Montmirail: "Your wound is slight, sir; we have only room and straw in
+this ambulance for serious wounds. They will take you into that stable."</p>
+
+<p>The medical corps could not, therefore, with any reason be accused or
+suspected in regard to the old H&ocirc;tel Dieu of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>If economy be invoked, I find an answer quite &agrave;-propos in Bailly: the
+daily allowance for the patients at the H&ocirc;tel Dieu was notably higher
+than in other establishments in the capital more charitably organized.</p>
+
+<p>Would any one go so far as to assert that the sick condemned to seek
+refuge in the hospitals, having their sensibilities blunted by labour,
+by misery, by their daily sufferings, would but faintly feel the effects
+of the horrible arrangements that the old H&ocirc;tel Dieu revealed to all
+clear-sighted people? I will quote from the report of our colleague;
+"The maladies continue nearly double the time at the H&ocirc;tel Dieu,
+compared with those at the Charit&eacute;: the mortality there is also nearly
+double!... All the trepanned die in that hospital; whilst this
+operation is tolerably successful in Paris, and still more so at
+Versailles."</p>
+
+<p>The maladies continue double the time! The mortality there is double!
+All those who are trepanned die! The lying-in women die in a frightful
+proportion, &amp;c. These are the sinister words that strike the eye
+periodically in the statements of the H&ocirc;tel Dieu; and yet, let us repeat
+it, years passed away, and nothing was altered in the organization of
+the great hospital! Why persist in remaining in a condition that so
+openly wounds humanity? Must we, together with Cabanis, who also abused
+the old H&ocirc;tel Dieu severely, "must we exclaim, that abuses known by all
+the world, against which every voice is raised, have secret supporters
+who know how to defend them, in a manner to tire out well-meaning
+people? Must we speak of false characters, perverse hearts, that seemed
+to regard errors and abuses as their patrimony?" Let us dare to
+acknowledge it, Gentlemen, evil is generally perpetrated in a less
+wicked manner: it is done without the intervention of any strong
+passion; by vulgar, yet all-powerful routine, and ignorance. I observe
+the same thought, though couched in the calm and cleverly circumspect
+language of Bailly: "The H&ocirc;tel Dieu has existed perhaps since the
+seventh century, and if this hospital is the most imperfect of all, it
+is because it is the oldest. From the earliest date of this
+establishment, good has been sought, the desire has been to adhere to
+it, and constancy has appeared a duty. From this cause, all useful
+novelties have with difficulty found admission; any reform is difficult;
+there is a numerous administration to convince; there is an immense mass
+to move."</p>
+
+<p>The immensity of the mass, however, did not discourage the old
+Commissioners of the Academy. Let this conduct serve as an example to
+learned men, to administrators, who might be called upon to cast an
+investigating eye on the whole of our beneficent and humane
+establishments. Undoubtedly, the abuses, if any yet exist, have not
+individually any thing to be compared to those to which Bailly's report
+did justice; but would it be impossible for them to have sprung up
+afresh in the course of half a century, and that in proportion to their
+multiplicity, they should still make enormous and deplorable breaches in
+the patrimony of the poor?</p>
+
+<p>I shall modify very slightly, Gentlemen, the concluding words of our
+illustrious colleague's report, and I shall not in the least alter their
+innate meaning, if I say, in finishing this long analysis: "Each poor
+man is now laid alone in a bed, and he owes it principally to the
+gifted, persevering, and courageous efforts of the Academy of Sciences.
+The poor man ought to know it, and the poor man will not forget it."
+Happy, Gentlemen, happy the academy that can adorn itself with such
+reminiscences!</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="REPORT_ON_THE_SLAUGHTER-HOUSES" id="REPORT_ON_THE_SLAUGHTER-HOUSES"></a>REPORT ON THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES.</h3>
+
+<p>An attentive glance at the past has been, in all ages and in all
+countries, the infallible means of rightly appreciating the present.
+When we direct this glance to the sanitary state of Paris, the name of
+Bailly will again present itself in the first line amongst the promoters
+of a capital amelioration, which I shall point out in a few words.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the numerous acts of parliament,&mdash;notwithstanding the
+positive police regulations, which dated back to Charles IX., to Henry
+III., to Henry IV., slaughter-houses still existed in the interior of
+the capital in 1788; for instance, at l'Apport-Paris, La Croix-Rouge, in
+the streets of the Butcheries, Mont-Martre, Saint-Martin, Traversine,
+&amp;c. &amp;c. The oxen were, consequently, driven in droves through frequented
+parts of the town; enraged by the noise of the carriages, by the
+excitements of the children, by the attacks or barking of the wandering
+dogs, they often sought to escape,&mdash;entered houses or alleys, spread
+alarm everywhere, gored people, and committed great damage. Fetid gases
+exhaled from buildings too small and badly ventilated; the offal that
+had to be carried away gave out an insupportable smell; the blood flowed
+through the gutters of the neighbourhood, with other remains of the
+animals, and putrefied there. The melting of tallow, an inevitable
+annexation of all slaughter-houses, spread around disgusting emanations,
+and occasioned a constant danger of fire.</p>
+
+<p>So inconvenient, so repulsive a state of things, awakened the solicitude
+of individuals and of the public administration; the problem was
+submitted to our predecessors, and Bailly, as usual, became the reporter
+of the Academical Committee. The other members were Messrs. Tillet,
+Darcet, Daubenton, Coulomb, Lavoisier, and Laplace.</p>
+
+<p>When Napoleon, wishing to liberate Paris from the dangerous and
+insalubrious results of internal slaughter-houses, decreed the
+construction of the fine slaughter-houses known by everybody, he found
+the subject already well examined, exhibited in all its points of view,
+in Bailly's excellent work. "We ask," said the reporter of the
+Academical Commission in 1788, "we ask that the shambles be removed to a
+distance from the interior of Paris;" and these interior shambles have
+disappeared accordingly. Does it create surprise that it required more
+than fifteen years to obtain the grant of this most reasonable demand?
+I will further remark that, unfortunately, there was nothing exceptional
+in this; he who sows a thought in a field rank with prejudices, with
+private interests, and with routine, must never expect an early harvest.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="BIOGRAPHIES_OF_COOK_AND_OF_GRESSET" id="BIOGRAPHIES_OF_COOK_AND_OF_GRESSET"></a>BIOGRAPHIES OF COOK AND OF GRESSET.</h3>
+
+<p>The publication of the five quarto volumes of which <i>the History of
+Astronomy</i> consists, together with the two powerful <i>reports</i> that I
+have just described, had worn out Bailly. To relax and amuse his mind,
+he resumed the style of composition that had enchanted him in his youth;
+he wrote some biographies, amongst others, that of Captain Cook,
+proposed as a prize-subject by the Academy of Marseilles, and the Life
+of Gresset.</p>
+
+<p>The biography of Gresset first appeared anonymously. This circumstance
+gave rise to a singular scene, which the author used to relate with a
+smile. I will here myself repeat the principal traits of it, if it be
+only to deter writers, whoever they may be, from launching their works
+into the world without affixing their names to them.</p>
+
+<p>The Marchioness of Cr&eacute;qui was a lady in the high circles of society, to
+whom a copy of the eulogium of the author of <i>Vert-Vert</i> was presented
+as an offering. Some days after Bailly went to pay her a visit; did he
+hope to hear her speak favourably of the new work? I know not. At all
+events, our predecessor would have been ill rewarded for his curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," said the great lady as soon as she saw him, "a Eulogy of
+Gresset recently published? The author has sent me a copy of it, without
+naming himself. He will probably come to see me; he may, perhaps, have
+come already. What could I say to him? I do not think any one ever wrote
+worse. He mistakes obscurity for profundity; it is the darkness before
+the creation."</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding all Bailly's efforts to change the subject of the
+conversation, perhaps on account of those very efforts, the Marchioness
+rose, goes in search of the pamphlet, puts it into the author's hands,
+and begs of him to read aloud, if it be but the first page&mdash;quite
+enough, she said, to enable one to judge of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly used to read remarkably well. I leave it to be guessed whether,
+on this occasion, he was able to exercise this talent. Superfluous
+trouble! Madame de Cr&eacute;qui interrupted him at each sentence by the most
+disagreeable commentaries, by exclamations such as the following:
+"Detestable style!" "Confusion worse confounded!" and other similar
+amenities. Bailly did not succeed in extorting any indulgences from
+Madame de Cr&eacute;qui, when, fortunately, the arrival of another visitor put
+an end to this insupportable torture.</p>
+
+<p>Two years after this, Bailly having become the first personage in the
+city, some booksellers collected all his opuscula and published them.
+This time, the Marchioness, who had lost all recollection of the scene
+that I have been describing, overpowered the Mayor of Paris with
+compliments and felicitations on account of this same eulogy, which she
+had before treated with such inhuman rigour.</p>
+
+<p>Such a contrast excited the mirth of the author. Still, might I dare to
+say so, Madame de Cr&eacute;qui was, perhaps, sincere on both occasions; had
+the exaggerations of praise and of criticism been put aside, it would
+not have been impossible to defend both opinions. The early pages of
+the pamphlet might appear embarrassed and obscure, whilst in the rest
+there might be found great refinement, elegance, and appreciations full
+of taste.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="ASSEMBLY_OF_THE_NOTABLES_BAILLY_IS_NAMED_FIRST_DEPUTY_OF_PARIS_AND" id="ASSEMBLY_OF_THE_NOTABLES_BAILLY_IS_NAMED_FIRST_DEPUTY_OF_PARIS_AND"></a>ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES.&mdash;BAILLY IS NAMED FIRST DEPUTY OF PARIS;
+AND SOON AFTER DEAN OR SENIOR OF THE DEPUTIES OF THE COMMUNES.</h3>
+
+<p>The Assembly of the Notables had no other effect than to show in a
+stronger light the disorder of the finances, and the other wounds that
+were galling France. It was then that the Parliament of Paris asked for
+the convocation of the States General. This demand was unfavourably
+received by Cardinal de Brienne. Soon afterwards the convocation became
+a necessity, and Necker, now in the ministry, announced, in the month of
+November, 1788, that it was decreed in Council, and that the king had
+even granted to the third estate a double representation, which had been
+so imprudently disputed by the courtiers.</p>
+
+<p>The districts were formed, on the king's convocation, the 21st of April,
+1789. That day was the first day of Bailly's political life. It was on
+the 21st of April that the Citizen of Chaillot, entering the Hall of the
+<i>Feuillants</i>, imagined, he said, that "he breathed a new atmosphere,"
+and regarded "as a phenomenon that he should have become something in
+the body-politic, merely from his being a citizen."</p>
+
+<p>The elections were to be made in two gradations. Bailly was named first
+elector of his district. A few days after, at the general meeting, the
+Assembly called him to the Board in quality of secretary. Thus it was
+our fellow-academician who, in the beginning, drew up the celebrated
+<i>proc&egrave;s-verbal</i> of the meetings of the electors of Paris, so often
+quoted by the historians of the revolution.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly also took an active part in drawing up the records of his
+district, and the records of the body of electors. The part he acted in
+these two capacities could not be doubtful, if we judge of it by the
+three following short quotations extracted from his memoirs: "The nation
+must remember that she is sovereign and mistress to order every
+thing.... It is not when reason awakes, that we should allege ancient
+privileges and absurd prejudices.... I shall praise the electors of
+Paris who were the first to conceive the idea of prefacing the French
+Constitution with a declaration of the Rights of Man."</p>
+
+<p>Bailly had always been so extremely reserved in his conduct and in his
+writings, that it was difficult to surmise under what point of view he
+would consider the national agitation of '89. Hence, at the very
+beginning, the Abb&eacute; Maury, of the French Academy, proposed to unite
+himself to Bailly, and that they should reside at Versailles, and have
+an apartment in common between them. It is difficult to avoid a smile
+when one compares the conduct of the eloquent and impetuous Abb&eacute; with
+the categorical declarations, so distinct and so progressive, of the
+learned astronomer.</p>
+
+<p>On Tuesday, the 12th of May, the general assembly of the electors
+proceeded to ballot for the nomination of the first deputy of Paris.
+Bailly was chosen.</p>
+
+<p>This nomination is often quoted as a proof of the high intelligence, and
+of the wisdom of our fathers, two qualities which, since that epoch,
+must have been constantly on the decline, if we are to believe the blind
+Pessimists. Such an accusation imposed on me the duty of carrying the
+appreciation of this wisdom, of this intelligence that is held up
+against us, even to numerical correctness. The following is the result:
+the majority of the votes was 159; Bailly obtained 173; this was
+fourteen more than he required. If fourteen votes had changed sides the
+result would have been different. Was this an incident, I ask, to
+exclaim so much against?</p>
+
+<p>Bailly showed himself deeply affected by this mark of the confidence
+with which he was regarded. His sensibility, his gratitude, did not
+prevent him, however, from recording in his memoirs the following
+<i>na&iuml;ve</i> observation: "I observed in the Assembly of the Electors a great
+dislike for literary men, and for the academicians."</p>
+
+<p>I recommend this remark to all studious men who, by circumstances or by
+a sense of duty, may be thrown into the whirlpool of politics. Perhaps I
+may yield to the temptation of developing it, when I shall have to
+characterize Bailly's connection with his co-laborers in the first
+municipality of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The great question on the verification of the powers was already
+strongly agitated, the day that Bailly and the other Deputies of Paris
+for the first time were able to go to Versailles; our academician had
+only spoken once in that majestic assembly, viz: to induce the adoption
+of the method of voting by members being <i>seated</i> or <i>standing</i>,&mdash;when,
+on the 3d of June, he was named Senior of the Deputies of the Communes
+(or Commons). Formerly, the right of presiding in the third house of the
+kingdom belonged to the provost of the merchants. Bailly in his
+diffidence thought that the assembly, in assigning the chair to him, had
+wished to compensate the capital for the loss of an old privilege. This
+consideration induced him to accept of a duty that he thought above his
+powers,&mdash;he who always depicted himself as timid to an extreme, and not
+possessing a facility of speaking.</p>
+
+<p>Men's minds were more animated, more ardent in 1789 than those would
+admit who always see in the present a faithful image of the past. But
+calumny, that murderous arm of political party, already respected no
+position. Knowledge, loyalty, virtue, did not suffice to shelter any one
+from its poisoned darts. Bailly experienced it on the very day after his
+nomination to such an eminent post as President of the Communes.</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th of May, the Communes had voted an address to the king on the
+constantly recurring difficulties that the nobility opposed to the union
+of the States General in one assembly. In order to carry out this most
+solemn deliberation, Bailly solicited an audience, in which the moderate
+and respectful expression of the anxiety of six hundred loyal deputies
+was to be presented to the monarch. In the midst of these strifes the
+Dauphin died. Without taking the trouble to consult dates, the court
+party immediately represented Bailly as a stranger to the commonest
+proprieties, and totally deficient in feeling; he ought, they said, to
+have respected the most allowable of griefs; his importunities had been
+barbarous.</p>
+
+<p>I had imagined that such ridiculous accusations were no longer thought
+of; the categorical explanations that Bailly himself gave on this topic,
+seemed to me as if they would have sufficed to convince the most
+prejudiced. I was deceived, Gentlemen; the reproach of violence, of
+brutal insensibility, has just been repeated by the pen of a clever and
+a conscientious man. I will give his recital: "Scarcely two hours had
+elapsed since the royal child had breathed his last sigh, when Bailly,
+President of the Third Estate, insisted on admission to the king, who
+had prohibited any one being allowed to intrude upon him. But so
+positive was the demand, that they were obliged to yield, and Louis XVI.
+exclaimed, 'There are then no fathers in that chamber of the Third
+Estate.' The chamber very much applauded this trait of brutal
+insensibility in Bailly, which they termed a trait of Spartan stoicism."</p>
+
+<p>As many errors as words. The following is the truth. The illness of the
+Dauphin had not prevented the two privileged orders from being received
+by the king. This preference offended the Communes. They ordered the
+President to solicit an audience. He discharged his duty with great
+caution. All his proceedings were concerted with two ministers, Necker
+and M. de Barentin. The king answered, "It is impossible for me to see
+M. Bailly in the situation in which I am to-night, nor to-morrow
+morning, nor to fix a day for receiving the deputation of the Third
+Estate." The note ends with these words: "Show my note to M. Bailly for
+his vindication."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, on the day of these events the Dauphin was not dead; thus the king
+was not obliged to yield, he did not receive Bailly; thus the chamber
+had no act of insensibility to applaud; thus Louis XVI. perceived so
+clearly that the President of the Communes was fulfilling the duties of
+his office, that he felt it requisite to give him an exoneration.</p>
+
+<p>The death of the Dauphin happened on the 4th of June. As soon as the
+assembly of the Third Estate were informed of it, they charged the
+President, I quote the very words, "to report to their majesties the
+deep grief with which this news had penetrated the Communes."</p>
+
+<p>A deputation of twenty members, having Bailly at their head, was
+received on the 6th. The President thus expressed himself: "Your
+faithful Communes are deeply moved by the circumstance in which your
+majesty has the goodness to receive their deputation, and they take the
+liberty to address to you the expression of all their regrets, and of
+their respectful sensibility."</p>
+
+<p>Such language can, I think, be delivered without uneasiness to the
+appreciation of all good men.</p>
+
+<p>Let us be correct; the Communes did not obtain at once the audience that
+they demanded on account of the difficulties of the ceremonial. They
+would have wished to make the Third Estate speak kneeling. "This
+custom," said M. de Barentin, "has existed from time immemorial, and if
+the king wished...." "And if twenty-five millions of men do not wish
+it," exclaimed Bailly, interrupting the minister, "where are the means
+to force them?" "The two privileged orders," replied the Guard of the
+Seals, somewhat stunned by the apostrophe, "no longer require the Third
+Estate to bend the knee; but, after having formerly possessed immense
+privileges in the ceremonial, they limit themselves now to asking some
+difference. This difference I cannot find." "Do not take the trouble to
+seek for it," replied the President hastily: "however slight the
+difference might be, the Communes will not suffer it."</p>
+
+<p>This digression was required through a grave and recent error. The
+memory of Bailly will not suffer by it, since it has afforded me the
+opportunity of establishing, beyond any reply, that in our fellow
+academician a noble firmness was on occasions allied to urbanity,
+mildness, and politeness. But what will be said of the puerilities which
+I have been obliged to recall, of the mean pretensions of the courtiers
+on the eve of an immense revolution? When the Greeks of the Lower
+Empire, instead of going on the ramparts valiantly to repel the attacks
+of the Turks, remained night and day collected around some sophists in
+their lyceums and academies, their sterile debates at least related to
+some intellectual questions; but at Versailles, there was nothing in
+action, on the part of two out of three orders, but the most miserable
+vanity.</p>
+
+<p>By an express arrangement, decreed from the beginning, among the Members
+of the Communes, the Dean or President had to be renewed every week.
+Notwithstanding the incessant representations of Bailly, this
+legislative article was long neglected, so fortunate did the Assembly
+feel in having at their head this eminent man, who to undeniable
+knowledge, united sincerity, moderation, and a degree of patriotism not
+less appreciated.</p>
+
+<p>He thus presided over the Third Estate on the memorable days that
+determined the march of our great revolution.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th of June, for instance, when the Deputies of the Communes,
+worn out with the tergiversations of the other two orders, showed that
+in case of need they would act without their concurrence, and resolutely
+adopted the title of National Assembly,&mdash;they provided against presumed
+projects of dissolution, by stamping as illegal all levies of
+contribution which were not granted by the Assembly.</p>
+
+<p>Again, on the 20th of June, when the Members of the National Assembly,
+affronted at the Hall having been closed and their meetings suspended
+without an official notification, with only the simple form of placards
+and public criers, as if a mere theatre was in question, they assembled
+at a tennis-court, and "took an oath never to separate, but to assemble
+wherever circumstances might render it requisite, until the Constitution
+of the Kingdom should be established and confirmed on solid
+foundations."</p>
+
+<p>Once more, Bailly was still at the head of his colleagues on the 23d of
+June, when, by an inexcusable inconsistency, and which perhaps was not
+without some influence on the events of that day, the Deputies of the
+Third Estate were detained a long time at the servants' door of the Hall
+of Meeting, and in the rain; while the deputies of the other two orders,
+to whom a more convenient and more suitable entrance had been assigned,
+were already in their places.</p>
+
+<p>The account that Bailly gave of the celebrated royal meeting on the 23d
+of June, does not exactly agree with that of most historians.</p>
+
+<p>The king finished his speech with the following imprudent words: "I
+order you, Gentlemen, to separate immediately."</p>
+
+<p>The whole of the nobility and a portion of the clergy retired; while the
+Deputies of the Communes remained quietly in their places. The Grand
+Master of the Ceremonies having remarked it, approaching Bailly said to
+him, "You heard the king's order, Sir?" The illustrious President
+answered, "I cannot adjourn the Assembly until it has deliberated on
+it." "Is that indeed your answer, and am I to communicate it to the
+king?" "Yes, Sir," replied Bailly, and immediately addressing the
+Deputies who surrounded him, he said, "It appears to me that the
+assembled nation cannot receive an order."</p>
+
+<p>It was after this debate, at once both firm and moderate, that Mirabeau
+addressed from his place the well-known apostrophe to M. de Br&eacute;z&eacute;. The
+President disapproved both of the basis and the form of it; he felt that
+there was no sufficient motive; for, said he, the Grand Master of the
+Ceremonies made use of no menace; he had not in any way insinuated that
+there was an intention to resort to force; he had not, above all, spoken
+of bayonets. At all events, there is an essential difference between the
+words of Mirabeau as related in almost all the Histories of the
+Revolution, and those reported by Bailly. According to our illustrious
+colleague the impetuous tribune exclaimed, "Go tell those who sent you,
+that the force of bayonets can do nothing against the will of the
+nation." This is, to my mind, much more energetic than the common
+version. The expression, "We will only retire by the force of bayonets!"
+had always appeared to me, notwithstanding the admiration conceded to
+it, to imply only a resistance which would cease on the arrival of a
+corporal and half-a-dozen soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly quitted the chair of President of the National Assembly on the 2d
+of July. His scientific celebrity, his virtue, his conciliating spirit,
+had not been superfluous in habituating certain men to see a member of
+the Communes preside over an assembly in which there was a prince of the
+blood, a prince of the church, the greatest lords of the kingdom, and
+all the high dignitaries of the clergy. The first person named to
+succeed to Bailly was the Duke d'Orl&eacute;ans. After his refusal, the
+Assembly chose the Archbishop of Vienne (Pompignan).</p>
+
+<p>Bailly recalls to mind with sensibility, in his memoirs, the testimonies
+of esteem that he obtained through his difficult and laborious
+presidency. The 3d of July, on the proposition of the Duke de la
+Rochefoucauld and of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the National Assembly
+sent a deputation to their illustrious ex-president, to thank him (these
+are the precise words) "for his noble, wise, and firm conduct." The
+electoral body of Bordeaux had been beforehand with these homages. The
+Chamber of Commerce of that town, at the same time, decided that the
+portrait of the great citizen should decorate their hall of meeting. The
+Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, did
+not remain insensible to the glory that one of their members had
+acquired in the career of politics, and testified it by numerous
+deputations. Finally, Marmontel, in the name of the French Academy,
+expressed to Bailly "how proud that assembly was to count, among its
+members an Aristides that no one was tired of calling the Just."</p>
+
+<p>I shall not excite surprise, I hope, by adding, after such brilliant
+testimonies of sympathy, that the inhabitants of Chaillot celebrated the
+return of Bailly amongst them by f&ecirc;tes, and fireworks, and that even the
+curate of the parish and the churchwardens, unwilling to be surpassed by
+their fellow-citizens, nominated the historian of antediluvian astronomy
+honorary churchwarden. I will, at all events, repress the smile that
+might arise from such private reminiscences, by reminding the reader
+that a man's moral character is better appreciated by his neighbours, to
+whom he shows himself daily without disguise, than that of more
+considerable persons, who are only seen on state occasions, and in
+official costume.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="BAILLY_BECOMES_MAYOR_OF_PARIS_SCARCITYmdashMARAT_DECLARES_HIMSELF" id="BAILLY_BECOMES_MAYOR_OF_PARIS_SCARCITYmdashMARAT_DECLARES_HIMSELF"></a>BAILLY BECOMES MAYOR OF PARIS.&mdash;SCARCITY.&mdash;MARAT DECLARES HIMSELF
+INIMICAL TO THE MAYOR.&mdash;EVENTS OF THE 6TH OF OCTOBER.</h3>
+
+<p>The Bastille had been taken on the 14th of July. That event, on which,
+during upwards of half a century, there have been endless discussions,
+on opposite sides, was characterized in the following way, in the
+address to the National Assembly, drawn up by M. Moreau de Saint M&eacute;ry,
+in the name of the City Committee:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday will be for ever memorable by the taking of a citadel,
+consequent on the Governor's perfidy. The bravery of the people was
+irritated by the breaking of the word of honour. This act (the strongest
+proof that the nation who knows best how to obey, is jealous of its just
+liberties,) has been followed by incidents that from the public
+misfortunes might have been foreseen."</p>
+
+<p>Lally Tollendal said to the Parisians, on the 15th of July: "In the
+disastrous circumstances that have just occurred, we did not cease to
+participate in your griefs; and we have also participated in your anger;
+it was just."</p>
+
+<p>The National Assembly solicited and obtained permission from the king on
+the 15th of July, to send a deputation to Paris, which they flattered
+themselves would restore order and peace in that great city, then in a
+convulsed state. Madame Bailly, always influenced by fear, endeavoured,
+though vainly, to dissuade her husband from joining the appointed
+deputies. The learned academician na&iuml;vely replied, "After a presidency
+that has been applauded, I am not sorry to show myself to my
+fellow-citizens." You see, Gentlemen, that Bailly always admits the
+future reader of his Posthumous Memoirs confidentially into his most
+secret feelings.</p>
+
+<p>The deputation completed its mandate at the Town Hall, to the entire
+satisfaction of the Parisian populace; the Archbishop of Paris, its
+President, had already proposed to go in procession to the Cathedral to
+sing <i>Te Deum</i>; they were preparing to depart, when the Assembly, giving
+way to a spontaneous enthusiasm, with an unanimous voice, proclaimed
+Bailly Mayor of Paris, and Lafayette Commander-in-Chief of the National
+Guard, the creation of which had just been authorized.</p>
+
+<p>The official minutes of the Municipality state, that on being thus
+unexpectedly named, Bailly bent forward to the Assembly, his eyes bathed
+in tears, and that amidst his sobs he could only utter a few unconnected
+words to express his gratitude. The Mayor's own recital differs very
+little from this official relation. Still I shall quote it as a model of
+sincerity and of modesty.</p>
+
+<p>"I know not whether I wept, I know not what I said; but I remember well
+that I was never so surprised, so confused, and so beneath myself.
+Surprise adding to my usual timidity before a large assembly, I rose, I
+stammered out a few words that were not heard, and that I did not hear
+myself, but which my agitation, much more than my mouth, rendered
+expressive. Another effect of my sudden stupidity was, that I accepted
+without knowing what a burden I was taking on myself."</p>
+
+<p>Bailly having become Mayor, and being tacitly accepted by the National
+Assembly, even from the 16th of July, availed himself of his intimacy
+with Vicq-d'Azyr, the Queen's physician, to persuade Louis XVI. to show
+himself to the Parisians. This advice was listened to. On the 17th the
+new magistrate addressed the king near the barri&egrave;re de la Conf&eacute;rence, in
+a discourse that began thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I bring to your Majesty the keys of your good city of Paris. They are
+the same that were presented to Henry IV. He had reconquered his people,
+here the people have reconquered their king."</p>
+
+<p>The antithesis: "he had reconquered his people, here the people have
+reconquered their king," was universally applauded. But since then, it
+has been criticized with bitterness and violence. The enemies of the
+Revolution have striven to discover in it an intention of committing an
+outrage, to which the character of Bailly, and still more so the first
+glance at an examination of the rest of his discourse, give a flat
+contradiction. I will acknowledge, Gentlemen, I think that I have even a
+right to decline the epithet of "unfortunate," which one of our most
+respectable colleagues in the French Academy has pronounced relative to
+this celebrated phrase, while doing justice at the same time to the
+sentiments of the author. The poison contained in the few words that I
+have quoted, was very inoffensive, since more than a year passed without
+any courtier, though furnished like a microscope with, all the
+monarchical susceptibilities, beginning to suspect its existence.</p>
+
+<p>The Mayor of Paris was at the H&ocirc;tel de Ville in the midst of those same
+Parisian citizens who inspired him, a few months before, with the
+mortifying reflection already quoted: "I remarked in the Assembly of
+Electors a dislike to literary people and Academicians." The feeling did
+not appear to be changed.</p>
+
+<p>The political movement in 1789, had been preceded by two very serious
+physical perturbations which had great influence on the march of events.
+Every one is aware, that the excessively rigorous winter of 1788-89 was
+the cause of severe sufferings to the people. But it may not be so
+generally known, that on the 13th of July, 1788, a fall of hail of
+unprecedented size and quantity, in a few hours completely ravaged the
+two parallel zones lying between the department of the Charente and the
+frontiers of the Pays-Bas, and that in consequence of this frightful
+hail, the wheat partly failed, both in the north and in the west of
+France, until after the harvest of 1789.</p>
+
+<p>The scarcity was already severely felt, when Bailly on the 15th of July
+accepted the appointment of Mayor of Paris. That day, it had been
+ascertained, from an examination of the quantity of corn at the Market
+Hall and of the private stocks of the bakers, that the supply of grain
+and flour would be entirely exhausted in three days. The next day, the
+16th of July, all the overseers in the victualling administration had
+disappeared. This flight, the natural consequence of the terrible
+intimidation that hovered over those who were in any way connected with
+the furnishing of provisions, interrupted the operations which had been
+commenced, and exposed the city of Paris to famine.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly, a magistrate of only one day's standing, considered that the
+multitude understands nothing, hears nothing when bread fails; that a
+scarcity, either real or supposed, is the great promoter of riots; that
+all classes of the population grant their sympathy to whoever cries, <i>I
+am hungry</i>; that this lamentable cry soon unites individuals of all
+ages, of both sexes, of every condition, in one common sentiment of
+blind fury; that no human power could maintain order and tranquillity in
+the bosom of a population that dreads the want of food; he therefore
+resolved to devote his days and his nights to provisioning the capital;
+to deserve, as he himself said, the title of the <i>Father nourisher of
+the Parisians</i>,&mdash;that title of which he showed himself always so proud,
+after having painfully gained it.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly day by day recorded in his Memoirs a statement of his actions, of
+his anxieties, and of his fears. It may be good for the instruction of
+the more fortunate administrators of the present epoch, to insert here a
+few lines from the journal of our colleague.</p>
+
+<p>"18th August. Our provisions are very much reduced. Those of the morrow
+depend strictly on the arrangements made on the previous evening; and
+now amidst this distress, we learn that our flour-wagons have been
+stopped at Bourg-la-Reine; that some banditti are pillaging the markets
+in the direction of Rouen, that they have seized twenty wagons of flour
+that were destined for us; ... that the unfortunate Sauvage was
+massacred at Saint Germain-en-Laye; ... that Thomassin escaped with
+difficulty from the fury of the populace at Choisy."</p>
+
+<p>By repeating either these literal words, or something equivalent to
+them, for every day of distress throughout the year 1789, an exact idea
+may be formed of the anxieties that Bailly experienced from the morning
+after his installation as mayor. I deceive myself; to complete the
+picture we ought also to record the unreflecting and inconsiderate
+actions of a multitude of people whose destiny appeared to be, to meddle
+with every thing and to spoil every thing. I will not resist the wish to
+show one of these self-important men, starving (or very nearly so) the
+city of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"21st August. The store of victuals, Bailly says, was so scanty, that
+the lives of the inhabitants of Paris depended on the somewhat
+mathematical precision of our arrangements. Having learnt that a barge
+with eighteen hundred sacks of flour had arrived at Poissy, I
+immediately despatched a hundred wagons from Paris to fetch them. And
+behold, in the evening, an officer without powers and without orders,
+related before me, that having met some wagons on the Poissy road, he
+made them go back, because he did not think that there was a wharf for
+any loaded barge on the Seine. It would be difficult for me to describe
+the despair and the anger into which this recital threw me. We were
+obliged to put sentinels at the bakers' doors!"</p>
+
+<p>The despair and the anger of Bailly were very natural. Even now, after
+more than half a century, no one thinks without a shudder of that
+obscure individual who, from not believing that a loaded barge could get
+up to Poissy, was going, on the 21st August, 1789, to plunge the capital
+into bloody disorders.</p>
+
+<p>By means of perseverance, devotedness, and courage, Bailly succeeded in
+overcoming all the difficulties that the real scarcity, and the
+fictitious one, which was still more redoubtable, caused daily to arise.
+He succeeded, but his health from that epoch was deeply injured; his
+mind had undergone several of those severe shocks that we can never
+entirely recover from. Our colleague said, "when I used to pass the
+bakers' shops during the scarcity, and saw them besieged by a crowd, my
+heart sunk within me; and even now that abundance has been restored to
+us, the sight of one of those shops strikes me with a deep emotion."</p>
+
+<p>The administrative conflicts, the source of which lay in the very bosom
+of the Council of the Commune, daily drew from Bailly the following
+exclamation, a faithful image of his mind: <i>I have ceased to be happy</i>.
+The embarrassments that proceeded from external sources touched him
+much less, and yet they were far from contemptible. Let us surmount our
+repugnance, although a reasonable one; let us cast a firm look on the
+sink where the unworthy calumnies were manufactured, of which Bailly was
+for some time the object.</p>
+
+<p>Several years before our first revolution, a native of Neufchatel
+quitted his mountains, traversed the Jura, and lighted upon Paris.
+Without means, without any recognized talent, without eminence of any
+sort, repulsive in appearance, of a more than negligent deportment, it
+seemed unlikely that he should hope, or even dream, of success; but the
+young traveller had been told to have full confidence, although a
+celebrated academician had not yet given that singular definition of our
+country, "France is the home of foreigners." At all events, the
+definition was not erroneous in this instance, for soon after his
+arrival, the Neufchatelois was appointed physician to the household of
+one of the princes of the royal family, and formed strict intimacies
+with the greater part of the powerful people about the court.</p>
+
+<p>This stranger thirsted for literary glory. Amongst his early
+productions, a medico-philosophical work figured in three volumes,
+relative to the reciprocal influences of the mind and the body. The
+author thought he had produced a <i>chef d'&oelig;uvre</i>; even Voltaire was
+not thought to be above analyzing it suitably; let us hasten to say that
+the illustrious old man, yielding to the pressing solicitations of the
+Duke de Praslin, one of the most active patrons of the Swiss doctor,
+promised to study the work and give his opinion of it.</p>
+
+<p>The author was at the acm&eacute; of his wishes. After having pompously
+announced that the seat of the soul is in the <i>meninges</i> (cerebral
+membrane), could there be any thing to fear from the liberal thinker of
+Ferney? He had only forgotten that the patriarch was above all a man of
+good taste, and that the book on the body and soul offended all the
+proprieties of life. Voltaire's article appeared. He began with this
+severe and just lesson&mdash;"We should not be prodigal of contempt towards
+others, and of esteem for ourselves, to such a degree as will be
+revolting to our readers." The end was still more overwhelming. "We see
+harlequin everywhere cutting capers to amuse the pit."</p>
+
+<p>Harlequin had received a sufficient dose. Not having succeeded in
+literature, he threw himself upon the sciences.</p>
+
+<p>On betaking himself to this new career, the doctor of Neufchatel
+attacked Newton. But unluckily his criticisms were directed precisely to
+those points wherein optics may vie in evidence with geometry itself.
+This time the patron was M. de Maillebois, and the tribunal the Academy
+of Sciences.</p>
+
+<p>The Academy pronounced its judgment gravely, without inflicting a word
+of ridicule; for example, it did not speak of harlequin; but it did not
+therefore remain the less established that the pretended experiments,
+intended, it was said, to upset Newton's, on the unequal refrangibility
+of variously coloured rays, and the explanation of the rainbow, &amp;c., had
+absolutely no scientific value.</p>
+
+<p>Still the author would not allow himself to have been beaten. He even
+conceived the possibility of retaliation; and, availing himself of his
+intimacy with the Duke de Villeroy, governor of the second city in the
+kingdom, he got the Academy of Lyons to propose for competition all the
+questions in optics, which for several years past had been the subjects
+of its disquisitions; he even furnished the amount of the prize out of
+his own pocket, under an assumed name.</p>
+
+<p>The prize so longed for, and so singularly proposed, was not obtained,
+however, by the Duke de Villeroy's candidate, but by the astronomer
+Flaugergues. From that instant, the pseudo-physicist became the bitter
+enemy of the scientific bodies of the whole universe, of whoever bore
+the title of an academician. Putting aside all shame, he no longer made
+himself known in the field of natural philosophy, merely by imaginary
+experiments, or by juggleries; he had recourse to contemptible
+practices, with the object of throwing doubt upon the clearest and best
+proved principles of science; for example, the metallic needles
+discovered by the academician Charles, and which the foreign doctor had
+adroitly concealed in a cake of resin, in order to contradict the common
+opinion of the electric non-conductibility of that substance.</p>
+
+<p>These details were necessary. I could not avoid characterizing the
+journalist who by his daily calumnies contributed most to undermine the
+popularity of Bailly. It was requisite besides, once for all, to strip
+him in this circle of the epithet of philosopher, with which men of the
+world, and even some historians, inconsiderately gratified him. When a
+man reveals himself by some brilliant and intelligent works, the public
+is pleased to find them united with good qualities of the heart. Nor
+should its joy be less hearty on discovering the absence of all
+intellectual merit in a man who had before shown himself despicable by
+his passions, or his vices, or even only by serious blemishes of
+character.</p>
+
+<p>If I have not yet named the enemy of our colleague, if I have contented
+myself with recounting his actions, it is in order to avoid as much as I
+can the painful feeling that his name must raise here. Judge,
+Gentlemen, weigh, my scruples: the furious persecutor of Bailly, of whom
+I have been talking to you for some minutes, was Marat.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution of '89 just occurred in time to relieve the abortive
+author, physiologist, and physicist from the intolerable position into
+which he had been thrown by his inability and his quackery.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the revolution had assumed a decided movement, great surprise
+was occasioned by the sudden transformations excited in the inferior
+walks of the political world. Marat was one of the most striking
+examples of these hasty changes of principles. The Neufchatel physician
+had shown himself a violent adversary to those opinions that occasioned
+the convocation of the assembly of Notables, and the national commotion
+in '89. At that time democratical institutions had not a more bitter or
+more violent censor. Marat liked it to be believed that in quitting
+France for England, he fled especially from the spectacle of social
+renovation which was odious to him. Yet a month after the taking of the
+Bastille, he returned to Paris, established a journal, and from its very
+beginning left far behind him, even those who, in the hope of making
+themselves remarkable, thought they must push exaggeration to its very
+farthest limits. The former connection of Marat with M. de Calonne was
+perfectly well known; they remembered these words of Pitt's: "The French
+must go through liberty, and then be brought back to their old
+government by licence;" the avowed adversaries of revolution testified
+by their conduct, by their votes, and even by their imprudent words,
+that according to them, <i>the worst</i> was the only means of returning to
+what they call <i>the good</i>; and yet these instructive comparisons struck
+only eight or ten members of our great assemblies, so small a share has
+suspicion in the national character, so painful is distrust to French
+sincerity. The historians of our troubles themselves have but skimmed
+the question that I have just raised&mdash;assuredly a very important and
+very curious one. In such matters, the part of a prophet is tolerably
+hazardous; yet I do not hesitate to predict, that a minute study of the
+conduct and of the discourses of Marat, would lead the mind more and
+more to those chapters in a treatise on the chase, wherein we see
+depicted bad species of falcons and hawks, at first only pursuing the
+game by a sign from the master, and for his advantage; but by degrees
+taking pleasure in these bloody struggles, and entering on the sport at
+last with passion and for their own profit.</p>
+
+<p>Marat took good care not to forget that during a revolution, men,
+naturally suspicious, act in their more immediate affairs so as to
+render those persons suspected whose duty it is to watch over them. The
+Mayor of Paris, the General Commandant of the National Guard, were the
+first objects, therefore, at which the pamphleteer aimed. As an
+academician, Bailly had an extra claim to his hate.</p>
+
+<p>Among men of Marat's disposition, the wounds of self-love never heal.
+Without the hateful passions derived from this source, who would believe
+that an individual, whose time was divided between the superintendence
+of a daily journal, the drawing up of innumerable placards with which he
+covered the walls of Paris, together with the struggles of the
+Convention, the disputes not less fierce of the clubs; that an
+individual who, besides, had given himself the task of imposing an
+Agrarian law on the country, could find time to write the very long
+letters against the old official adversaries of his bad experiments, his
+absurd theories, his lucubrations devoid both of erudition and of
+talent; letters in which the Monges, the Laplaces, the Lavoisiers are
+treated with such an entire neglect of justice and of truth, and with
+such a cynical spirit, that my respect for this assembly prevents my
+quoting a single expression.</p>
+
+<p>It was not then only the Mayor of Paris whom the pretended friend of the
+people persecuted; it was also the Academician Bailly. But the
+illustrious philosopher, the virtuous magistrate, gave no hold for
+positive and decided criminations. The hideous pamphleteer understood
+this well; and therefore he adopted vague insinuations, that allowed of
+no possible refutation, a method which, we may remark by the way, has
+not been without imitators. Marat exclaimed every day: "Let Bailly send
+in his accounts!" and the most powerful figure of rhetoric, as Napoleon
+said, repetition, finally inspires doubts in a stupid portion of the
+public, in some feeble, ignorant, and credulous minds in the Council of
+the Commune; and the scrupulous magistrate wished, in fact, to send in
+his accounts. Here they are in two lines: Bailly never had the handling
+of any public funds. He left the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, after having spent
+there two thirds of his patrimony. If his functions had been long
+protracted, he would have retired completely ruined. Before the Commune
+assigned him any salary, the expenses of our colleague in charities
+already exceeded 30,000 livres.</p>
+
+<p>That was, Gentlemen, the final result. The details would be more
+striking, and the name of Bailly would ennoble them. I could show our
+colleague entering only once with his wife, to regulate the furnishing
+of the apartments that the Commune assigned him; rejecting all that had
+the appearance of luxury or even of elegance; to replace sets of china
+by sets of earthenware, new carpets by the half-used ones of M. de
+Crosnes, writing tables of mahogany by writing tables of walnut, &amp;c. But
+all this would appear an indirect criticism, which is far from my
+thoughts. From the same motives, I will not say, that inimical to all
+sinecures, of all plurality of appointments, when the functions are not
+fulfilled, the Mayor of Paris, since he no longer regularly attended the
+meetings of the National Assembly, no longer fingered the pay of a
+deputy, and that this was proved, to the great confusion of the idiots,
+whose minds had been disturbed by Marat's clamours. Yet I will record
+that Bailly refused all that in the incomes of his predecessors had
+proceeded from an impure source; as, for example, the allowances from
+the lotteries, the amount of which was by his orders constantly paid
+into the coffers of the Commune.</p>
+
+<p>You see, Gentlemen, that no trouble was required to show that the
+disinterestedness of Bailly was great, enlightened, dictated by virtue,
+and that it was at least equal to his other eminent qualities. In the
+series of accusations that I have extracted from the pamphlets of that
+epoch, there is one, however, as to which, all things considered, I will
+not attempt to defend Bailly. He accepted a livery from the city; on
+this point no blame was attached to him; but the colours of the livery
+were very gaudy. Perhaps the inventors of these bright shades had
+imagined, that the insignia of the first magistrate of the metropolis,
+in a ceremony, in a crowd, should, like the light from a Pharos, strike
+even inattentive eyes. But these explanations regard those who would
+make of Bailly a perfectly rational being, a man absolutely faultless;
+I, although his admirer, I resign myself to admit that in a laborious
+life, strewed with so many rocks, he committed the horrible crime,
+unpardonable let it be called, of having accepted from the Commune a
+livery of gaudy colours.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly figured in the events of the month of October 1789, only by the
+unsuccessful efforts he made at Paris, to arrange with Lafayette how to
+prevent a great crowd of women from going to Versailles. When this
+crowd, considerably increased, returned on the 6th October very
+tumultuously escorting the carriages of the royal family, Bailly
+harangued the king at the Barri&egrave;re de la Conf&eacute;rence. Three days after,
+he also complimented the Queen at the Tuileries in the name of the
+Municipal Council.</p>
+
+<p>On retiring from the National Assembly, which he then called a Cavern of
+Anthropophagi, Lally Tollendal published a letter in which he found
+bitter fault with Bailly on account of these discourses. Lally was
+angry, recollecting that the day when the king re&euml;ntered his capital as
+a prisoner, surrounded by a very disrespectful crowd, and preceded by
+the heads of his body-guards, had appeared to Bailly a fine day!</p>
+
+<p>If the two heads had been in the procession, Bailly becomes inexcusable;
+but the two epochs, or rather hours (to speak more correctly), have been
+confounded; the wretched men, who after a conflict with the body-guard,
+brought their barbarous trophies to Paris, left Versailles in the
+morning; they were arrested and imprisoned, by order of the
+municipality, as soon as they had entered the barriers of the capital.
+Thus the hideous circumstance reported by Lally was the dream of a wild
+imagination.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="A_GLANCE_AT_THE_POSTHUMOUS_MEMOIR_OF_BAILLY" id="A_GLANCE_AT_THE_POSTHUMOUS_MEMOIR_OF_BAILLY"></a>A GLANCE AT THE POSTHUMOUS MEMOIR OF BAILLY.</h3>
+
+<p>Bailly's Memoirs have thus far served me as a guide and check; now that
+this resource fails me, let us refer to his posthumous work.</p>
+
+<p>I could only consult those Memoirs as far as they related to the public
+or private life of our colleague. Historians may consult them in a more
+general point of view. They will find some valuable facts in them,
+related without prejudice; ample matter for new and fruitful reflections
+on the way in which revolutions are generated, increase, and lead to
+catastrophes. Bailly is less positive, less absolute, less slashing,
+than the generality of his contemporaries, even respecting those events
+in which circumstances assigned to him the principal part to be acted;
+hence when he points out some low intrigue, in distinct and categorical
+terms, he inspires full confidence.</p>
+
+<p>When the occasion will allow of it, Bailly praises with enthusiasm; a
+noble action fills him with joy; he puts it together and relates it with
+relish. This disposition of mind is sufficiently rare to deserve
+mention.</p>
+
+<p>The day, still far off, when we shall finally recognize that our great
+revolution presented, even in the interior, even during the most cruel
+epochs, something besides anarchical and sanguinary scenes: the day
+when, like the intrepid fishermen in the Gulf of Persia and on the
+coasts of Ceylon, a zealous and impartial writer will consent to plunge
+head-foremost into the ocean of facts of all sorts, of which our fathers
+were witnesses, and exclusively seize the pearls, disdainfully rejecting
+the mud,&mdash;Bailly's Memoirs will furnish a glorious contingent to this
+national work. Two or three quotations will explain my ideas, and will
+show, besides, how scrupulously Bailly registered all that could shed
+honour on our country.</p>
+
+<p>I will take the first fact from the military annals; a grenadier of the
+French Guard saves his commanding officer's life, although the people
+thought that they had great reason of complaint against him. "Grenadier,
+what is your name?" exclaimed the Duke de Ch&acirc;telet, full of gratitude.
+The soldier replied, "Colonel, my name is that of all my comrades."</p>
+
+<p>I will borrow the second fact from the civil annals: Stephen de
+Larivi&egrave;re, one of the electors of Paris, had gone on the 20th of July,
+to fetch Berthier de Sauvigny, who had been fatally arrested at
+Compi&egrave;gne, on the false report that the Assembly of the Town Hall wished
+to prosecute him as intendant of the army, by which a few days before
+the capital had been surrounded. The journey was performed in an open
+cabriolet, amidst the insults of a misled population, who imputed to the
+prisoner the scarcity and bad quality of the bread. Twenty times, guns,
+pistols, sabres, would have put an end to Berthier's life, if, twenty
+times, the member of the Commune of Paris had not voluntarily covered
+him with his body. When they reached the streets of the capital, the
+cabriolet had to penetrate through an immense and compact crowd, whose
+exasperation bordered on delirium, and who evidently wished to
+perpetrate the utmost extremities; not knowing which of the two
+travellers was the Intendant of Paris, they betook themselves to crying
+out, "let the prisoner take off his hat!" Berthier obeyed, but Larivi&egrave;re
+uncovered his head also at the same instant.</p>
+
+<p>All parties would gain by the production of a work, that I desire to see
+most earnestly. For my part, I acknowledge, I should be sorry not to
+see in it the answer made to Francis II. by one of the numerous officers
+who committed the fault, so honestly acknowledged afterwards,&mdash;a fault
+that no one would commit now,&mdash;that of joining foreigners in arms. The
+Austrian prince, after his coronation, attempted, at a review, to induce
+our countrymen to admire the good bearing of his troops, and finally
+exclaimed, "There are materials wherewith to crush the Sans-culottes."
+"That remains to be seen!" instantly answered the &eacute;migr&eacute; officer.</p>
+
+<p>May these quotations lead some able writer to erect a monument still
+wanting to the glory of our country! There is in this subject, it seems
+to me, enough to inspire legitimate ambition. Did not Plutarch
+immortalize himself by preserving noble actions and fine sentiments from
+oblivion?</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="EXAMINATION_OF_BAILLYS_ADMINISTRATION_AS_MAYOR" id="EXAMINATION_OF_BAILLYS_ADMINISTRATION_AS_MAYOR"></a>EXAMINATION OF BAILLY'S ADMINISTRATION AS MAYOR.</h3>
+
+<p>The illustrious Mayor of Paris had not the leisure to continue writing
+his reminiscences beyond the date of the 2d of October, 1789. The
+analysis and appreciation of the events subsequent to that epoch will
+remain deprived of that influential sanction, pure as virtue, concise
+and precise as truth, which I found in the handwriting of our colleague.
+Xenocrates, historians say, who was celebrated among the Greeks for his
+honesty, being called to bear witness before a tribunal, the judges with
+common consent stopped him as he was advancing towards the altar
+according to the usual custom, and said, "These formalities are not
+required from you; an oath would add nothing to the authority of your
+words." Such, Bailly presents himself to the reader of his Posthumous
+Memoirs. None of his assertions leave any room for indecision or doubt.
+He needs not high-flown expressions or protestations in order to
+convince; nor would an oath add authority to his words. He may be
+deceived, but he is never the deceiver.</p>
+
+<p>I will spare no effort to give to the description of the latter part of
+Bailly's life, all the correctness which can result from a sincere and
+conscientious comparison of the writings published as well by the
+partisans as by the enemies of our great revolution. Such, however, is
+my desire to prevent two phases, though very distinct, being confounded
+together, that I shall here pause, in order to cast a scrupulous glance
+on the actions and on the various publications of our colleague. I shall
+moreover thus have an easy opportunity of filling up some important
+lacun&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>I read in a biographical article, otherwise very friendly, that Bailly
+was nominated the very day of, and immediately after, the assassination
+of M. de Flesselles; and in this identity the wish was to insinuate that
+the first Mayor of Paris received this high dignity from the bloody
+hands of a set of wretches. The learned biographer, notwithstanding his
+good will, has ill repelled the calumny. With a little more attention he
+would have succeeded better. A simple comparison of dates would have
+sufficed. The death of M. de Flesselles occurred on the 14th of July;
+Bailly was nominated two days after.</p>
+
+<p>I will address the same remark to the authors of a Biographical
+Dictionary still more recent, in which they speak of the ineffectual
+efforts that Bailly made to prevent the multitude from murdering the
+governor of the Bastille (de Launay). But Bailly had no opportunity of
+making an effort, for he was then at Versailles; no duty called him to
+Paris, nor did he become Mayor till two days after the taking of the
+fortress. It is really inexcusable not to have compared the two dates,
+by which these errors would have been avoided.</p>
+
+<p>Many persons very little acquainted with contemporaneous history, fancy
+that during the whole duration of Bailly's administration, Paris was
+quite a cut-throat place. That is a romance; the following is the
+truth:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Bailly was Mayor during two years and four months. In that time there
+occurred four political assassinations; those of Foulon and of Berthier
+de Sauvigny, his son-in-law, at the H&ocirc;tel de Ville; that of M. Durocher,
+a respectable officer of the gendarmerie, killed at Chaillot, by a
+musket-shot, in August, 1789; and that of a baker massacred in a riot in
+the month of October of the same year. I do not speak of the
+assassination of two unfortunate men on the Champ de Mars in July, 1791,
+as that deplorable fact must be considered separately.</p>
+
+<p>The individuals guilty of the assassination of the baker were seized,
+condemned to death, and executed. The family of the unfortunate victim
+became the object of the anxious care of all the authorities, and
+obtained a pension.</p>
+
+<p>The death of M. Durocher was attributed to some Swiss soldiers who had
+revolted.</p>
+
+<p>The horrible and ever to be deplored assassinations of Foulon and of
+Berthier, are among those misfortunes which, under certain given
+circumstances, no human power could prevent.</p>
+
+<p>In times of scarcity, a slight word, either true or unfounded, suffices
+to create a terrible commotion.</p>
+
+<p>R&eacute;veillon is made to say, that a workman can live upon fifteen sous per
+diem, and behold his manufactory destroyed from top to bottom.</p>
+
+<p>They ascribe to Foulon the barbarous vaunt; "I will force the people to
+eat hay;" and without any order from the constituted authorities, some
+peasants, neighbours of the old minister, arrest him, take him to Paris,
+his son-in-law experiences the same fate, and the famished populace
+immolates both of them.</p>
+
+<p>In proportion as the multitude appear to me unjust and culpable, in
+attacking certain men respecting a scarcity of provisions, when it is
+the manifest consequence of the severity of the seasons, I should be
+disposed to excuse their rage against the authors of factitious
+scarcities. Well, Gentlemen, at the time that Foulon was assassinated,
+the people, deceived by some impassioned orators of the Assembly, might,
+or let us rather say, ought to believe, that they were wilfully
+famished. Foulon perished the 22d of July, 1789; on the 15th, that is to
+say, seven days before, Mirabeau had addressed the following incendiary
+words to the inhabitants of the capital, from the National Tribune:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Henry IV. allowed provisions to be taken into besieged and rebellious
+Paris; but now, some perverse ministers intercept convoys of provisions
+destined for famished and obedient Paris."</p>
+
+<p>Yet people have been so inconsiderate as to be astonished at the
+assassinations of Foulon and of Berthier. Going back in thought to the
+month of July, 1789, I perceive in the imprudent apostrophe of the
+eloquent tribune, more sanguinary disorders than the contemporary
+history has had to record.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most honourable, one of the most respectable and the most
+respected members of the institute, having been led, in a recent work,
+to relate the assassination of Foulon, has thrown on the conduct of
+Bailly, under those cruel circumstances, an aspersion that I read with
+surprise and grief. Foulon was detained in the H&ocirc;tel de Ville. Bailly
+went down into the square, and succeeded for a moment in calming the
+multitude. "I did not imagine," said the Mayor in his memoirs, "that
+they could have forced the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, a well-guarded post, and an
+object of respect to all the citizens. I therefore thought the prisoner
+in perfect safety; I did not doubt but the waves of this storm would
+finally subside, and I departed."</p>
+
+<p>The honourable author of the <i>History of the Reign of Louis XVI.</i>
+opposes to this passage the following words taken from the official
+minutes of the H&ocirc;tel de Ville: "The electors (those who had accompanied
+Bailly out to the square) reported in the Hall the certainty that the
+calm would not last long." The new historian adds: "How could the Mayor
+alone labour under this delusion? It is too evident, that on such a day,
+the public tranquillity was much too uncertain, to allow of the chief
+magistrate of the town absenting himself without deserving the reproach
+of weakness." The remainder of the passage shows too evidently, that in
+the author's estimation, weakness here was synonymous with cowardice.</p>
+
+<p>It is against this, Gentlemen, that I protest with heartfelt
+earnestness. Bailly absented himself because he did not think that the
+H&ocirc;tel de Ville could be forced. The electors in the passage quoted do
+not enunciate a different opinion: where then is the contradiction?</p>
+
+<p>Bailly deceived himself in this expectation, for the multitude burst
+into the H&ocirc;tel de Ville. We will grant that there was an error of
+judgment in this; but nothing in the world authorizes us to call in
+question the courage of the Mayor.</p>
+
+<p>To decide after the blow, with so little hesitation or consideration,
+that Bailly ought not to have absented himself from the House of the
+Commune, we must forget that, under such circumstances, the obligations
+of the first magistrate of the city were quite imperious and very
+numerous; it is requisite, above all, not to remember that each day, the
+provision of flour required for the nourishment of seven or eight
+hundred thousand inhabitants, depended on the measures adopted on the
+previous evening. M. de Crosne, who on quitting the post of Lieutenant
+of Police, had not ceased to be a citizen, was during some days a very
+enlightened and zealous councillor for Bailly; but on the day that
+Foulon was arrested, this dismissed magistrate thought himself lost. He
+and his family made an appeal to the gratitude and humanity of our
+colleague. It was to procure a refuge for them, that Bailly employed the
+few hours of absence with which he was so much reproached: those hours
+during which that catastrophe happened which the Mayor could not have
+prevented, since even the superhuman efforts of General Lafayette,
+commanding an armed force, proved futile. I will add, that to spare M.
+de Crosne an arbitrary arrest, the imminent danger of which alas! was
+too evident in the death of Berthier, Bailly absented himself again from
+the H&ocirc;tel de Ville on the night of the 22d to the 23d of July, to
+accompany the former Lieutenant of Police to a great distance from
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>There is not a more distressing spectacle than that of one honest man
+wrongfully attacking another honest man. Gentlemen, let us never
+willingly leave the satisfaction and the advantage of it to the wicked.</p>
+
+<p>To appreciate the actions of our predecessors with impartiality and
+justice, it would be indispensable to keep constantly before our eyes
+the list of unheard-of difficulties that the revolution had to surmount,
+and to remember the very restricted means of repression placed at the
+disposal of the authorities in the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>The scarcity of food gave rise to many embarrassments, to many a crisis;
+but causes of quite another nature had not less influence on the march
+of events.</p>
+
+<p>In his memoirs, Bailly speaks of the man&oelig;uvres of a redoubtable
+faction labouring for ... under the name of the.... The names are blank.
+A certain editor of the work filled up the lacun&aelig;. I have not the same
+hardihood, I only wished to remark that Bailly had to combat at once
+both the spontaneous effervescence of the multitude, and the intrigues
+of a crowd of secret agents, who distributed money with a liberal hand.</p>
+
+<p>Some day, said our colleague, the infernal genius who directed those
+intrigues and <i>le bailleur de fonds</i> will be known. Although the proper
+names are wanting, it is certain that some persons inimical to the
+revolution urged it to deplorable excesses.</p>
+
+<p>These enemies had collected in the capital thirty or forty thousand
+vagabonds. What could be opposed to them? The Tribunals? They had no
+moral power, and were declared enemies to the revolution. The National
+Guard? It was only just formed; the officers scarcely knew each other,
+and moreover scarcely knew the men who were to obey them. Was it at
+least permitted to depend on the regular armed force? It consisted of
+six battalions of French Guards without officers; of six thousand
+soldiers who, from every part of France, had flocked singly to Paris, on
+reading in the newspapers the following expressions from General
+Lafayette: "They talk of deserters! The real deserters are those men who
+have not abandoned their standards." There were finally six hundred
+Swiss Guards in Paris, deserters from their regiments; for, let us speak
+freely, the celebrated monument of Lucerne will not prevent the Swiss
+themselves from being recognized by impartial and intelligent
+historians, as having experienced the revolutionary fever.</p>
+
+<p>Those who, with such poor means of repression, flattered themselves that
+they could entirely prevent any disorder, in a town of seven or eight
+hundred thousand inhabitants in exasperation, must have been very blind.
+Those, on the other hand, who attempt to throw the responsibility of the
+disorders on Bailly, would prove by this alone, that good people should
+always keep aloof from public affairs during a revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The administrator, a being of modern creation, now declares, with the
+most ludicrous self-sufficiency, that Bailly was not equal to the
+functions of a Mayor of Paris. It is, he says, by undeserved favour that
+his statue has been placed on the fa&ccedil;ade of the H&ocirc;tel de Ville. During
+his magistracy, Bailly did not create any large square in the capital,
+he did not open out any large streets, he elevated no splendid monument;
+Bailly would therefore have done better had he remained an astronomer or
+erudite scholar.</p>
+
+<p>The enumeration of all the public erections that Bailly did not execute
+is correct. It might also have been added, that far from devoting the
+municipal funds to building, he had the vast and threatening castle of
+the Bastille demolished down to its very foundation's; but this would
+not deprive Bailly of the honour of having been one of the most
+enlightened magistrates that the city of Paris could boast.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly did not enlarge any street, did not erect any palace during the
+twenty-eight months of his administration! No, undoubtedly! for, first
+it was necessary to give bread to the inhabitants of Paris; now the
+revenues of the town, added to the daily sums furnished by Necker,
+scarcely sufficed for those principal wants. Some years before, the
+Parisians had been very much displeased at the establishment of import
+dues on all alimentary substances. The writers of that epoch preserved
+the burlesque Alexandrine, which was placarded all over the town, on the
+erection of the Octroi circumvallation:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Le mur murant Paris, rend Paris murmurant."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The multitude was not content with murmuring; the moment that a
+favourable opportunity occurred, it went to the barriers and broke them
+down. These were re&euml;stablished by the administration with great trouble,
+and the smugglers often took them down by main force. The <i>Octroi</i>
+revenue from the imports, which used to amount to 70,000 francs, now
+fell to less than 30,000. Those persons who have considered the figures
+of the present revenue, will assuredly not compare such very dissimilar
+epochs.</p>
+
+<p>But it is said that ameliorations in the moral world may often be
+effected without expense. What were those for which the public was
+indebted to the direct exertions of Bailly? The question is simple, but
+repentance will follow the having asked it. My answer is this: One of
+the most honourable victories gained by mathematics over the avaricious
+prejudices of the administrations of certain towns has been, in our own
+times, the radical suppression of gambling-houses. I will hasten to
+prove that such a suppression had already engaged Bailly's attention,
+that he had partly effected it, and that no one ever spoke of those
+odious dens with more eloquence and firmness.</p>
+
+<p>"I declare," wrote the Mayor of Paris on the 5th of May, 1790, "that the
+gambling-houses are in my opinion a public scourge. I think that these
+meetings not only should not be tolerated, but that they ought to be
+sought out and prosecuted, as much as the liberty of the citizens, and
+the respect due to their homes, will admit.</p>
+
+<p>"I regard the tax that has been levied from such houses as a disgraceful
+tribute. I do not think that it is allowable to employ a revenue derived
+from vice and disorder, even to do good. In consequence of these
+principles, I have never granted any permit to gambling-houses; I have
+constantly refused them. I have constantly announced that not only they
+would not be tolerated, but that they would be sought out and
+prosecuted."</p>
+
+<p>If I add that Bailly suppressed all spectacles of animal-fighting, at
+which the multitude cannot fail to acquire ferocious and sanguinary
+habits, I shall have a right to ask of every superficial writer, how he
+would justify the epithet of sterile, applied with such assurance to the
+administration of our virtuous colleague.</p>
+
+<p>Anxious to carry out in practice that which had been largely recognized
+theoretically in the declaration of rights&mdash;the complete separation of
+religion from civil law,&mdash;Bailly presented himself before the National
+Assembly on the 14th of May, 1791, and demanded, in the name of the city
+of Paris, the abolition of an order of things which, in the then state
+of men's minds, gave rise to great abuses. If declarations of births, of
+marriages, and of deaths are now received by civil officers in a form
+agreeing with all religious opinions, the country is chiefly indebted
+for it to the intelligent firmness of Bailly.</p>
+
+<p>The unfortunate beings for whom all public men should feel most
+solicitous, are those prisoners who are awaiting in prison the decrees
+of the courts of justice. Bailly took care not to neglect such a duty.
+At the end of 1790, the old tribunals had no moral power; they could no
+longer act; the new ones were not yet created. This state of affairs
+distracted the mind of our colleague. On the 18th of November, he
+expressed his grief to the National Assembly, in terms full of
+sensibility and kindness. I should be culpable if I left them in
+oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, the prisons are full. The innocent are awaiting their
+justification, and the criminals an end to their remorse. All breathe an
+unwholesome air, and disease will pronounce terrible decrees. Despair
+dwells there: Despair says, either give me death, or judge me. When we
+visit those prisons, that is what the fathers of the poor and the
+unfortunate hear; this is what it is their duty to repeat to the fathers
+of their country. We must tell them that in those asylums of crime, of
+misery, and of every grief, time is infinite in its duration; a month is
+a century, a month is an abyss the sight of which is frightful.... We
+ask of the tribunals to empty the prisons by the justification of the
+innocent, or by examples of justice."</p>
+
+<p>Does it not appear to you, Gentlemen, that calm times may occasionally
+derive excellent lessons, and, moreover, lessons expressed in very good
+language, from our revolutionary epoch?</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> "The wall walling Paris, renders Paris wailing."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="THE_KINGS_FLIGHT_EVENTS_ON_THE_CHAMP_DE_MARS" id="THE_KINGS_FLIGHT_EVENTS_ON_THE_CHAMP_DE_MARS"></a>THE KING'S FLIGHT.&mdash;EVENTS ON THE CHAMP DE MARS.</h3>
+
+<p>In the month of April, 1791, Bailly perceived that his influence over
+the Parisian population was decreasing. The king had announced that he
+should depart on the 18th, and would remain some days at St. Cloud. The
+state of his health was the ostensible cause of his departure. Some
+religious scruples were probably the real cause; the holy week was
+approaching, and the king would have no communications with the
+ecclesiastics sworn in for his parish. Bailly was not discomposed at
+this projected journey; he regarded it even with satisfaction. Foreign
+courts, said our colleague, looked upon him as a prisoner. The sanction
+he gives to various decrees, appears to them extorted by violence; the
+visit of Louis XVI. to Saint Cloud will dissipate all these false
+reports. Bailly therefore concerted measures with La Fayette for the
+departure of the royal family; but the inhabitants of Paris, less
+confiding than their mayor, already saw the king escaping from St.
+Cloud, and seeking refuge amidst foreign armies. They therefore rushed
+to the Tuileries, and notwithstanding all the efforts of Bailly and his
+colleague, the court carriages could not advance a step. The king and
+queen therefore, after waiting for an hour and a half in their carriage,
+reascended into the palace.</p>
+
+<p>To remain in power after such a check, was giving to the country the
+most admirable proof of devotion.</p>
+
+<p>In the night of the 20th to the 21st of June, 1791, the king quitted the
+Tuileries. This flight, so fatal to the monarchy, irretrievably
+destroyed the ascendency that Bailly had exercised over the capital. The
+populace usually judges from the event. The king, they said, with the
+queen and their two children, were freely allowed to go out of the
+palace. The Mayor of Paris was their accomplice, for he has the means of
+knowing every thing; otherwise he might be accused of carelessness, or
+of the most culpable negligence.</p>
+
+<p>These attacks were not only echoed in the shops, in the streets, but
+also in the strongly organized clubs. The Mayor answered in a peremptory
+manner, but without entirely effacing the first impression. During
+several days after the king's flight, both Bailly and La Fayette were in
+personal danger. The National Assembly had often to look to their
+safety.</p>
+
+<p>I have now reached a painful portion of my task, a frightful event, that
+led finally to Bailly's cruel death; a bloody catastrophe, the relation
+of which will perhaps oblige me to allow a little blame to hover over
+some actions of this virtuous citizen, whom thus far it has been my
+delight to praise without any restriction.</p>
+
+<p>The flight of the king had an immense influence on the progress of our
+first revolution. It threw into the republican party some considerable
+political characters who, till then, had hoped to realize the union of a
+monarchy with democratical principles.</p>
+
+<p>Mirabeau, a short time before his death, having heard this projected
+flight spoken of, said to Cabanis: "I have defended monarchy to the
+last; I defend it still, although I think it lost.... But, if the king
+departs, I will mount the tribune, have the throne declared vacant, and
+proclaim a Republic."</p>
+
+<p>After the return from Varennes, the project of substituting a republican
+government for a monarchical government was very seriously discussed by
+the most moderate members of the National Assembly, and we now know
+that the Duke de La Rochefoucauld and Dupont (de N&eacute;mours) for example,
+were decidedly in favour of a republic. But it was chiefly in the clubs
+that the idea of such a radical change had struck root. When the
+Commission of the National Assembly had expressed itself, through M.
+Muguet, at the sitting of the 13th of July, 1791, against the forfeiture
+of Louis XVI., there was a great fermentation in Paris. Some agents of
+the Cordeliers (Shoemakers') Club were the first to ask for signatures
+to a petition on the 14th of July, against the proposed decision. The
+Assembly refused to read and even to receive it. On the motion of
+Laclos, the club of the Jacobins got up another. This, after undergoing
+some important modifications, was to be signed on the 17th on the Champ
+de Mars, on the altar of their country. These projects were discussed
+openly, in full daylight. The National Assembly deemed them anarchical.
+On the 16th of July it called to its bar the municipality of Paris,
+enjoining it to have recourse to force, if requisite, to repress any
+culpable movements.</p>
+
+<p>The Council of the Commune on the morning of the 17th placarded a
+proclamation that it had prepared according to the orders of the
+National Assembly. Some municipal officers went about preceded by a
+trumpeter, to read it in various public squares. Around the Hotel de
+Ville, the military arrangements, commanded by La Fayette, led to the
+expectation of a sanguinary conflict. All at once, on the opening of the
+sitting of the National Assembly, a report was circulated that two good
+citizens having dared to tell the people collected around their
+country's altar, that they must obey the law, had been put to death, and
+that their heads, stuck upon pikes, were carried through the streets.
+The news of this attack excited the indignation of all the deputies, and
+under this impression, Alexander Lameth, then President of the Assembly,
+of his own accord transmitted to Bailly very severe new orders, a
+circumstance which, though only said <i>en passant</i>, has been but recently
+known.</p>
+
+<p>The municipal body, as soon as it was informed, about eleven o'clock, of
+the two assassinations, deputed three of its members, furnished with
+full powers, to re&euml;stablish order. Strong detachments accompanied the
+municipal officers. About two o'clock it was reported that stones had
+been thrown at the National Guard. The Municipal Council instantly had
+martial law proclaimed on the Place de Gr&egrave;ve, and the red flag suspended
+from the principal window of the H&ocirc;tel de Ville. At half-past five
+o'clock, just when the municipal body was about to start for the Champ
+de Mars, the three councillors, who had been sent in the morning to the
+scene of disorder, returned, accompanied by a deputation of twelve
+persons, taken from among the petitioners. The explanations given on
+various sides occasioned a new deliberation of the Council. The first
+decision was maintained, and at six o'clock the municipality began its
+march with the red flag, three pieces of cannon, and numerous
+detachments of the National Guard.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly, as chief of the municipality, found himself at this time in one
+of those solemn and perilous situations, in which a man becomes
+responsible in the eyes of a whole nation, in the eyes of posterity, for
+the inconsiderate or even culpable actions of the passionate multitude
+that surrounds him, but which he scarcely knows, and over which he has
+little or no influence.</p>
+
+<p>The National Guard, in that early epoch of the revolution, was very
+troublesome to lead and to rule. Insubordination appeared to be the rule
+in its ranks; and hierarchical obedience a very rare exception. My
+remark may perhaps appear severe: well, Gentlemen, read the contemporary
+writings, Grimm's Correspondence, for example, and you will see, under
+date of November 1790, a dismissed captain replying to the regrets of
+his company in the following style: "Console yourselves, my companions,
+I shall not quit you; only, henceforward I shall be a simple fusilier;
+if you see me resolved to be no longer your chief, it is because I am
+content to command in my turn."</p>
+
+<p>It is allowable besides to suppose that the National Guard of 1791 was
+deficient, in the presence of such crowds, of that patience, that
+clemency, of which the French troops of the line have often given such
+perfect examples. It was not aware that, in a large city, crowds are
+chiefly composed of the unemployed and the idly curious.</p>
+
+<p>It was half-past seven o'clock when the municipal body arrived at the
+Champ de Mars. Immediately some individuals placed on the glacis
+exclaimed: "Down with the red flag! down with the bayonettes!" and threw
+some stones. There was even a gun fired. A volley was fired in the air
+to frighten them; but the cries soon recommenced; again some stones were
+thrown; then only the fatal fusillade of the National Guard began!</p>
+
+<p>These, Gentlemen, are the deplorable events of the Champ de Mars,
+faithfully analyzed from the relation that Bailly himself gave of the
+18th July to the Constituent Assembly. This recital, the truth of which
+no one assuredly will question any more than myself, labours under some
+involuntary but very serious omissions. I will indicate them, when the
+march of events leads us, in following our unfortunate colleague, to the
+revolutionary tribunal.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="BAILLY_QUITS_THE_MAYORALTY_THE_12TH_OF_NOVEMBER_1791_THE" id="BAILLY_QUITS_THE_MAYORALTY_THE_12TH_OF_NOVEMBER_1791_THE"></a>BAILLY QUITS THE MAYORALTY THE 12TH OF NOVEMBER, 1791.&mdash;THE
+ESCHEVINS.&mdash;EXAMINATION OF THE REPROACHES THAT MIGHT BE ADDRESSED TO THE MAYOR.</h3>
+
+<p>I resume the biography of Bailly at the time when he quitted the H&ocirc;tel
+de Ville after a magistracy of about two years.</p>
+
+<p>On the 12th November, 1791, Bailly convoked the Council of the Commune,
+rendered an account of his administration, solemnly entreated those who
+thought themselves entitled to complain of him, to say so without
+reserve; so resolved was he to bow to any legitimate complaints;
+installed his successor P&eacute;tion, and retired. This separation did not
+lead to any of those heartfelt demonstrations from the co-labourers of
+the late Mayor, which are the true and the sweetest recompense to a good
+man.</p>
+
+<p>I have sought for the hidden cause of such a constant and undisguised
+hostility towards the first Mayor of Paris. I asked myself first,
+whether the magistrate's manners had possibly excited the
+susceptibilities of the Eschevins.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The answer is decidedly in the
+negative. Bailly showed in all the relations of life a degree of
+patience, a suavity, a deference to the opinions of others, that would
+have soothed the most irascible self-love.</p>
+
+<p>Must we suspect jealousy to have been at work? No, no; the persons who
+constituted the town-council were too obscure, unless they were mad, to
+attempt to vie in public consideration and glory with the illustrious
+author of <i>the History of Astronomy</i>, with the philosopher, the writer,
+the erudite scholar who belonged to our three principal academies, an
+honour that Fontenelle alone had enjoyed before him.</p>
+
+<p>Let us say it aloud, for such is our conviction, nothing personal
+excited the evil proceedings, the acts of insubordination with which
+Bailly had daily to reproach his numerous assistants. It is even
+presumable, that in his position, any one else would have had to
+register more numerous and more serious complaints. Let us be truthful:
+when the <i>aristocracy of the ground-floor</i>, according to the expression
+of one of the most illustrious members of the French Academy, was called
+by the revolutionary movements to replace the <i>aristocracy of the
+first-floor</i>, it became giddy. Have I not, it said, conducted the
+business of the warehouse, the workshop, the counting-house, &amp;c., with
+probity and success; why then should I not equally succeed in the
+management of public affairs? And this swarm of new statesmen were in a
+hurry to commence work; hence all control was irksome to them, and each
+wished to be able to say on returning home, "I have framed such or such
+an act that will tie the hands of faction for ever; I have repressed
+this or that riot; I have, in short, saved the country by proposing such
+or such a measure for the public good, and by having it adopted." The
+pronoun <i>I</i> so agreeably tickles the ear of a man lately risen from
+obscurity.</p>
+
+<p>What the thorough-bred Eschevin, whether new or old, dreads above every
+thing else, is specialties. He has an insurmountable antipathy towards
+men, who have in the face of the world gained the honourable titles of
+historian, geometer, mechanician, astronomer, physician, chemist, or
+geologist, &amp;c.... His desire, his will, is to speak on every thing. He
+requires, therefore, colleagues who cannot contradict him.</p>
+
+<p>If the town constructs an edifice, the Eschevin, losing sight of the
+question, talks away on the aspect of the fa&ccedil;ades. He declares with the
+imperturbable assurance inspired by a fact that he had heard speak of
+whilst on the knees of his nurse, that on a particular side of the
+future building, the moon, an active agent of destruction, will
+incessantly corrode the stones of the frontage, the shafts of the
+columns, and that it will efface in a few years all the projecting
+ornaments; and hence the fear of the moon's voracity will lead to the
+upsetting of all the views, the studies, and the well-digested plans of
+several architects. Place a meteorologist on the council, and, despite
+the authority of the nurses, a whole scaffolding of gratuitous
+suppositions will be crumbled to dust by these few categorical and
+strict words of science; the moon does not exert the action that is
+attributed to it.</p>
+
+<p>At another time, the Eschevin hurls his anathema at the system of
+warming by steam. According to him, this diabolical invention is an
+incessant cause of damp to the wood-work, the furniture, the papers, and
+the books. The Eschevin fancies, in short, that in this way of warming,
+torrents of watery vapour enter into the atmosphere of the apartments.
+Can he love a colleague, I ask, who after having had the cunning
+patience to let him come to the conclusion of his discourse, informs him
+that, although vapour, the vehicle of an enormous quantity of latent
+heat, rapidly conveys this caloric to every floor of the largest
+edifice, it has never occasion therefore to escape from those
+impermeable tubes through which the circulation is effected!</p>
+
+<p>Amidst the various labours that are required by every large town, the
+Eschevin thinks, some one day, that he has discovered an infallible way
+of revenging himself of specialties. Guided by the light of modern
+geology, it has been proposed to go with an immense sounding line in
+hand, to seek in the bowels of the earth the incalculable quantities of
+water, that from all eternity circulate there without benefiting human
+nature, to make them spout up to the surface, to distribute them in
+various directions, in large cities, until then parched, to take
+advantage of their high temperature, to warm economically the
+magnificent conservatories of the public gardens, the halls of refuge,
+the wards of the sick in hospitals, the cells of madmen. But according
+to the old geology of the Eschevin, promulgated perhaps by his nurse,
+there is no circulation in subterranean water; at all events,
+subterranean water cannot be submitted to an ascending force and rise to
+the surface; its temperature would not differ from that of common
+well-water. The Eschevin, however, agrees to the expensive works
+proposed. Those works, he says, will afford no material result; but once
+for all, such fantastic projects will receive a solemn and rough
+contradiction, and we shall then be liberated for ever from the odious
+yoke under which science wants to enslave us.</p>
+
+<p>However, the subterranean water appears. It is true that a clever
+engineer had to bore down 548 m&egrave;tres (or 600 yards) to find it; but
+thence it comes transparent as crystal, pure as if the product of
+distillation, warmed as physical laws had shown that it would be, more
+abundant indeed than they had dared to foresee, it shot up thirty-three
+m&egrave;tres above the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Do not suppose, Gentlemen, that putting aside wretched views of
+self-love, the Eschevin would applaud such a result. He shows himself,
+on the contrary, deeply humiliated. And he will not fail in future to
+oppose every undertaking that might turn out to the honour of science.
+Crowds of such incidents occur to the mind. Are we to infer thence, that
+we ought to be afraid of seeing the administration of a town given up to
+the stationary, and exclusive spirit of the old Eschevinage&mdash;to people
+who have learnt nothing and studied nothing? Such is not the result of
+these long reflections. I wished to enable people to foresee the
+struggle, not the defeat. I even hasten to add, that by the side of the
+surly, harsh, rude, positive Eschevin, the type of whom, to say the
+truth, is fortunately becoming rare, an honourable class of citizens
+exists, who, content with a moderate fortune laboriously acquired, live
+retired, charm their leisure with study, and magnanimously place
+themselves, without any interested views, at the service of the
+community. Everywhere similar auxiliaries fight courageously for truth
+as soon as they perceive it. Bailly constantly obtained their
+concurrence; as is proved by some touching testimonies of gratitude and
+sympathy. As to the counsellors who so often occasioned trouble,
+confusion, and anarchy in the H&ocirc;tel de Ville in the years '89 and '90, I
+am inclined to blame the virtuous magistrate for having so patiently, so
+diffidently endured their ridiculous pretensions, their unbearable
+assumption of power.</p>
+
+<p>From the earliest steps in the important study of nature, it becomes
+evident that facts unveiled to us in the lapse of centuries, are but a
+very small fraction, if we compare them with those that still remain to
+be discovered. Placing ourselves in that point of view, deficiency in
+diffidence would just be the same as deficiency in judgment. But, by the
+side of positive diffidence, if I may be allowed the expression,
+relative diffidence comes in. This is often a delusion; it deceives no
+one, yet occasions a thousand difficulties. Bailly often confounded
+them. We may regret, I think, that in many instances, the learned
+academician disdained to throw in the face of his vain fellow-labourers
+these words of an ancient philosopher: "When I examine myself, I find I
+am but a pigmy; when I compare myself, I think I am a giant."</p>
+
+<p>If I were to cover with a veil that which appeared to me susceptible of
+criticism in the character of Bailly, I should voluntarily weaken the
+praises that I have bestowed on several acts of his administration. I
+will not commit this fault, no more than I have done already in alluding
+to the communications of the mayor with the presuming Eschevins.</p>
+
+<p>I will therefore acknowledge that on several occasions, Bailly, in my
+opinion, showed himself influenced by a petty susceptibility, if not
+about his personal prerogatives, yet about those of his station.</p>
+
+<p>I think also that Bailly might be accused of an occasional want of
+foresight.</p>
+
+<p>Imaginative and sensitive, the philosopher allowed his thoughts to
+centre too exclusively on the difficulties of the moment. He persuaded
+himself, from an excess of good-will, that no new storm would follow the
+one that he had just overcome. After every success, whether great or
+small, against the intrigues of the court, or prejudices, or anarchy,
+whether President of the National Assembly or Mayor of Paris, our
+colleague thought the country saved. Then his joy overflowed; he would
+have wished to spread it over all the world. It was thus that on the day
+of the definite reunion of the nobility with the other two orders, the
+27th of June, 1789, Bailly going from Versailles to Chaillot, after the
+close of the session, leaned half his body out of his carriage door, and
+announced the happy tidings with loud exclamations to all whom he met on
+the road. At S&egrave;vres, it is from himself that I borrow the anecdote, he
+did not see without painful surprise that his communication was received
+with the most complete indifference by a group of soldiers assembled
+before the barrack door; Bailly laughed much on afterwards learning that
+this was a party of Swiss soldiers, who did not understand a word he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Happy the actors in a great revolution, in whose conduct we find nothing
+to reprehend until after having entered into so minute an analysis of
+their public and private conduct.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Eschevin</i> was a sort of town-councilman, peculiar to
+Paris and to Rotterdam, acting under a mayor.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="BAILLYS_JOURNEY_FROM_PARIS_TO_NANTES_AND_THEN_FROM_NANTES_TO_MELUN" id="BAILLYS_JOURNEY_FROM_PARIS_TO_NANTES_AND_THEN_FROM_NANTES_TO_MELUN"></a>BAILLY'S JOURNEY FROM PARIS TO NANTES, AND THEN FROM NANTES TO M&Eacute;LUN.&mdash;
+HIS ARREST IN THE LAST TOWN.&mdash;HE IS TRANSFERRED TO PARIS.</h3>
+
+<p>After having quitted the Mayorality of Paris, Bailly retired to
+Chaillot, where he hoped again to find happiness in study; but upwards
+of two years passed amidst the storms of public life had deeply injured
+his health; it was therefore requisite to obey the advice of physicians,
+and undertake a journey. About the middle of June, 1792, Bailly quitted
+the capital, made some excursions in the neighbouring departments, went
+to Niort to visit his old colleague and friend, M. de Lapparent, and
+soon after went on far as Nantes, where the due influence of another
+friend, M. Gel&eacute;e de Pr&eacute;mion, seemed to promise him protection and
+tranquillity. Determined to establish himself in this last town, Bailly
+and his wife took a small lodging in the house of some distinguished
+people, who could understand and appreciate them. They hoped to live
+there in peace; but news from Paris soon dissipated this illusion. The
+Council of the Commune decreed, that the house previously occupied, in
+consequence of a formal decision, by the Mayor of Paris, and by the
+public offices of the town, ought to have paid a tax of 6,000 livres,
+and strange enough, that Bailly was responsible for it. The pretended
+debt was claimed with harshness. They demanded the payment of it without
+delay. To free himself Bailly was obliged to sell his library, to
+abandon to the chances of an auction that multitude of valuable books,
+from which he had sought out, in the silence of his study, and with such
+remarkable perseverance, the most recondite secrets of the firmament.</p>
+
+<p>This painful separation was followed by two acts that did not afflict
+him less.</p>
+
+<p>The central government (then directed, it must be allowed, by the
+Gironde party) placed Bailly under surveillance. Every eight days the
+venerable academician was obliged to present himself at the house of the
+Syndic Procurator of the Departmental Administration of the Lower-Loire,
+like a vile malefactor, whose every footstep it would be to the interest
+of society to watch. What was the true motive for such a strange
+measure? This secret has been buried in a tomb where I shall not allow
+myself to dig for it.</p>
+
+<p>Though painful to me to say so, the odious assimilation of Bailly to a
+dangerous criminal had not exhausted the rancour of his enemies. A
+letter from Roland, the Minister of the Interior, announced very dryly
+to the unfortunate proscribed man, that the apartments in the Louvre,
+which his family had occupied for upwards of half a century, had been
+withdrawn from him. They had even proceeded so far as to furnish a
+tipstaff with the order to clear the rooms.</p>
+
+<p>A short time before this epoch, Bailly had found himself obliged to sell
+his house at Chaillot. The old Mayor of Paris then had no longer a
+hearth or a home in the great city which had been the late scene of his
+devotion, his solicitude, and his sacrifices. When this reflection
+occurred to his mind, his eyes filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>But the grief that Bailly experienced on seeing himself the daily object
+of odious persecutions, left his patriotic convictions intact. Vainly
+did they endeavour several times to transform a legitimate hatred
+towards individuals into an antipathy towards principles. They still
+remember in Brittany the debate raised, by one of these attempts,
+between our colleague and a Vend&eacute;an physician, Dr. Blin. Never, in the
+season of his greatest popularity, did the president of the National
+Assembly express himself with more vivacity; never had he defended our
+first revolution with more eloquence. Not long since, in the same place,
+I pointed out to public attention another of our colleagues (Condorcet),
+who already under the blow of a capital condemnation, devoted his last
+moments to restore to the light of day the principles of eternal
+justice, which the fashions and the follies of men had but too much
+obscured. At a time of weak or interested convictions, and disgraceful
+capitulations of conscience, those two examples of unchangeable
+convictions deserved to be remarked. I am happy in having found them in
+the bosom of the Academy of Sciences.</p>
+
+<p>Tranquillity of mind is not less requisite than vigour of intellect, to
+those who undertake great works. Thus during his residence at Nantes,
+Bailly did not even try to add to his numerous scientific or literary
+productions. This celebrated astronomer passed his time in reading
+novels. He sometimes said with a bitter smile: "My day has been well
+occupied; since I got up, I have put myself in a position to give an
+analysis of the two, or of the three first volumes of the new novel that
+the reading-room has just received." From time to time these
+abstractions were of a more elevated tone; he owed them to two young
+persons, who having reached an advanced age may now be listening to my
+words. Bailly discoursed with them of Homer, of Plato, of Aristotle, of
+the principal works in our literature, of the rapid progress of the
+sciences, and chiefly of those of astronomy. What our colleague chiefly
+appreciated in these two young friends, was a true sensibility, and
+great warmth of feeling. I know that years have not effaced or weakened
+these rare qualities in the bosoms of those two Br&eacute;tons. M. Pariset, our
+colleague, and M. Villenave, will therefore think it natural in me to
+thank them here, in the name of science and literature, in the name of
+humanity, for the few moments of sweet peace and happiness that they
+afforded to our learned colleague, at a time when the inconstancy and
+ingratitude of men were lacerating his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Louis XVI. had perished; dark clouds hung over the horizon; some acts of
+odious brutality showed our proscribed philosopher how little he must
+thenceforward depend on public sympathy; how much times had changed
+since the memorable meeting (of the 7th of October, 1791), at which the
+National Assembly decided that the bust of Bailly should be placed in
+the hall of their meetings! The storm appeared near and very menacing;
+even persons usually of little foresight were meditating where to find
+shelter.</p>
+
+<p>During these transactions, Charles Marquis de Casaux, known by various
+productions on literature and on economical politics, went and requested
+our colleague, together with his wife, to take a passage on board a ship
+that he had freighted for himself and his family. "We will first go to
+England," said M. Casaux; "we will then, if you prefer it, pass our
+exile in America. Have no anxiety, I have property; I can, without
+inconvenience to myself, undertake all the expenses. Pythagoras said:
+'In solitude the wise man worships echo;' but this no longer suffices in
+France; the wise man must fly from a land that threatens to devour its
+children."</p>
+
+<p>These warm solicitations, and the prayers of his weeping companion,
+could not shake the firm resolution of Bailly. "From the day that I
+became a public character," he said, "my fate has become irrevocably
+united with that of France; never will I quit my post in the moment of
+danger. Under any circumstances my country may depend on my devotion.
+Whatever may happen, I shall remain."</p>
+
+<p>By regulating his conduct on such fine generous maxims, a citizen does
+himself honour, but he exposes himself to fall under the blows of
+faction.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly was still at Nantes on the 30th of June, 1793, when eighty
+thousand Vend&eacute;ans, commanded by Cathelineau and Charette, went to
+besiege that city.</p>
+
+<p>Let us imagine to ourselves the position of the President of the sitting
+of the "Jeu de Paume," of the first Mayor of Paris, in a city besieged
+by the Vend&eacute;ans! We cannot presume that the unfavourable opinion of the
+Convention under which he was labouring, and the rigorous surveillance
+to which he was subjected, would have saved him from harsh treatment if
+the town had been taken. No one can therefore be surprised that after
+the victory of Nanteans, our colleague hastened to follow out his
+project, formed a short time before, of withdrawing from the insurgent
+provinces.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the beginning of July 1793, M&eacute;lun had enjoyed perfect
+tranquillity. Bailly knew it through M. de Laplace, who, living retired
+in that chief town of the department, was there composing the immortal
+work in which the wonders of the heavens are studied with so much depth
+and genius. He also knew that the great geometer, hoping to be still
+more retired in a cottage on the banks of the Seine, and out of the
+town, was going to dispose of his house in M&eacute;lun. It is easy to guess
+that Bailly would be charmed with the prospect of residing far away from
+political agitation, and near to his illustrious friend!</p>
+
+<p>The arrangements were promptly made, and on the 6th of July, M. and
+Madame Bailly quitted Nantes in company with M. and Madame Villenave,
+who were going to Rennes.</p>
+
+<p>At this same time, a division of the revolutionary army was marching to
+M&eacute;lun. As soon as the terrible news was known, Madame Laplace wrote to
+Bailly, persuading him, under covert expressions, to give up the
+intended project. The house, she said, is at the water's edge: there is
+extreme dampness in the rooms: Madame Bailly would die there. A letter
+so different from those that had preceded it, could not fail of its
+effect; such at least was the hope with which M. and Madame Laplace
+flattered themselves, when about the end of July they perceived, with
+inexpressible alarm, Bailly crossing the garden path. "Great God, you
+did not then understand our last letter!" exclaimed at the same instant
+our colleague's two friends. "I understood perfectly," Bailly replied
+with the greatest calm; "but on the one hand, the two servants who
+followed me to Nantes, having heard that I was going to be imprisoned,
+quitted me; on the other hand, if I am to be arrested, I wish it to be
+in a house that I have occupied some time. I will not be described in
+any act as an individual without a domicile!" Can it be said, after
+this, that great men are not subject to strange weaknesses?</p>
+
+<p>These minute details will be my only answer to some culpable expressions
+that I have met with in a work very widely spread: "M. Laplace," says
+the anonymous writer "knew all the secrets of geometry; but he had not
+the least notion of the state France was in, he therefore imprudently
+advised Bailly to go and join him."</p>
+
+<p>What is to be here deplored as regards imprudence, is, that a writer,
+without exactly knowing the facts, should authoritatively pronounce such
+severe sentences against one of the most illustrious ornaments of our
+country.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly did not even enjoy the puerile satisfaction of taking rank among
+the domiciled citizens of M&eacute;lun. For two days after his arrival in that
+town, a soldier of the revolutionary army having recognized him,
+brutally ordered him to accompany him to the municipality: "I am going
+there," coolly replied Bailly; "you may follow me there."</p>
+
+<p>The municipal body of M&eacute;lun had at that time an honest and very
+courageous man at its head, M. Tarb&eacute; des Sablons. This virtuous
+magistrate endeavoured to prove to the multitude, (with which the H&ocirc;tel
+de Ville was immediately filled by the news, rapidly propagated, of the
+arrest of the old Mayor of Paris,) that the passports granted at Nantes,
+countersigned at Rennes, showed nothing irregular; that according to the
+terms of the law, he could not but set Bailly at liberty, under pain of
+forfeiture. Vain efforts! To avoid a bloody catastrophe, it was
+necessary to promise that reference would be made to Paris, and that in
+the mean time he should be guarded&mdash;<i>&agrave; vue</i>&mdash;in his own house.</p>
+
+<p>The surveillance, perhaps purposely, was not at all strict; to escape
+would have been very easy. Bailly utterly discarded the notion. He would
+not at any price have compromised M. Tarb&eacute;, nor even his guard.</p>
+
+<p>An order from the Committee of Public Safety enjoined the authorities of
+M&eacute;lun to transfer Bailly to one of the prisons of the capital. On the
+day of departure, Madame Laplace paid a visit to our unfortunate
+colleague. She represented to him again the possibility of escape. The
+first scruples no longer existed; the escort was already waiting in the
+street. But Bailly was inflexible. He felt perfectly safe. Madame
+Laplace held her son in her arms; Bailly took the opportunity of turning
+the conversation to the education of children. He treated the subject,
+to which he might well have been thought a stranger, with a remarkable
+superiority, and ended even with several amusing anecdotes that would
+deserve a place in the witty and comic gallery of "les Enfants
+terribles."</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at Paris, Bailly was imprisoned at the Madelonnettes, and
+some days after at La Force. They there granted him a room, where his
+wife and his nephews were permitted to visit him.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly had undergone only one examination of little importance, when he
+was summoned as a witness in the trial of the queen.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="BAILLY_IS_CALLED_AS_A_WITNESS_IN_THE_TRIAL_OF_THE_QUEEN_HIS_OWN_TRIAL" id="BAILLY_IS_CALLED_AS_A_WITNESS_IN_THE_TRIAL_OF_THE_QUEEN_HIS_OWN_TRIAL"></a>BAILLY IS CALLED AS A WITNESS IN THE TRIAL OF THE QUEEN.&mdash;HIS OWN TRIAL
+BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL.&mdash;HIS CONDEMNATION TO DEATH.&mdash;HIS
+EXECUTION.&mdash;IMAGINARY DETAILS ADDED BY ILL-INFORMED HISTORIANS TO WHAT
+THAT ODIOUS AND FRIGHTFUL EVENT ALREADY PRESENTED.</h3>
+
+<p>Bailly, under the weight of a capital accusation, and precisely on
+account of a portion of the acts imputed to Marie Antoinette, was heard
+as a witness in the trial of that princess. The annals of tribunals,
+either ancient or modern, never offered any thing like this. What did
+they hope for? To lead our colleague to make inexact declarations, or to
+concealments from a feeling of imminent personal danger? To suggest the
+thought to him to save his own head at the expense of that of an unhappy
+woman? To make virtue finally stagger? At all events, this infernal
+combination failed; with a man like Bailly it could not succeed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the accused?" said the President to Bailly. "Oh! yes, I do
+know her!" answered the witness, in a tone of emotion, and bowing
+respectfully to Marie Antoinette. Bailly then protested with horror
+against the odious imputations that the act of accusation had put into
+the mouth of the young dauphin. From that moment Bailly was treated with
+great harshness. He seemed to have lost in the eyes of the tribunal the
+character of a witness, and to have become the accused. The turn that
+the debates took would really authorize us to call the sitting in which
+the queen was condemned, (in which she figured ostensibly as the only
+one accused,) the trial of Marie Antoinette and of Bailly. What
+signified, after all, this or that qualification of this monstrous
+trial? in the judgment of any man of feeling, never did Bailly prove
+himself more noble, more courageous, more worthy, than in this difficult
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly appeared again before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and this time
+as the accused, the 10th of November 1793. The accusation bore chiefly
+on the pretended participation of the Mayor of Paris in the escape of
+Louis XVI. and his family, and in the catastrophe that occurred in the
+Champ de Mars.</p>
+
+<p>If any thing in the world appeared evident, even in 1793, even before
+the detailed revelations of the persons who took a more or less direct
+part in the event, it is, that Bailly did not facilitate the departure
+of the royal family; it is that, in proportion to the suspicions that
+reached him, he did all that was in his power to prevent their
+departure; it is, that the President of the sitting of the Jeu de Paume
+had not, and could never have had in any case, an intention of going to
+join the fugitive family in a strange country; it is that, finally, any
+act emanating from a public authority in which such expressions as the
+following could be found: "The deep wickedness of Bailly.... Bailly
+thirsted for the people's blood!" must have excited the disgust and
+indignation of good men, whatever might be their political opinions.</p>
+
+<p>The accusation, as far as it regarded the murderous fusillade on the
+Champ de Mars, had more weight; this event had as counterpoises, the
+10th of August and the 31st of May; La Fayette says in his memoirs, that
+those two days were a retaliation. It is at least certain that the
+terrible scenes of the 17th of July cost Bailly his life; they left deep
+impressions in people's minds, which were still perceptible after the
+revolution of 1830, and which, on more than one occasion, rendered the
+position of La Fayette one of great delicacy. I have therefore studied
+them most attentively, with a very sincere and lively desire to
+dissipate, once for all, the clouds that seemed to have obscured this
+point, this sole point, in the life of Bailly. I have succeeded,
+Gentlemen, without ever having had a wish or occasion to veil the truth.
+I do no Frenchman the injustice to suppose that I need define to him an
+event of the national history that has been so influential on the
+progress of our revolution, but perhaps, there may be some foreigners
+present at this sitting. It will be therefore for them only that I shall
+here relate some details. We must bring to mind some deplorable
+circumstances of the evening of the 17th July, when the multitude had
+assembled on the Champ de Mars or Champ de la F&eacute;d&eacute;ration, around the
+altar of their country, the remains of the wooden edifice that had been
+raised to celebrate the anniversary of the 14th of July. Part of this
+crowd signed a petition tending to ask the forfeiture of the throne by
+Louis XVI., then lately reconducted from Varennes, and on whose fate the
+Constituent Assembly had been enacting regulations. On that occasion
+martial law was proclaimed. The National Guard, with Bailly and La
+Fayette at their head, went to the Champ de Mars; they were assailed by
+clamours, by stones, and by the firing of a pistol; the Guard fired;
+many victims fell, without its being possible to say exactly how many,
+for the estimates, according to the effect that the reporters wished to
+produce, varied from eighty to two thousand!</p>
+
+<p>The Revolutionary Tribunal heard several witnesses relative to the
+events on the Champ de Mars: amongst them I find Chaumette, Procurator
+of the Commune of Paris; Lullier, the Syndic Procurator General of the
+Department; Coffinhal, Judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal; Dufourny,
+manufacturer of gunpowder; Momoro, a printer.</p>
+
+<p>All these witnesses strongly blamed the old Mayor of Paris; but who is
+there that does not know how much arbitrariness and cruelty these
+individuals, whom I have mentioned above, showed during our misfortunes?
+Their declarations, therefore, must be received with great suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>The sincere admirers of Bailly would be relieved of a great weight, if
+the event of the Champ de la F&eacute;d&eacute;ration had been darkened only by the
+testimonies of Chaumettes and Coffinhals. Unfortunately, the public
+accuser produced some very grave documents during the debates, which the
+impartial historian cannot overlook. Let us say, however, just to
+correct one error out of a thousand, that on the day of Bailly's trial,
+the public accuser was Naulin, and not Fouquier Tinville,
+notwithstanding all that has been written on this subject by persons
+calling themselves well-informed, and even some of the accused's
+intimate friends.</p>
+
+<p>The catastrophe of the Champ de Mars, when impartially examined in its
+essential phases, presents some very simple problems:</p>
+
+<p>Was a petition to the Constituent Assembly illegal that was got up on
+the 17th of July, 1791, against a decree issued on the 15th?</p>
+
+<p>Had the petitioners, by assembling on the Champ de Mars, violated any
+law?</p>
+
+<p>Could the two murders committed in the morning be imputed to these men?</p>
+
+<p>Had projects of disorder and rebellion been manifested with sufficient
+evidence to justify the proclamation of martial law, and especially the
+putting it into practice?</p>
+
+<p>I say it, Gentlemen, with deep grief, these problems will be answered in
+the negative by whoever takes the trouble to analyze without passion,
+and without preconceived opinions, some authentic documents, which
+people in general seem to have made it a point to leave in oblivion. But
+I hasten to add, that considering the question as to intention, Bailly
+will continue to appear, after this examination, quite as humane, quite
+as honourable, quite as pure as we have found him to be in the other
+phases of a public and private life, which might serve as a model.</p>
+
+<p>In the best epochs of the National Assembly, no one who belonged to it
+would have dared to maintain, that to draw up and sign a petition,
+whatever might be the object of it, were rebellious acts. Never, at that
+time, would the President of that great Assembly have called down hate,
+public vengeance, or a sanguinary repression upon those who attempted,
+said Charles Lameth, in the sitting of the 16th of July, "to oppose
+their individual will to the law, which is an expression of the national
+will." The right of petition seemed as if it ought to be absolute, even
+if contrary to sanctioned and promulgated laws in full action, and even
+more so against legislative arrangements still under discussion, or
+scarcely voted.</p>
+
+<p>The petitioners of the Champ de Mars asked the Constituent Assembly to
+revise a decree that they had issued two days before. We have no
+occasion to examine whether the act was reasonable, opportune, dictated
+by an enlightened view of the public good. The question is simple; in
+soliciting the Assembly to revise a decree, they violated no law.
+Perhaps it will be thought that the petitioners at least committed an
+unusual act, contrary to all custom. Even this would be unfounded. In
+ten various instances, the National Assembly modified or annulled its
+own decrees; in twenty others, it had been entreated to revise them,
+without any cry of anarchy being raised.</p>
+
+<p>It is well ascertained, that the crowd on the Champ de Mars availed
+itself of a right that the constitution recognized, that of getting up
+and signing a petition against a decree which, right or wrong, it
+thought was opposed to the true interests of the country. Still, the
+exercise of the right of petitioning was always wisely subjected to
+certain forms. Had these forms been violated? Was the meeting illegal?</p>
+
+<p>In 1791, according to the decrees, every meeting that wished to exercise
+the right of petition must consist of unarmed citizens, and be announced
+to the competent authorities twenty-four hours beforehand.</p>
+
+<p>Well, on the 16th of July, twelve persons had gone as a deputation to
+the municipality, in order to declare, according to law, that the next
+day, the 17th, numerous citizens would meet, without arms, on the Champ
+de Mars, where they wished to sign a petition. The deputation obtained
+an acknowledgment of its declaration from the hand of the syndic
+procurator Desmousseaux, who addressed them besides with these solemn
+words: "The law shields you with its inviolability."</p>
+
+<p>The acknowledgment was presented to Bailly on the day of his
+condemnation.</p>
+
+<p>Had they committed some assassinations? Yes, undoubtedly; they had
+committed two; but in the morning, very early; but at the Gros Caillou,
+and not on the Champ de Mars. Those horrid murders could not
+legitimately be imputed to the petitioners who, eight or ten hours
+after, surrounded the altar of their country; to the crowd who fell by
+the fusillade of the National Guard. By changing the date of these
+crimes, and displacing also the localities where these crimes were
+committed, some historians of our revolution, and amongst others the
+best known of all, have given, without intending it, to the meeting in
+the afternoon, a character that cannot be honestly concurred in.</p>
+
+<p>It is requisite we should know at what hour, in what place, and how,
+these misfortunes happened, before we hazard an opinion on the
+sanguinary acts of that day, the 17th of July.</p>
+
+<p>A young man had gone that day very early to the altar of his country.
+This young man wished to copy several inscriptions. All at once he heard
+a singular noise, and very soon after the worm of a wimble shot up from
+the planked floor on which he was standing. The youth went and sought
+the guard, who raised the plank, and found beneath the altar two
+ill-looking individuals, lying down, and furnished with provisions. One
+of these men was an invalid with a wooden leg. The guard seized them,
+and took them to the Gros Caillou, to the section, to the Commissary of
+Police. On the way, the barrel of water with which these unfortunate men
+had provided themselves under the altar of their country, was
+transformed, according to the ordinary course of things, into a barrel
+of gunpowder. The inhabitants of that quarter of the town collected
+together; it was on a Sunday. The women especially showed themselves
+very much irritated when the purpose of the auger-holes was told them,
+as declared by the invalid. When the two prisoners came out of the hall
+to be conducted to the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, the crowd tore them from the
+guard, massacred them, and paraded their heads on pikes!</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be too often repeated, that these hideous assassinations,
+this execution of two old vagabonds by the barbarous and blinded
+population of the Gros Caillou, evidently had no relation to, no
+connection with, the events which, in the evening, carried mourning into
+the Champ de la F&eacute;d&eacute;ration.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of the 17th of July, from five to seven o'clock, had the
+crowd which was collected around the altar of their country an aspect of
+turbulence, giving reason to fear a riot, sedition, violence, or any
+anarchical enterprise?</p>
+
+<p>Relative to this point, we have the written declaration of three
+councillors, whom the municipality had sent in the morning to the Gros
+Caillou, on the first intimation of the two assassinations of which I
+have just spoken. This declaration was presented to Bailly on the day of
+his condemnation. We read therein, "that the assembled citizens on the
+Champ de Mars had in no way acted contrary to law; that they only asked
+for time to sign their petition before they retired; that the crowd had
+shown all possible respect to the commissaries, and given proofs of
+submission to the law and its agents." The Municipal Councillors, on
+their return to the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, accompanied by a deputation of
+twelve of the petitioners, protested strongly against the proclamation
+of martial law; they declared that if the red flag was unfurled, they
+would be regarded, and with some appearance of reason, as traitors and
+faithless men.</p>
+
+<p>Vain efforts; the anger of the councillors, confined since the morning
+at the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, carried the day over the enlightened opinion of
+those who had been sent scrupulously to study the state of affairs, who
+had mixed in the crowd, who returned after having reassured it by
+promises.</p>
+
+<p>I might invoke the testimony of one of my honourable colleagues. Led by
+the fine weather, and somewhat also by curiosity, towards the Champ de
+Mars, he was enabled to observe all; and he has assured me that there
+never was a meeting which showed less turbulence or seditious spirit;
+that especially the women and children were very numerous. Is it not,
+besides, perfectly proved now, that on the morning of the 17th July, the
+Jacobin club, by means of printed placards, disavowed any intention of
+petitioning; and that the influential men of the Jacobins and of the
+Cordeliers,&mdash;those men whose presence might have given to this concourse
+the dangerous character of a riot,&mdash;not only did not appear there, but
+had started in the night for the country?</p>
+
+<p>By thus connecting together all the circumstances whence it is proved
+that martial law was proclaimed and put in practice on the 17th of July
+without legitimate motives, a most terrible responsibility seems at
+first sight to be cast on the memory of Bailly. But reassure yourselves,
+Gentlemen; the events which are now grouped together, and are exhibited
+to our eyes with complete evidence, were not known on that inauspicious
+day at the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, until they had been distorted by the spirit
+of party.</p>
+
+<p>In the month of July, 1791, after the king had returned from Varennes,
+the monarchy and the republic began for the first time to be dangerously
+opposed to each other; in an instant passion took the place of cool
+reason in the minds of the respective partisans of the two different
+forms of government. The terrible formula: <i>We must make an end of it!</i>
+was in everybody's mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly was surrounded by those passionate politicians who, without the
+least scruple as to the honesty or legality of the means, are
+determined to make an end of the adversaries who annoy them, as soon as
+circumstances seem to promise them victory.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly had still near him some Eschevins long accustomed to regard him
+as a magistrate for show.</p>
+
+<p>The former gave the Mayor false, or highly coloured intelligence. The
+others, by long habit, did not conceive themselves obliged to
+communicate any thing to him.</p>
+
+<p>On the bloody day of July, 1791, of all the inhabitants of Paris,
+perhaps Bailly was the man who knew with least detail or correctness the
+events of the morning and of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly, with his deep horror for falsehood, would have thought that he
+was most cruelly insulting the magistrates, if he had not attributed to
+them similar sentiments to his own. His uprightness prevented his being
+sufficiently on the watch against the machinations of parties. It was
+evidently by false reports that he was induced to unfurl the red flag on
+the 17th of July: "It was from the reports that followed each other," he
+said to the Revolutionary Tribunal, on being questioned by the
+President, "and became more and more alarming every hour, that the
+council adopted the measure of marching with the armed force to the
+Champ de Mars."</p>
+
+<p>In all his answers Bailly insisted on the repeated orders he had
+received from the President of the National Assembly; on the reproaches
+addressed to him for not sufficiently watching the agents of foreign
+powers; it was against these pretended agents and their creatures, that
+the Mayor of Paris thought he was marching when he put himself at the
+head of a column of National Guards.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly did not even know the cause of the meeting; he had not been
+informed that the crowd wished to sign a petition; and that the
+previous evening, according to the decree of the law, there had been a
+declaration made to this effect before the competent authority. His
+answers to the Revolutionary Tribunal leave not the least doubt on this
+point!</p>
+
+<p>Oh Eschevins, Eschevins! when your vain pretensions only were treated
+of, the public could forgive you; but the 17th of July, you took
+advantage of Bailly's confidence; you induced him to take sanguinary
+measures of repression, after having fascinated him with false reports;
+you committed a real crime. If it was the duty of the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, of deplorable memory, to demand in 1793 from any one an
+explanation of the massacres of the Champ de Mars, it was not Bailly
+assuredly who ought to have been accused in the first place.</p>
+
+<p>The political party whose blood flowed on the 17th of July, pretended to
+have been the victim of a plot concocted by its adversaries. When
+interrogated by the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Bailly
+answered: "I had no knowledge of it, but experience has since given me
+reason to think that such a plot did exist at that time."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing more serious has ever been written against the promoters of the
+sanguinary violences on the 17th of July.</p>
+
+<p>The blame that has been thrown on the events of the Champ de Mars has
+not been confined solely to the fact of proclaiming martial law; the
+repressive measures that followed that proclamation have been criticized
+with equal bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>The municipal administration was especially reproached for having
+hoisted a red flag much too small; a flag that was called in the
+Tribunal <i>a pocket flag</i>; for not having placed this flag at the head
+of the column, as the law commands, but in such a position, that the
+public on whom the column was advancing could not see it; for having
+made the armed force enter the Champ de Mars, by all the gates on the
+side towards the town, a man&oelig;uvre that seemed rather intended to
+surround the multitude, than to disperse it; for having ordered the
+National Guard to load their arms, even on the Place de Gr&egrave;ve; for
+having made the guard fire before the three required summonses were
+made, and fire upon the people around the altar, whilst the stones and
+the pistol shot, which were assigned as the motive for the sanguinary
+order, came from the steps and benches; for allowing some people who
+were endeavouring to escape on the side towards l'Ecole Militaire, and
+others who had actually jumped into the Seine, to be pursued, shot, and
+bayonetted.</p>
+
+<p>It results clearly from one of Bailly's publications, from his answers
+to the questions put to him by the President of the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, from the writings of the day:</p>
+
+<p>That the Mayor of Paris gave no order for the troops to be collected on
+the 17th of July; that he had had no conference on that day with the
+military authority; that if any arrangements, culpable and contrary to
+law were adopted, as to the situation of the cavalry, of the red flag,
+and of the Municipal Body, in the column marching on the Champ de Mars,
+they could not without injustice be imputed to him; that Bailly was not
+aware of the National Guard having loaded their muskets with ball before
+quitting the square of the H&ocirc;tel de Ville; that he was not aware even of
+the existence of the red flag, with whose small dimensions he had been
+so severely reproached; that the National Guard fired without his
+order; that he made every effort to stop the firing, to stop the
+pursuit, and make the soldiers resume their ranks; that he congratulated
+the troops of the line, who under the command of Hulin, entered by the
+gate of l'Ecole Militaire, and not only did not fire, but tore many of
+the unfortunate people from the hands of the National Guard, whose
+exasperation amounted to delirium. In short, it might he asked, relative
+to any want of exactness attributable to Bailly in that unfortunate
+affair, whether it was just to impute it to him who, in his letters to
+Voltaire on the origin of the sciences, wrote as follows in 1776:</p>
+
+<p>"I am unfortunately short-sighted. I am often humiliated in the open
+country. Whilst I with difficulty can distinguish a house at the
+distance of a hundred paces, my friends relate to me what they see at
+the distance of five or six hundred. I open my eyes, I fatigue myself
+without seeing any thing, and I am sometimes inclined to think that they
+amuse themselves at my expense."</p>
+
+<p>You begin to see, Gentlemen, the advantage that a firm and able lawyer
+might have drawn from the authentic facts that I have just been
+relating. But Bailly knew the pretended jury before whom he had to
+appear. This jury was not a collection of drunken cobblers, whatever
+some passionate writers may have asserted; it was worse than that,
+Gentlemen, notwithstanding the deservedly celebrated names that were
+occasionally interspersed among them: it was&mdash;let us cut the subject
+short&mdash;an odious, commission.</p>
+
+<p>The very circumscribed list from which chance in 1793 and 1794 drew the
+juries of the Revolutionary Tribunals, did not embrace, as the sacred
+word <i>jury</i> seems to imply, all one class of citizens. The authorities
+formed it, after a prefatory and very minute inquiry, of their
+adherents only. The unfortunate defendants were thus judged not by
+impartial persons free from any preconceived system, but by political
+enemies, which is as much as to say, by that which is the most cruel and
+remorseless in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly would not be defended. After his appearance as a witness in the
+trial of Marie Antoinette, the ex-Mayor only wrote and had printed for
+circulation, a paper entitled <i>Bailly to his fellow-citizens</i>. It closes
+with these affecting words:</p>
+
+<p>"I have only gained by the Revolution that which my fellow-citizens have
+gained: liberty and equality. I have lost by it some useful situations,
+and my fortune is nearly destroyed. I could be happy with what remains
+of it to me and a clear conscience; but to be happy in the repose of my
+retreat, I require, my dear fellow-citizens, your esteem: I know well
+that, sooner or later, you will do me justice; but I require it while I
+live, and while I am yet amongst you."</p>
+
+<p>Our colleague was unanimously condemned. We should despair of the
+future, unless such a unanimity struck all friends of justice and
+humanity with stupor, if it did not increase the number of decided
+adversaries to all political tribunals.</p>
+
+<p>When the President of the Tribunal interrogated the accused, already
+declared guilty, as to whether he had any reclamations to make relative
+to the execution of the sentence, Bailly answered:</p>
+
+<p>"I have always carried out the law; I shall know how to submit myself to
+it, since you are its organ."</p>
+
+<p>The illustrious convict was led back to his cell.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly had said in his &eacute;loge on M. de Tressan: "French gaiety produces
+the same effect as stoicism." These words occurred to my memory at the
+time when I was gathering from various sources the proof that on
+re&euml;ntering the Conciergerie after his condemnation, Bailly showed
+himself at once both gay and stoical.</p>
+
+<p>He desired his nephew, M. Batb&eacute;da, to play a game at piquet with him as
+usual. He thought of all the circumstances connected with the frightful
+morrow with such coolness, that he even said with a smile to M. Batb&eacute;da
+during the game: "Let us rest awhile, my friend, and take a pinch of
+snuff; to-morrow I shall be deprived of this pleasure, for I shall have
+my hands tied behind my back."</p>
+
+<p>I will quote some words which, while testifying to a similar degree
+Bailly's serenity of mind, are more in harmony with his grave character,
+and more worthy of being preserved in history.</p>
+
+<p>One of the companions of the illustrious academician's captivity, on the
+evening of the 11th of November, with tears in his eyes and moved by a
+tender veneration, exclaimed: "Why did you let us fancy there was a
+possibility of acquittal? You deceived us then?"&mdash;Bailly answered: "No,
+I was teaching you never to despair of the laws of your country."</p>
+
+<p>In the paroxysms of wild despair, some of the prisoners reviewing the
+past, went so far as to regret that they had never infringed the laws of
+the strictest honesty.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly brought back these minds, erring for the moment from the path of
+duty, by repeating to them maxims which both in form and substance would
+not disparage the collections of the most celebrated moralists:</p>
+
+<p>"It is false, very false, that a crime can ever be useful. The trade of
+an honest man is the safest, even in times of revolution. Enlightened
+egotism suffices to put any intelligent individual into the path of
+justice and truth. Whenever innocence can be sacrificed with impunity,
+crime is not sure of succeeding. There is so great a difference between
+the death of a good man and that of a wicked man, that the multitude is
+incapable of estimating it."</p>
+
+<p>Cannibals devouring their vanquished enemies seem to me less hideous,
+less contrary to nature, than those wretches, the refuse of the
+population of large towns, who, too often alas! have carried their
+ferocity so far, as to disturb by their clamorous and infamous raillery
+the last moments of the unhappy victims about to be struck by the sword
+of the law. The more humiliating this picture of the degradation of the
+human species may be, the more we should beware of overcharging the
+colouring. With few exceptions, the historians of Bailly's last agony
+appear to me to have forgotten this duty. Was the truth, the strict
+truth, not sufficiently distressing? Was it requisite, without any sort
+of proof, to impute to the mass of the people the infernal cynicism of
+cannibals? Should they lightly make just sentiments of disgust and
+indignation rest upon an immense class of citizens? I think not,
+Gentlemen, and I will therefore avoid the cruelty and poignancy of
+chaining the thoughts for a long time on such scenes; I will prove that
+by rendering the drama a little less atrocious, I have only sacrificed
+imaginary details, which are the envenomed fruits of the spirit of the
+party.</p>
+
+<p>I will not shut my ears to the questions that already hum around me.
+People will say to me, What are your claims for daring to modify a page
+of our revolutionary history, on which every one seemed agreed? What
+right have you to weaken contemporary testimonies, you, who at the time
+of Bailly's death, were scarcely born; you, who lived in an obscure
+valley of the Pyrenees, two hundred and twenty leagues from the capital?</p>
+
+<p>These questions do not embarrass me at all. In short, I do not ask that
+the relation of what seems to me to be the expression of the truth,
+should be adopted upon my word. I enumerate my proofs, I express my
+doubts. Within these limits there is no one but has claims to bring
+forward; the discussion is open to all the world, the public will
+pronounce its definitive judgment.</p>
+
+<p>As a general thesis, I will add that by concentrating our researches on
+one circumscribed and special object, we have a better chance of seeing
+it correctly and knowing it well, all other things being equal, than by
+scattering our attention in all directions.</p>
+
+<p>As to the merit of contemporaneous narratives, it seems to me very
+dubious. Political passions do not allow us to see objects in their real
+dimensions, nor in their true forms, nor in their natural colours.
+Moreover, have not unpublished and very valuable documents come to shed
+bright colours, just where the spirit of party had spread a thick veil?</p>
+
+<p>The account that Riouffe gave of the death of Bailly has almost blindly
+led all the historians of our revolution. What does it consist of "at
+bottom." The prisoner of la Conciergerie said it himself; of tales
+related by executioners' valets, repeated by turnkeys.</p>
+
+<p>I would willingly allow this account to be set against me,
+notwithstanding the horrid sewer from which Riouffe had been obliged to
+draw, if it were not evident that this clever writer saw all the
+revolutionary events through the just anger that an ardent and active
+young man must feel after an iniquitous imprisonment; if this current of
+sentiments and ideas had not led him into some manifest errors.</p>
+
+<p>Who has not, for example, read with tears in their eyes, in the
+<i>M&eacute;moires sur les Prisons</i>, what the author relates of the fourteen
+girls of Verdun? "Of those girls," he said, "of unparalleled fairness,
+and who appeared like young virgins dressed for a public f&ecirc;te. They
+disappeared," added Riouffe, "all at once, and were mowed down in the
+spring of life. The court occupied by the women the day after their
+death, had the appearance of a garden that had been despoiled of its
+flowers by a storm. I have never seen amongst us a despair equal to that
+excited by this barbarity."</p>
+
+<p>Far be from me the intention to weaken the painful feelings which the
+catastrophe related by Riouffe must naturally inspire; but every one has
+remarked that the report of this writer is very circumstantial; the
+author appears to have seen all with his own eyes. Yet he has been
+guilty of the gravest inaccuracy.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the fourteen unfortunate women who were sentenced after Verdun
+was retaken from the Prussians, two girls of seventeen years of age were
+not condemned to death on account of their youth.</p>
+
+<p>This first circumstance was well worth recording. Let us go farther. A
+historian having lately consulted the official journals of that epoch,
+and the bulletin of the Revolutionary Tribunal, discovered with some
+surprise that among the twelve <i>young girls</i> who were condemned, there
+were seven either married or widows, whose ages varied from forty-one to
+sixty-nine!</p>
+
+<p>Contemporary accounts then, even those of Riouffe, may be submitted
+without irreverence to earnest discussion. When a tenth part of the
+funds annually devoted to researches in and examination of old
+chronicles, is applied to making extracts from the registers relative to
+the French Revolution, we shall certainly see many other hideous
+circumstances that revolt the soul, disappear from our contemporary
+history. Look at the massacres of September! The historians most in
+vogue report the number of victims that fell in that butchery to have
+been from six to twelve thousand; whilst a writer who has lately taken
+the trouble to analyze the prison registers in the gaoler's books,
+cannot make the whole amount to one thousand. Even this number is very
+large; but, for my part, I thank the author of this recent publication
+for having reduced the number of assassinations in September to less
+than a tenth part of what had been generally admitted.</p>
+
+<p>When the discussion which I have here undertaken becomes known to the
+public, it will be seen how many and how important are the retrenchments
+to be made from that lugubrious page of our history. Another important
+circumstance may be appreciated, which appears to me to arise from all
+these facts. After having weighed my proofs, every one I hope will join
+me in seeing that the wretches around the scaffold of Bailly were but
+the refuse of the population, fulfilling for pay the part that had been
+assigned them by three or four wealthy cannibals.</p>
+
+<p>The sentence pronounced against Bailly by the Revolutionary Tribunal was
+to be executed on the 12th of November, 1793. The reminiscences recently
+published by a fellow-prisoner of our colleague, the reminiscences of M.
+Beugnot, will enable us to penetrate into the Conciergerie, on the
+morning of that inauspicious day.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly had risen early, after having slept as usual, the sleep of the
+just. He took some chocolate, and conversed a long time with his
+nephew. The young man was a prey to despair, but the illustrious
+prisoner preserved all his serenity. The previous evening in returning
+from the Tribunal, he remarked, with admirable coolness, though
+springing from a certain disquietude, "that the spectators of his trial
+had been strongly excited against him. I fear," he added, "that the mere
+execution of the sentence will no longer satisfy them, which might be
+dangerous in its consequences. Perhaps the police will provide against
+it." These reflections having recurred to Bailly's mind on the 12th, he
+asked for, and drank hastily, two cups of coffee without milk. These
+precautions were a sinister omen. To his friends who surrounded him at
+this awful moment, and were sobbing aloud, he said, "Be calm; I have
+rather a difficult journey to perform, and I distrust my constitution.
+Coffee excites and reanimates; I hope, however, to reach the end
+properly."</p>
+
+<p>Noon had just struck. Bailly addressed a last and tender adieu to his
+companions in captivity, wished them a better fate, followed the
+executioner without weakness as well as without bravado, mounted the
+fatal cart, his hands tied behind his back. Our colleague was accustomed
+to say: "We must entertain a bad opinion of those who, in their dying
+moments, have not a look to cast behind them." Bailly's last look was
+towards his wife. A gendarme of the escort feelingly listened to his
+last words, and faithfully repeated them to his widow. The procession
+reached the entrance to the Champ de Mars, on the side towards the
+river, at a quarter past one o'clock. This was the place where,
+according to the words of the sentence, the scaffold had been raised.
+The blinded crowd collected there, furiously exclaimed that the sacred
+ground of the Champ de la F&eacute;d&eacute;ration should not be soiled by the
+presence and by the blood of him whom they called a great criminal. Upon
+their demand (I had almost said their orders), the scaffold was taken
+down again, and carried piecemeal into one of the fosses, where it was
+put up afresh. Bailly remained the stern witness of these frightful
+preparations, and of these infernal clamours. Not one complaint escaped
+from his lips. Rain had been falling all the morning; it was cold; it
+drenched the body, and especially the bare head, of the venerable man. A
+wretch saw that he was shivering, and cried out to him, <i>"Thou
+tremblest, Bailly."</i>&mdash;"<i>I am cold, my friend</i>," mildly answered the
+victim. These were his last words.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly descended into the moat, where the executioner burnt before him
+the red flag of the 17th July; he then with a firm step mounted the
+scaffold. Let us have the courage to say it, when the head of our
+venerable colleague fell, the paid witnesses whom this horrid execution
+had assembled on the Champ de Mars burst into infamous acclamations.</p>
+
+<p>I had announced a faithful recital of the martyrdom of Bailly; I have
+kept my word. I said that I should banish many circumstances without
+reality, and that the drama would thus become less atrocious. If I am to
+trust your aspect, I have not accomplished the second part of my
+promise. The imagination perhaps cannot reach beyond the cruel facts on
+which I have been obliged to dilate. You ask what I can have retrenched
+from former relations, whilst what remains is so deplorable.</p>
+
+<p>The order for execution addressed by Fouquier Tinville to the
+executioner has been seen by several persons now living. They all
+declare that if it differs from the numerous orders of a similar nature
+that the wretch sent off daily, it was only by the substitution of the
+following words: "Esplanade du Champ de Mars," for the usual designation
+of "Place de la Revolution." Now, the Revolutionary Tribunal has
+deserved many anathemas, but I never remarked its being reproached with
+not having known how to enforce obedience.</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself relieved from an immense weight, Gentlemen, when I could
+dispel from my thoughts the image of a melancholy march on foot of two
+hours, because with it there disappeared two hours of corporeal
+ill-usage, which, according to those same accounts, our virtuous
+colleague must have endured from the Conciergerie to the Champ de Mars.</p>
+
+<p>An illustrious writer asserts that they conducted Bailly to the Place de
+la Revolution, that the scaffold there was taken to pieces on the
+multitude demanding it, and that the victim was then led to the Champ de
+Mars. This relation is not correct. The sentence expressed in positive
+terms, that, as an exception, the Square of the Revolution was not to be
+the scene of Bailly's execution. The procession went direct to the place
+designated.</p>
+
+<p>The historian already quoted affirms that the scaffold on being put up
+again on the bank of the Seine was erected on a heap of rubbish; that
+this operation lasted some hours, and that Bailly meanwhile was drawn
+round the Champ de Mars several times.</p>
+
+<p>These promenades are imaginary. Those men who on the arrival of the
+lugubrious procession vociferated that the presence of the old Mayor of
+Paris would soil the Champ de la F&eacute;d&eacute;ration, could not the next minute
+force him to make the circuit of it. In fact, the illustrious victim
+remained in the road. The cruel idea, so knowingly attributed to the
+actors of those hideous scenes, to raise the fatal instrument on a heap
+of rubbish on the river bank, so that Bailly might in his last moments
+see the house at Chaillot where he had composed his works, was so far
+from occurring to the mind of the multitude, that the sentence was
+executed in the moat between two walls.</p>
+
+<p>I have not thought it my duty, Gentlemen, to represent the condemned man
+forced to carry some parts of the scaffold himself, because he had his
+hands tied behind his back. In my recital nobody waves the burning red
+flag over Bailly's head, because this barbarity is not mentioned in the
+narratives, otherwise so shocking, drawn up by some friends of our
+colleague shortly after the event; nor have I consented, with the author
+of <i>The History of the French Revolution</i>, to represent one of the
+soldiers forming the escort asking the question that led the victim to
+make, we must say so, the theatrical answer: "Yes, I tremble, but it is
+with cold;" but the more touching answer, so characteristic of Bailly;
+"Yes, my friend, I am cold."</p>
+
+<p>Far be it from me, Gentlemen, to suppose that no soldier in the world
+would be capable of a despicable and culpable act. I do not ask,
+assuredly, the suppression of all courts-martial; but to be induced to
+attribute to a man dressed in a military uniform, a personal part in
+this frightful drama, proofs or contemporary testimonies would be
+required, of which I have found no trace.</p>
+
+<p>If the fact had occurred, its results would certainly have become known
+to the public. I take to witness an event which is found related in
+Bailly's Memoirs.</p>
+
+<p>On the 22d of July, 1789, on the square of the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, a dragoon
+with his sabre mutilated the corpse of Berthier. His comrades, feeling
+outraged by this barbarity, all showed themselves instantly resolved to
+fight him in succession, and so wash out in his blood the disgrace he
+had thrown on the whole corps. The dragoon fought that same evening and
+was killed.</p>
+
+<p>In his <i>History of Prisons</i>, Riouffe says that "Bailly exhausted the
+ferocity of the populace, of whom he had been the idol, and was basely
+abandoned by the people, though they had never ceased to esteem him."</p>
+
+<p>Nearly the same idea is found expressed in <i>The History of the
+Revolution</i>, and in several other works.</p>
+
+<p>What is called the populace rarely read and did not write. To attack it
+and calumniate it therefore was a convenient thing, since no refutation
+need to be feared. I am far from supposing that the historians whose
+works I have quoted, ever gave way to such considerations; but I affirm,
+with entire certainty, that they have deceived themselves. In the
+sanguinary drama that has been unrolled before your eyes, the atrocities
+had a quite different source from the sentiments common to the
+barbarians that were swarming in the dregs of society and always ready
+to soil it with every crime; in plainer words, it is not to the
+unfortunate people who have neither property, nor capital, living by the
+work of their hands, to the <i>prol&eacute;taires</i>, that we are to impute the
+deplorable incidents which marked Bailly's last moments. To put forward
+an opinion so remote from received opinions, is imposing on one's self
+the duty of proving its truth.</p>
+
+<p>After his condemnation, our colleague exclaimed, says La Fayette: "I die
+for the sitting of the Jeu de Paume, and not for the fatal day at the
+Champ de Mars." I do not here intend to expound these mysterious words
+in the glimpses they give us by a half-light; but, whatever meaning we
+may attribute to them, it is evident that the sentiments and passions of
+the lower class have no share in them; it is a point beyond discussion.</p>
+
+<p>On re&euml;ntering the Conciergerie, the evening before his death, Bailly
+spoke of the efforts that must have been made to excite the passions of
+the auditors, who followed the various phases of his trial. Factitious
+excitement is always the produce of corruption. The working classes are
+without money;, they then cannot have been the corruptors or direct
+promoters of the distressing scenes of which Bailly complained.</p>
+
+<p>The implacable enemies of the former President of the National Assembly
+had procured for pay some auxiliaries among the turnkeys of the
+Conciergerie. M. Beugnot informs us that when the venerable magistrate
+was consigned to the gendarmes who were to conduct him to the Tribunal,
+"these wretches pushed him violently, sending him from one to the other
+like a drunken man, calling out: <i>Hold there, Bailly! Catch, Bailly,
+there!</i> and that they laughed and shouted at the grave demeanour the
+philosopher maintained amidst the insults of those cannibals."</p>
+
+<p>To confirm my statement that these violences (in comparison with which,
+in truth, those of the Champ de Mars lose their virulence,) were
+fomented by pay, I have more than the formal declaration of our
+colleague's fellow prisoner. For in fact I find that no other prisoner
+or convict underwent such treatment; not even the man called the
+Admiral, when he was taken to the Conciergerie for having attempted to
+assassinate Collot-d'Herbois.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, it is not only on indirect considerations that my decided
+opinion is founded relative to the intervention of rich and influential
+people in those scenes of indescribable barbarity on the Champ de Mars.
+M&eacute;rard St. Just, the intimate friend of Bailly, has alluded by his
+initials to a wretch who, the very day of our colleague's death,
+publicly boasted of having electrified the few acolytes who, together
+with him, insisted on the removal of the scaffold; the day after the
+execution, the meeting of the Jacobins re&euml;choed with the name of another
+individual of the Gros Caillou, who also claimed his share of influence
+in the crime.</p>
+
+<p>I have progressively unrolled before you the series of events in our
+revolution, in which Bailly took an active part; I have scrupulously
+searched out the smallest circumstances of the deplorable affair on the
+Champ de Mars; I have followed our colleague in his proscription to the
+Revolutionary Tribunal, and to the foot of the scaffold. We had seen him
+before, surrounded by esteem, by respect, and by glory, in the bosom of
+our principal academies. Yet the work is not complete; several essential
+traits are still wanting.</p>
+
+<p>I will therefore claim a few more minutes of your kind attention. The
+moral life of Bailly is like those masterpieces of ancient sculpture,
+that deserve to be studied in every point of view, and in which new
+beauties are continually discovered, in proportion as the contemplation
+is prolonged.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="PORTRAIT_OF_BAILLY_HIS_WIFE" id="PORTRAIT_OF_BAILLY_HIS_WIFE"></a>PORTRAIT OF BAILLY.&mdash;HIS WIFE.</h3>
+
+<p>Nature did not endow Bailly generously with those exterior advantages
+that please us at first sight. He was tall and thin. His visage
+compressed, his eyes small and sunk, his nose regular, but of unusual
+length, and a very brown complexion, constituted an imposing whole,
+severe and almost glacial. Fortunately, it was easy to perceive through
+this rough bark, the inexhaustible benevolence of the good man; the
+kindness that always accompanies a serene mind, and even some rudiments
+of gayety.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly early endeavoured to model his conduct on that of the Abb&eacute; de
+Lacaille, who directed his first steps in the career of astronomy. And
+therefore it will be found that in transcribing five or six lines of the
+very feeling eulogy that the pupil dedicated to the memory of his
+revered master, I shall have made known at the same time many of the
+characteristic traits of the panegyrist:</p>
+
+<p>"He was cold and reserved towards those of whom he knew little; but
+gentle, simple, equable, and familiar in the intercourse of friendship.
+It is there that, throwing off the grave exterior which he wore in
+public, he gave himself up to a peaceful and amiable gayety."</p>
+
+<p>The resemblance between Bailly and Lacaille goes no farther. Bailly
+informs us that the great astronomer proclaimed truth on all occasions,
+without disquieting himself as to whom it might wound. He would not
+consent to put vice at its ease, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"If good men thus showed their indignation, bad men being known, and
+vice unmasked, could no longer do harm, and virtue would be more
+respected." This Spartan morality could not accord with Bailly's
+character; he admired but did not adopt it.</p>
+
+<p>Tacitus took as a motto: "To say nothing false, to omit nothing true."
+Our colleague contented himself in society with the first half of the
+precept. Never did mockery, bitterness, or severity issue from his lips.
+His manners were a medium between those of Lacaille and the manners of
+another academician who had succeeded in not making a single enemy, by
+adopting the two axioms: "Every thing is possible, and everybody is in
+the right."</p>
+
+<p>Cr&eacute;billon obtained permission from the French Academy to make his
+reception discourse in verse. At the moment when that poet, then almost
+sixty years of age, said, speaking of himself,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"No gall has ever poisoned my pen,"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>the hall re&euml;choed with approbation.</p>
+
+<p>I was going to apply this line by the author of <i>Rhadamistus</i> to our
+colleague, when accident offered to my sight a passage in which Lalande
+reproaches Bailly for having swerved from his usual character, in 1773,
+in a discussion that they had together on a point in the theory of
+Jupiter's Satellites. I set about the search for this discussion; I
+found the article by Bailly in a journal of that epoch, and I affirm
+that this dispute does not contain a word but what is in harmony with
+all our colleague's published writings. I return therefore to my former
+idea, and say of Bailly, with perfect confidence,</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"No gall had ever poisoned his pen."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Diffidence is usually the trait that the biographers of studious men
+endeavour most to put in high relief. I dare assert, that in the common
+acceptation, this is pure flattery. To merit the epithet of diffident,
+must we think ourselves beneath the competitors of whom we are at least
+the equals? Must we, in examining ourselves, fail in the tact, in the
+intelligence, in the judgment, that nature has awarded us, and of which
+we make so good a use in appreciating the works of others? Oh! then, few
+learned men can be said to be diffident. Look at Newton: his diffidence
+is almost as celebrated as his genius. Well, I will extract from two of
+his letters, scarcely known, two paragraphs which, put side by side,
+will excite some surprise; the first confirms the general opinion; the
+second seems with equal force to contradict it. Here are the two
+passages:</p>
+
+<p>"We are diffident in the presence of Nature."</p>
+
+<p>"We may nobly feel our own strength in the face of man's works."</p>
+
+<p>In my opinion, the opposition in these two passages is only apparent; it
+will he explained by means of a distinction which I have already
+slightly indicated.</p>
+
+<p>Bailly's diffidence required the same distinction. When people praised
+him to his face on the diversity of his knowledge, our colleague did not
+immediately repel the compliment; but soon after, he would stop his
+panegyrist, and whisper in his ear with an air of mystery: "I will
+confide a secret to you, pray do not take advantage of it: I am only a
+very little less ignorant than another man."</p>
+
+<p>Never did a man act more in harmony with his principles. Bailly was led
+to reprimand severely a man belonging to the humblest and poorest class
+of society. Anger does not make him forget that he speaks to a citizen,
+to a man. "I ask pardon," says the first magistrate of the capital,
+addressing himself to a rag-gatherer; "I ask your pardon, if I am angry;
+but your conduct is so reprehensible, that I cannot speak to you
+otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>Bailly's friends were wont to say that he devoted too much of his
+patrimony to pleasure. This word was calumniously interpreted. M&eacute;rard
+Saint Just has given the true sense of it: "Bailly's pleasure was
+beneficence."</p>
+
+<p>So eminent a mind could not fail to be tolerant. Such in fact Bailly
+constantly showed himself in politics, and what is almost equally rare,
+in regard to religion. In the month of June, 1791, he checked in severe
+terms the fury with which the multitude appeared to be excited, at the
+report that at the Th&eacute;atines some persons had taken the Communion two
+or three times in one day. "The accusation is undoubtedly false," said
+the Mayor of Paris; "but if it were true, the public would not have a
+right to inquire into it. Every one should have the free choice of his
+religion and his creed." Nothing would have been wanting in the picture,
+if Bailly had taken the trouble to remark how strange it was, that these
+violent scruples against repeated Communions emanated from persons who
+probably never took the Sacrament at all.</p>
+
+<p>The reports on animal magnetism, on the hospitals, on the
+slaughter-houses, had carried Bailly's name into regions, whence the
+courtiers knew very cleverly how to discard true merit. <i>Madame</i> then
+wished to attach the illustrious academician to her person as a cabinet
+secretary. Bailly accepted. It was an entirely honorary title. The
+secretary saw the princess only once, that was on the day of his
+presentation.</p>
+
+<p>Were more important functions reserved for him? We must suppose so; for
+some influential persons offered to procure Bailly a title of nobility
+and a decoration. This time the philosopher flatly refused, saying, in
+answer to the earnest negotiators: "I thank you, but he who has the
+honour of belonging to the three principal academies of France is
+sufficiently decorated, sufficiently noble in the eyes of rational men;
+a cordon, or a title, could add nothing to him."</p>
+
+<p>The first secretary of the Academy of Sciences had, some years before,
+acted as Bailly did. Only he gave his refusal in such strong terms, that
+I could not easily believe them to have been written by the timid pen of
+Fontenelle, if I did not find them in a perfectly authentic document, in
+which he says: "Of all the titles in this world, I have never had any
+but of one sort, the titles of Academician, and they have not been
+profaned by an admixture of any others, more worldly and more
+ostentatious."</p>
+
+<p>Bailly married, in November, 1787, an intimate friend of his mother's,
+already a widow, only two years younger than himself. Madame Bailly, a
+distant relation of the author of the <i>Marseillaise</i>, had an attachment
+for her husband that bordered on adoration. She lavished on him the most
+tender and affectionate attention. The success that Madame Bailly might
+have had in the fashionable world by her beauty, her grace, by her
+ineffable goodness, did not tempt her. She lived in almost absolute
+retirement, even when the learned academician was most in society. The
+Mayor's wife appeared only at one public ceremony: the day of the
+benediction of the colours of the sixty battalions of the National Guard
+by the Archbishop of Paris, she accompanied Madame de Lafayette to the
+Cathedral. She said: "My husband's duty is to show himself in public
+wherever there is any good to be done, or sound advice to be given; mine
+is to remain at home." This rare retiring and respectable conduct did
+not disarm some hideous pamphleteers. Their impudent sarcasms were
+continually attacking the modest wife on her domestic hearth, and
+troubling her peace of mind. In their logic of the tavern they fancied
+that an elegant and handsome woman, who avoided society, could not fail
+to be ignorant and stupid. Thence arose a thousand imaginary stories,
+ridiculous both as to their matter and form, thrown out daily to the
+public, more, indeed, to offend and disgust the upright magistrate than
+to humble his companion.</p>
+
+<p>The axe that ended our colleague's life, with the same stroke, and
+almost as completely, crushed in Madame Bailly, after so many poignant
+agitations and unexampled misfortunes, all that was left of strength of
+mind and power of intellect. A strange incident also aggravated the
+sadness of Madame Bailly's situation. On a day of trouble, during her
+husband's lifetime, she had placed the assignats resulting from the sale
+of their house at Chaillot, amounting to about thirty thousand francs,
+in the wadding of a dress. The enfeebled memory of the unfortunate widow
+did not recall to her the existence of this treasure, even in the time
+of her greatest distress. When the age of the material which had
+secreted them began to reveal them to daylight, they were no longer of
+any value.</p>
+
+<p>The widow of the author of one of the best works of the age, of the
+learned member of our three great academies, of the first President of
+the National Assembly, of the first Mayor of Paris, found herself thus
+reduced, by an unheard-of turn of fortune, to implore help from public
+pity. It was the geometer Cousin, member of this academy, who by his
+incessant solicitations got Madame Bailly's name inserted at the Board
+of Charity in his arrondissement. The support was distributed in kind.
+Cousin used to receive the articles at the H&ocirc;tel de Ville, where he was
+a Municipal Councillor, and carried them himself to the street de la
+Sourdi&egrave;re. It was, in short, in the street de la Sourdi&egrave;re that Madame
+Bailly had obtained two rooms gratis, in the house of a compassionate
+person, whose name I very much regret not having learnt. Does it not
+appear to you, Gentlemen, that the academician Cousin, who crossed the
+whole of Paris, with the bread under his arm and the meat and the
+candle, intended for the unfortunate widow of an illustrious colleague,
+did himself more honour than if he had come to one of the sittings
+bringing in his portfolio the results of some fine scientific research?
+Such noble actions are certainly worth good "Papers."</p>
+
+<p>Affairs proceeded thus up to the revolution of the 18th Brumaire. On the
+21st, the public criers were announcing everywhere, even in the street
+de la Sourdi&egrave;re, that General Bonaparte was Consul, and M. de Laplace
+Minister of the Interior. This name, so well known by the respectable
+widow, reached even the room that she inhabited, and caused her some
+emotion. That same evening, the new minister (this was a noble
+beginning, Gentlemen) asked for a pension of 2000 francs for Madame
+Bailly. The Consul granted the demand, adding to it this express
+condition, that the first half year should be paid in advance, and
+immediately. Early on the 22d, a carriage stopped in the street de la
+Sourdi&egrave;re; Madame de Laplace descends from it, carrying in her hand a
+purse filled with gold. She rushed to the staircase, runs to the humble
+abode, that had now for several years witnessed irremediable sorrow and
+severe misery; Madame Bailly was at the window: "My dear friend, what
+are you doing there so early?" exclaimed the wife of the minister.
+"Madam," replied the widow, "I heard the public crier yesterday, and I
+was expecting you!"</p>
+
+<p>If after having, from a sense of duty, expatiated upon anarchical,
+odious, and sanguinary scenes, the historian of our civil discords has
+the good fortune to meet on his progress with an incident that gratifies
+the mind, raises the soul, and fills the heart with pleasing emotions,
+he stops there, Gentlemen, as the African traveller halts in an oasis!</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="HERSCHEL" id="HERSCHEL"></a>HERSCHEL.</h2>
+
+<p>William Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers that ever lived in any
+age or country, was born at Hanover, on the 15th of November, 1738. The
+name of Herschel has become too illustrious for people to neglect
+searching back, up the stream of time, to learn the social position of
+the families that have borne it. Yet the just curiosity of the learned
+world on this subject has not been entirely satisfied. We only know that
+Abraham Herschel, great-grandfather of the astronomer, resided at
+M&auml;hren, whence he was expelled on account of his strong attachment to
+the Protestant faith; that Abraham's son Isaac was a farmer in the
+vicinity of Leipzig; that Isaac's eldest son, Jacob Herschel, resisted
+his father's earnest desire to see him devote himself to agriculture,
+that he determined on being a musician, and settled at Hanover.</p>
+
+<p>Jacob Herschel, father of William, the astronomer, was an eminent
+musician; nor was he less remarkable for the good qualities of his heart
+and of his mind. His very limited means did not enable him to bestow a
+complete education on his family, consisting of six boys and four girls.
+But at least, by his care, his ten children all became excellent
+musicians. The eldest, Jacob, even acquired a rare degree of ability,
+which procured for him the appointment of Master of the Band in a
+Hanoverian regiment, which he accompanied to England. The third son,
+William, remained under his father's roof. Without neglecting the fine
+arts, he took lessons in the French language, and devoted himself to the
+study of metaphysics, for which he retained a taste to his latest day.</p>
+
+<p>In 1759, William Herschel, then about twenty-one years old, went over to
+England, not with his father, as has been erroneously published, but
+with his brother Jacob, whose connections in that country seemed likely
+to favour the young man's opening prospects in life. Still, neither
+London nor the country towns afforded him any resource in the beginning,
+and the first two or three years after his expatriation were marked by
+some cruel privations, which, however, were nobly endured. A fortunate
+chance finally raised the poor Hanoverian to a better position; Lord
+Durham engaged him as Master of the Band in an English regiment which
+was quartered on the borders of Scotland. From this moment the musician
+Herschel acquired a reputation that spread gradually, and in the year
+1765 he was appointed organist at Halifax (Yorkshire). The emoluments of
+this situation, together with giving private lessons both in the town
+and the country around, procured a degree of comfort for the young
+William. He availed himself of it to remedy, or rather to complete, his
+early education. It was then that he learnt Latin and Italian, though
+without any other help than a grammar and a dictionary. It was then also
+that he taught himself something of Greek. So great was the desire for
+knowledge with which he was inspired while residing at Halifax, that
+Herschel found means to continue his hard philological exercises, and at
+the same time to study deeply the learned but very obscure mathematical
+work on the theory of music by R. Smith. This treatise, either
+explicitly or implicitly, supposed the reader to possess some knowledge
+of algebra and of geometry, which Herschel did not possess, but of which
+he made himself master in a very short time.</p>
+
+<p>In 1766, Herschel obtained the appointment of organist to the Octagon
+Chapel at Bath. This was a more lucrative post than that of Halifax, but
+new obligations also devolved on the able pianist. He had to play
+incessantly either at the Oratorios, or in the rooms at the baths, at
+the theatre, and in the public concerts. Then, being immersed in the
+most fashionable circle in England, Herschel could no longer refuse the
+numerous pupils who wished to be instructed in his school. It is
+difficult to imagine how, among so many duties, so many distractions of
+various kinds, Herschel could continue so many studies, which already at
+Halifax had required in him so much resolution, so much perseverance,
+and a very uncommon degree of talent. We have already seen that it was
+by music that Herschel was led to mathematics; mathematics in their turn
+led him to optics, the principal and fertile source of his illustrious
+career. The hour finally struck, when his theoretic knowledge was to
+guide the young musician into a laborious application of principles
+quite foreign to his habits; and the brilliant success of which, as well
+as their excessive hardihood, will excite reasonable astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>A telescope, a simple telescope, only two English feet in length, falls
+into the hands of Herschel during his residence at Bath. This
+instrument, however imperfect, shows him a multitude of stars in the sky
+that the naked eye cannot discern; shows him also some of the known
+objects, but now under their true dimensions; reveals forms to him that
+the richest imaginations of antiquity had never suspected. Herschel is
+transported with enthusiasm. He will, without delay, have a similar
+instrument but of larger dimensions. The answer from London is delayed
+for some days: these few days appear as many centuries to him. When the
+answer arrives, the price that the optician demands proves to be much
+beyond the pecuniary resources of a mere organist. To any other man this
+would have been a clap of thunder. This unexpected difficulty on the
+contrary, inspired Herschel with fresh energy; he cannot buy a
+telescope, then he will construct one with his own hands. The musician
+of the Octagon Chapel rushes immediately into a multitude of
+experiments, on metallic alloys that reflect light with the greatest
+intensity, on the means of giving the parabolic figure to the mirrors,
+on the causes that in the operation of polishing affect the regularity
+of the figure, &amp;c. So rare a degree of perseverance at last receives its
+reward. In 1774 Herschel has the happiness of being able to examine the
+heavens with a Newtonian telescope of five English feet focus, entirely
+made by himself. This success tempts him to undertake still more
+difficult enterprises. Other telescopes of seven, of eight, of ten, and
+even of twenty feet focal distance, crown his efforts. As if to answer
+in advance those critics who would have accused him of a superfluity of
+apparatus, of unnecessary luxury, in the large size of the new
+instruments, and his extreme minuti&aelig; in their execution, Nature granted
+to the astronomical musician, on the 13th of March 1781, the unheard-of
+honour of commencing his career of observation with the discovery of a
+new planet, situated on the confines of our solar system. Dating from
+that moment, Herschel's reputation, no longer in his character of
+musician, but as a constructor of telescopes and as an astronomer,
+spread throughout the world. The King, George III., a great lover of
+science, and much inclined besides to protect and patronize both men and
+things of Hanoverian origin, had Herschel presented to him; he was
+charmed with the simple yet lucid and modest account that he gave of his
+repeated endeavours; he caught a glimpse of the glory that so
+penetrating an observer might reflect on his reign, ensured to him a
+pension of 300 guineas a year, and moreover a residence near Windsor
+Castle, first at Clay Hall and then at Slough. The visions of George
+III. were completely realized. We may confidently assert, relative to
+the little house and garden of Slough, that it is the spot of all the
+world where the greatest number of discoveries have been made. The name
+of that village will never perish; science will transmit it religiously
+to our latest posterity.</p>
+
+<p>I will avail myself of this opportunity to rectify a mistake, of which
+ignorance and idleness wish to make a triumphant handle, or, at all
+events, to wield in their cause as an irresistible justification. It has
+been repeated to satiety, that at the time when Herschel entered on his
+astronomical career he knew nothing of mathematics. But I have already
+said, that during his residence at Bath, the organist of the Octagon
+Chapel had familiarized himself with the principles of geometry and
+algebra; and a still more positive proof of this is, that a difficult
+question on the vibration of strings loaded with small weights had been
+proposed for discussion in 1779: Herschel undertook to solve it, and his
+dissertation was inserted in several scientific collections of the year
+1780.</p>
+
+<p>The anecdotic life of Herschel, however, is now closed. The great
+astronomer will not quit his observatory any more, except to go and
+submit the sublime results of his laborious vigils to the Royal Society
+of London. These results are contained in his memoirs; they constitute
+one of the principal riches of the celebrated collection known under the
+title of <i>Philosophical Transactions</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel belonged to the principal Academies of Europe, and about 1816
+he was named Knight of the Guelphic order of Hanover. According to the
+English habit, from the time of that nomination the title of Sir William
+took the place, in all this illustrious astronomer's memoirs, already
+honoured with so much celebrity, of the former appellation of Doctor
+William. Herschel had been named a Doctor (of laws) in the University of
+Oxford in 1786. This dignity, by special favour, was conferred on him
+without any of the obligatory formalities of examination, disputation,
+or pecuniary contribution, usual in that learned corporation.</p>
+
+<p>I should wound the elevated sentiments that Herschel professed all his
+life, if I were not here to mention two indefatigable assistants that
+this fortunate astronomer found in his own family. The one was Alexander
+Herschel, endowed with a remarkable talent for mechanism, always at his
+brother's orders, and who enabled him to realize without delay any ideas
+that he had conceived;<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> the other was Miss Caroline Herschel, who
+deserves a still more particular and detailed mention.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Caroline Lucretia Herschel went to England as soon as her brother
+became special astronomer to the king. She received the appellation
+there of Assistant Astronomer, with a moderate salary. From that moment
+she unreservedly devoted herself to the service of her brother, happy
+in contributing night and day to his rapidly increasing scientific
+reputation. Miss Caroline shared in all the night-watches of her
+brother, with her eye constantly on the clock, and the pencil in her
+hand; she made all the calculations without exception; she made three or
+four copies of all the observations in separate registers; co&ouml;rdinated,
+classed, and analyzed them. If the scientific world saw with
+astonishment how Herschel's works succeeded each other with unexampled
+rapidity during so many years, they were specially indebted for it to
+the ardour of Miss Caroline. Astronomy, moreover, has been directly
+enriched by several comets through this excellent and respectable lady.
+After the death of her illustrious brother, Miss Caroline retired to
+Hanover, to the house of Jahn Dietrich Herschel, a musician of high
+reputation, and the only surviving brother of the astronomer.</p>
+
+<p>William Herschel died without pain on the 23d of August 1822, aged
+eighty-three. Good fortune and glory never altered in him the fund of
+infantine candour, inexhaustible benevolence, and sweetness of
+character, with which nature had endowed him. He preserved to the last
+both his brightness of mind and vigour of intellect. For some years
+Herschel enjoyed with delight the distinguished success of his only
+son,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Sir John Herschel. At his last hour he sunk to rest with the
+pleasing conviction that his beloved son, heir of a great name, would
+not allow it to fall into oblivion, but adorn it with fresh lustre, and
+that great discoveries would honour his career also. No prediction of
+the illustrious astronomer has been more completely verified.</p>
+
+<p>The English journals gave an account of the means adopted by the family
+of William Herschel, for preserving the remains of the great telescope
+of thirty-nine English feet (twelve metres) constructed by that
+celebrated astronomer.</p>
+
+<p>The metal tube of the instrument carrying at one end the recently
+cleaned mirror of four feet ten inches in diameter, has been placed
+horizontally in the meridian line, on solid piers of masonry, in the
+midst of the circle, where formerly stood the mechanism requisite for
+man&oelig;uvring the telescope. The first of January 1840, Sir John
+Herschel, his wife, their children, seven in number, and some old family
+servants, assembled at Slough. Exactly at noon, the party walked several
+times in procession round the instrument; they then entered the tube of
+the telescope, seated themselves on benches that had been prepared for
+the purpose, and sung a requiem, with English words composed by Sir John
+Herschel himself. After their exit, the illustrious family ranged
+themselves around the great tube, the opening of which was then
+hermetically sealed. The day concluded with a party of intimate friends.</p>
+
+<p>I know not whether those persons who will only appreciate things from
+the peculiar point of view from which they have been accustomed to look,
+may think there was something strange in several of the details of the
+ceremony that I have just described. I affirm at least that the whole
+world will applaud the pious feeling which actuated Sir John Herschel;
+and that all the friends of science will thank him for having
+consecrated the humble garden where his father achieved such immortal
+labours, by a monument more expressive in its simplicity than pyramids
+or statues.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> When age and infirmities obliged Alexander Herschel to
+give up his profession as a musician, he quitted Bath, and returned to
+Hanover, very generously provided by Sir William with a comfortable
+independence for life.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Sir W. Herschel had married Mary, the widow of John Pitt,
+Esq., possessed of a considerable jointure, and the union proved a
+remarkable accession of domestic happiness. This lady survived Sir
+William by several years. They had but this son.&mdash;<i>Translator's Note.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="CHRONOLOGICAL_TABLE" id="CHRONOLOGICAL_TABLE"></a>CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
+OF THE MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM HERSCHEL.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></h3>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>1780. <i>Philosophical Transactions</i>, vol. lxx.&mdash;Astronomical
+Observations on the Periodical Star in the Neck of the
+Whale.&mdash;Astronomical Observations relative to the Lunar Mountains.</p>
+
+<p>1781. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxi.&mdash;Astronomical Observations on the
+Rotation of the Planets on their Axes, made with a View to decide
+whether the Daily Rotation of the Earth be always the same.&mdash;On the
+Comet of 1781, afterwards called the <i>Georgium Sidus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1782. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxii.&mdash;On the Parallax of the Fixed
+Stars.&mdash;Catalogue of Double Stars.&mdash;Description of a Lamp
+Micrometer, and the Method of using it.&mdash;Answers to the Doubts that
+might be raised to the high magnifying Powers used by Herschel.</p>
+
+<p>1783. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxiii.&mdash;Letter to Sir Joseph Banks on
+the Name to be given to the new Planet.&mdash;On the Diameter of the
+Georgium Sidus, followed by the Description of a Micrometer with
+luminous or dark Disks.&mdash;On the proper Motion of the Solar System,
+and the various Changes that have occurred among the Fixed Stars
+since the Time of Flamsteed.</p>
+
+<p>1784. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxiv.&mdash;On some remarkable Appearances
+in the Polar Regions of Mars, the Inclination of its Axis, the
+Position of its Poles, and its Sphero&iuml;dal Form.&mdash;Some Details on
+the real Diameter of Mars, and on its Atmosphere.&mdash;Analysis of some
+Observations on the Constitution of the Heavens.</p>
+
+<p>1785. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxv.&mdash;Catalogue of Double Stars.&mdash;On
+the Constitution of the Heavens.</p>
+
+<p>1786. <i>Phil Trans.</i>, vol., lxxvi.&mdash;Catalogue of a Thousand Nebul&aelig;
+and Clusters of Stars.&mdash;Researches on the Cause of a Defect of
+Definition in Vision, which has been attributed to the Smallness of
+the Optic Pencils.</p>
+
+<p>1787. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxvii.&mdash;Remarks on the new
+Comet.&mdash;Discovery of Two Satellites revolving round George's
+Planet.&mdash;On Three Volcanoes in the Moon.</p>
+
+<p>1788. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxviii.&mdash;On George's Planet (Uranus)
+and its Satellites.</p>
+
+<p>1789. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxix.&mdash;Observations on a Comet.
+Catalogue of a Second Thousand new Nebul&aelig; and Clusters of
+Stars.&mdash;Some Preliminary Remarks on the Constitution of the
+Heavens.</p>
+
+<p>1790. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxx.&mdash;Discovery of Saturn's Sixth and
+Seventh Satellites; with Remarks on the Constitution of the Ring,
+on the Planet's Rotation round an Axis, on its Sphero&iuml;dal Form, and
+on its Atmosphere.&mdash;On Saturn's Satellites, and the Rotation of the
+Ring round an Axis.</p>
+
+<p>1791. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxxi.&mdash;On the Nebulous Stars and the
+Suitableness of this Epithet.</p>
+
+<p>1792. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxxii.&mdash;On Saturn's Ring, and the
+Rotation of the Planet's Fifth Satellite round an Axis.&mdash;Mixed
+Observations.</p>
+
+<p>1793. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxxiii.&mdash;Observations on the Planet
+Venus.</p>
+
+<p>1794. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxxiv.&mdash;Observations on a Quintuple
+Band in Saturn.&mdash;On some Peculiarities observed during the last
+Solar Eclipse.&mdash;On Saturn's Rotation round an Axis.</p>
+
+<p>1795. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxxv.&mdash;On the Nature and Physical
+Constitution of the Sun and Stars.&mdash;Description of a Reflecting
+Telescope forty feet in length.</p>
+
+<p>1796. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxxvi.&mdash;Method of observing the Changes
+that happen to the Fixed Stars; Remarks on the Stability of our
+Sun's Light.&mdash;Catalogue of Comparative Brightness, to determine the
+Permanency of the Lustre of Stars.&mdash;On the Periodical Star &#945; Herculis, with Remarks tending to establish the Rotatory Motion
+of the Stars on their Axes; to which is added a second Catalogue of
+the Brightness of the Stars.</p>
+
+<p>1797. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxxvii.&mdash;A Third Catalogue of the
+comparative Brightness of the Stars; with an Introductory Account
+of an Index to Mr. Flamsteed's Observations of the Fixed Stars,
+contained in the Second Volume of the Historia C&oelig;lestis to which
+are added several useful Results derived from that
+Index.&mdash;Observations of the changeable Brightness of the Satellites
+of Jupiter, and of the Variation in their apparent Magnitudes; with
+a Determination of the Time of their rotary Motions on their Axes,
+to which is added a Measure of the Diameter of the Second
+Satellite, and an Estimate of the comparative Size of the Fourth.</p>
+
+<p>1798. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxxviii.&mdash;On the Discovery of Four
+additional Satellites of the Georgium Sidus. The retrograde Motion
+of its old Satellites announced; and the Cause of their
+Disappearance at certain Distances from the Planet explained.</p>
+
+<p>1799. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. lxxxix.&mdash;A Fourth Catalogue of the
+comparative Brightness of the Stars.</p>
+
+<p>1800. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xc.&mdash;On the Power of penetrating into
+Space by Telescopes, with a comparative Determination of the Extent
+of that Power in Natural Vision, and in Telescopes of various Sizes
+and Constructions; illustrated by select
+Observations.&mdash;Investigation of the Powers of the Prismatic Colours
+to heat and illuminate Objects; with Remarks that prove the
+different Refrangibility of radiant Heat; to which is added an
+Inquiry into the Method of viewing the Sun advantageously with
+Telescopes of large Apertures and high magnifying
+Powers.&mdash;Experiments on the Refrangibility of the Invisible Rays of
+the Sun.&mdash;Experiments on the Solar and on the Terrestrial Rays that
+occasion Heat; with a comparative View of the Laws to which Light
+and Heat, or rather the Rays which occasion them, are subject, in
+order to determine whether they are the same or different.</p>
+
+<p>1801. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xci.&mdash;Observations tending to
+investigate the Nature of the Sun, in order to find the Causes or
+Symptoms of its variable Emission of Light and Heat; with Remarks
+on the Use that may possibly be drawn from Solar
+Observations.&mdash;Additional Observations tending to investigate the
+Symptoms of the variable Emission of the Light and Heat of the Sun;
+with Trials to set aside darkening Glasses, by transmitting the
+Solar Rays through Liquids, and a few Remarks to remove Objections
+that might be made against some of the Arguments contained in the
+former paper.</p>
+
+<p>1802. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xcii.&mdash;Observations on the two lately
+discovered celestial Bodies (Ceres and Pallas).&mdash;Catalogue of 500
+new Nebul&aelig; and Clusters of Stars, with Remarks on the Construction
+of the Heavens.</p>
+
+<p>1803. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xciii.&mdash;Observations of the Transit of
+Mercury over the Disk of the Sun; to which is added an
+Investigation of the Causes which often prevent the proper Action
+of Mirrors.&mdash;Account of the Changes that have happened during the
+last Twenty-five Years in the relative Situation of Double Stars;
+with an Investigation of the Cause to which they are owing.</p>
+
+<p>1804. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xciv.&mdash;Continuation of an Account of the
+Changes that have happened in the relative Situation of Double
+Stars.</p>
+
+<p>1805. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xcv.&mdash;Experiments for ascertaining how
+far Telescopes will enable us to determine very small Angles, and
+to distinguish the real from the spurious Diameters of Celestial
+and Terrestrial Objects: with an Application of the Result of these
+Experiments to a Series of Observations on the Nature and Magnitude
+of Mr. Harding's lately discovered Star.&mdash;On the Direction and
+Velocity of the Motion of the Sun and Solar System.&mdash;Observation on
+the singular Figure of the Planet Saturn.</p>
+
+<p>1806. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xcvi.&mdash;On the Quantity and Velocity of
+the Solar Motion.&mdash;Observations on the Figure, the Climate, and the
+Atmosphere of Saturn and its Ring.</p>
+
+<p>1807. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xcvii.&mdash;Experiments for investigating
+the Cause of the Coloured Concentric Rings, discovered by Sir Isaac
+Newton between two Object-glasses laid one upon
+another.&mdash;Observations on the Nature of the new celestial Body
+discovered by Dr. Olbers, and of the Comet which was expected to
+appear last January in its Return from the Sun.</p>
+
+<p>1808. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xcviii.&mdash;Observations of a Comet, made
+with a view to investigate its Magnitude, and the Nature of its
+Illumination. To which is added, an Account of a new Irregularity
+lately perceived in the Apparent Figure of the Planet Saturn.</p>
+
+<p>1809. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. xcix.&mdash;Continuation of Experiments for
+investigating the Cause of Coloured Concentric Rings, and other
+Appearances of a similar Nature.</p>
+
+<p>1810. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. c.&mdash;Supplement to the First and Second
+Part of the Paper of Experiments for investigating the Cause of
+Coloured Concentric Rings between Object-glasses, and other
+Appearances of a similar Nature.</p>
+
+<p>1811. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. ci.&mdash;Astronomical Observations relating
+to the Construction of the Heavens, arranged for the Purpose of a
+critical Examination, the Result of which appears to throw some new
+Light upon the Organization of the Celestial Bodies.</p>
+
+<p>1812. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. cii.&mdash;Observations of a Comet, with
+Remarks on the Construction of its different Parts.&mdash;Observations
+of a Second Comet, with Remarks on its Construction.</p>
+
+<p>1814. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. civ.&mdash;Astronomical Observations relating
+to the Sidereal Part of the Heavens, and its Connection with the
+Nebulous Part; arranged for the Purpose of a critical Examination.</p>
+
+<p>1815. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. cv.&mdash;A Series of Observations of the
+Satellites of the Georgian Planet, including a Passage through the
+Node of their Orbits; with an Introductory Account of the
+Telescopic Apparatus that has been used on this Occasion, and a
+final Exposition of some calculated Particulars deduced from the
+Observations.</p>
+
+<p>1817. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. cvii.&mdash;Astronomical Observations and
+Experiments tending to investigate the Local Arrangement of the
+Celestial Bodies in Space, and to determine the Extent and
+Condition of the Milky Way.</p>
+
+<p>1818. <i>Phil. Trans.</i>, vol. cviii.&mdash;Astronomical Observations and
+Experiments selected for the Purpose of ascertaining the relative
+Distances of Clusters of Stars, and of investigating how far the
+Power of Telescopes may be expected to reach into Space, when
+directed to ambiguous Celestial Objects.</p>
+
+<p>1822. <i>Memoirs of the Astronomical Society of London.</i>&mdash;On the
+Positions of 145 new Double Stars.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The chronological and detailed analysis of so many labours would throw
+us into numerous repetitions. A systematic order will be preferable; it
+will more distinctly fix the eminent place that Herschel will never
+cease to occupy in the small group of our contemporary men of genius,
+whilst his name will re&euml;cho to the most distant posterity. The variety
+and splendour of Herschel's labours vie with their extent. The more we
+study them, the more we must admire them. It is with great men, as it is
+with great movements in the arts, we cannot understand them without
+studying them under various points of view.</p>
+
+<p>Let us here again make a general reflection. The memoirs of Herschel
+are, for the greater part, pure and simple extracts from his
+inexhaustible journals of observations at Slough, accompanied by a few
+remarks. Such a table would not suit historical details. In these
+respects the author has left almost every thing to his biographers to do
+for him. And they must impose on themselves the task of assigning to the
+great astronomer's predecessors the portion that legitimately belongs to
+them, out of the mass of discoveries, which the public (we must say) has
+got into an erroneous habit of referring too exclusively to Herschel.</p>
+
+<p>At one time I thought of adding a note to the analysis of each of the
+illustrious observer's memoirs, containing a detailed indication of the
+improvements or corrections that the progressive march of science has
+brought on. But in order to avoid an exorbitant length in this
+biography, I have been obliged to give up my project. In general I shall
+content myself with pointing out what belongs to Herschel, referring to
+my <i>Treatise on Popular Astronomy</i> for the historical details. The life
+of Herschel had the rare advantage of forming an epoch in an extensive
+branch of astronomy; it would require us almost to write a special
+treatise on astronomy, to show thoroughly the importance of all the
+researches that are due to him.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> These titles are copied direct from the Philosophical
+Transactions, instead of being retranslated.&mdash;<i>Translator's Note.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="IMPROVEMENTS_IN_THE_MEANS_OF_OBSERVATION" id="IMPROVEMENTS_IN_THE_MEANS_OF_OBSERVATION"></a>IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS OF OBSERVATION.</h3>
+
+<p>The improvements that Herschel made in the construction and management
+of telescopes have contributed so directly to the discoveries with which
+that observer enriched astronomy, that we cannot hesitate to bring them
+forward at once.</p>
+
+<p>I read the following passage in a Memoir by Lalande, printed in 1783,
+and forming part of the preface to vol. viii. of the <i>Ephemerides of the
+Celestial Motions</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Each time that Herschel undertakes to polish a mirror (of a telescope),
+he condemns himself to ten, or twelve, or even fourteen hours' constant
+work. He does not quit his workshop for a minute, not even to eat, but
+receives from the hands of his sister that nourishment without which one
+could not undergo such prolonged fatigue. Nothing in the world would
+induce Herschel to abandon his work; for, according to him, it would be
+to spoil it."</p>
+
+<p>The advantages that Herschel found in 1783, 1784, and 1785, in
+employing telescopes of twenty feet and with large apertures, made him
+wish to construct much larger still. The expense would be considerable;
+King George III. provided for it. The work, begun about the close of
+1785, was finished in August, 1789. This instrument had an iron
+cylindrical tube, thirty-nine feet four inches English in length, and
+four feet ten inches in diameter. Such dimensions are enormous compared
+with those of telescopes made till then. They will appear but small,
+however, to persons who have heard the report of a pretended ball given
+in the Slough telescope. The propagators of this popular rumour had
+confounded the astronomer Herschel with the brewer Meux, and a cylinder
+in which a man of the smallest stature could scarcely stand upright,
+with certain wooden vats, as large as a house, in which beer is made and
+kept in London.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel's telescope, forty English feet<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> in length, allowed of the
+realization of an idea, the advantages of which would not be
+sufficiently appreciated if I did not here recall to mind some facts.</p>
+
+<p>In any telescope, whether refracting or reflecting, there are two
+principal parts: the part that forms the a&euml;rial images of the distant
+objects, and the small lens by the aid of which these images are
+enlarged just as if they consisted of radiating matter. When the image
+is produced by means of a lenticular glass, the place it occupies will
+be found in the prolongation of the line that extends from the object to
+the centre of the lens. The astronomer, furnished with an eye-piece, and
+wishing to examine that image, must necessarily place himself <i>beyond</i>
+the point where the rays that form it have crossed each other; <i>beyond</i>,
+let us carefully remark, means <i>farther off</i> from the object-glass. The
+observer's head, his body, cannot then injure the formation or the
+brightness of the image, however small may be the distance from which we
+have to study it. But it is no longer thus with the image formed by
+means of reflection. For the image is now placed between the object and
+the reflecting mirror; and when the astronomer approaches in order to
+examine it, he inevitably intercepts, if not the totality, at least a
+very considerable portion of the luminous rays, which would otherwise
+have contributed to give it great splendour. It will now be understood,
+why in optical instruments where the images of distant objects are
+formed by the reflection of light, it has been necessary to carry the
+images, by the aid of a second reflection, out of the tube that contains
+and sustains the principal mirror. When the small mirror, on the surface
+of which the second reflection is effected, is plane, and inclined at an
+angle of 45&deg; to the axis of the telescope; when the image is reflected
+laterally, through an opening made near the edge of the tube and
+furnished with an eye-piece; when, in a word, the astronomer looks
+definitively in a direction perpendicular to the line described by the
+luminous rays coming from the object and falling on the centre of the
+great mirror, then the telescope is called <i>Newtonian</i>. But in the
+<i>Gregorian</i> telescope, the image formed by the principal mirror falls on
+a second mirror, which is very small, slightly curved, and parallel to
+the first. The small mirror reflects the first image and throws it
+beyond the large mirror, through an opening made in the middle of that
+principal mirror.</p>
+
+<p>Both in the one and in the other of these two telescopes, the small
+mirror interposed between the object and the great mirror forms relative
+to the latter a sort of screen which prevents its entire surface from
+contributing towards forming the image. The small mirror, also, in
+regard to intensity, gives some trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose, in order to clear up our ideas, that the material of
+which the two mirrors are made, reflects only half of the incident
+light. In the course of the first reflection, the immense quantity of
+rays that the aperture of the telescope had received, may be considered
+as reduced to half. Nor is the diminution less on the small mirror. Now,
+half of half is a quarter. Therefore the instrument will send to the eye
+of the observer only a quarter of the incident light that its aperture
+had received. These two causes of diminished light not existing in a
+refracting telescope, it would give, under parity of dimensions, four
+times more<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> light than a Newtonian or Gregorian telescope gives.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel did away with the small mirror in his large telescope. The
+large mirror is not mathematically centred in the large tube that
+contains it, but is placed rather obliquely in it. This slight obliquity
+causes the images to be formed not in the axis of the tube, but very
+near its circumference, or outer mouth, we may call it. The observer may
+therefore look at them there direct, merely by means of an eye-piece. A
+small portion of the astronomer's head, it is true, then encroaches on
+the tube; it forms a screen, and interrupts some incident rays. Still,
+in a large telescope, the loss does not amount to half by a great deal;
+which it would inevitably do if the small mirror were there.</p>
+
+<p>Those telescopes, in which the observer, placed at the anterior
+extremity of the tube, looks direct into the tube and turns his back to
+the objects, were called by Herschel <i>front view telescopes</i>. In vol.
+lxxvi. of the <i>Philosophical Transactions</i> he says, that the idea of
+this construction occurred to him in 1776, and that he then applied it
+unsuccessfully to a ten-foot telescope; that during the year 1784, he
+again made a fruitless trial of it in a twenty-foot telescope. Yet I
+find that on the 7th of September 1784, he recurred to a <i>front view</i> in
+observing some nebul&aelig; and groups of stars. However discordant these
+dates may be, we cannot without injustice neglect to remark, that a
+front view telescope was already described in 1732, in volume vi. of the
+collection entitled <i>Machines and Inventions approved by the Academy of
+Sciences</i>. The author of this innovation is Jaques Lemaire, who has been
+unduly confounded with the English Jesuit, Christopher Maire, assistant
+to Boscovitch, in measuring the meridian comprised between Rome and
+Rimini. Jaques Lemaire having only telescopes of moderate dimensions in
+view, was obliged, in order not to sacrifice any of the light, to place
+the great mirror so obliquely, that the image formed by its surface
+should fall entirely outside the tube of the instrument. So great a
+degree of inclination would certainly deform the objects. The <i>front
+view</i> construction is admissible only in very large telescopes.</p>
+
+<p>I find in the <i>Transactions</i> for 1803, that in solar observations,
+Herschel sometimes employed telescopes, the great mirror of which was
+made of glass. It was a telescope of this sort that he used for
+observing the transit of Mercury on the 9th of November, 1802. It was
+seven English feet long, and six inches and three tenths in diameter.</p>
+
+<p>Practical astronomers know how much the mounting of a telescope
+contributes to produce correct observations. The difficulty of a solid
+yet very movable mounting, increases rapidly with the dimensions and
+weight of an instrument. We may then conceive that Herschel had to
+surmount many obstacles, to mount a telescope suitably, of which the
+mirror alone weighed upwards of 1000 kilogrammes (<i>a ton</i>). But he
+solved this problem to his entire satisfaction by the aid of a
+combination of spars, of pulleys, and of ropes, of all which a correct
+idea may be formed by referring to the woodcut we have given in our
+<i>Treatise on Popular Astronomy</i> (vol. i.). This great apparatus, and the
+entirely different stands that Herschel imagined for telescopes of
+smaller dimensions, assign to that illustrious observer a distinguished
+place amongst the most ingenious mechanics of our age.</p>
+
+<p>Persons in general, I may even say the greater part of astronomers, know
+not what was the effect that the great forty-foot telescope had in the
+labours and discoveries of Herschel. Still, we are not less mistaken
+when we fancy that the observer of Slough always used this telescope,
+than in maintaining with Baron von Zach (see <i>Monatliche Correspondenz</i>,
+January, 1802), that the colossal instrument was of no use at all, that
+it did not contribute to any one discovery, that it must be considered
+as a mere object of curiosity. These assertions are distinctly
+contradicted by Herschel's own words. In the volume of <i>Philosophical
+Transactions</i> for the year 1795 (p. 350), I read for example: "On the
+28th of August 1789, having directed my telescope (of forty feet) to the
+heavens, I discovered the sixth satellite of Saturn, and I perceived the
+spots on that planet, better than I had been able to do before." (See
+also, relative to this sixth satellite, the <i>Philosophical
+Transactions</i> for 1790, p. 10.) In that same volume of 1790, p. 11, I
+find: "The great light of my forty-foot telescope was then so useful,
+that on the 17th of September 1789, I remarked the seventh satellite,
+then situated at its greatest western elongation."</p>
+
+<p>The 10th of October, 1791, Herschel saw the ring of Saturn and the
+fourth satellite, looking in at the mirror of his forty-foot telescope,
+with his naked eye, without any sort of eye-piece.</p>
+
+<p>Let us acknowledge the true motives that prevented Herschel from oftener
+using his telescope of forty feet. Notwithstanding the excellence of the
+mechanism, the man&oelig;uvring of that instrument required the constant
+aid of two labourers, and that of another person charged with noting the
+time at the clock. During some nights when the variation of temperature
+was considerable, this telescope, on account of its great mass, was
+always behindhand with the atmosphere in thermometric changes, which was
+very injurious to the distinctness of the images.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel found that in England, there are not above a hundred hours in a
+year during which the heavens can be advantageously observed with a
+telescope of forty feet, furnished with a magnifying power of a
+thousand. This remark led the celebrated astronomer to the conclusion,
+that, to take a complete survey of the heavens with his large
+instrument, though each successive field should remain only for an
+instant under inspection, would not require less than eight hundred
+years.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel explains in a very natural way the rare occurrence of the
+circumstances in which it is possible to make good use of a telescope of
+forty feet, and of very large aperture.</p>
+
+<p>A telescope does not magnify real objects only, but magnifies also the
+apparent irregularities arising from atmospheric refractions; now, all
+other things being equal, these irregularities of refraction must be so
+much the stronger, so much the more frequent, as the stratum of air is
+thicker through which the rays have passed to go and form the image.</p>
+
+<p>Astronomers experienced extreme surprise, when in 1782, they learned
+that Herschel had applied linear magnifying powers of a thousand, of
+twelve hundred, of two thousand two hundred, of two thousand six
+hundred, and even of six thousand times, to a reflecting telescope of
+seven feet in length. The Royal Society of London experienced this
+surprise, and officially requested Herschel to give publicity to the
+means he had adopted for ascertaining such amounts of magnifying power
+in his telescopes. Such was the object of a memoir that he inserted in
+vol. lxxii. of the <i>Philosophical Transactions</i>; and it dissipated all
+doubts. No one will be surprised that magnifying powers, which it would
+seem ought to have shown the Lunar mountains, as the chain of Mont Blanc
+is seen from Ma&ccedil;on, from Lyons, and even from Geneva, were not easily
+believed in. They did not know that Herschel had never used magnifying
+powers of three thousand, and six thousand times, except in observing
+brilliant stars; they had not remembered that light reflected by
+planetary bodies, is too feeble to continue distinct under the same
+degree of magnifying power as the actual light of the fixed stars does.</p>
+
+<p>Opticians had given up, more from theory than from careful experiments,
+attempting high magnifying powers, even for reflecting telescopes. They
+thought that the image of a small circle cannot be distinct, cannot be
+sharp at the edges, unless the pencil of rays coming from the object in
+nearly parallel lines, and which enters the eye after having passed
+through the eye-piece, be sufficiently broad. This being once granted,
+the inference followed, that an image ceases to be well defined, when it
+does not strike at least two of the nervous filaments of the retina with
+which that organ is supposed to be overspread. These gratuitous
+circumstances, grafted on each other, vanished in presence of Herschel's
+observations. After having put himself on his guard against the effects
+of diffraction, that is to say, against the scattering that light
+undergoes when it passes the terminal angles of bodies, the illustrious
+astronomer proved, in 1786, that objects can be seen well defined by
+means of pencils of light whose diameter does not equal five tenths of a
+millimetre.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel looked on the almost unanimous opinion of the double lens
+eye-piece being preferable to the single lens eye-piece, as a very
+injurious prejudice in science. For experience proved to him,
+notwithstanding all theoretic deductions, that with equal magnifying
+powers, in reflecting telescopes at least (and this restriction is of
+some consequence), the images were brighter and better defined with
+single than with double eye-pieces. On one occasion, this latter
+eye-piece would not show him the bands of Saturn, whilst by the aid of a
+single lens they were perfectly visible. Herschel said: "The double
+eye-piece must be left to amateurs and to those who, for some particular
+object, require a large field of vision." (<i>Philosophical Transactions,
+1782, pages 94 and 95.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>It is not only relative to the comparative merit of single or double
+eye-pieces that Herschel differs from the general opinions of opticians;
+he thinks, moreover, that he has proved by decisive experiments, that
+concave eye-pieces (like that used by Galileo) surpass the convex
+eye-piece by a great deal, both as regards clearness and definition.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel assigns the date of 1776 to the experiments which he made to
+decide this question. (<i>Philosophical Transactions</i>, year 1815, p. 297.)
+Plano-concave and double concave lenses produced similar effects. In
+what did these lenses differ from the double convex lenses? In one
+particular only: the latter received the rays reflected by the large
+mirror of the telescope, after their union at the focus, whereas the
+concave lenses received the same rays before that union. When the
+observer made use of a convex lens, the rays that went to the back of
+the eye to form an image on the retina, had crossed each other before in
+the air; but no crossing of this kind took place when the observer used
+a concave lens. Holding the double advantage of this latter sort of lens
+over the other, as quite proved, one would be inclined, like Herschel,
+to admit, "that a certain mechanical effect, injurious to clearness and
+definition, would accompany the focal crossing of the rays of
+light."<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<p>This idea of the crossing of the rays suggested an experiment to the
+ingenious astronomer, the result of which deserves to be recorded.</p>
+
+<p>A telescope of ten English feet was directed towards an advertisement
+covered with very small printing, and placed at a sufficient distance.
+The convex lens of the eye-piece was carried not by a tube properly so
+called, but by four rigid fine wires placed at right angles. This
+arrangement left the focus open in almost every direction. A concave
+mirror was then placed so that it threw a very condensed image of the
+sun laterally on the very spot where the image of the advertisement was
+formed. The solar rays, after having crossed each other, finding nothing
+on their route, went on and lost themselves in space. A screen, however,
+allowed the rays to be intercepted at will before they united.</p>
+
+<p>This done, having applied the eye to the eye-piece and directed all his
+attention to the telescopic image of the advertisement, Herschel did not
+perceive that the taking away and then replacing the screen made the
+least change in the brightness or definition of the letters. It was
+therefore of no consequence, in the one instance as well as in the
+other, whether the immense quantity of solar rays crossed each other at
+the very place where, <i>in another direction</i>, the rays united that
+formed the image of the letters. I have marked in Italics the words that
+especially show in what this curious experiment differs from the
+previous experiments, and yet does not entirely contradict them. In this
+instance the rays of various origin, those coming from the advertisement
+and from the sun, crossed each other respectively in almost rectangular
+directions; during the comparative examination of the stars with convex
+and with concave eye-pieces, the rays that seemed to have a mutual
+influence, had a common origin and crossed each other at very acute
+angles. There seems to be nothing, then, in the difference of the
+results at which we need to be much surprised.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel increased the catalogue, already so extensive, of the mysteries
+of vision, when he explained in what manner we must endeavour to
+distinguish separately the two members of certain double stars very
+close to each other. He said if you wish to assure yourself that &#951; Coron&aelig; is a double star, first direct your telescope to &#945;
+Geminorum, to &#950; Aquarii, to &#956; Draconis, to &#961;
+Herculis, to &#945; Piscium, to &#949; Lyr&aelig;. Look at those stars
+for a long time, so as to acquire the habit of observing such objects.
+Then pass on to &#958; Urs&aelig; majoris, where the closeness of the two
+members is still greater. In a third essay select &#953; Bootis
+(marked 44 by Flamsteed and <i>i</i> in Harris's maps)<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a>, the star that
+precedes &#945; Orionis, <i>n</i> of the same constellation, and you will
+then be prepared for the more difficult observation of &#951;
+Coron&aelig;. Indeed &#951; Coron&aelig; is a sort of miniature of &#953; Bootis,
+which may itself be considered as a miniature of &#945; Gem.
+(<i>Philosophical Transactions</i>, 1782, p. 100.)</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding had discovered three of the
+numerous telescopic planets now known, Herschel proposed to himself to
+determine their real magnitudes; but telescopes not having then been
+applied to the measurement of excessively small angles, it became
+requisite, in order to avoid any illusion, to try some experiments
+adapted to giving a scale of the powers of those instruments. Such was
+the labour of that indefatigable astronomer, of which I am going to give
+a compressed abridgment.</p>
+
+<p>The author relates first, that in 1774, he endeavoured to ascertain
+experimentally, with the naked eye and at the distance of distinct
+vision, what angle a circle must subtend to be distinguished by its form
+from a square of similar dimensions. The angle was never smaller than 2'
+17"; therefore at its maximum it was about one fourteenth of the angle
+subtended by the diameter of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel did not say, either of what nature the circles and squares of
+paper were that he used, nor on what background they were projected. It
+is a lacuna to be regretted, for in those phenomena the intensity of
+light must be an important feature. However it may have been, the
+scrupulous observer not daring to extend to telescopic vision what he
+had discovered relative to vision with the naked eye, he undertook to do
+away with all doubt, by direct observations.</p>
+
+<p>On examining some pins' heads placed at a distance in the open air, with
+a three-foot telescope, Herschel could easily discern that those bodies
+were round, when the subtended angles became, after their enlargement,
+2' 19". This is almost exactly the result obtained with the naked eye.</p>
+
+<p>When the globules were darker; when, instead of pins' heads, small
+globules of sealing-wax were used, their spherical form did not begin to
+be distinctly visible till the moment when the subtended magnified
+angles, that is, the moment when the natural angle multiplied by the
+magnifying power, amounted to five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>In a subsequent series of experiments, some globules of silver placed
+very far from the observer, allowed their globular form to be perceived,
+even when the magnified angle remained below two minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Under equality of subtended angle, then, the telescopic vision with
+strong magnifying powers showed itself superior to the naked eye vision.
+This result is not unimportant.</p>
+
+<p>If we take notice of the magnifying powers used by Herschel in these
+laborious researches, powers that often exceeded five hundred times, it
+will appear to be established that the telescopes possessed by modern
+astronomers, may serve to verify the round form of distant objects, the
+form of celestial bodies even when the diameters of those bodies do not
+subtend naturally (to the naked eye), angles of above three tenths of a
+second: and 500, multiplied by three tenths of a second, give 2' 30".</p>
+
+<p>Refracting telescopes were still ill understood instruments, the result
+of chance, devoid of certain theory, when they already served to reveal
+brilliant astronomical phenomena. Their theory, in as far as it depended
+on geometry and optics, made rapid progress. These two early phases of
+the problem leave but little more to be wished for; it is not so with a
+third phase, hitherto a good deal neglected, connected with physiology,
+and with the action of light on the nervous system. Therefore, we should
+search in vain in old treatises on optics and on astronomy, for a strict
+and complete discussion on the comparative effect that the size and
+intensity of the images, that the magnifying power and the aperture of a
+telescope may have, by night and by day, on the visibility of the
+faintest stars. This lacuna Herschel tried to fill up in 1799; such was
+the aim of the memoir entitled, <i>On the space-penetrating Power of
+Telescopes</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This memoir contains excellent things; still, it is far from exhausting
+the subject. The author, for instance, entirely overlooks the
+observations made by day. I also find, that the hypothetical part of
+the discussion is not perhaps so distinctly separated from the rigorous
+part as it might be; that disputable numbers, though given with a degree
+of precision down to the smallest decimals, do not look well as terms of
+comparison with some results which; on the contrary, rest on
+observations bearing mathematical evidence.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be thought of these remarks, the astronomer or the
+physicist who would like again to undertake the question of visibility
+with telescopes, will find some important facts in Herschel's memoir,
+and some ingenious observations, well adapted to serve them as guides.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Conforming to general usage, and to Sir W. Herschel
+himself, we shall allude to this instrument as the <i>forty-foot</i>
+telescope, though M. Arago adheres to thirty-nine feet and drops the
+inches, probably because the Parisian foot is rather longer than the
+English.&mdash;<i>Translator's Note.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> It would be more correct to say four times <i>as much</i>
+light.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> On comparing the Cassegrain telescopes with a small convex
+mirror, to the Gregorian telescopes with a small concave mirror, Captain
+Kater found that the former, in which the luminous rays do not cross
+each other before falling on the small mirror, possess, as to intensity,
+a marked advantage over the latter, in which this crossing takes place.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> In the selection of &#953; Bootis as a test, Arago has taken
+the precaution of giving its corresponding denomination in other
+catalogues, and Bailey appends the following note, No. 2062, to 44
+Bootis. "In the British Catalogue this star is not denoted by any
+letter: but Bayer calls it &#953;, and on referring to the earliest MS.
+Catalogue in MSS. vol. xxv., I find it is there so designated; I have
+therefore restored the letter." (See Bailey's Edition of Flamsteed's
+British Catalogue of Stars, 1835.) The distance between the two members
+of this double star is 3".7 and position 23&deg;.5. See "Bedford
+Cycle."&mdash;<i>Translator.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="LABOURS_IN_SIDEREAL_ASTRONOMY" id="LABOURS_IN_SIDEREAL_ASTRONOMY"></a>LABOURS IN SIDEREAL ASTRONOMY.</h3>
+
+<p>The curious phenomenon of a periodical change of intensity in certain
+stars, very early excited a keen attention in Herschel. The first memoir
+by that illustrious observer presented to the Royal Society of London
+and inserted in the <i>Philosophical Transactions</i> treats precisely of the
+changes of intensity of the star <i>o</i> in the neck of the Whale.</p>
+
+<p>This memoir was still dated from Bath, May, 1780. Eleven years after, in
+the month of December, 1791, Herschel communicated a second time to that
+celebrated English Society the remarks that he had made by sometimes
+directing his telescopes to the mysterious star. At both those epochs
+the observer's attention was chiefly applied to the absolute values of
+the <i>maxima</i> and <i>minima</i> of intensity.</p>
+
+<p>The changeable star in the Whale was not the only periodical star with
+which Herschel occupied himself. His observations of 1795 and of 1796
+proved that &#945; Herculis also belongs to the category of variable
+stars, and that the time requisite for the accomplishment of all the
+changes of intensity, and for the star's return to any given state, was
+sixty days and a quarter. When Herschel obtained this result, about ten
+changeable stars were already known; but they were all either of very
+long or very short periods. The illustrious astronomer considered that,
+by introducing between two groups that exhibited very short and very
+long periods, a star of somewhat intermediate conditions,&mdash;for instance,
+one requiring sixty days to accomplish all its variations of
+intensity,&mdash;he had advanced the theory of these phenomena by an
+essential step; the theory at least that attributes every thing to a
+movement of rotation round their centres which the stars may undergo.</p>
+
+<p>Sir William Herschel's catalogues of double stars offer a considerable
+number to which he ascribes a decided green or blue tint. In binary
+combinations, when the small star appears very blue or very green, the
+large one is usually yellow or red. It does not appear that the great
+astronomer took sufficient interest in this circumstance. I do not find,
+indeed, that the almost constant association of two complementary
+colours (of yellow and blue, or of red and green), ever led him to
+suspect that one of those colours might not have any thing real in it,
+that it often might be a mere illusion, a mere result of contrast. It
+was only in 1825, that I showed that there are stars whose contrast
+really explains their apparent colour; but I have proved besides, that
+blue is incontestably the colour of certain insulated stars, or stars
+that have only white ones, or other blue ones in their vicinity. Red is
+the only colour that the ancients ever distinguished from white in their
+catalogues.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel also endeavoured to introduce numbers in the classification of
+stars as to magnitude; he has endeavoured, by means of numbers, to show
+the comparative intensity of a star of first magnitude, with one of
+second, or one of third magnitude, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the earliest of Herschel's memoirs, we find, that the apparent
+sidereal diameters are proved to be for the greater part factitious,
+even when the best made telescopes are used. Diameters estimated by
+seconds, that is to say, reduced according to the magnifying power,
+diminish as the magnifying power is increased. These results are of the
+greatest importance.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of his investigation of sidereal parallax, though without
+finding it, Herschel made an important discovery; that of the proper
+motion of our system. To show distinctly the direction of the motion of
+the solar system, not only was a displacement of the sidereal
+perspective required, but profound mathematical knowledge, and a
+peculiar tact. This peculiar tact Herschel possessed in an eminent
+degree. Moreover, the result deduced from the very small number of
+proper motions known at the beginning of 1783, has been found almost to
+agree with that found recently by clever astronomers, by the application
+of subtile analytical formul&aelig;, to a considerable number of exact
+observations.</p>
+
+<p>The proper motions of the stars have been known and proved for more than
+a century, and already Fontenelle used to say in 1738, that the sun
+probably also moved in a similar way. The idea of partly attributing the
+displacement of the stars to a motion of the sun, had suggested itself
+to Bradley and to Mayer. And Lambert especially had been very explicit
+on the subject. Until then, however, there were only conjectures and
+mere probabilities. Herschel passed those limits. He himself proved
+that the sun positively moves; and that, in this respect also, that
+immense and dazzling body must be ranged among the stars; that the
+apparently inextricable irregularities of numerous sidereal proper
+motions arise in great measure from the displacement of the solar
+system; that, in short, the point of space towards which we are annually
+advancing, is situated in the constellation of Hercules.</p>
+
+<p>These are magnificent results. The discovery of the proper motion of our
+system will always be accounted among Herschel's highest claims to
+glory, even after the mention that my duty as historian has obliged me
+to make of the anterior conjectures by Fontenelle, by Bradley, by Mayer,
+and by Lambert.</p>
+
+<p>By the side of this great discovery we should place another, that seems
+likely to expand in future. The results which it allows us to hope for
+will be of extreme importance. The discovery here alluded to was
+announced to the learned world in 1803; it is that of the reciprocal
+dependence of several stars, connected the one with the other, as the
+several planets and their satellites of our system are with the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Let us to these immortal labours add the ingenious ideas that we owe to
+Herschel on the nebul&aelig;, on the constitution of the Milky-way, on the
+universe as a whole; ideas which almost by themselves constitute the
+actual history of the formation of the worlds, and we cannot but have a
+deep reverence for that powerful genius that has scarcely ever erred,
+notwithstanding an ardent imagination.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="LABOURS_RELATIVE_TO_THE_SOLAR_SYSTEM" id="LABOURS_RELATIVE_TO_THE_SOLAR_SYSTEM"></a>LABOURS RELATIVE TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM.</h3>
+
+<p>Herschel occupied himself very much with the sun, but only relative to
+its physical constitution. The observations that the illustrious
+astronomer made on this subject, the consequences that he deduced from
+them, equal the most ingenious discoveries for which the sciences are
+indebted to him.</p>
+
+<p>In his important memoir in 1795, the great astronomer declares himself
+convinced that the substance by the intermediation of which the sun
+shines, cannot be either a liquid, or an elastic fluid. It must be
+analogous to our clouds, and float in the transparent atmosphere of that
+body. The sun has, according to him, two atmospheres, endowed with
+motions quite independent of each other. An elastic fluid of an unknown
+nature is being constantly formed on the dark surface of the sun, and
+rising up on account of its specific lightness, it forms the <i>pores</i> in
+the stratum of reflecting clouds; then, combining with other gases, it
+produces the wrinkles in the region of luminous clouds. When the
+ascending currents are powerful, they give rise to the <i>nuclei</i>, to the
+<i>penumbr&aelig;</i>, to the <i>facul&aelig;</i>. If this explanation of the formation of
+solar spots is well founded, we must expect to find that the sun does
+not constantly emit similar quantities of light and heat. Recent
+observations have verified this conclusion. But large nuclei, large
+penumbr&aelig;, wrinkles, facul&aelig;, do they indicate an abundant luminous and
+calorific emission, as Herschel thought; that would be the result of his
+hypothesis on the existence of very active ascending currents, but
+direct experience seems to contradict it.</p>
+
+<p>The following is the way in which a learned man, Sir David Brewster,
+appreciates this view of Herschel's: "It is not conceivable that
+luminous clouds, ceding to the lightest impulses and in a state of
+constant change, can be the source of the sun's devouring flame and of
+the dazzling light which it emits; nor can we admit besides, that the
+feeble barrier formed by planetary clouds would shelter the objects that
+it might cover, from the destructive effects of the superior elements."</p>
+
+<p>Sir D. Brewster imagines that the non-luminous rays of caloric, which
+form a constituent part of the solar light, are emitted by the dark
+nucleus of the sun; whilst the visible coloured rays proceed from the
+luminous matter by which the nucleus is surrounded. "From thence," he
+says, "proceeds the reason of light and heat always appearing in a state
+of combination: the one emanation cannot be obtained without the other.
+With this hypothesis we should explain naturally why it is hottest when
+there are most spots, because the heat of the nucleus would then reach
+us without having been weakened by the atmosphere that it usually has to
+traverse." But it is far from being an ascertained fact, that we
+experience increased heat during the apparition of solar spots; the
+inverse phenomenon is more probably true.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel occupied himself also with the physical constitution of the
+moon. In 1780, he sought to measure the height of our satellite's
+mountains. The conclusion that he drew from his observations was, that
+few of the lunar mountains exceed 800 metres (or 2600 feet). More recent
+selenographic studies differ from this conclusion. There is reason to
+observe on this occasion how much the result surmised by Herschel
+differs from any tendency to the extraordinary or the gigantic, that
+has been so unjustly assigned as the characteristic of the illustrious
+astronomer.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of 1787, Herschel presented a memoir to the Royal Society,
+the title of which must have made a strong impression on people's
+imaginations. The author therein relates that on the 19th of April,
+1787, he had observed in the non-illuminated part of the moon, that is,
+in the then dark portion, three volcanoes in a state of ignition. Two of
+these volcanoes appeared to be on the decline, the other appeared to be
+active. Such was then Herschel's conviction of the reality of the
+phenomenon, that the next morning he wrote thus of his first
+observation: "The volcano burns with more violence than last night." The
+real diameter of the volcanic light was 5000 metres (16,400 English
+feet). Its intensity appeared very superior to that of the nucleus of a
+comet then in apparition. The observer added: "The objects situated near
+the crater are feebly illuminated by the light that emanates from it."
+Herschel concludes thus: "In short, this eruption very much resembles
+the one I witnessed on the 4th of May, 1783."</p>
+
+<p>How happens it, after such exact observations, that few astronomers now
+admit the existence of active volcanoes in the moon? I will explain this
+singularity in a few words.</p>
+
+<p>The various parts of our satellite are not all equally reflecting. Here,
+it may depend on the form, elsewhere, on the nature of the materials.
+Those persons who have examined the moon with telescopes, know how very
+considerable the difference arising from these two causes may be, how
+much brighter one point of the moon sometimes is than those around it.
+Now, it is quite evident that the relations of intensity between the
+faint parts and the brilliant parts must continue to exist, whatever be
+the origin of the illuminating light. In the portion of the lunar globe
+that is illuminated by the sun, there are, everybody knows, some points,
+the brightness of which is extraordinary compared to those around them;
+those same points, when they are seen in that portion of the moon that
+is only lighted by the earth, or in the ash-coloured part, will still
+predominate over the neighbouring regions by their comparative
+intensity. Thus we may explain the observations of the Slough
+astronomer, without recurring to volcanoes. Whilst the great observer
+was studying in the non-illuminated portion of the moon, the supposed
+volcano of the 20th of April, 1787, his nine-foot telescope showed him
+in truth, by the aid of the secondary rays proceeding from the earth,
+even the darkest spots.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel did not recur to the discussion of the supposed actually
+burning lunar volcanoes, until 1791. In the volume of the <i>Philosophical
+Transactions</i> for 1792, he relates that, in directing a twenty-foot
+telescope, magnifying 360 times, to the entirely eclipsed moon on the
+22d of October, 1790, there were visible, over the whole face of the
+satellite, about a hundred and fifty very luminous red points. The
+author declares that he will observe the greatest reserve relative to
+the similarity of all these points, their great brightness, and their
+remarkable colour.</p>
+
+<p>Yet is not red the usual colour of the moon when eclipsed, and when it
+has not entirely disappeared? Could the solar rays reaching our
+satellite by the effect of refraction, and after an absorption
+experienced in the lowest strata of the terrestrial atmosphere, receive
+another tint? Are there not in the moon, when freely illuminated, and
+opposite to the sun, from one to two hundred little points, remarkable
+by the brightness of their light? Would it be possible for those little
+points not to be also distinguishable in the moon, when it receives only
+the portion of solar light which is refracted and coloured by our
+atmosphere?</p>
+
+<p>Herschel was more successful in his remarks on the absence of a lunar
+atmosphere. During the solar eclipse of the 5th September, 1793, the
+illustrious astronomer particularly directed his attention to the shape
+of the acute horn resulting from the intersection of the limbs of the
+moon and of the sun. He deduced from his observation that if towards the
+point of the horn there had been a deviation of only one second,
+occasioned by the refraction of the solar light in the lunar atmosphere,
+it would not have escaped him.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel made the planets the object of numerous researches. Mercury was
+the one with which he least occupied himself; he found its disk
+perfectly round on observing it during its projection, that is to say,
+in astronomical language, during its transit over the sun on the 9th of
+November, 1802. He sought to determine the time of the rotation of Venus
+since the year 1777. He published two memoirs relative to Mars, the one
+in 1781, the other in 1784, and the discovery of its being flattened at
+the poles we owe to him. After the discovery of the small planets,
+Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, by Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding, Herschel
+applied himself to measuring their angular diameter. He concluded from
+his researches that those four new bodies did not deserve the name of
+planets, and he proposed to call them astero&iuml;ds. This epithet was
+subsequently adopted; though bitterly criticized by a historian of the
+Royal Society of London, Dr. Thomson, who went so far as to suppose
+that the learned astronomer "had wished to deprive the first observers
+of those bodies, of all idea of rating themselves as high as him
+(Herschel) in the scale of astronomical discoverers." I should require
+nothing farther to annihilate such an imputation, than to put it by the
+side of the following passage, extracted from a memoir by this
+celebrated astronomer, published in the <i>Philosophical Transactions</i>,
+for the year 1805: "The specific difference existing between planets and
+astero&iuml;ds appears now, by the addition of a third individual of the
+latter species, to be more completely established, and that
+circumstance, in my opinion, has added more to the <i>ornament</i> of our
+system than the discovery of a new planet could have done."</p>
+
+<p>Although much has not resulted from Herschel's having occupied himself
+with the physical constitution of Jupiter, astronomy is indebted to him
+for several important results relative to the duration of that planet's
+rotation. He also made numerous observations on the intensities and
+comparative magnitudes of its satellites.</p>
+
+<p>The compression of Saturn, the duration of its rotation, the physical
+constitution of this planet and that of its ring, were, on the part of
+Herschel, the object of numerous researches which have much contributed
+to the progress of planetary astronomy. But on this subject two
+important discoveries especially added new glory to the great
+astronomer.</p>
+
+<p>Of the five known satellites of Saturn at the close of the 17th century,
+Huygens had discovered the fourth; Cassini the others.</p>
+
+<p>The subject seemed to be exhausted, when news from Slough showed what a
+mistake this was.</p>
+
+<p>On the 28th of August, 1789, the great forty-foot telescope revealed to
+Herschel a satellite still nearer to the ring than the other five
+already observed. According to the principles of the nomenclature
+previously adopted, the small body of the 28th August ought to have been
+called the first satellite of Saturn, the numbers indicating the places
+of the other five would then have been each increased by a unity. But
+the fear of introducing confusion into science by these continual
+changes of denomination, induced a preference for calling the new
+satellite the sixth.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to the prodigious powers of the forty-foot telescope, a last
+satellite, the seventh, showed itself on the 17th of September, 1789,
+between the sixth and the ring.</p>
+
+<p>This seventh satellite is extremely faint. Herschel, however, succeeding
+in seeing it whenever circumstances were very favourable, even by the
+aid of the twenty-foot telescope.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery of the planet Uranus, the detection of its satellites,
+will always occupy one of the highest places among those by which modern
+astronomy is honoured.</p>
+
+<p>On the 13th of March, 1781, between ten and eleven o'clock at night,
+Herschel was examining the small stars near H Geminorum with a
+seven-foot telescope, bearing a magnifying power of 227 times. One of
+these stars seemed to him to have an unusual diameter. The celebrated
+astronomer, therefore, thought it was a comet. It was under this
+denomination that it was then discussed at the Royal Society of London.
+But the researches of Herschel and of Laplace showed later that the
+orbit of the new body was nearly circular, and Uranus was elevated to
+the rank of a planet.</p>
+
+<p>The immense distance of Uranus, its small angular diameter, the
+feebleness of its light, did not allow the hope, that if that body had
+satellites, the magnitudes of which were, relatively to its own size,
+what the satellites of Jupiter, of Saturn are, compared to those two
+large planets, any observer could perceive them, from the earth.
+Herschel was not a man to be deterred by such discouraging conjectures.
+Therefore, since powerful telescopes of the ordinary construction, that
+is to say, with two mirrors conjugated, had not enabled him to discover
+any thing, he substituted, in the beginning of January, 1787, <i>front
+view</i> telescopes, that is, telescopes throwing much more light on the
+objects, the small mirror being then suppressed, and with it one of the
+causes of loss of light is got rid of.</p>
+
+<p>By patient labour, by observations requiring a rare perseverance,
+Herschel attained (from the 11th of January, 1787, to the 28th of
+February, 1794,) to the discovery of the six satellites of his planet,
+and thus to complete the <i>world</i> of a system that belongs entirely to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>There are several of Herschel's memoirs on comets. In analyzing them, we
+shall see that this great observer could not touch any thing without
+making further discoveries in the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel applied some of his fine instruments to the study of the
+physical constitution of a comet discovered by Mr. Pigott, on the 28th
+September, 1807.</p>
+
+<p>The nucleus was round and well determined. Some measures taken on the
+day when the nucleus subtended only an angle of a single second, gave as
+its real angle 6/100 of the diameter of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel saw no phase at an epoch when only 7/10 of the nucleus could
+be illuminated by the sun. The nucleus then must shine by its own light.</p>
+
+<p>This is a legitimate inference in the opinion of every one who will
+allow, on one hand, that the nucleus is a solid body, and on the other,
+that it would have been possible to observe a phase of 8/10 on a disk
+whose apparent total diameter did not exceed one or two seconds of a
+degree.</p>
+
+<p>Very small stars seemed to grow much paler when they were seen through
+the coma or through the tail of the comet.</p>
+
+<p>This faintness may have only been apparent, and might arise from the
+circumstance of the stars being then projected on a luminous background.
+Such is, indeed, the explanation adopted by Herschel. A gaseous medium,
+capable of reflecting sufficient solar light to efface that of some
+stars, would appear to him to possess in each stratum a sensible
+quantity of matter, and to be, for that reason, a cause of real
+diminution of the light transmitted, though nothing reveals the
+existence of such a cause.</p>
+
+<p>This argument, offered by Herschel in favour of the system which
+transforms comets into self-luminous bodies, has not, as we may
+perceive, much force. I might venture to say as much of many other
+remarks by this great observer. He tells us that the comet was very
+visible in the telescope on the 21st of February, 1808; now, on that
+day, its distance from the sun amounted to 2.7 times the mean radius of
+the terrestrial orbit; its distance from the observer was 2.9: "What
+probability would there be that rays going to such distances, from the
+sun to the comet, could, after their reflection, be seen by an eye
+nearly three times more distant from the comet than from the sun?"</p>
+
+<p>It is only numerical determinations that could give value to such an
+argument. By satisfying himself with vague reasoning, Herschel did not
+even perceive that he was committing a great mistake by making the
+comet's distance from the observer appear to be an element of
+visibility. If the comet be self-luminous, its intrinsic splendour (its
+brightness for unity of surface) will remain constant at any distance,
+as long as the subtended angle remains sensible. If the body shines by
+borrowed light, its brightness will vary only according to its change of
+distance from the sun; nor will the distance of the observer occasion
+any change in the visibility; always, let it be understood, with the
+restriction that the apparent diameter shall not be diminished below
+certain limits.</p>
+
+<p>Herschel finished his observations of a comet that was visible in
+January, 1807, with the following remark:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of the sixteen telescopic comets that I have examined, fourteen had no
+solid body visible at their centre; the other two exhibited a central
+light, very ill defined, that might be termed a nucleus, but a light
+that certainly could not deserve the name of a disk."</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful comet of 1811 became the object of that celebrated
+astronomer's conscientious labour. Large telescopes showed him, in the
+midst of the gazeous head, a rather reddish body of planetary
+appearance, which bore strong magnifying powers, and showed no sign of
+phase. Hence Herschel concluded that it was self-luminous. Yet if we
+reflect that the planetary body under consideration was not a second in
+diameter, the absence of a phase does not appear a demonstrative
+argument.</p>
+
+<p>The light of the head had a blueish-green tint. Was this a real tint, or
+did the central reddish body, only through contrast, make the
+surrounding vapour appear to be coloured? Herschel did not examine the
+question in this point of view.</p>
+
+<p>The head of the comet appeared to be enveloped at a certain distance, on
+the side towards the sun, by a brilliant narrow zone, embracing about a
+semicircle, and of a yellowish colour. From the two extremities of the
+semicircle there arose, towards the region away from the sun, two long
+luminous streaks which limited the tail. Between the brilliant circular
+semi-ring and the head, the cometary substance seemed dark, very rare,
+and very diaphanous.</p>
+
+<p>The luminous semi-ring always presented similar appearances in all the
+positions of the comet; it was not then possible to attribute to it
+really the annular form, the shape of Saturn's ring, for example.
+Herschel sought whether a spherical demi-envelop of luminous matter, and
+yet diaphanous, would not lead to a natural explanation of the
+phenomenon. In this hypothesis, the visual rays, which on the 6th of
+October, 1811, made a section of the envelop, or bore almost
+tangentially, traversed a thickness of matter of about 399,000
+kilometres, (248,000 English miles,) whilst the visual rays near the
+head of the comet did not meet above 80,000 kilometres (50,000 miles) of
+it. As the brightness must be proportional to the quantity of matter
+traversed, there could not fail to be an appearance around the comet, of
+a semi-ring five times more luminous than the central regions. This
+semi-ring, then, was an effect of projection, and it has revealed a
+circumstance to us truly remarkable in the physical constitution of
+comets.</p>
+
+<p>The two luminous streaks that outlined the tail at its two limits, may
+be explained in a similar manner; the tail was not flat as it appeared
+to be; it had the form of a conoid, with its sides of a certain
+thickness. The visual lines which traversed those sides almost
+tangentially, evidently met much more matter than the visual lines
+passing across. This maximum of matter could not fail of being
+represented by a maximum of light.</p>
+
+<p>The luminous semi-ring floated; it appeared one day to be suspended in
+the diaphanous atmosphere by which the head of the comet was surrounded,
+at a distance of 518,000 kilometres (322,000 English miles) from the
+nucleus.</p>
+
+<p>This distance was not constant. The matter of the semi-annular envelop
+seemed even to be precipitated by slow degrees through the diaphanous
+atmosphere; finally it reached the nucleus; the earlier appearances
+vanished; the comet was reduced to a globular nebula.</p>
+
+<p>During its period of dissolution, the ring appeared sometimes to have
+several branches.</p>
+
+<p>The luminous shreds of the tail seemed to undergo rapid, frequent, and
+considerable variations of length. Herschel discerned symptoms of a
+movement of rotation both in the comet and in its tail. This rotatory
+motion carried unequal shreds from the centre towards the border, and
+reciprocally. On looking from time to time at the same region of the
+tail, at the border, for example, sensible changes of length must have
+been perceptible, which however had no reality in them. Herschel
+thought, as I have already said, that the beautiful comet of 1811, and
+that of 1807, were self-luminous. The second comet of 1811 appeared to
+him to shine only by borrowed light. It must be acknowledged that these
+conjectures did not rest on any thing demonstrative.</p>
+
+<p>In attentively comparing the comet of 1807 with the beautiful comet of
+1811, relative to the changes of distance from the sun, and the
+modifications resulting thence, Herschel put it beyond doubt that these
+modifications have something individual in them, something relative to a
+special state of the nebulous matter. On one celestial body the changes
+of distance produce an enormous effect, on another the modifications are
+insignificant.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="OPTICAL_LABOURS" id="OPTICAL_LABOURS"></a>OPTICAL LABOURS.</h3>
+
+<p>I shall say very little on the discoveries that Herschel made in
+physics. In short, everybody knows them. They have been inserted into
+special treatises, into elementary works, into verbal instruction; they
+must be considered as the starting-point of a multitude of important
+labours with which the sciences have been enriched during several years.</p>
+
+<p>The chief of these is that of the dark radiating heat which is found
+mixed with light.</p>
+
+<p>In studying the phenomena, no longer with the eye, like Newton, but with
+a thermometer, Herschel discovered that the solar spectrum is prolonged
+on the red side far beyond the visible limits. The thermometer sometimes
+rose higher in that dark region, than in the midst of brilliant zones.
+The light of the sun then, contains, besides the coloured rays so well
+characterized by Newton, some invisible rays, still less refrangible
+than the red, and whose warming power is very considerable. A world of
+discoveries has arisen from this fundamental fact.</p>
+
+<p>The dark heat emanating from terrestrial objects more or less heated,
+became also subjects of Herschel's investigations. His work contained
+the germs of a good number of beautiful experiments since erected upon
+it in our own day.</p>
+
+<p>By successively placing the same objects in all parts of the solar
+spectrum Herschel determined the illuminating powers of the various
+prismatic rays. The general result of these experiments may be thus
+enunciated:</p>
+
+<p>The illuminating power of the red rays is not very great; that of the
+orange rays surpasses it, and is in its turn surpassed by the power of
+the yellow rays. The maximum power of illumination is found between the
+brightest yellow and the palest green. The yellow and the green possess
+this power equally. A like assimilation may be laid down between the
+blue and the red. Finally, the power of illumination in the indigo rays,
+and above all in the violet, is very weak.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the memoirs of Herschel on Newton's coloured rings, though
+containing a multitude of exact experiments, have not much contributed
+to advance the theory of those curious phenomena. I have learnt from
+good authority, that the great astronomer held the same opinion on this
+topic. He said that it was the only occasion on which he had reason to
+regret having, according to his constant method, published his labours
+immediately, as fast as they were performed.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="LAPLACE" id="LAPLACE"></a>LAPLACE.</h2>
+
+<p>Having been appointed to draw up the report of a committee of the
+Chamber of Deputies which was nominated in 1842, for the purpose of
+taking into consideration the expediency of a proposal submitted to the
+Chamber by the Minister of Public Instruction, relative to the
+publication of a new edition of the works of Laplace at the public
+expense, I deemed it to be my duty to embody in the report a concise
+analysis of the works of our illustrious countryman. Several persons,
+influenced, perhaps, by too indulgent a feeling towards me, having
+expressed a wish that this analysis should not remain buried amid a heap
+of legislative documents, but that it should be published in the
+<i>Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes</i>, I took advantage of this
+circumstance to develop it more fully so as to render it less unworthy
+of public attention. The scientific part of the report presented to the
+Chamber of Deputies will be found here entire. It has been considered
+desirable to suppress the remainder. I shall merely retain a few
+sentences containing an explanation of the object of the proposed law,
+and an announcement of the resolutions which were adopted by the three
+powers of the State.</p>
+
+<p>"Laplace has endowed France, Europe, the scientific world, with three
+magnificent compositions: the <i>Trait&eacute; de M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>, the
+<i>Exposition du Syst&egrave;me du Monde</i>, and the <i>Th&eacute;orie Analytique des
+Probabilit&eacute;s</i>. In the present day (1842) there is no longer to be found
+a single copy of this last work at any bookseller's establishment in
+Paris. The edition of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> itself will soon be
+exhausted. It was painful then to reflect that the time was close at
+hand when persons engaged in the study of the higher mathematics would
+be compelled, for want of the original work, to inquire at Philadelphia,
+at New York, or at Boston for the English translation of the <i>chef
+d'&oelig;uvre</i> of our countryman by the excellent geometer Bowditch. These
+fears, let us hasten to state, were not well founded. To republish the
+<i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> was, on the part of the family of the illustrious
+geometer, to perform a pious duty. Accordingly, Madame de Laplace, who
+is so justly, so profoundly attentive to every circumstance calculated
+to enhance the renown of the name which she bears, did not hesitate
+about pecuniary considerations. A small property near Pont l'Ev&ecirc;que was
+about to change hands, and the proceeds were to have been applied so
+that Frenchmen should not be deprived of the satisfaction of exploring
+the treasures of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> through the medium of the
+vernacular tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"The republication of the complete works of Laplace rested upon an
+equally sure guarantee. Yielding at once to filial affection, to a noble
+feeling of patriotism, and to the enthusiasm for brilliant discoveries
+which a course of severe study inspired, General Laplace had long since
+qualified himself for becoming the editor of the seven volumes which are
+destined to immortalize his father.</p>
+
+<p>"There are glorious achievements of a character too elevated, of a
+lustre too splendid, that they should continue to exist as objects of
+private property. Upon the State devolves the duty of preserving them
+from indifference and oblivion: of continually holding them up to
+attention, of diffusing a knowledge of them through a thousand channels;
+in a word, of rendering them subservient to the public interests.</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless the Minister of Public Instruction was influenced by these
+considerations, when upon the occasion of a new edition of the works of
+Laplace having become necessary, he demanded of you to substitute the
+great French family for the personal family of the illustrious geometer.
+We give our full and unreserved adhesion to this proposition. It springs
+from a feeling of patriotism which will not be gainsayed by any one in
+this assembly."</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the Chamber of Deputies had only to examine and solve this
+single question: "Are the works of Laplace of such transcendent, such
+exceptional merit, that their republication ought to form the subject of
+deliberation of the great powers of the State?" An opinion prevailed,
+that it was not enough merely to appeal to public notoriety, but that it
+was necessary to give an exact analysis of the brilliant discoveries of
+Laplace in order to exhibit more fully the importance of the resolution
+about to be adopted. Who could hereafter propose on any similar occasion
+that the Chamber should declare itself without discussion, when a desire
+was felt, previous to voting in favour of a resolution so honourable to
+the memory of a great man, to fathom, to measure, to examine minutely
+and from every point of view monuments such as the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>
+and the <i>Exposition du Syst&egrave;me du Monde</i>? It has appeared to me that the
+report drawn up in the name of a committee of one of the three great
+powers of the State might worthily close this series of biographical
+notices of eminent astronomers.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Marquis de Laplace, peer of France, one of the forty of the French
+Academy, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the <i>Bureau des
+Longitudes</i>, an associate of all the great Academies or Scientific
+Societies of Europe, was born at Beaumont-en-Auge of parents belonging
+to the class of small farmers, on the 28th of March, 1749; he died on
+the 5th of March, 1827.</p>
+
+<p>The first and second volumes of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> were published
+in 1799; the third volume appeared in 1802, the fourth volume in 1805;
+as regards the fifth volume, Books XI. and XII. were published in 1823,
+Books XIII. XIV. and XV. in 1824, and Book XVI. in 1825. The <i>Th&eacute;orie
+des Probabilit&eacute;s</i> was published in 1812. We shall now present the reader
+with the history of the principal astronomical discoveries contained hi
+these immortal works.</p>
+
+<p>Astronomy is the science of which the human mind may most justly boast.
+It owes this indisputable pre&euml;minence to the elevated nature of its
+object, to the grandeur of its means of investigation, to the certainty,
+the utility, and the unparalleled magnificence of its results.</p>
+
+<p>From the earliest period of the social existence of mankind, the study
+of the movements of the heavenly bodies has attracted the attention of
+governments and peoples. To several great captains, illustrious
+statesmen, philosophers, and eminent orators of Greece and Rome it
+formed a subject of delight. Yet, let us be permitted to state,
+astronomy truly worthy of the name is quite a modern science. It dates
+only from the sixteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Three great, three brilliant phases, have marked its progress.</p>
+
+<p>In 1543 Copernicus overthrew with a firm and bold hand, the greater part
+of the antique and venerable scaffolding with which the illusions of the
+senses and the pride of successive generations had filled the universe.
+The earth ceased to be the centre, the pivot of the celestial movements;
+it henceforward modestly ranged itself among the planets; its material
+importance, amid the totality of the bodies of which our solar system is
+composed, found itself reduced almost to that of a grain of sand.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-eight years had elapsed from the day when the Canon of Thorn
+expired while holding in his faltering hands the first copy of the work
+which was to diffuse so bright and pure a flood of glory upon Poland,
+when W&uuml;rtemberg witnessed the birth of a man who was destined to achieve
+a revolution in science not less fertile in consequences, and still more
+difficult of execution. This man was Kepler. Endowed with two qualities
+which seemed incompatible with each other, a volcanic imagination, and a
+pertinacity of intellect which the most tedious numerical calculations
+could not daunt, Kepler conjectured that the movements of the celestial
+bodies must be connected together by simple laws, or, to use his own
+expressions, by <i>harmonic</i> laws. These laws he undertook to discover. A
+thousand fruitless attempts, errors of calculation inseparable from a
+colossal undertaking, did not prevent him a single instant from
+advancing resolutely towards the goal of which he imagined he had
+obtained a glimpse. Twenty-two years were employed by him in this
+investigation, and still he was not weary of it! What, in reality, are
+twenty-two years of labour to him who is about to become the legislator
+of worlds; who shall inscribe his name in ineffaceable characters upon
+the frontispiece of an immortal code; who shall be able to exclaim in
+dithyrambic language, and without incurring the reproach of any one,
+"The die is cast; I have written my book; it will be read either in the
+present age or by posterity, it matters not which; it may well await a
+reader, since God has waited six thousand years for an interpreter of
+his works?"<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p>To investigate a physical cause capable of making the planets revolve in
+closed curves; to place the principle of the stability of the universe
+in mechanical forces and not in solid supports such as the spheres of
+crystal which our ancestors had dreamed of; to extend to the revolutions
+of the heavenly bodies the general principles of the mechanics of
+terrestrial bodies,&mdash;such were the questions which remained to be solved
+after Kepler had announced his discoveries to the world.</p>
+
+<p>Very distinct traces of these great problems are perceived here and
+there among the ancients as well as the moderns, from Lucretius and
+Plutarch down to Kepler, Bouillaud, and Borelli. It is to Newton,
+however, that we must award the merit of their solution. This great man,
+like several of his predecessors, conceived the celestial bodies to have
+a tendency to approach towards each other in virtue of an attractive
+force, deduced the mathematical characteristics of this force from the
+laws of Kepler, extended it to all the material molecules of the solar
+system, and developed his brilliant discovery in a work which, even in
+the present day, is regarded as the most eminent production of the human
+intellect.</p>
+
+<p>The heart aches when, upon studying the history of the sciences, we
+perceive so magnificent an intellectual movement effected without the
+co&ouml;peration of France. Practical astronomy increased our inferiority.
+The means of investigation were at first inconsiderately entrusted to
+foreigners, to the prejudice of Frenchmen abounding in intelligence and
+zeal. Subsequently, intellects of a superior order struggled with
+courage, but in vain, against the unskilfulness of our artists. During
+this period, Bradley, more fortunate on the other side of the Channel,
+immortalized himself by the discovery of aberration and nutation.</p>
+
+<p>The contribution of France to these admirable revolutions in
+astronomical science, consisted, in 1740, of the experimental
+determination of the spheroidal figure of the earth, and of the
+discovery of the variation of gravity upon the surface of our planet.
+These were two great results; our country, however, had a right to
+demand more: when France is not in the first rank she has lost her
+place.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>This rank, which was lost for a moment, was brilliantly regained, an
+achievement for which we are indebted to four geometers.</p>
+
+<p>When Newton, giving to his discoveries a generality which the laws of
+Kepler did not imply, imagined that the different planets were not only
+attracted by the sun, but that they also attract each other, he
+introduced into the heavens a cause of universal disturbance.
+Astronomers could then see at the first glance that in no part of the
+universe whether near or distant would the Keplerian laws suffice for
+the exact representation of the phenomena; that the simple, regular
+movements with which the imaginations of the ancients were pleased to
+endue the heavenly bodies would experience numerous, considerable,
+perpetually changing perturbations.</p>
+
+<p>To discover several of these perturbations, to assign their nature, and
+in a few rare cases their numerical values, such was the object which
+Newton proposed to himself in writing the <i>Principia Mathematica
+Philosophi&aelig; Naturalis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the incomparable sagacity of its author the Principia
+contained merely a rough outline of the planetary perturbations. If this
+sublime sketch did not become a complete portrait we must not attribute
+the circumstance to any want of ardour or perseverance; the efforts of
+the great philosopher were always superhuman, the questions which he did
+not solve were incapable of solution in his time. When the
+mathematicians of the continent entered upon the same career, when they
+wished to establish the Newtonian system upon an incontrovertible basis,
+and to improve the tables of astronomy, they actually found in their way
+difficulties which the genius of Newton had failed to surmount.</p>
+
+<p>Five geometers, Clairaut, Euler, D'Alembert, Lagrange, and Laplace,
+shared between them the world of which Newton had disclosed the
+existence. They explored it in all directions, penetrated into regions
+which had been supposed inaccessible, pointed out there a multitude of
+phenomena which observation had not yet detected; finally, and it is
+this which constitutes their imperishable glory, they reduced under the
+domain of a single principle, a single law, every thing that was most
+refined and mysterious in the celestial movements. Geometry had thus the
+boldness to dispose of the future; the evolutions of ages are
+scrupulously ratifying the decisions of science.</p>
+
+<p>We shall not occupy our attention with the magnificent labours of Euler,
+we shall, on the contrary, present the reader with a rapid analysis of
+the discoveries of his four rivals, our countrymen.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>If a celestial body, the moon, for example, gravitated solely towards
+the centre of the earth, it would describe a mathematical ellipse; it
+would strictly obey the laws of Kepler, or, which is the same thing, the
+principles of mechanics expounded by Newton in the first sections of his
+immortal work.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now consider the action of a second force. Let us take into
+account the attraction which the sun exercises upon the moon, in other
+words, instead of two bodies, let us suppose three to operate on each
+other, the Keplerian ellipse will now furnish merely a rough indication
+of the motion of our satellite. In some parts the attraction of the sun
+will tend to enlarge the orbit, and will in reality do so; in other
+parts the effect will be the reverse of this. In a word, by the
+introduction of a third attractive body, the greatest complication will
+succeed to a simple regular movement upon which the mind reposed with
+complacency.</p>
+
+<p>If Newton gave a complete solution of the question of the celestial
+movements in the case wherein two bodies attract each other, he did not
+even attempt an analytical investigation of the infinitely more
+difficult problem of three bodies. The problem of three bodies (this is
+the name by which it has become celebrated), the problem for determining
+the movement of a body subjected to the attractive influence of two
+other bodies, was solved for the first time, by our countryman
+Clairaut.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> From this solution we may date the important improvements
+of the lunar tables effected in the last century.</p>
+
+<p>The most beautiful astronomical discovery of antiquity, is that of the
+precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus, to whom the honour of it is
+due, gave a complete and precise statement of all the consequences which
+flow from this movement. Two of these have more especially attracted
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>By reason of the precession of the equinoxes, it is not always the same
+groups of stars, the same constellations, which are perceived in the
+heavens at the same season of the year. In the lapse of ages the
+constellations of winter will become those of summer and reciprocally.</p>
+
+<p>By reason of the precession of the equinoxes, the pole does not always
+occupy the same place in the starry vault. The moderately bright star
+which is very justly named in the present day, the pole star, was far
+removed from the pole in the time of Hipparchus; in the course of a few
+centuries it will again appear removed from it. The designation of pole
+star has been, and will be, applied to stars very distant from each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>When the inquirer in attempting to explain natural phenomena has the
+misfortune to enter upon a wrong path, each precise observation throws
+him into new complications. Seven spheres of crystal did not suffice for
+representing the phenomena as soon as the illustrious astronomer of
+Rhodes discovered precession. An eighth sphere was then wanted to
+account for a movement in which all the stars participated at the same
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Copernicus having deprived the earth of its alleged immobility, gave a
+very simple explanation of the most minute circumstances of precession.
+He supposed that the axis of rotation does not remain exactly parallel
+to itself; that in the course of each complete revolution of the earth
+around the sun, the axis deviates from its position by a small quantity;
+in a word, instead of supposing the circumpolar stars to advance in a
+certain way towards the pole, he makes the pole advance towards the
+stars. This hypothesis divested the mechanism of the universe of the
+greatest complication which the love of theorizing had introduced into
+it. A new Alphonse would have then wanted a pretext to address to his
+astronomical synod the profound remark, so erroneously interpreted,
+which history ascribes to the king of Castile.</p>
+
+<p>If the conception of Copernicus improved by Kepler had, as we have just
+seen, introduced a striking improvement into the mechanism of the
+heavens, it still remained to discover the motive force which, by
+altering the position of the terrestrial axis during each successive
+year, would cause it to describe an entire circle of nearly 50&deg; in
+diameter, in a period of about 26,000 years.</p>
+
+<p>Newton conjectured that this force arose from the action of the sun and
+moon upon the redundant matter accumulated in the equatorial regions of
+the earth: thus he made the precession of the equinoxes depend upon the
+spheroidal figure of the earth; he declared that upon a round planet no
+precession would exist.</p>
+
+<p>All this was quite true, but Newton did not succeed in establishing it
+by a mathematical process. Now this great man had introduced into
+philosophy the severe and just rule: Consider as certain only what has
+been demonstrated. The demonstration of the Newtonian conception of the
+precession of the equinoxes was, then, a great discovery, and it is to
+D'Alembert that the glory of it is due.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The illustrious geometer
+gave a complete explanation of the general movement, in virtue of which
+the terrestrial axis returns to the same stars in a period of about
+26,000 years. He also connected with the theory of gravitation the
+perturbation of precession discovered by Bradley, that remarkable
+oscillation which the earth's axis experiences continually during its
+movement of progression, and the period of which, amounting to about
+eighteen years, is exactly equal to the time which the intersection of
+the moon's orbit with the ecliptic employs in describing the 360&deg; of the
+entire circumference.</p>
+
+<p>Geometers and astronomers are justly occupied as much with the figure
+and physical constitution which the earth might have had in remote ages
+as with its present figure and constitution.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as our countryman Richer discovered that a body, whatever be its
+nature, weighs less when it is transported nearer the equatorial
+regions, everybody perceived that the earth, if it was originally
+fluid, ought to bulge out at the equator. Huyghens and Newton did more;
+they calculated the difference between the greatest and least axes, the
+excess of the equatorial diameter over the line of the poles.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>
+
+<p>The calculation of Huyghens was founded upon hypothetic properties of
+the attractive force which were wholly inadmissible; that of Newton upon
+a theorem which he ought to have demonstrated; the theory of the latter
+was characterized by a defect of a still more serious nature: it
+supposed the density of the earth during the original state of fluidity,
+to be homogeneous.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> When in attempting the solution of great problems
+we have recourse to such simplifications; when, in order to elude
+difficulties of calculation, we depart so widely from natural and
+physical conditions, the results relate to an ideal world, they are in
+reality nothing more than flights of the imagination.</p>
+
+<p>In order to apply mathematical analysis usefully to the determination of
+the figure of the earth it was necessary to abandon all idea of
+homogeneity, all constrained resemblance between the forms of the
+superposed and unequally dense strata; it was necessary also to examine
+the case of a central solid nucleus. This generality increased tenfold
+the difficulties of the problem; neither Clairaut nor D'Alembert was,
+however, arrested by them. Thanks to the efforts of these two eminent
+geometers, thanks to some essential developments due to their immediate
+successors, and especially to the illustrious Legendre, the theoretical
+determination of the figure of the earth has attained all desirable
+perfection. There now reigns the most satisfactory accordance between
+the results of calculation and those of direct measurement. The earth,
+then, was originally fluid: analysis has enabled us to ascend to the
+earliest ages of our planet.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the time of Alexander comets were supposed by the majority of the
+Greek philosophers to be merely meteors generated in our atmosphere.
+During the middle ages, persons, without giving themselves much concern
+about the nature of those bodies, supposed them to prognosticate
+sinister events. Regiomontanus and Tycho Brah&eacute; proved by their
+observations that they are situate beyond the moon; Hevelius, D&ouml;rfel,
+&amp;c., made them revolve around the sun; Newton established that they move
+under the immediate influence of the attractive force of that body, that
+they do not describe right lines, that, in fact, they obey the laws of
+Kepler. It was necessary, then, to prove that the orbits of comets are
+curves which return into themselves, or that the same comet has been
+seen on several distinct occasions. This discovery was reserved for
+Halley. By a minute investigation of the circumstances connected with
+the apparitions of all the comets to be met with in the records of
+history, in ancient chronicles, and in astronomical annals, this eminent
+philosopher was enabled to prove that the comets of 1682, of 1607, and
+of 1531, were in reality so many successive apparitions of one and the
+same body.</p>
+
+<p>This identity involved a conclusion before which more than one
+astronomer shrunk. It was necessary to admit that the time of a complete
+revolution of the comet was subject to a great variation, amounting to
+as much as two years in seventy-six.</p>
+
+<p>Were such great discordances due to the disturbing action of the
+planets?</p>
+
+<p>The answer to this question would introduce comets into the category of
+ordinary planets or would exclude them for ever. The calculation was
+difficult: Clairaut discovered the means of effecting it. While success
+was still uncertain, the illustrious geometer gave proof of the greatest
+boldness, for in the course of the year 1758 he undertook to determine
+the time of the following year when the comet of 1682 would reappear. He
+designated the constellations, nay the stars, which it would encounter
+in its progress.</p>
+
+<p>This was not one of those remote predictions which astrologers and
+others formerly combined very skilfully with the tables of mortality, so
+that they might not be falsified during their lifetime: the event was
+close at hand. The question at issue was nothing less than the creation
+of a new era in cometary astronomy, or the casting of a reproach upon
+science, the consequences of which it would long continue to feel.</p>
+
+<p>Clairaut found by a long process of calculation, conducted with great
+skill, that the action of Jupiter and Saturn ought to have retarded the
+movement of the comet; that the time of revolution compared with that
+immediately preceding, would be increased 518 days by the disturbing
+action of Jupiter, and 100 days by the action of Saturn, forming a
+total of 618 days, or more than a year and eight months.</p>
+
+<p>Never did a question of astronomy excite a more intense, a more
+legitimate curiosity. All classes of society awaited with equal interest
+the announced apparition. A Saxon peasant, Palitzch, first perceived the
+comet. Henceforward, from one extremity of Europe to the other, a
+thousand telescopes traced each night the path of the body through the
+constellations. The route was always, within the limits of precision of
+the calculations, that which Clairaut had indicated beforehand. The
+prediction of the illustrious geometer was verified in regard both to
+time and space: astronomy had just achieved a great and important
+triumph, and, as usual, had destroyed at one blow a disgraceful and
+inveterate prejudice. As soon as it was established that the returns of
+comets might be calculated beforehand, those bodies lost for ever their
+ancient prestige. The most timid minds troubled themselves quite as
+little about them as about eclipses of the sun and moon, which are
+equally subject to calculation. In fine, the labours of Clairaut had
+produced a deeper impression on the public mind than the learned,
+ingenious, and acute reasoning of Bayle.</p>
+
+<p>The heavens offer to reflecting minds nothing more curious or more
+strange than the equality which subsists between the movements of
+rotation and revolution of our satellite. By reason of this perfect
+equality the moon always presents the same side to the earth. The
+hemisphere which we see in the present day is precisely that which our
+ancestors saw in the most remote ages; it is exactly the hemisphere
+which future generations will perceive.</p>
+
+<p>The doctrine of final causes which certain philosophers have so
+abundantly made use of in endeavouring to account for a great number of
+natural phenomena was in this particular case totally inapplicable. In
+fact, how could it be pretended that mankind could have any interest in
+perceiving incessantly the same hemisphere of the moon, in never
+obtaining a glimpse of the opposite hemisphere? On the other hand, the
+existence of a perfect, mathematical equality between elements having no
+necessary connection&mdash;such as the movements of translation and rotation
+of a given celestial body&mdash;was not less repugnant to all ideas of
+probability. There were besides two other numerical coincidences quite
+as extraordinary; an identity of direction, relative to the stars, of
+the equator and orbit of the moon; exactly the same precessional
+movements of these two planes. This group of singular phenomena,
+discovered by J.D. Cassini, constituted the mathematical code of what is
+called the <i>Libration of the Moon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The libration of the moon formed a very imperfect part of physical
+astronomy when Lagrange made it depend on a circumstance connected with
+the figure of our satellite which was not observable from the earth, and
+thereby connected it completely with the principles of universal
+gravitation.</p>
+
+<p>At the time when the moon was converted into a solid body, the action of
+the earth compelled it to assume a less regular figure than if no
+attracting body had been situate in its vicinity. The action of our
+globe rendered elliptical an equator which otherwise would have been
+circular. This disturbing action did not prevent the lunar equator from
+bulging out in every direction, but the prominence of the equatorial
+diameter directed towards the earth became four times greater than that
+of the diameter which we see perpendicularly.</p>
+
+<p>The moon would appear then, to an observer situate in space and
+examining it transversely, to be elongated towards the earth, to be a
+sort of pendulum without a point of suspension. When a pendulum deviates
+from the vertical, the action of gravity brings it back; when the
+principal axis of the moon recedes from its usual direction, the earth
+in like manner compels it to return.</p>
+
+<p>We have here, then, a complete explanation of a singular phenomenon,
+without the necessity of having recourse to the existence of an almost
+miraculous equality between two movements of translation and rotation,
+entirely independent of each other. Mankind will never see but one face
+of the moon. Observation had informed us of this fact; now we know
+further that this is due to a physical cause which may be calculated,
+and which is visible only to the mind's eye,&mdash;that it is attributable to
+the elongation which the diameter of the moon experienced when it passed
+from the liquid to the solid state under the attractive influence of the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>If there had existed originally a slight difference between the
+movements of rotation and revolution of the moon, the attraction of the
+earth would have reduced these movements to a rigorous equality. This
+attraction would have even sufficed to cause the disappearance of a
+slight want of coincidence in the intersections of the equator and orbit
+of the moon with the plane of the ecliptic.</p>
+
+<p>The memoir in which Lagrange has so successfully connected the laws of
+libration with the principles of gravitation, is no less remarkable for
+intrinsic excellence than style of execution. After having perused this
+production, the reader will have no difficulty in admitting that the
+word <i>elegance</i> may be appropriately applied to mathematical researches.</p>
+
+<p>In this analysis we have merely glanced at the astronomical discoveries
+of Clairaut, D'Alembert, and Lagrange. We shall be somewhat less concise
+in noticing the labours of Laplace.</p>
+
+<p>After having enumerated the various forces which must result from the
+mutual action of the planets and satellites of our system, even the
+great Newton did not venture to investigate the general nature of the
+effects produced by them. In the midst of the labyrinth formed by
+increases and diminutions of velocity, variations in the forms of the
+orbits, changes of distances and inclinations, which these forces must
+evidently produce, the most learned geometer would fail to discover a
+trustworthy guide. This extreme complication gave birth to a
+discouraging reflection. Forces so numerous, so variable in position, so
+different in intensity, seemed to be incapable of maintaining a
+condition of equilibrium except by a sort of miracle. Newton even went
+so far as to suppose that the planetary system did not contain within
+itself the elements of indefinite stability; he was of opinion that a
+powerful hand must intervene from time to time, to repair the
+derangements occasioned by the mutual action of the various bodies.
+Euler, although farther advanced than Newton in a knowledge of the
+planetary pertubations, refused also to admit that the solar system was
+constituted so as to endure for ever.</p>
+
+<p>Never did a greater philosophical question offer itself to the inquiries
+of mankind. Laplace attacked it with boldness, perseverance, and
+success. The profound and long-continued researches of the illustrious
+geometer established with complete evidence that the planetary ellipses
+are perpetually variable; that the extremities of their major axes make
+the tour of the heavens; that, independently of an oscillatory motion,
+the planes of their orbits experienced a displacement in virtue of which
+their intersections with the plane of the terrestrial orbit are each
+year directed towards different stars. In the midst of this apparent
+chaos there is one element which remains constant or is merely subject
+to small periodic changes; namely, the major axis of each orbit, and
+consequently the time of revolution of each planet. This is the element
+which ought to have chiefly varied, according to the learned
+speculations of Newton and Euler.</p>
+
+<p>The principle of universal gravitation suffices for preserving the
+stability of the solar system. It maintains the forms and inclinations
+of the orbits in a mean condition which is subject to slight
+oscillations; variety does not entail disorder; the universe offers the
+example of harmonious relations, of a state of perfection which Newton
+himself doubted. This depends on circumstances which calculation
+disclosed to Laplace, and which, upon a superficial view of the subject,
+would not seem to be capable of exercising so great an influence.
+Instead of planets revolving all in the same direction in slightly
+eccentric orbits, and in planes inclined at small angles towards each
+other, substitute different conditions and the stability of the universe
+will again be put in jeopardy, and according to all probability there
+will result a frightful chaos.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>Although the invariability of the mean distances of the planetary
+orbits has been more completely demonstrated since the appearance of the
+memoir above referred to, that is to say by pushing the analytical
+approximations to a greater extent, it will, notwithstanding, always
+constitute one of the admirable discoveries of the author of the
+<i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>. Dates, in the case of such subjects, are no luxury
+of erudition. The memoir in which Laplace communicated his results on
+the invariability of the mean motions or mean distances, is dated
+1773.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> It was in 1784 only, that he established the stability of the
+other elements of the system from the smallness of the planetary masses,
+the inconsiderable eccentricity of the orbits, and the revolution of the
+planets in one common direction around the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery of which I have just given an account to the reader
+excluded at least from the solar system the idea of the Newtonian
+attraction being a cause of disorder. But might not other forces, by
+combining with attraction, produce gradually increasing perturbations as
+Newton and Euler dreaded? Facts of a positive nature seemed to justify
+these fears.</p>
+
+<p>A comparison of ancient with modern observations revealed the existence
+of a continual acceleration of the mean motions of the moon and the
+planet Jupiter, and an equally striking diminution of the mean motion
+of Saturn. These variations led to conclusions of the most singular
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with the presumed cause of these perturbations, to say
+that the velocity of a body increased from century to century was
+equivalent to asserting that the body continually approached the centre
+of motion; on the other hand, when the velocity diminished, the body
+must be receding from the centre.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, by a strange arrangement of nature, our planetary system seemed
+destined to lose Saturn, its most mysterious ornament,&mdash;to see the
+planet accompanied by its ring and seven satellites, plunge gradually
+into unknown regions, whither the eye armed with the most powerful
+telescopes has never penetrated. Jupiter, on the other hand, the planet
+compared with which the earth is so insignificant, appeared to be moving
+in the opposite direction, so as to be ultimately absorbed in the
+incandescent matter of the sun. Finally, the moon seemed as if it would
+one day precipitate itself upon the earth.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing doubtful or speculative in these sinister forebodings.
+The precise dates of the approaching catastrophes were alone uncertain.
+It was known, however, that they were very distant. Accordingly, neither
+the learned dissertations of men of science nor the animated
+descriptions of certain poets produced any impression upon the public
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>It was not so with our scientific societies, the members of which
+regarded with regret the approaching destruction of our planetary
+system. The Academy of Sciences called the attention of geometers of all
+countries to these menacing perturbations. Euler and Lagrange descended
+into the arena. Never did their mathematical genius shine with a
+brighter lustre. Still, the question remained undecided. The inutility
+of such efforts seemed to suggest only a feeling of resignation on the
+subject, when from two disdained corners of the theories of analysis,
+the author of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> caused the laws of these great
+phenomena clearly to emerge. The variations of velocity of Jupiter,
+Saturn, and the Moon flowed then from evident physical causes, and
+entered into the category of ordinary periodic perturbations depending
+upon the principle of attraction. The variations in the dimensions of
+the orbits which were so much dreaded resolved themselves into simple
+oscillations included within narrow limits. Finally, by the powerful
+instrumentality of mathematical analysis, the physical universe was
+again established on a firm foundation.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot quit this subject without at least alluding to the
+circumstances in the solar system upon which depend the so long
+unexplained variations of velocity of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn.</p>
+
+<p>The motion of the earth around the sun is mainly effected in an ellipse,
+the form of which is liable to vary from the effects of planetary
+perturbation. These alterations of form are periodic; sometimes the
+curve, without ceasing to be elliptic, approaches the form of a circle,
+while at other times it deviates more and more from that form. From the
+epoch of the earliest recorded observations, the eccentricity of the
+terrestrial orbit has been diminishing from year to year; at some future
+epoch the orbit, on the contrary, will begin to deviate from the form of
+a circle, and the eccentricity will increase to the same extent as it
+previously diminished, and according to the same laws.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Laplace has shown that the mean motion of the moon around the
+earth is connected with the form of the ellipse which the earth
+describes around the sun; that a diminution of the eccentricity of the
+ellipse inevitably induces an increase in the velocity of our satellite,
+and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>; finally, that this cause suffices to explain the
+numerical value of the acceleration which the mean motion of the moon
+has experienced from the earliest ages down to the present time.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+<p>The origin of the inequalities in the mean motions of Jupiter and Saturn
+will be, I hope, as easy to conceive.</p>
+
+<p>Mathematical analysis has not served to represent in finite terms the
+values of the derangements which each planet experiences in its movement
+from the action of all the other planets. In the present state of
+science, this value is exhibited in the form of an indefinite series of
+terms diminishing rapidly in magnitude. In calculation, it is usual to
+neglect such of those terms as correspond in the order of magnitude to
+quantities beneath the errors of observation. But there are cases in
+which the order of the term in the series does not decide whether it be
+small or great. Certain numerical relations between the primitive
+elements of the disturbing and disturbed planets may impart sensible
+values to terms which usually admit of being neglected. This case occurs
+in the perturbations of Saturn produced by Jupiter, and in those of
+Jupiter produced by Saturn. There exists between the mean motions of
+these two great planets a simple relation of commensurability, five
+times the mean motion of Saturn, being, in fact, very nearly equal to
+twice the mean motion of Jupiter. It happens, in consequence, that
+certain terms, which would otherwise be very small, acquire from this
+circumstance considerable values. Hence arise in the movements of these
+two planets, inequalities of long duration which require more than 900
+years for their complete development, and which represent with
+marvellous accuracy all the irregularities disclosed by observation.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not astonishing to find in the commensurability of the mean
+motions of two planets, a cause of perturbation of so influential a
+nature; to discover that the definitive solution of an immense
+difficulty&mdash;which baffled the genius of Euler, and which even led
+persons to doubt whether the theory of gravitation was capable of
+accounting for all the phenomena of the heavens&mdash;should depend upon the
+fortuitous circumstance of five times the mean motion of Saturn being
+equal to twice the mean motion of Jupiter? The beauty of the conception
+and the ultimate result are here equally worthy of admiration.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<p>We have just explained how Laplace demonstrated that the solar system
+can experience only small periodic oscillations around a certain mean
+state. Let us now see in what way he succeeded in determining the
+absolute dimensions of the orbits.</p>
+
+<p>What is the distance of the sun from the earth? No scientific question
+has occupied in a greater degree the attention of mankind;
+mathematically speaking, nothing is more simple. It suffices, as in
+common operations of surveying, to draw visual lines from the two
+extremities of a known base to an inaccessible object. The remainder is
+a process of elementary calculation. Unfortunately, in the case of the
+sun, the distance is great and the bases which can be measured upon the
+earth are comparatively very small. In such a case the slightest errors
+in the direction of the visual lines exercise an enormous influence upon
+the results.</p>
+
+<p>In the beginning of the last century Halley remarked that certain
+interpositions of Venus between the earth and the sun, or, to use an
+expression applied to such conjunctions, that the <i>transits</i> of the
+planet across the sun's disk, would furnish at each observatory an
+indirect means of fixing the position of the visual ray very superior in
+accuracy to the most perfect direct methods.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
+
+<p>Such was the object of the scientific expeditions undertaken in 1761 and
+1769, on which occasions France, not to speak of stations in Europe, was
+represented at the Isle of Rodrigo by Pingr&eacute;, at the Isle of St. Domingo
+by Fleurin, at California by the Abb&eacute; Chappe, at Pondicherry by
+Legentil. At the same epochs England sent Maskelyne to St. Helena, Wales
+to Hudson's Bay, Mason to the Cape of Good Hope, Captain Cooke to
+Otaheite, &amp;c. The observations of the southern hemisphere compared with
+those of Europe, and especially with the observations made by an
+Austrian astronomer Father Hell at Wardhus in Lapland, gave for the
+distance of the sun the result which has since figured in all treatises
+on astronomy and navigation.</p>
+
+<p>No government hesitated in furnishing Academies with the means, however
+expensive they might be, of conveniently establishing their observers in
+the most distant regions. We have already remarked that the
+determination of the contemplated distance appeared to demand
+imperiously an extensive base, for small bases would have been totally
+inadequate to the purpose. Well, Laplace has solved the problem
+numerically without a base of any kind whatever; he has deduced the
+distance of the sun from observations of the moon made in one and the
+same place!</p>
+
+<p>The sun is, with respect to our satellite, the cause of perturbations
+which evidently depend on the distance of the immense luminous globe
+from the earth. Who does not see that these perturbations would diminish
+if the distance increased; that they would increase on the contrary, if
+the distance diminished; that the distance finally determines the
+magnitude of the perturbations?</p>
+
+<p>Observation assigns the numerical value of these perturbations; theory,
+on the other hand, unfolds the general mathematical relation which
+connects them with the solar parallax, and with other known elements.
+The determination of the mean radius of the terrestrial orbit then
+becomes one of the most simple operations of algebra. Such is the happy
+combination by the aid of which Laplace has solved the great, the
+celebrated problem of parallax. It is thus that the illustrious geometer
+found for the mean distance of the sun from the earth, expressed in
+radii of the terrestrial orbit, a value differing only in a slight
+degree from that which was the fruit of so many troublesome and
+expensive voyages. According to the opinion of very competent judges the
+result of the indirect method might not impossibly merit the
+preference.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>
+
+<p>The movements of the moon proved a fertile mine of research to our
+great geometer. His penetrating intellect discovered in them unknown
+treasures. He disentangled them from every thing which concealed them
+from vulgar eyes with an ability and a perseverance equally worthy of
+admiration. The reader will excuse me for citing another of such
+examples.</p>
+
+<p>The earth governs the movements of the moon. The earth is flattened, in
+other words its figure is spheroidal. A spheroidal body does not attract
+like a sphere. There ought then to exist in the movement, I had almost
+said in the countenance of the moon, a sort of impression of the
+spheroidal figure of the earth. Such was the idea as it originally
+occurred to Laplace.</p>
+
+<p>It still remained to ascertain (and here consisted the chief
+difficulty), whether the effects attributable to the spheroidal figure
+of the earth were sufficiently sensible not to be confounded with the
+errors of observation. It was accordingly necessary to find the general
+formula of perturbations of this nature, in order to be able, as in the
+case of the solar parallax, to eliminate the unknown quantity.</p>
+
+<p>The ardour of Laplace, combined with his power of analytical research,
+surmounted all obstacles. By means of an investigation which demanded
+the most minute attention, the great geometer discovered in the theory
+of the moon's movements, two well-defined perturbations depending on the
+spheroidal figure of the earth. The first affected the resolved element
+of the motion of our satellite which is chiefly measured with the
+instrument known in observatories by the name of the transit instrument;
+the second, which operated in the direction north and south, could only
+be effected by observations with a second instrument termed the mural
+circle. These two inequalities of very different magnitudes connected
+with the cause which produces them by analytical combinations of totally
+different kinds have, however, both conducted to the same value of the
+ellipticity. It must be borne in mind, however, that the ellipticity
+thus deduced from the movements of the moon, is not the ellipticity
+corresponding to such or such a country, the ellipticity observed in
+France, in England, in Italy, in Lapland, in North America, in India, or
+in the region of the Cape of Good Hope, for the earth's materials having
+undergone considerable upheavings at different times and in different
+places, the primitive regularity of its curvature has been sensibly
+disturbed by this cause. The moon, and it is this circumstance which
+renders the result of such inestimable value, ought to assign, and has
+in reality assigned the general ellipticity of the earth; in other
+words, it has indicated a sort of mean value of the various
+determinations obtained at enormous expense, and with infinite labour,
+as the result of long voyages undertaken by astronomers of all the
+countries of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>I shall add a few brief remarks, for which I am mainly indebted to the
+author of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>. They seem to be eminently adapted for
+illustrating the profound, the unexpected, and almost paradoxical
+character of the methods which I have just attempted to sketch.</p>
+
+<p>What are the elements which it has been found necessary to confront with
+each other in order to arrive at results expressed even to the precision
+of the smallest decimals?</p>
+
+<p>On the one hand, mathematical formul&aelig;, deduced from the principle of
+universal attraction; on the other hand, certain irregularities observed
+in the returns of the moon to the meridian.</p>
+
+<p>An observing geometer who, from his infancy, had never quitted his
+chamber of study, and who had never viewed the heavens except through a
+narrow aperture directed north and south, in the vertical plane in which
+the principal astronomical instruments are made to move,&mdash;to whom
+nothing had ever been revealed respecting the bodies revolving above his
+head, except that they attract each other according to the Newtonian law
+of gravitation,&mdash;would, however, be enabled to ascertain that his narrow
+abode was situated upon the surface of a spheroidal body, the equatorial
+axis of which surpassed the polar axis by a <i>three hundred and sixth
+part</i>; he would have also found, in his isolated immovable position, his
+true distance from the sun.</p>
+
+<p>I have stated at the commencement of this Notice, that it is to
+D'Alembert we owe the first satisfactory mathematical explanation of the
+phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes. But our illustrious
+countryman, as well as Euler, whose solution appeared subsequently to
+that of D'Alembert, omitted all consideration of certain physical
+circumstances, which, however, did not seem to be of a nature to be
+neglected without examination. Laplace has supplied this deficiency. He
+has shown that the sea, notwithstanding its fluidity, and that the
+atmosphere, notwithstanding its currents, exercise the same influence on
+the movements of the terrestrial axis as if they formed solid masses
+adhering to the terrestrial spheroid.</p>
+
+<p>Do the extremities of the axis around which the earth performs an entire
+revolution once in every twenty-four hours, correspond always to the
+same material points of the terrestrial spheroid? In other words, do the
+poles of rotation, which from year to year correspond to different
+stars, undergo also a displacement at the surface of the earth?</p>
+
+<p>In the case of the affirmative, the equator is movable as well as the
+poles; the terrestrial latitudes are variable; no country during the
+lapse of ages will enjoy, even on an average, a constant climate;
+regions the most different will, in their turn, become circumpolar.
+Adopt the contrary supposition, and every thing assumes the character of
+an admirable permanence.</p>
+
+<p>The question which I have just suggested, one of the most important in
+Astronomy, cannot be solved by the aid of mere observation on account of
+the uncertainty of the early determinations of terrestrial latitude.
+Laplace has supplied this defect by analysis. The great geometer has
+demonstrated that no circumstance depending on universal gravitation can
+sensibly displace the poles of the earth's axis relatively to the
+surface of the terrestrial spheroid. The sea, far from being an obstacle
+to the invariable rotation of the earth upon its axis, would, on the
+contrary, reduce the axis to a permanent condition in consequence of the
+mobility of the waters and the resistance which their oscillations
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>The remarks which I have just made with respect to the position of the
+terrestrial axis are equally applicable to the time of the earth's
+rotation which is the unit, the true standard of time. The importance of
+this element induced Laplace to examine whether its numerical value
+might not be liable to vary from internal causes such as earthquakes and
+volcanoes. It is hardly necessary for me to state that the result
+obtained was negative.</p>
+
+<p>The admirable memoir of Lagrange upon the libration of the moon seemed
+to have exhausted the subject. This, however, was not the case.</p>
+
+<p>The motion of revolution of our satellite around the earth is subject to
+perturbations, technically termed <i>secular</i>, which were either unknown
+to Lagrange or which he neglected. These inequalities eventually place
+the body, not to speak of entire circumferences, at angular distances of
+a semi-circle, a circle and a half, &amp;c., from the position which it
+would otherwise occupy. If the movement of rotation did not participate
+in such perturbations, the moon in the lapse of ages would present in
+succession all the parts of its surface to the earth.</p>
+
+<p>This event will not occur. The hemisphere of the moon which is actually
+invisible, will remain invisible for ever. Laplace, in fact, has shown
+that the attraction of the earth introduces into the rotatory motion of
+the lunar spheroid the secular inequalities which exist in the movement
+of revolution.</p>
+
+<p>Researches of this nature exhibit in full relief the power of
+mathematical analysis. It would have been very difficult to have
+discovered by synthesis truths so profoundly enveloped in the complex
+action of a multitude of forces.</p>
+
+<p>We should be inexcusable if we omitted to notice the high importance of
+the labours of Laplace on the improvement of the lunar tables. The
+immediate object of this improvement was, in effect, the promotion of
+maritime intercourse between distant countries, and, what was indeed far
+superior to all considerations of mercantile interest, the preservation
+of the lives of mariners.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to a sagacity without parallel, to a perseverance which knew no
+limits, to an ardour always youthful and which communicated itself to
+able coadjutors, Laplace solved the celebrated problem of the longitude
+more completely than could have been hoped for in a scientific point of
+view, with greater precision than the art of navigation in its utmost
+refinement demanded. The ship, the sport of the winds and tempests, has
+no occasion, in the present day, to be afraid of losing itself in the
+immensity of the ocean. An intelligent glance at the starry vault
+indicates to the pilot, in every place and at every time, his distance
+from the meridian of Paris. The extreme perfection of the existing
+tables of the moon entitles Laplace to be ranked among the benefactors
+of humanity.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the beginning of the year 1611, Galileo supposed that he found in the
+eclipses of Jupiter's satellites a simple and rigorous solution of the
+famous problem of the longitude, and active negotiations were
+immediately commenced with the view of introducing the new method on
+board the numerous vessels of Spain and Holland. These negotiations
+failed. From the discussion it plainly appeared that the accurate
+observation of the eclipses of the satellites would require powerful
+telescopes; but such telescopes could not be employed on board a ship
+tossed about by the waves.</p>
+
+<p>The method of Galileo seemed, at any rate, to retain all its advantages
+when applied on land, and to promise immense improvements to geography.
+These expectations were found to be premature. The movements of the
+satellites of Jupiter are not by any means so simple as the immortal
+inventor of the method of longitudes supposed them to be. It was
+necessary that three generations of astronomers and mathematicians
+should labour with perseverance in unfolding their most considerable
+perturbations. It was necessary, in fine, that the tables of those
+bodies should acquire all desirable and necessary precision, that
+Laplace should introduce into the midst of them the torch of
+mathematical analysis.</p>
+
+<p>In the present day, the nautical ephemerides contain, several years in
+advance, the indication of the times of the eclipses and reappearances
+of Jupiter's satellites. Calculation does not yield in precision to
+direct observation. In this group of satellites, considered as an
+independent system of bodies, Laplace found a series of perturbations
+analogous to those which the planets experience. The rapidity of the
+revolutions unfolds, in a sufficiently short space of time, changes in
+this system which require centuries for their complete development in
+the solar system.</p>
+
+<p>Although the satellites exhibit hardly an appreciable diameter even when
+viewed in the best telescopes, our illustrious countryman was enabled to
+determine their masses. Finally, he discovered certain simple relations
+of an extremely remarkable character between the movements of those
+bodies, which have been called <i>the laws of Laplace</i>. Posterity will not
+obliterate this designation; it will acknowledge the propriety of
+inscribing in the heavens the name of so great an astronomer beside that
+of Kepler.</p>
+
+<p>Let us cite two or three of the laws of Laplace:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>If we add to the mean longitude of the first satellite twice that of the
+third, and subtract from the sum three times the mean longitude of the
+second, the result will be exactly equal to 180&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>Would it not be very extraordinary if the three satellites had been
+placed originally at the distances from Jupiter, and in the positions,
+with respect to each other, adapted for constantly and rigorously
+maintaining the foregoing relation? Laplace has replied to this question
+by showing that it is not necessary that this relation should have been
+rigorously true at the origin. The mutual action of the satellites would
+necessarily have reduced it to its present mathematical condition, if
+once the distances and the positions satisfied the law approximately.</p>
+
+<p>This first law is equally true when we employ the synodical elements. It
+hence plainly results, that the first three satellites of Jupiter can
+never be all eclipsed at the same time. Bearing this in mind, we shall
+have no difficulty in apprehending the import of a celebrated
+observation of recent times, during which certain astronomers perceived
+the planet for a short time without any of his four satellites. This
+would not by any means authorize us in supposing the satellites to be
+eclipsed. A satellite disappears when it is projected upon the central
+part of the luminous disk of Jupiter, and also when it passes behind the
+opaque body of the planet.</p>
+
+<p>The following is another very simple law to which the mean motions of
+the same satellites of Jupiter are subject:</p>
+
+<p>If we add to the mean motion of the first satellite twice the mean
+motion of the third, the sum is exactly equal to three times the mean
+motion of the second.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p>
+
+<p>This numerical coincidence, which is perfectly accurate, would be one of
+the most mysterious phenomena in the system of the universe if Laplace
+had not proved that the law need only have been approximate at the
+origin, and that the mutual action of the satellites has sufficed to
+render it rigorous.</p>
+
+<p>The illustrious geometer, who always pursued his researches to their
+most remote ramifications, arrived at the following result: The action
+of Jupiter regulates the movements of rotation of the satellites so
+that, without taking into account the secular perturbations, the time of
+rotation of the first satellite plus twice the time of rotation of the
+third, forms a sum which is constantly equal to three times the time of
+rotation of the second.</p>
+
+<p>Influenced by a deference, a modesty, a timidity, without any plausible
+motive, our artists in the last century surrendered to the English the
+exclusive privilege of constructing instruments of astronomy. Thus, let
+us frankly acknowledge the fact, at the time when Herschel was
+prosecuting his beautiful observations on the other side of the Channel,
+there existed in France no instruments adapted for developing them; we
+had not even the means of verifying them. Fortunately for the scientific
+honour of our country, mathematical analysis is also a powerful
+instrument. Laplace gave ample proof of this on a memorable occasion
+when from the retirement of his chamber he predicted, he minutely
+announced, what the excellent astronomer of Windsor would see with the
+largest telescopes which were ever constructed by the hand of man.</p>
+
+<p>When Galileo, in the beginning of the year 1610, directed towards Saturn
+a telescope of very low power which he had just executed with his own
+hands, he perceived that the planet was not an ordinary globe, without
+however being able to ascertain its real form. The expression
+<i>tri-corporate</i>, by which the illustrious Florentine designated the
+appearance of the planet, implied even a totally erroneous idea of its
+structure. Our countryman Roberval entertained much sounder views on the
+subject, but from not having instituted a detailed comparison between
+his hypothesis and the results of observation, he abandoned to Huyghens
+the honour of being regarded as the author of the true theory of the
+phenomena presented by the wonderful planet.</p>
+
+<p>Every person knows, in the present day, that Saturn consists of a globe
+about 900 times greater than the earth, and a ring. This ring does not
+touch the ball of the planet, being everywhere removed from it at a
+distance of 20,000 (English) miles. Observation indicates the breadth of
+the ring to be 54,000 miles. The thickness certainly does not exceed 250
+miles. With the exception of a black streak which divides the ring
+throughout its whole contour into two parts of unequal breadth and of
+different brightness, this strange colossal bridge without piles had
+never offered to the most experienced or skilful observers either spot
+or protuberance adapted for deciding whether it was immovable or endued
+with a movement of rotation.</p>
+
+<p>Laplace considered it to be very improbable, if the ring was immovable,
+that its constituent parts should be capable of resisting by their mere
+cohesion the continual attraction of the planet. A movement of rotation
+occurred to his mind as constituting the principle of stability, and he
+hence deduced the necessary velocity. The velocity thus found was
+exactly equal to that which Herschel subsequently deduced from a course
+of extremely delicate observations.</p>
+
+<p>The two parts of the ring being placed at different distances from the
+planet, could not fail to experience from the action of the sun,
+different movements of rotation. It would hence seem that the planes of
+both rings ought to be generally inclined towards each other, whereas
+they appear from observation always to coincide. It was necessary then
+that some physical cause should exist which would be capable of
+neutralizing the action of the sun. In a memoir published in February,
+1789, Laplace found that this cause must reside in the ellipticity of
+Saturn produced by a rapid movement of rotation of the planet, a
+movement the existence of which Herschel announced in November, 1789.</p>
+
+<p>The reader cannot fail to remark how, on certain occasions, the eyes of
+the mind can supply the want of the most powerful telescopes, and lead
+to astronomical discoveries of the highest importance.</p>
+
+<p>Let us descend from the heavens upon the earth. The discoveries of
+Laplace will appear not less important, not less worthy of his genius.</p>
+
+<p>The phenomena of the tides, which an ancient philosopher designated in
+despair as <i>the tomb of human curiosity</i>, were connected by Laplace with
+an analytical theory in which the physical conditions of the question
+figure for the first time. Accordingly calculators, to the immense
+advantage of the navigation of our maritime coasts, venture in the
+present day to predict several years in advance the details of the time
+and height of the full tides without more anxiety respecting the result
+than if the question related to the phases of an eclipse.</p>
+
+<p>There exists between the different phenomena of the ebb and flow of the
+tides and the attractive forces which the sun and moon exercise upon the
+fluid sheet which covers three fourths of the globe, an intimate and
+necessary connection from which Laplace, by the aid of a series of
+twenty years of observations executed at Brest, deduced the value of the
+mass of our satellite. Science knows in the present day that
+seventy-five moons would be necessary to form a weight equivalent to
+that of the terrestrial globe, and it is indebted for this result to an
+attentive and minute study of the oscillations of the ocean. We know
+only one means of enhancing the admiration which every thoughtful mind
+will entertain for theories capable of leading to such conclusions. An
+historical statement will supply it. In the year 1631, the illustrious
+Galileo, as appears from his <i>Dialogues</i>, was so far from perceiving the
+mathematical relations from which Laplace deduced results so beautiful,
+so unequivocal, and so useful, that he taxed with frivolousness the
+vague idea which Kepler entertained of attributing to the moon's
+attraction a certain share in the production of the diurnal and
+periodical movements of the waters of the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>Laplace did not confine himself to extending so considerably, and
+improving so essentially, the mathematical theory of the tides; he
+considered the phenomenon from an entirely new point of view; it was he
+who first treated of the stability of the ocean. Systems of bodies,
+whether solid or fluid, are subject to two kinds of equilibrium, which
+we must carefully distinguish from each other. In the case of stable
+equilibrium the system, when slightly disturbed, tends always to return
+to its original condition. On the other hand, when the system is in
+unstable equilibrium, a very insignificant derangement might occasion an
+enormous dislocation in the relative positions of its constituent parts.</p>
+
+<p>If the equilibrium of waves is of the latter kind, the waves engendered
+by the action of winds, by earthquakes, and by sudden movements from the
+bottom of the ocean, have perhaps risen in past times and may rise in
+the future to the height of the highest mountains. The geologist will
+have the satisfaction of deducing from these prodigious oscillations a
+rational explanation of a great multitude of phenomena, but the public
+will thereby be exposed to new and terrible catastrophes.</p>
+
+<p>Mankind may rest assured: Laplace has proved that the equilibrium of the
+ocean is stable, but upon the express condition (which, however, has
+been amply verified by established facts), that the mean density of the
+fluid mass is less than the mean density of the earth. Every thing else
+remaining the same, let us substitute an ocean of mercury for the actual
+ocean, and the stability will disappear, and the fluid will frequently
+surpass its boundaries, to ravage continents even to the height of the
+snowy regions which lose themselves in the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Does not the reader remark how each of the analytical investigations of
+Laplace serves to disclose the harmony and duration of the universe and
+of our globe!</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible that the great geometer, who had succeeded so well in
+the study of the tides of the ocean, should not have occupied his
+attention with the tides of the atmosphere; that he should not have
+submitted to the delicate and definitive tests of a rigorous calculus,
+the generally diffused opinions respecting the influence of the moon
+upon the height of the barometer and other meteorological phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>Laplace, in effect, has devoted a chapter of his splendid work to an
+examination of the oscillations which the attractive force of the moon
+is capable of producing in our atmosphere. It results from these
+researches, that, at Paris, the lunar tide produces no sensible effect
+upon the barometer. The height of the tide, obtained by the discussion
+of a long series of observations, has not exceeded two-hundredths of a
+millim&egrave;tre, a quantity which, in the present state of meteorological
+science, is less than the probable error of observation.</p>
+
+<p>The calculation to which I have just alluded, may be cited in support
+of considerations to which I had recourse when I wished to establish,
+that if the moon alters more or less the height of the barometer,
+according to its different phases, the effect is not attributable to
+attraction.</p>
+
+<p>No person was more sagacious than Laplace in discovering intimate
+relations between phenomena apparently very dissimilar; no person showed
+himself more skilful in deducing important conclusions from those
+unexpected affinities.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the close of his days, for example, he overthrew with a stroke
+of the pen, by the aid of certain observations of the moon, the
+cosmogonic theories of Buffon and Bailly, which were so long in favour.</p>
+
+<p>According to these theories, the earth was inevitably advancing to a
+state of congelation which was close at hand. Laplace, who never
+contented himself with a vague statement, sought to determine in numbers
+the rapid cooling of our globe which Buffon had so eloquently but so
+gratuitously announced. Nothing could be more simple, better connected,
+or more demonstrative, than the chain of deductions of the celebrated
+geometer.</p>
+
+<p>A body diminishes in volume when it cools. According to the most
+elementary principles of mechanics, a rotating body which contracts in
+dimensions ought inevitably to turn upon its axis with greater and
+greater rapidity. The length of the day has been determined in all ages
+by the time of the earth's rotation; if the earth is cooling, the length
+of the day must be continually shortening. Now there exists a means of
+ascertaining whether the length of the day has undergone any variation;
+this consists in examining, for each century, the arc of the celestial
+sphere described by the moon during the interval of time which the
+astronomers of the existing epoch called a day,&mdash;in other words, the
+time required by the earth to effect a complete rotation on its axis,
+the velocity of the moon being in fact independent of the time of the
+earth's rotation.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now, after the example of Laplace, take from the standard tables
+the least considerable values, if you choose, of the expansions or
+contractions which solid bodies experience from changes of temperature;
+search then the annals of Grecian, Arabian, and modern astronomy for the
+purpose of finding in them the angular velocity of the moon, and the
+great geometer will prove, by incontrovertible evidence founded upon
+these data, that during a period of two thousand years the mean
+temperature of the earth has not varied to the extent of the hundredth
+part of a degree of the centigrade thermometer. No eloquent declamation
+is capable of resisting such a process of reasoning, or withstanding the
+force of such numbers. The mathematics have been in all ages the
+implacable adversaries of scientific romances.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of bodies, if it was not a phenomenon of perpetual occurrence,
+would justly excite in the highest degree the astonishment of mankind.
+What, in effect, is more extraordinary than to see an inert mass, that
+is to say, a mass deprived of will, a mass which ought not to have any
+propensity to advance in one direction more than in another, precipitate
+itself towards the earth as soon as it ceased to be supported!</p>
+
+<p>Nature engenders the gravity of bodies by a process so recondite, so
+completely beyond the reach of our senses and the ordinary resources of
+human intelligence, that the philosophers of antiquity, who supposed
+that they could explain every thing mechanically according to the
+simple evolutions of atoms, excepted gravity from their speculations.</p>
+
+<p>Descartes attempted what Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and their
+followers thought to be impossible.</p>
+
+<p>He made the fall of terrestrial bodies depend upon the action of a
+vortex of very subtle matter circulating around the earth. The real
+improvements which the illustrious Huyghens applied to the ingenious
+conception of our countryman were far, however, from imparting to it
+clearness and precision, those characteristic attributes of truth.</p>
+
+<p>Those persons form a very imperfect estimate of the meaning of one of
+the greatest questions which has occupied the attention of modern
+inquirers, who regard Newton as having issued victorious from a struggle
+in which his two immortal predecessors had failed. Newton did not
+discover the cause of gravity any more than Galileo did. Two bodies
+placed in juxtaposition approach each other. Newton does not inquire
+into the nature of the force which produces this effect. The force
+exists, he designates it by the term attraction; but, at the same time,
+he warns the reader that the term as thus used by him does not imply any
+definite idea of the physical process by which gravity is brought into
+existence and operates.</p>
+
+<p>The force of attraction being once admitted as a fact, Newton studies it
+in all terrestrial phenomena, in the revolutions of the moon, the
+planets, satellites, and comets; and, as we have already stated, he
+deduced from this incomparable study the simple, universal, mathematical
+characteristics of the forces which preside over the movements of all
+the bodies of which our solar system is composed.</p>
+
+<p>The applause of the scientific world did not prevent the immortal
+author of the <i>Principia</i> from hearing some persons refer the principle
+of gravitation to the class of occult qualities. This circumstance
+induced Newton and his most devoted followers to abandon the reserve
+which they had hitherto considered it their duty to maintain. Those
+persons were then charged with ignorance who regarded attraction as an
+essential property of matter, as the mysterious indication of a sort of
+charm; who supposed that two bodies may act upon each other without the
+intervention of a third body. This force was then either the result of
+the tendency of an ethereal fluid to move from the free regions of
+space, where its density is a maximum, towards the planetary bodies
+around which there exists a greater degree of rarefaction, or the
+consequence of the impulsive force of some fluid medium.</p>
+
+<p>Newton never expressed a definitive opinion respecting the origin of the
+impulse which occasioned the attractive force of matter, at least in our
+solar system. But we have strong reasons for supposing, in the present
+day, that in using the word <i>impulse</i>, the great geometer was thinking
+of the systematic ideas of Varignon and Fatio de Duillier, subsequently
+reinvented and perfected by Lesage: these ideas, in effect, had been
+communicated to him before they were published to the world.</p>
+
+<p>According to Lesage, there are, in the regions of space, bodies moving
+in every possible direction, and with excessive rapidity. The author
+applied to these the name of ultra-mundane corpuscles. Their totality
+constituted the gravitative fluid, if indeed, the designation of a fluid
+be applicable to an assemblage of particles having no mutual connexion.</p>
+
+<p>A single body placed in the midst of such an ocean of movable
+particles, would remain at rest although it were impelled equally in
+every direction. On the other hand, two bodies ought to advance towards
+each other, since they would serve the purpose of mutual screens, since
+the surfaces facing each other would no longer be hit in the direction
+of their line of junction by the ultra-mundane particles, since there
+would then exist currents, the effect of which would no longer be
+neutralized by opposite currents. It will be easily seen, besides, that
+two bodies plunged into the gravitative fluid, would tend to approach
+each other with an intensity which would vary in the inverse proportion
+of the square of the distance.</p>
+
+<p>If attraction is the result of the impulse of a fluid, its action ought
+to employ a finite time in traversing the immense spaces which separate
+the celestial bodies. If the sun, then, were suddenly extinguished, the
+earth after the catastrophe would, mathematically speaking, still
+continue for some time to experience its attractive influence. The
+contrary would happen on the occasion of the sudden birth of a planet; a
+certain time would elapse before the attractive force of the new body
+would make itself felt on the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Several geometers of the last century were of opinion that the force of
+attraction is not transmitted instantaneously from one body to another;
+they even assigned to it a comparatively inconsiderable velocity of
+propagation. Daniel Bernoulli, for example, in attempting to explain how
+the spring tide arrives upon our coasts a day and a half after the
+sizygees, that is to say, a day and a half after the epochs when the sun
+and moon are most favourably situated for the production of this
+magnificent phenomenon, assumed that the disturbing force required all
+this time (a day and a half) for its propagation from the moon to the
+ocean. So feeble a velocity was inconsistent with the mechanical
+explanation of attraction of which we have just spoken. The explanation,
+in effect, necessarily supposes that the proper motions of the celestial
+bodies are insensible compared with the motion of the gravitative fluid.</p>
+
+<p>After having discovered that the diminution of the eccentricity of the
+terrestrial orbit is the real cause of the observed acceleration of the
+motion of the moon, Laplace, on his part, endeavoured to ascertain
+whether this mysterious acceleration did not depend on the gradual
+propagation of attraction.</p>
+
+<p>The result of calculation was at first favourable to the plausibility of
+the hypothesis. It showed that the gradual propagation of the attractive
+force would introduce into the movement of our satellite a perturbation
+proportional to the square of the time which elapsed from the
+commencement of any epoch; that in order to represent numerically the
+results of astronomical observations it would not be necessary to assign
+a feeble velocity to attraction; that a propagation eight millions of
+times more rapid than that of light would satisfy all the phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>Although the true cause of the acceleration of the moon is now well
+known, the ingenious calculation of which I have just spoken does not
+the less on that account maintain its place in science. In a
+mathematical point of view, the perturbation depending on the gradual
+propagation of the attractive force which this calculation indicates has
+a certain existence. The connexion between the velocity of perturbation
+and the resulting inequality is such that one of the two quantities
+leads to a knowledge of the numerical value of the other. Now, upon
+assigning to the inequality the greatest value which is consistent with
+the observations after they have been corrected for the effect due to
+the variation of the eccentricity of the terrestrial orbit, we find the
+velocity of the attractive force to be fifty millions of times the
+velocity of light!</p>
+
+<p>If it be borne in mind, that this number is an inferior limit, and that
+the velocity of the rays of light amounts to 77,000 leagues (192,000
+English miles) per second, the philosophers who profess to explain the
+force of attraction by the impulsive energy of a fluid, will see what
+prodigious velocities they must satisfy.</p>
+
+<p>The reader cannot fail again to remark the sagacity with which Laplace
+singled out the phenomena which were best adapted for throwing light
+upon the most obscure points of celestial physics; nor the success with
+which he explored their various parts, and deduced from them numerical
+conclusions in presence of which the mind remains confounded.</p>
+
+<p>The author of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> supposed, like Newton, that light
+consists of material molecules of excessive tenuity and endued in empty
+space with a velocity of 77,000 leagues in a second. However, it is
+right to warn those who would be inclined to avail themselves of this
+imposing authority, that the principal argument of Laplace, in favour of
+the system of emission, consisted in the advantage which it afforded of
+submitting every question to a process of simple and rigorous
+calculation; whereas, on the other hand, the theory of undulations has
+always offered immense difficulties to analysts. It was natural that a
+geometer who had so elegantly connected the laws of simple refraction
+which light undergoes in its passage through the atmosphere, and the
+laws of double refraction which it is subject to in the course of its
+passage through certain crystals, with the action of attractive and
+repulsive forces, should not have abandoned this route, before he
+recognized the impossibility of arriving by the same path, at plausible
+explanations of the phenomena of diffraction and polarization. In other
+respects, the care which Laplace always employed, in pursuing his
+researches, as far as possible, to their numerical results, will enable
+those who are disposed to institute a complete comparison between the
+two rival theories of light, to derive from the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> the
+materials of several interesting relations.</p>
+
+<p>Is light an emanation from the sun? Does this body launch out
+incessantly in every direction a part of its own substance? Is it
+gradually diminishing in volume and mass? The attraction exercised by
+the sun upon the earth will, in that case, gradually become less and
+less considerable. The radius of the terrestrial orbit, on the other
+hand, cannot fail to increase, and a corresponding effect will be
+produced on the length of the year.</p>
+
+<p>This is the conclusion which suggests itself to every person upon a
+first glance at the subject. By applying analysis to the question, and
+then proceeding to numerical computations, founded upon the most
+trustworthy results of observation relative to the length of the year in
+different ages, Laplace has proved that an incessant emission of light,
+going on for a period of two thousand years, has not diminished the mass
+of the sun by the two-millionth part of its original value.</p>
+
+<p>Our illustrious countryman never proposed to himself any thing vague or
+indefinite. His constant object was the explanation of the great
+phenomena of nature, according to the inflexible principles of
+mathematical analysis. No philosopher, no mathematician, could have
+maintained himself more cautiously on his guard against a propensity to
+hasty speculation. No person dreaded more the scientific errors which
+the imagination gives birth to, when it ceases to remain within the
+limits of facts, of calculation, and of analogy. Once, and once only,
+did Laplace launch forward, like Kepler, like Descartes, like Leibnitz,
+like Buffon, into the region of conjectures. His conception was not then
+less than a cosmogony.</p>
+
+<p>All the planets revolve around the sun, from west to east, and in planes
+which include angles of inconsiderable magnitude.</p>
+
+<p>The satellites revolve around their respective primaries in the same
+direction as that in which the planets revolve around the sun, that is
+to say, from west to east.</p>
+
+<p>The planets and satellites which have been found to have a rotatory
+motion, turn also upon their axes from west to east. Finally, the
+rotation of the sun is directed from west to east. We have here then an
+assemblage of forty-three movements, all operating in the same
+direction. By the calculus of probabilities, the odds are four thousand
+millions to one, that this coincidence in the direction of so many
+movements is not the effect of accident.</p>
+
+<p>It was Buffon, I think, who first attempted to explain this singular
+feature of our solar system. Having wished, in the explanation of
+phenomena, to avoid all recourse to causes which were not warranted by
+nature, the celebrated academician investigated a physical origin of the
+system in what was common to the movements of so many bodies differing
+in magnitude, in form, and in distance from the principal centre of
+attraction. He imagined that he discovered such an origin by making
+this triple supposition: a comet fell obliquely upon the sun; it pushed
+before it a torrent of fluid matter; this substance transported to a
+greater or less distance from the sun according to its mass formed by
+concentration all the known planets.</p>
+
+<p>The bold hypothesis of Buffon is liable to insurmountable difficulties.
+I proceed to indicate, in a few words, the cosmogonic system which
+Laplace substituted for that of the illustrious author of the <i>Histoire
+Naturelle</i>.</p>
+
+<p>According to Laplace, the sun was at a remote epoch the central nucleus
+of an immense nebula, which possessed a very high temperature, and
+extended far beyond the region in which Uranus revolves in the present
+day. No planet was then in existence.</p>
+
+<p>The solar nebula was endued with a general movement of revolution
+directed from west to east. As it cooled it could not fail to experience
+a gradual condensation, and, in consequence, to rotate with greater and
+greater rapidity. If the nebulous matter extended originally in the
+plane of the equator as far as the limit at which the centrifugal force
+exactly counterbalanced the attraction of the nucleus, the molecules
+situate at this limit ought, during the process of condensation, to
+separate from the rest of the atmospheric matter and form an equatorial
+zone, a ring revolving separately and with its primitive velocity. We
+may conceive that analogous separations were effected in the higher
+strata of the nebula at different epochs, that is to say, at different
+distances from the nucleus, and that they give rise to a succession of
+distinct rings, included almost in the same plane and endued with
+different velocities.</p>
+
+<p>This being once admitted, it is easy to see that the indefinite
+stability of the rings would have required a regularity of structure
+throughout their whole contour, which is very improbable. Each of them
+accordingly broke in its turn into several masses, which were plainly
+endued with a movement of rotation, coinciding in direction with the
+common movement of revolution, and which in consequence of their
+fluidity assumed spheroidal forms.</p>
+
+<p>In order, then, that one of those spheroids might absorb all the others
+belonging to the same ring, it will be sufficient to assign to it a mass
+greater than that of any other spheroid.</p>
+
+<p>Each of the planets, while in the vaporous condition to which we have
+just alluded, would manifestly have a central nucleus gradually
+increasing in magnitude and mass, and an atmosphere offering, at its
+successive limits, phenomena entirely similar to those which the solar
+atmosphere, properly so called, had exhibited. We here witness the birth
+of satellites, and that of the ring of Saturn.</p>
+
+<p>The system, of which I have just given an imperfect sketch, has for its
+object to show how a nebula endued with a general movement of rotation
+must eventually transform itself into a very luminous central nucleus (a
+sun) and into a series of distinct spheroidal planets, situate at
+considerable distances from each other, revolving all around the central
+sun in the direction of the original movement of the nebula; how these
+planets ought also to have movements of rotation operating in similar
+directions; how, finally, the satellites, when any of such are formed,
+cannot fail to revolve upon their axes and around their respective
+primaries, in the direction of rotation of the planets and of their
+movement of revolution around the sun.</p>
+
+<p>We have just found, conformably to the principles of mechanics, the
+forces with which the particles of the nebula were originally endued, in
+the movements of rotation and revolution of the compact and distinct
+masses which these particles have brought into existence by their
+condensation. But we have thereby achieved only a single step. The
+primitive movement of rotation of the nebula is not connected with the
+simple attraction of the particles. This movement seems to imply the
+action of a primordial impulsive force.</p>
+
+<p>Laplace is far from adopting, in this respect, the almost universal
+opinion of philosophers and mathematicians. He does not suppose that the
+mutual attractions of originally immovable bodies must ultimately reduce
+all the bodies to a state of rest around their common centre of gravity.
+He maintains, on the contrary, that three bodies, in a state of rest,
+two of which have a much greater mass than the third, would concentrate
+into a single mass only in certain exceptional cases. In general, the
+two most considerable bodies would unite together, while the third would
+revolve around their common centre of gravity. Attraction would thus
+become the cause of a sort of movement which would seem to be explicable
+solely by an impulsive force.</p>
+
+<p>It might be supposed, indeed, that in explaining this part of his system
+Laplace had before his eyes the words which Rousseau has placed in the
+mouth of the vicar of Savoy, and that he wished to refute them: "Newton
+has discovered the law of attraction," says the author of <i>Emile</i>, "but
+attraction alone would soon reduce the universe to an immovable mass:
+with this law we must combine a projectile force in order to make the
+celestial bodies describe curve lines. Let Descartes reveal to us the
+physical law which causes his vortices to revolve; and let Newton show
+us the hand which launched the planets along the tangents of their
+orbits."</p>
+
+<p>According to the cosmogonic ideas of Laplace, comets did not originally
+form part of the solar system; they are not formed at the expense of the
+matter of the immense solar nebula; we must consider them as small
+wandering nebul&aelig; which the attractive force of the sun has caused to
+deviate from their original route. Such of those comets as penetrated
+into the great nebula at the epoch of condensation and of the formation
+of planets fell into the sun, describing spiral curves, and must by
+their action have caused the planetary orbits to deviate more or less
+from the plane of the solar equator, with which they would otherwise
+have exactly coincided.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to the zodiacal light, that rock against which so many
+reveries have been wrecked, it consists of the most volatile parts of
+the primitive nebula. These molecules not having united with the
+equatorial zones successively abandoned in the plane of the solar
+equator, continued to revolve at their original distances, and with
+their original velocities. The circumstance of this extremely rare
+substance being included wholly within the earth's orbit, and even
+within that of Venus, seemed irreconcilable with the principles of
+mechanics; but this difficulty occurred only when the zodiacal substance
+being conceived to be in a state of direct and intimate dependence on
+the solar photosphere properly so called, an angular movement of
+rotation was impressed on it equal to that of the photosphere, a
+movement in virtue of which it effected an entire revolution in
+twenty-five days and a half. Laplace presented his conjectures on the
+formation of the solar system with the diffidence inspired by a result
+which was not founded upon calculation and observation.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> Perhaps it
+is to be regretted that they did not receive a more complete
+development, especially in so far as concerns the division of the matter
+into distinct rings; perhaps it would have been desirable if the
+illustrious author had expressed himself more fully respecting the
+primitive physical condition, the molecular condition of the nebula at
+the expense of which the sun, planets, and satellites, of our system
+were formed. It is perhaps especially to be regretted that Laplace
+should have only briefly alluded to what he considered the obvious
+possibility of movements of revolution having their origin in the action
+of simple attractive forces, and to other questions of a similar nature.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding these defects, the ideas of the author of the <i>M&eacute;canique
+C&eacute;leste</i> are still the only speculations of the kind which, by their
+magnitude, their coherence, and their mathematical character, may be
+justly considered as forming a physical cosmogony; those alone which in
+the present day derive a powerful support from the results of the recent
+researches of astronomers on the nebul&aelig; of every form and magnitude,
+which are scattered throughout the celestial vault.</p>
+
+<p>In this analysis, we have deemed it right to concentrate all our
+attention upon the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>. The <i>Syst&egrave;me du Monde</i> and the
+<i>Th&eacute;orie Analytique des Probabilit&eacute;s</i> would also require detailed
+notices.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Exposition du Syst&egrave;me du Monde</i> is the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> divested
+of the great apparatus of analytical formul&aelig; which ought to be
+attentively perused by every astronomer who, to use an expression of
+Plato, is desirous of knowing the numbers which govern the physical
+universe. It is in the <i>Exposition du Syst&eacute;me du Monde</i> that persons
+unacquainted with mathematical studies will obtain an exact and
+competent knowledge of the methods to which physical astronomy is
+indebted for its astonishing progress. This work, written with a noble
+simplicity of style, an exquisite propriety of expression, and a
+scrupulous accuracy, is terminated by a sketch of the history of
+astronomy, universally ranked in the present day among the finest
+monuments of the French language.</p>
+
+<p>A regret has been often expressed, that C&aelig;sar, in his immortal
+<i>Commentaries</i>, should have confined himself to a narration of his own
+campaigns: the astronomical commentaries of Laplace ascend to the origin
+of communities. The labours undertaken in all ages for the purpose of
+extracting new truths from the heavens, are there justly, clearly, and
+profoundly analyzed; it is genius presiding as the impartial judge of
+genius. Laplace has always remained at the height of his great mission;
+his work will be read with respect so long as the torch of science shall
+continue to throw any light.</p>
+
+<p>The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits, ought
+to interest, in an equal degree, the mathematician, the experimentalist,
+and the statesman. From the time when Pascal and Fermat established its
+first principles, it has rendered and continues daily to render services
+of the most eminent kind. It is the calculus of probabilities, which,
+after having suggested the best arrangements of the tables of population
+and mortality, teaches us to deduce from those numbers, in general so
+erroneously interpreted, conclusions of a precise and useful character:
+it is the calculus of probabilities which alone can regulate justly the
+premiums to be paid for assurances; the reserve funds for the
+disbursement of pensions, annuities, discounts, &amp;c.: it is under its
+influence that lotteries, and other shameful snares cunningly laid for
+avarice and ignorance, have definitively disappeared. Laplace has
+treated these questions, and others of a much more complicated nature,
+with his accustomed superiority. In short, the <i>Th&eacute;orie Analytique des
+Probabilit&eacute;s</i> is worthy of the author of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A philosopher, whose name is associated with immortal discoveries, said
+to his audience who had allowed themselves to be influenced by ancient
+and consecrated authorities, "Bear in mind, Gentlemen, that in questions
+of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning
+of a single individual." Two centuries have passed over these words of
+Galileo without depreciating their value, or obliterating their truthful
+character. Thus, instead of displaying a long list of illustrious
+admirers of the three beautiful works of Laplace, we have preferred
+glancing briefly at some of the sublime truths which geometry has there
+deposited. Let us not, however, apply this principle in its utmost
+rigour, and since chance has put into our hands some unpublished letters
+of one of those men of genius, whom nature has endowed with the rare
+faculty of seizing at a glance the salient points of an object, we may
+be permitted to extract from them two or three brief and characteristic
+appreciations of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> and the <i>Trait&eacute; des
+Probabilit&eacute;s</i>.</p>
+
+<p>On the 27th Vendemiaire in the year X., General Bonaparte, after having
+received a volume of the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>, wrote to Laplace in the
+following terms:&mdash;"The first <i>six months</i> which I shall have at my
+disposal will be employed in reading your beautiful work." It would
+appear that the words, the first <i>six months</i>, deprive the phrase of the
+character of a common-place expression of thanks, and convey a just
+appreciation of the importance and difficulty of the subject-matter.</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th Frimaire in the year XI., the reading of some chapters of the
+volume, which Laplace had dedicated to him, was to the general "a new
+occasion for regretting, that the force of circumstances had directed
+him into a career which removed him from the pursuit of science."</p>
+
+<p>"At all events," added he, "I have a strong desire that future
+generations, upon reading the <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>, shall not forget the
+esteem and friendship which I have entertained towards its author."</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th Prairial in the year XIII., the general, now become emperor,
+wrote from Milan: "The <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i> appears to me destined to
+shed new lustre on the age in which we live."</p>
+
+<p>Finally, on the 12th of August, 1812, Napoleon, who had just received
+the <i>Trait&eacute; du Calcul des Probabilit&eacute;s</i>, wrote from Witepsk the letter
+which we transcribe textually:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There was a time when I would have read with interest your <i>Trait&eacute; du
+Calcul des Probabilit&eacute;s</i>. For the present I must confine myself to
+expressing to you the satisfaction which I experience every time that I
+see you give to the world new works which serve to improve and extend
+the most important of the sciences, and contribute to the glory of the
+nation. The advancement and the improvement of mathematical science are
+connected with the prosperity of the state."</p>
+
+<p>I have now arrived at the conclusion of the task which I had imposed
+upon myself. I shall be pardoned for having given so detailed an
+exposition of the principal discoveries for which philosophy, astronomy,
+and navigation are indebted to our geometers.</p>
+
+<p>It has appeared to me that in thus tracing the glorious past I have
+shown our contemporaries the full extent of their duty towards the
+country. In fact, it is for nations especially to bear in remembrance
+the ancient adage: <i>noblesse oblig&eacute;</i>!</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The author here refers to the series of biographies
+contained in tome III. of the <i>Notices Biographiques</i>.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> These celebrated laws, known in astronomy as the laws of
+Kepler, are three in number. The first law is, that the planets describe
+ellipses around the sun in their common focus; the second, that a line
+joining the planet and the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times;
+the third, that the squares of the periodic times of the planets are
+proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun. The
+first two laws were discovered by Kepler in the course of a laborious
+examination of the theory of the planet Mars; a full account of this
+inquiry is contained in his famous work <i>De Stella Martis</i>, published in
+1609. The discovery of the third law was not effected until, several
+years afterwards, Kepler announced it to the world in his treatise on
+Harmonics (1628). The passage quoted below is extracted from that
+work.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The spheroidal figure of the earth was established by the
+comparison of an arc of the meridian that had been measured in France,
+with a similar arc measured in Lapland, from which it appeared that the
+length of a degree of the meridian increases from the equator towards
+the poles, conformably to what ought to result upon the supposition of
+the earth having the figure of an oblate spheroid. The length of the
+Lapland arc was determined by means of an expedition which the French
+Government had despatched to the North of Europe for that purpose. A
+similar expedition had been despatched from France about the same time
+to Peru in South America, for the purpose of measuring an arc of the
+meridian under the equator, but the results had not been ascertained at
+the time to which the author alludes in the text. The variation of
+gravity at the surface of the earth was established by Richer's
+experiments with the pendulum at Cayenne, in South America (1673-4),
+from which it appeared that the pendulum oscillates more slowly&mdash;and
+consequently the force of gravity is less intense&mdash;under the equator
+than in the latitude of Paris.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> It may perhaps be asked why we place Lagrange among the
+French geometers? This is our reply: It appears to us that the
+individual who was named Lagrange Tournier, two of the most
+characteristic French names which it is possible to imagine, whose
+maternal grandfather was M. Gros, whose paternal great-grandfather was a
+French officer, a native of Paris, who never wrote except in French, and
+who was invested in our country with high honours during a period of
+nearly thirty years;&mdash;ought to be regarded as a Frenchman although born
+at Turin.&mdash;<i>Author</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The problem of three bodies was solved independently about
+the same time by Euler, D'Alembert, and Clairaut. The two last-mentioned
+geometers communicated their solutions to the Academy of Sciences on the
+same day, November 15, 1747. Euler had already in 1746 published tables
+of the moon, founded on his solution of the same problem, the details of
+which he subsequently published in 1753.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> It must be admitted that M. Arago has here imperfectly
+represented Newton's labours on the great problem of the precession of
+the equinoxes. The immortal author of the Principia did not merely
+<i>conjecture</i> that the conical motion of the earth's axis is due to the
+disturbing action of the sun and moon upon the matter accumulated around
+the earth's equator: he <i>demonstrated</i> by a very beautiful and
+satisfactory process that the movement must necessarily arise from that
+cause; and although the means of investigation, in his time, were
+inadequate to a rigorous computation of the quantitative effect, still,
+his researches on the subject have been always regarded as affording one
+of the most striking proofs of sagacity which is to be found in all his
+works.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> It would appear that Hooke had conjectured that the figure
+of the earth might be spheroidal before Newton or Huyghens turned their
+attention to the subject. At a meeting of the Royal Society on the 28th
+of February, 1678, a discussion arose respecting the figure of Mercury
+which M. Gallet of Avignon had remarked to be oval on the occasion of
+the planet's transit across the sun's disk on the 7th of November, 1677.
+Hooke was inclined to suppose that the phenomenon was real, and that it
+was due to the whirling of the planet on an axis "which made it somewhat
+of the shape of a turnip, or of a solid made by an ellipsis turned round
+upon its shorter diameter." At the meeting of the Society on the 7th of
+March, the subject was again discussed. In reply to the objection
+offered to his hypothesis on the ground of the planet being a solid
+body, Hooke remarked that "although it might now be solid, yet that at
+the beginning it might have been fluid enough to receive that shape; and
+that although this supposition should not be granted, it would be
+probable enough that it would really run into that shape and make the
+same appearance; <i>and that it is not improbable but that the water here
+upon the earth might do it in some measure by the influence of the
+diurnal motion, which, compounded with that of the moon, he conceived to
+be the cause of the Tides</i>." (Journal Book of the Royal Society, vol.
+vi. p. 60.) Richer returned from Cayenne in the year 1674, but the
+account of his observations with the pendulum during his residence
+there, was not published until 1679, nor is there to be found any
+allusion to them during the intermediate interval, either in the volumes
+of the Academy of Sciences or any other publication. We have no means of
+ascertaining how Newton was first induced to suppose that the figure of
+the earth is spheroidal, but we know, upon his own authority, that as
+early as the year 1667, or 1668, he was led to consider the effects of
+the centrifugal force in diminishing the weight of bodies at the
+equator. With respect to Huyghens, he appears to have formed a
+conjecture respecting the spheroidal figure of the earth independently
+of Newton; but his method for computing the ellipticity is founded upon
+that given in the Principia.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Newton assumed that a homogeneous fluid mass of a
+spheroidal form would be in equilibrium if it were endued with an
+adequate rotatory motion and its constituent particles attracted each
+other in the inverse proportion of the square of the distance. Maclaurin
+first demonstrated the truth of this theorem by a rigorous application
+of the ancient geometry.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> The results of Clairaut's researches on the figure of the
+earth are mainly embodied in a remarkable theorem discovered by that
+geometer, and which may be enunciated thus:&mdash;<i>The sum of the fractions
+expressing the ellipticity and the increase of gravity at the pole is
+equal to two and a half times the fraction expressing the centrifugal
+force at the equator, the unit of force being represented by the force
+of gravity at the equator.</i> This theorem is independent of any
+hypothesis with respect to the law of the densities of the successive
+strata of the earth. Now the increase of gravity at the pole may be
+ascertained by means of observations with the pendulum in different
+latitudes. Hence it is plain that Clairaut's theorem furnishes a
+practical method for determining the value of the earth's
+ellipticity.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> The researches on the secular variations of the
+eccentricities and inclinations of the planetary orbits depend upon the
+solution of an algebraic equation equal in degree to the number of
+planets whose mutual action is considered, and the coefficients of which
+involve the values of the masses of those bodies. It may be shown that
+if the roots of this equation be equal or imaginary, the corresponding
+element, whether the eccentricity or the inclination, will increase
+indefinitely with the time in the case of each planet; but that if the
+roots, on the other hand, be real and unequal, the value of the element
+will oscillate in every instance within fixed limits. Laplace proved by
+a general analysis, that the roots of the equation are real and unequal,
+whence it followed that neither the eccentricity nor the inclination
+will vary in any case to an indefinite extent. But it still remained
+uncertain, whether the limits of oscillation were not in any instance so
+far apart that the variation of the element (whether the eccentricity or
+the inclination) might lead to a complete destruction of the existing
+physical condition of the planet. Laplace, indeed, attempted to prove,
+by means of two well-known theorems relative to the eccentricities and
+inclinations of the planetary orbits, that if those elements were once
+small, they would always remain so, provided the planets all revolved
+around the sun in one common direction and their masses were
+inconsiderable. It is to these theorems that M. Arago manifestly alludes
+in the text. Le Verrier and others have, however, remarked that they are
+inadequate to assure the permanence of the existing physical condition
+of several of the planets. In order to arrive at a definitive conclusion
+on this subject, it is indispensable to have recourse to the actual
+solution of the algebraic equation above referred to. This was the
+course adopted by the illustrious Lagrange in his researches on the
+secular variations of the planetary orbits. (<i>Mem. Acad. Berlin</i>,
+1783-4.) Having investigated the values of the masses of the planets, he
+then determined, by an approximate solution, the values of the several
+roots of the algebraic equation upon which the variations of the
+eccentricities and inclinations of the orbits depended. In this way, he
+found the limiting values of the eccentricity and inclination for the
+orbit of each of the principal planets of the system. The results
+obtained by that great geometer have been mainly confirmed by the recent
+researches of Le Verrier on the same subject. (<i>Connaissance des Temps</i>,
+1843.)&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Laplace was originally led to consider the subject of the
+perturbations of the mean motions of the planets by his researches on
+the theory of Jupiter and Saturn. Having computed the numerical value of
+the secular inequality affecting the mean motion of each of those
+planets, neglecting the terms of the fourth and higher orders relative
+to the eccentricities and inclinations, he found it to be so small that
+it might be regarded as totally insensible. Justly suspecting that this
+circumstance was not attributable to the particular values of the
+elements of Jupiter and Saturn, he investigated the expression for the
+secular perturbation of the mean motion by a general analysis,
+neglecting, as before, the fourth and higher powers of the
+eccentricities and inclinations, and he found in this case, that the
+terms which were retained in the investigation absolutely destroyed each
+other, so that the expression was reduced to zero. In a memoir which he
+communicated to the Berlin Academy of Sciences, in 1776, Lagrange first
+showed that the mean distance (and consequently the mean motion) was not
+affected by any secular inequalities, no matter what were the
+eccentricities or inclinations of the disturbing and disturbed
+planets.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Mr. Adams has recently detected a remarkable oversight
+committed by Laplace and his successors in the analytical investigation
+of the expression for this inequality. The effect of the rectification
+rendered necessary by the researches of Mr. Adams will be to diminish by
+about one sixth the coefficient of the principal term of the secular
+inequality. This coefficient has for its multiplier the square of the
+number of centuries which have elapsed from a given epoch; its value was
+found by Laplace to be 10".18. Mr. Adams has ascertained that it must be
+diminished by 1".66. This result has recently been verified by the
+researches of M. Plana. Its effect will be to alter in some degree the
+calculations of ancient eclipses. The Astronomer Royal has stated in his
+last Annual Report, to the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory,
+(June 7, 1856,) that steps have recently been taken at the Observatory,
+for calculating the various circumstances of those phenomena, upon the
+basis of the more correct data furnished by the researches of Mr.
+Adams.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a></p>
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/diag344.png" width='400' height='351' alt="Orbits of Jupiter and Saturn" /></p>
+
+<p>The origin of this famous inequality may be best understood by reference
+to the mode in which the disturbing forces operate. Let P Q R, P' Q' R'
+represent the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, and let us suppose, for the
+sake of illustration, that they are both situate in the same plane. Let
+the planets be in conjunction at P, P', and let them both be revolving
+around the sun S, in the direction represented by the arrows. Assuming
+that the mean motion of Jupiter is to that of Saturn exactly in the
+proportion of five to two, it follows that when Jupiter has completed
+one revolution, Saturn will have advanced through two fifths of a
+revolution. Similarly, when Jupiter has completed a revolution and a
+half, Saturn will have effected three fifths of a revolution. Hence when
+Jupiter arrives at T, Saturn will be a little in advance of T'. Let us
+suppose that the two planets come again into conjunction at Q, Q'. It is
+plain that while Jupiter has completed one revolution, and, advanced
+through the angle P S Q (measured in the direction of the arrow), Saturn
+has simply described around S the angle P' S' Q'. Hence the <i>excess</i> of
+the angle described around S, by Jupiter, over the angle similarly
+described by Saturn, will amount to one complete revolution, or, 360&deg;.
+But since the mean motions of the two planets are in the proportion of
+five to two, the angles described by them around S in any given time
+will be in the same proportion, and therefore the <i>excess</i> of the angle
+described by Jupiter over that described by Saturn will be to the angle
+described by Saturn in the proportion of three to two. But we have just
+found that the excess of these two angles in the present case amounts to
+360&deg;, and the angle described by Saturn is represented by P' S' Q';
+consequently 360&deg; is to the angle P' S' Q' in the proportion of three to
+two, in other words P' S' Q' is equal to two thirds of the circumference
+or 240&deg;. In the same way it may be shown that the two planets will come
+into conjunction again at R, when Saturn has described another arc of
+240&deg;. Finally, when Saturn has advanced through a third arc of 240&deg;, the
+two planets will come into conjunction at P, P', the points whence they
+originally set out; and the two succeeding conjunctions will also
+manifestly occur at Q, Q' and R, R'. Thus we see, that the conjunctions
+will always occur in three given points of the orbit of each planet
+situate at angular distances of 120&deg; from each other. It is also
+obvious, that during the interval which elapses between the occurrence
+of two conjunctions in the same points of the orbits, and which includes
+three synodic revolutions of the planets, Jupiter will have accomplished
+five revolutions around the sun, and Saturn will have accomplished two
+revolutions. Now if the orbits of both planets were perfectly circular,
+the retarding and accelerating effects of the disturbing force of either
+planet would neutralize each other in the course of a synodic
+revolution, and therefore both planets would return to the same
+condition at each successive conjunction. But in consequence of the
+ellipticity of the orbits, the retarding effect of the disturbing force
+is manifestly no longer exactly compensated by the accelerative effect,
+and hence at the close of each synodic revolution, there remains a
+minute outstanding alteration in the movement of each planet. A similar
+effect will he produced at each of the three points of conjunction; and
+as the perturbations which thus ensue do not generally compensate each
+other, there will remain a minute outstanding perturbation as the result
+of every three conjunctions. The effect produced being of the same kind
+(whether tending to accelerate or retard the movement of the planet) for
+every such triple conjunction, it is plain that the action of the
+disturbing forces would ultimately lead to a serious derangement of the
+movements of both planets. All this is founded on the supposition that
+the mean motions of the two planets are to each other as two to five;
+but in reality, this relation does not exactly hold. In fact while
+Jupiter requires 21,663 days to accomplish five revolutions, Saturn
+effects two revolutions in 21,518 days. Hence when Jupiter, after
+completing his fifth revolution, arrives at P, Saturn will have advanced
+a little beyond P', and the conjunction of the two planets will occur at
+P, P' when they have both described around S an additional arc of about
+8&deg;. In the same way it may be shown that the two succeeding conjunctions
+will take place at the points <i>q, q', r, r'</i> respectively 8&deg; in advance
+of Q, Q', R, R'. Thus we see that the points of conjunction will travel
+with extreme slowness in the same direction as that in which the planets
+revolve. Now since the angular distance between P and R is 120&deg;, and
+since in a period of three synodic revolutions or 21,758 days, the line
+of conjunction travels through an arc of 8&deg;, it follows that in 892
+years the conjunction of the two planets will have advanced from P, P'
+to R, R'. In reality, the time of travelling from P, P' to R, R' is
+somewhat longer from the indirect effects of planetary perturbation,
+amounting to 920 years. In an equal period of time the conjunction of
+the two planets will advance from Q, Q' to R, R' and from R, R' to P,
+P'. During the half of this period the perturbative effect resulting
+from every triple conjunction will lie constantly in one direction, and
+during the other half it will lie in the contrary direction; that is to
+say, during a period of 460 years the mean motion of the disturbed
+planet will be continually accelerated, and, in like manner, during an
+equal period it will be continually retarded. In the case of Jupiter
+disturbed by Saturn, the inequality in longitude amounts at its maximum
+to 21'; in the converse case of Saturn disturbed by Jupiter, the
+inequality is more considerable in consequence of the greater mass of
+the disturbing planet, amounting at its maximum to 49'. In accordance
+with the mechanical principle of the equality of action and reaction, it
+happens that while the mean motion of one planet is increasing, that of
+the other is diminishing, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>. We have supposed that the
+orbits of both planets are situate in the same plane. In reality,
+however, they are inclined to each other, and this circumstance will
+produce an effect exactly analogous to that depending on the
+eccentricities of the orbits. It is plain that the more nearly the mean
+motions of the two planets approach a relation of commensurability, the
+smaller will be the displacement of every third conjunction, and
+consequently the longer will be the duration, and the greater the
+ultimate accumulation, of the inequality.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> The utility of observations of the transits of the
+inferior planets for determining the solar parallax, was first pointed
+out by James Gregory (<i>Optica Promota</i>, 1663).&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Mayer, from the principles of gravitation (<i>Theoria Lun&aelig;</i>,
+1767), computed the value of the solar parallax to be 7".8. He remarked
+that the error of this determination did not amount to one twentieth of
+the whole, whence it followed that the true value of the parallax could
+not exceed 8".2. Laplace, by an analogous process, determined the
+parallax to be 8".45. Encke, by a profound discussion of the
+observations of the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, found the value
+of the same element to be 8".5776.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> The theoretical researches of Laplace formed the basis of
+Burckhardt's Lunar Tables, which are chiefly employed in computing the
+places of the moon for the Nautical Almanac and other Ephemerides. These
+tables were defaced by an empiric equation, suggested for the purpose of
+representing an inequality of long period which seemed to affect the
+mean longitude of the moon. No satisfactory explanation of the origin of
+this inequality could be discovered by any geometer, although it formed
+the subject of much toilsome investigation throughout the present
+century, until at length M. Hansen found it to arise from a combination
+of two inequalities due to the disturbing action of Venus. The period of
+one of these inequalities is 273 years, and that of the other is 239
+years. The maximum value of the former is 27".4, and that of the latter
+is 23".2.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> This law is necessarily included in the law already
+enunciated by the author relative to the mean longitudes. The following
+is the most usual mode of expressing these curious relations: 1st, the
+mean motion of the first satellite, plus twice the mean motion of the
+third, minus three times the mean motion of the second, is rigorously
+equal to zero; 2d, the mean longitude of the first satellite, plus twice
+the mean longitude of the third, minus three times the mean longitude of
+the second, is equal to 180&deg;. It is plain that if we only consider the
+mean longitude here to refer to a <i>given epoch</i>, the combination of the
+two laws will assure the existence of an analogous relation between the
+mean longitudes <i>for any instant of time whatever</i>, whether past or
+future. Laplace has shown, as the author has stated in the text, that if
+these relations had only been approximately true at the origin, the
+mutual attraction of the three satellites would have ultimately rendered
+them rigorously so; under such circumstances, the mean longitude of the
+first satellite, plus twice the mean longitude of the third, minus three
+times the mean longitude of the second, would continually oscillate
+about 180&deg; as a mean value. The three satellites would participate in
+this libratory movement, the extent of oscillation depending in each
+case on the mass of the satellite and its distance from the primary, but
+the period of libration is the same for all the satellites, amounting to
+2,270 days 18 hours, or rather more than six years. Observations of the
+eclipses of the satellites have not afforded any indications of the
+actual existence of such a libratory motion, so that the relations
+between the mean motions and mean longitudes may be presumed to be
+always rigorously true.&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Laplace has explained this theory in his <i>Exposition du
+Syst&egrave;me du Monde</i> (liv. iv. note vii.).&mdash;<i>Translator</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h3>APPENDIX.</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="A" id="A"></a>(A.)</h3>
+
+<h3>THE FOLLOWING IS A BRIEF NOTICE OF SOME OTHER INTERESTING RESULTS OF THE
+RESEARCHES OF LAPLACE WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN MENTIONED IN THE TEXT.</h3>
+
+<p><i>Method for determining the orbits of comets.</i>&mdash;Since comets are
+generally visible only during a few days or weeks at the utmost, the
+determination of their orbits is attended with peculiar difficulties.
+The method devised by Newton for effecting this object was in every
+respect worthy of his genius. Its practical value was illustrated by the
+brilliant researches of Halley on cometary orbits. It necessitated,
+however, a long train of tedious calculations, and, in consequence, was
+not much used, astronomers generally preferring to attain the same end
+by a tentative process. In the year 1780, Laplace communicated to the
+Academy of Sciences an analytical method for determining the elements of
+a comet's orbit. This method has been extensively employed in France.
+Indeed, previously to the appearance of Olber's method, about the close
+of the last century, it furnished the easiest and most expeditious
+process hitherto devised, for calculating the parabolic elements of a
+comet's orbit.</p>
+
+<p><i>Invariable plane of the solar system.</i>&mdash;In consequence of the mutual
+perturbations of the different bodies of the planetary system, the
+planes of the orbits in which they revolve are perpetually varying in
+position. It becomes therefore desirable to ascertain some fixed plane
+to which the movements of the planets in all ages may be referred, so
+that the observations of one epoch might be rendered readily comparable
+with those of another. This object was accomplished by Laplace, who
+discovered that notwithstanding the perpetual fluctuations of the
+planetary orbits, there exists a fixed plane, to which the positions of
+the various bodies may at any instant be easily referred. This plane
+passes through the centre of gravity of the solar system, and its
+position is such, that if the movements of the planets be projected upon
+it, and if the mass of each planet be multiplied by the area which it
+describes in a given time, the sum of such products will be a maximum.
+The position of the plane for the year 1750 has been calculated by
+referring it to the ecliptic of that year. In this way it has been found
+that the inclination of the plane is 1&deg; 35' 31", and that the longitude
+of the ascending node is 102&deg; 57' 30". The position of the plane when
+calculated for the year 1950, with respect to the ecliptic of 1750,
+gives 1&deg; 35' 31" for the inclination, and 102&deg; 57' 15" for the longitude
+of the ascending node. It will be seen that a very satisfactory
+accordance exists between the elements of the position of the invariable
+plane for the two epochs.</p>
+
+<p><i>Diminution of the obliquity of the ecliptic.</i>&mdash;The astronomers of the
+eighteenth century had found, by a comparison of ancient with modern
+observations, that the obliquity of the ecliptic is slowly diminishing
+from century to century. The researches of geometers on the theory of
+gravitation had shown that an effect of this kind must be produced by
+the disturbing action of the planets on the earth. Laplace determined
+the secular displacement of the plane of the earth's orbit due to each
+of the planets, and in this way ascertained the whole effect of
+perturbation upon the obliquity of the ecliptic. A comparison which he
+instituted between the results of his formula and an ancient observation
+recorded in the Chinese Annals exhibited a most satisfactory accordance.
+The observation in question indicated the obliquity of the ecliptic for
+the year 1100 before the Christian era, to be 23&deg; 54' 2".5. According to
+the principles of the theory of gravitation, the obliquity for the same
+epoch would be 23&deg; 51' 30".</p>
+
+<p><i>Limits of the obliquity of the ecliptic modified by the action of the
+sun and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid.</i>&mdash;The ecliptic will not
+continue indefinitely to approach the equator. After attaining a certain
+limit it will then vary in the opposite direction, and the obliquity
+will continually increase in like manner as it previously diminished.
+Finally, the inclination of the equator and the ecliptic will attain a
+certain maximum value, and then the obliquity will again diminish. Thus
+the angle contained between the two planes will perpetually oscillate
+within certain limits. The extent of variation is inconsiderable.
+Laplace found that, in consequence of the spheroidal figure of the
+earth, it is even less than it would otherwise have been. This will be
+readily understood, when we state that the disturbing action of the sun
+and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid produces an oscillation of the
+earth's axis which occasions a periodic variation of the obliquity of
+the ecliptic. Now, as the plane of the ecliptic approaches the equator,
+the mean disturbing action of the sun and moon upon the redundant matter
+accumulated around the latter will undergo a corresponding variation,
+and hence will arise an inconceivably slow movement of the plane of the
+equator, which will necessarily affect the obliquity of the ecliptic.
+Laplace found that if it were not for this cause, the obliquity of the
+ecliptic would oscillate to the extent of 4&deg; 53' 33" on each side of a
+mean value, but that when the movements of both planes are taken into
+account, the extent of oscillation is reduced to 1&deg; 33' 45".</p>
+
+<p><i>Variation of the length of the tropical year.</i>&mdash;The disturbing action
+of the sun and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid occasions a continual
+<i>regression</i> of the equinoctial points, and hence arises the distinction
+between the sidereal and tropical year. The effect is modified in a
+small degree by the variation of the plane of the ecliptic, which tends
+to produce a <i>progression</i> of the equinoxes. If the movement of the
+equinoctial points arising from these combined causes was uniform, the
+length of the tropical year would be manifestly invariable. Theory,
+however, indicates that for ages past the rate of regression has been
+slowly increasing, and, consequently, the length of the tropical year
+has been gradually diminishing. The rate of diminution is exceedingly
+small. Laplace found that it amounts to somewhat less than half a second
+in a century. Consequently, the length of the tropical year is now about
+ten seconds less than it was in the time of Hipparchus.</p>
+
+<p><i>Limits of variation of the tropical year modified by the disturbing
+action of the sun and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid.</i>&mdash;The tropical
+year will not continue indefinitely to diminish in length. When it has
+once attained a certain minimum value, it will then increase until
+finally having attained an extreme value in the opposite direction, it
+will again begin to diminish, and thus it will perpetually oscillate
+between certain fixed limits. Laplace found that the extent to which the
+tropical year is liable to vary from this cause, amounts to thirty-eight
+seconds. If it were not for the effect produced upon the inclination of
+the equator to the ecliptic by the mean disturbing action of the sun and
+moon upon the terrestrial spheroid, the extent of variation would amount
+to 162 seconds.</p>
+
+<p><i>Motion of the perihelion of the terrestrial orbit.</i>&mdash;The major axis of
+the orbit of each planet is in a state of continual movement from the
+disturbing action of the other planets. In some cases, it makes the
+complete tour of the heavens; in others, it merely oscillates around a
+mean position. In the case of the earth's orbit, the perihelion is
+slowly advancing in the same direction as that in which all the planets
+are revolving around the sun. The alteration of its position with
+respect to the stars amounts to about 11" in a year, but since the
+equinox is regressing in the opposite direction at the rate of 50" in a
+year, the whole annual variation of the longitude of the terrestrial
+perihelion amounts to 61". Laplace has considered two remarkable epochs
+in connection with this fact; viz: the epoch at which the major axis of
+the earth's orbit coincided with the line of the equinoxes, and the
+epoch at which it stood perpendicular to that line. By calculation, he
+found the former of these epochs to be referable to the year 4107,
+<span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, and the latter to the year 1245, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> He
+accordingly suggested that the latter should be used as a universal
+epoch for the regulation of chronological occurrences.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="B" id="B"></a>(B.)</h3>
+
+<p>The <i>M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste</i>.&mdash;This stupendous monument of intellectual
+research consists, as stated by the author, of five quarto volumes. The
+subject-matter is divided into sixteen books, and each book again is
+subdivided into several chapters. Vol. I. contains the first and second
+books of the work; Vol. II. contains the third, fourth, and fifth books;
+Vol. III. contains the sixth and seventh books; Vol. IV. contains the
+eighth, ninth, and tenth books; and, finally, Vol. V. contains the
+remaining six books. In the first book the author treats of the general
+laws of equilibrium and motion. In the second book he treats of the law
+of gravitation, and the movements of the centres of gravity of the
+celestial bodies. In the third book he investigates the subject of the
+figures of the celestial bodies. In the fourth book he considers the
+oscillations of the ocean and the atmosphere, arising from the
+disturbing action of the celestial bodies. The fifth book is devoted to
+the investigation of the movements of the celestial bodies around their
+centres of gravity. In this book the author gives a solution of the
+great problems of the precession of the equinoxes and the libration of
+the moon, and determines the conditions upon which the stability of
+Saturn's ring depends. The sixth book is devoted to the theory of the
+planetary movements; the seventh, to the lunar theory; the eighth, to
+the theory of the satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus; and the
+ninth, to the theory of comets. In the tenth book the author
+investigates various subjects relating to the system of the universe.
+Among these may be mentioned the theory of astronomical refractions;
+the determination of heights by the barometer; the investigation of the
+effects produced on the movements of the planets and comets by a
+resisting medium; and the determination of the values of the masses of
+the planets and satellites. In the six books forming the fifth volume of
+the work, the author, besides presenting his readers with an historical
+exposition of the labours of Newton and his successors on the theory of
+gravitation, gives an account of various researches relative to the
+system of the universe, which had occupied his attention subsequently to
+the publication of the previous volumes. In the eleventh book he
+considers the subjects of the figure and rotation of the earth. In the
+twelfth book he investigates the attraction and repulsion of spheres,
+and the laws of equilibrium and motion of elastic fluids. The thirteenth
+book is devoted to researches on the oscillations of the fluids which
+cover the surfaces of the planets; the fourteenth, to the subject of the
+movements of the celestial bodies around their centres of gravity; the
+fifteenth, to the movements of the planets and comets; and the
+sixteenth, to the movements of the satellites. The author published a
+supplement to the third volume, containing the results of certain
+researches on the planetary theory, and a supplement to the tenth book,
+in which he investigates very fully the theory of capillary attraction.
+There was also published a posthumous supplement to the fifth volume,
+the manuscript of which was found among his papers after his death.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="JOSEPH_FOURIER" id="JOSEPH_FOURIER"></a>JOSEPH FOURIER.</h2>
+
+<h3>BIOGRAPHY READ AT A PUBLIC ASSEMBLY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, ON THE
+18TH OF NOVEMBER, 1833.</h3>
+
+<p>Gentlemen,&mdash;In former times one academician differed from another only
+in the number, the nature, and the brilliancy of his discoveries. Their
+lives, thrown in some respects into the same mould, consisted of events
+little worthy of remark. A boyhood more or less studious; progress
+sometimes slow, sometimes rapid; inclinations thwarted by capricious or
+shortsighted parents; inadequacy of means, the privations which it
+introduces in its train; thirty years of a laborious professorship and
+difficult studies,&mdash;such were the elements from which the admirable
+talents of the early secretaries of the Academy were enabled to execute
+those portraits, so piquant, so lively, and so varied, which form one of
+the principal ornaments of your learned collections.</p>
+
+<p>In the present day, biographies are less confined in their object. The
+convulsions which France has experienced in emancipating herself from
+the swaddling-clothes of routine, of superstition and of privilege, have
+cast into the storms of political life citizens of all ages, of all
+conditions, and of all characters. Thus has the Academy of Sciences
+figured during forty years in the devouring arena, wherein might and
+right have alternately seized the supreme power by a glorious sacrifice
+of combatants and victims!</p>
+
+<p>Recall to mind, for example, the immortal National Assembly. You will
+find at its head a modest academician, a patern of all the private
+virtues, the unfortunate Bailly, who, in the different phases of his
+political life, knew how to reconcile a passionate affection for his
+country with a moderation which his most cruel enemies themselves have
+been compelled to admire.</p>
+
+<p>When, at a later period, coalesced Europe launched against France a
+million of soldiers; when it became necessary to organize for the crisis
+fourteen armies, it was the ingenious author of the <i>Essai sur les
+Machines</i> and of the <i>G&eacute;om&eacute;trie des Positions</i> who directed this
+gigantic operation. It was, again, Carnot, our honourable colleague, who
+presided over the incomparable campaign of seventeen months, during
+which French troops, novices in the profession of arms, gained eight
+pitched battles, were victorious in one hundred and forty combats,
+occupied one hundred and sixteen fortified places and two hundred and
+thirty forts or redoubts, enriched our arsenals with four thousand
+cannon and seventy thousand muskets, took a hundred thousand prisoners,
+and adorned the dome of the Invalides with ninety flags. During the same
+time the Chaptals, the Fourcroys, the Monges, the Berthollets rushed
+also to the defence of French independence, some of them extracting from
+our soil, by prodigies of industry, the very last atoms of saltpetre
+which it contained; others transforming, by the aid of new and rapid
+methods, the bells of the towns, villages, and smallest hamlets into a
+formidable artillery, which our enemies supposed, as indeed they had a
+right to suppose, we were deprived of. At the voice of his country in
+danger, another academician, the young and learned Meunier, readily
+renounced the seductive pursuits of the laboratory; he went to
+distinguish himself upon the ramparts of K&ouml;nigstein, to contribute as a
+hero to the long defence of Mayence, and met his death, at the age of
+forty years only, after having attained the highest position in a
+garrison wherein shone the Aubert-Dubayets, the Beaupuys, the Haxos, the
+Klebers.</p>
+
+<p>How could I forget here the last secretary of the original Academy?
+Follow him into a celebrated Assembly, into that Convention, the
+sanguinary delirium of which we might almost be inclined to pardon, when
+we call to mind how gloriously terrible it was to the enemies of our
+independence, and you will always see the illustrious Condorcet occupied
+exclusively with the great interests of reason and humanity. You will
+hear him denounce the shameful brigandage which for two centuries laid
+waste the African continent by a system of corruption; demand in a tone
+of profound conviction that the Code be purified of the frightful stain
+of capital punishment, which renders the error of the judge for ever
+irreparable. He is the official organ of the Assembly on every occasion
+when it is necessary to address soldiers, citizens, political parties,
+or foreign nations in language worthy of France; he is not the tactician
+of any party, he incessantly entreats all of them to occupy their
+attention less with their own interests and a little more with public
+matters; he replies, finally, to unjust reproaches of weakness by acts
+which leave him the only alternative of the poison cup or the scaffold.</p>
+
+<p>The French Revolution thus threw the learned geometer, whose discoveries
+I am about to celebrate, far away from the route which destiny appeared
+to have traced out for him. In ordinary times it would be about Dom<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>
+Joseph Fourier that the secretary of the Academy would have deemed it
+his duty to have occupied your attention. It would be the tranquil, the
+retired life of a Benedictine which he would have unfolded to you. The
+life of our colleague, on the contrary, will be agitated and full of
+perils; it will pass into the fierce contentions of the forum and amid
+the hazards of war; it will be a prey to all the anxieties which
+accompany a difficult administration. We shall find this life intimately
+associated with the great events of our age. Let us hasten to add, that
+it will be always worthy and honourable, and that the personal qualities
+of the man of science will enhance the brilliancy of his discoveries.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> An abbreviation of Dominus, equivalent to the English
+prefix Reverend.&mdash;<i>Translator.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="BIRTH_OF_FOURIER_HIS_YOUTH" id="BIRTH_OF_FOURIER_HIS_YOUTH"></a>BIRTH OF FOURIER.&mdash;HIS YOUTH.</h3>
+
+<p>Fourier was born at Auxerre on the 21st of March, 1768. His father, like
+that of the illustrious geometer Lambert, was a tailor. This
+circumstance would formerly have occupied a large place in the <i>&eacute;loge</i>
+of our learned colleague; thanks to the progress of enlightened ideas, I
+may mention the circumstance as a fact of no importance: nobody, in
+effect, thinks in the present day, nobody even pretends to think, that
+genius is the privilege of rank or fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier became an orphan at the age of eight years. A lady who had
+remarked the amiability of his manners and his precocious natural
+abilities, recommended him to the Bishop of Auxerre. Through the
+influence of this prelate, Fourier was admitted into the military school
+which was conducted at that time by the Benedictines of the Convent of
+St. Mark. There he prosecuted his literary studies with surprising
+rapidity and success. Many sermons very much applauded at Paris in the
+mouth of high dignitaries of the Church were emanations from the pen of
+the schoolboy of twelve years of age. It would be impossible in the
+present day to trace those first compositions of the youth Fourier,
+since, while divulging the plagiarism, he had the discretion never to
+name those who profited by it.</p>
+
+<p>At thirteen years Fourier had the petulance, the noisy vivacity of most
+young people of the same age; but his character changed all at once, and
+as if by enchantment, as soon as he was initiated in the first
+principles of mathematics, that is to say, as soon as he became sensible
+of his real vocation. The hours prescribed for study no longer sufficed
+to gratify his insatiable curiosity. Ends of candles carefully collected
+in the kitchen, the corridors and the refectory of the college, and
+placed on a hearth concealed by a screen, served during the night to
+illuminate the solitary studies by which Fourier prepared himself for
+those labours which were destined, a few years afterwards, to adorn his
+name and his country.</p>
+
+<p>In a military school directed by monks, the minds of the pupils
+necessarily waver only between two careers in life&mdash;the church and the
+sword. Like Descartes, Fourier wished to be a soldier; like that
+philosopher, he would doubtless have found the life of a garrison very
+wearisome. But he was not permitted to make the experiment. His demand
+to undergo the examination for the artillery, although strongly
+supported by our illustrious colleague Legendre, was rejected with a
+severity of expression of which you may judge yourselves: "Fourier,"
+replied the minister, "not being noble, could not enter the artillery,
+although he were a second Newton."</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, there is in the strict enforcement of regulations, even when
+they are most absurd, something respectable which I have a pleasure in
+recognizing; in the present instance nothing could soften the odious
+character of the minister's words. It is not true in reality that no one
+could formerly enter into the artillery who did not possess a title of
+nobility; a certain fortune frequently supplied the want of parchments.
+Thus it was not a something undefinable, which, by the way, our
+ancestors the Franks had not yet invented, that was wanting to young
+Fourier, but rather an income of a few hundred livres, which the men who
+were then placed at the head of the country would have refused to
+acknowledge the genius of Newton as a just equivalent for! Treasure up
+these facts, Gentlemen; they form an admirable illustration of the
+immense advances which France has made during the last forty years.
+Posterity, moreover, will see in this, not the excuse, but the
+explanation of some of those sanguinary dissensions which stained our
+first revolution.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier not having been enabled to gird on the sword, assumed the habit
+of a Benedictine, and repaired to the Abbey of St. Beno&icirc;t-sur-Loire,
+where he intended to pass the period of his noviciate. He had not yet
+taken any vows when, in 1789, every mind was captivated with beautifully
+seductive ideas relative to the social regeneration of France. Fourier
+now renounced the profession of the Church; but this circumstance did
+not prevent his former masters from appointing him to the principal
+chair of mathematics in the Military School of Auxerre, and bestowing
+upon him numerous tokens of a lively and sincere affection. I venture to
+assert that no event in the life of our colleague affords a more
+striking proof of the goodness of his natural disposition and the
+amiability of his manners. It would be necessary not to know the human
+heart to suppose that the monks of St. Beno&icirc;t did not feel some chagrin
+upon finding themselves so abruptly abandoned, to imagine especially
+that they should give up without lively regret the glory which the order
+might have expected from the ingenious colleague who had just escaped
+from them.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier responded worthily to the confidence of which he had just become
+the object. When his colleagues were indisposed, the titular professor
+of mathematics occupied in turns the chairs of rhetoric, of history, and
+of philosophy; and whatever might be the subject of his lectures, he
+diffused among an audience which listened to him with delight, the
+treasures of a varied and profound erudition, adorned with all the
+brilliancy which the most elegant diction could impart to them.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="MEMOIR_ON_THE_RESOLUTION_OF_NUMERICAL_EQUATIONS" id="MEMOIR_ON_THE_RESOLUTION_OF_NUMERICAL_EQUATIONS"></a>MEMOIR ON THE RESOLUTION OF NUMERICAL EQUATIONS.</h3>
+
+<p>About the close of the year 1789 Fourier repaired to Paris and read
+before the Academy of Sciences a memoir on the resolution of numerical
+equations of all degrees. This work of his early youth our colleague, so
+to speak, never lost sight of. He explained it at Paris to the pupils of
+the Polytechnic School; he developed it upon the banks of the Nile in
+presence of the Institute of Egypt; at Grenoble, from the year 1802, it
+was his favourite subject of conversation with the Professors of the
+Central School and of the Faculty of Sciences; this finally, contained
+the elements of the work which Fourier was engaged in seeing through the
+press when death put an end to his career.</p>
+
+<p>A scientific subject does not occupy so much space in the life of a man
+of science of the first rank without being important and difficult. The
+subject of algebraic analysis above mentioned, which Fourier had studied
+with a perseverance so remarkable, is not an exception to this rule. It
+offers itself in a great number of applications of calculation to the
+movements of the heavenly bodies, or to the physics of terrestrial
+bodies, and in general in the problems which lead to equations of a high
+degree. As soon as he wishes to quit the domain of abstract relations,
+the calculator has occasion to employ the roots of these equations; thus
+the art of discovering them by the aid of an uniform method, either
+exactly or by approximation, did not fail at an early period to excite
+the attention of geometers.</p>
+
+<p>An observant eye perceives already some traces of their efforts in the
+writings of the mathematicians of the Alexandrian School. These traces,
+it must be <i>acknowledged</i>, are so slight and so imperfect, that we
+should truly be justified in referring the origin of this branch of
+analysis only to the excellent labours of our countryman Vieta.
+Descartes, to whom we render very imperfect justice when we content
+ourselves with saying that he taught us much when he taught us to doubt,
+occupied his attention also for a short time with this problem, and left
+upon it the indelible impress of his powerful mind. Hudde gave for a
+particular but very important case rules to which nothing has since been
+added; Rolle, of the Academy of Sciences, devoted to this one subject
+his entire life. Among our neighbours on the other side of the channel,
+Harriot, Newton, Maclaurin, Stirling, Waring, I may say all the
+illustrious geometers which England produced in the last century, made
+it also the subject of their researches. Some years afterwards the names
+of Daniel Barnoulli, of Euler, and of Fontaine came to be added to so
+many great names. Finally, Lagrange in his turn embarked in the same
+career, and at the very commencement of his researches he succeeded in
+substituting for the imperfect, although very ingenious, essays of his
+predecessors, a complete method which was free from every objection.
+From that instant the dignity of science was satisfied; but in such a
+case it would not be permitted to say with the poet:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Le temps ne fait rien &agrave; l'affaire."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Now although the processes invented by Lagrange, simple in principle and
+applicable to every case, have theoretically the merit of leading to the
+result with certainty, still, on the other hand, they demand
+calculations of a most repulsive length. It remained then to perfect the
+practical part of the question; it was necessary to devise the means of
+shortening the route without depriving it in any degree of its
+certainty. Such was the principal object of the researches of Fourier,
+and this he has attained to a great extent.</p>
+
+<p>Descartes had already found, in the order according to which the signs
+of the different terms of any numerical equation whatever succeed each
+other, the means of deciding, for example, how many real positive roots
+this equation may have. Fourier advanced a step further; he discovered a
+method for determining what number of the equally positive roots of
+every equation may be found included between two given quantities. Here
+certain calculations become necessary, but they are very simple, and
+whatever be the precision desired, they lead without any trouble to the
+solutions sought for.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt whether it were possible to cite a single scientific discovery
+of any importance which has not excited discussions of priority. The new
+method of Fourier for solving numerical equations is in this respect
+amply comprised within the common law. We ought, however, to acknowledge
+that the theorem which serves as the basis of this method, was first
+published by M. Budan; that according to a rule which the principal
+Academies of Europe have solemnly sanctioned, and from which the
+historian of the sciences dares not deviate without falling into
+arbitrary assumptions and confusion, M. Budan ought to be considered as
+the inventor. I will assert with equal assurance that it would be
+impossible to refuse to Fourier the merit of having attained the same
+object by his own efforts. I even regret that, in order to establish
+rights which nobody has contested, he deemed it necessary to have
+recourse to the certificates of early pupils of the Polytechnic School,
+or Professors of the University. Since our colleague had the modesty to
+suppose that his simple declaration would not be sufficient, why (and
+the argument would have had much weight) did he not remark in what
+respect his demonstration differed from that of his competitor?&mdash;an
+admirable demonstration, in effect, and one so impregnated with the
+elements of the question, that a young geometer, M. Sturm, has just
+employed it to establish the truth of the beautiful theorem by the aid
+of which he determines not the simple limits, but the exact number of
+roots of any equation whatever which are comprised between two given
+quantities.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="PART_PLAYED_BY_FOURIER_IN_OUR_REVOLUTION_HIS_ENTRANCE_INTO_THE_CORPS" id="PART_PLAYED_BY_FOURIER_IN_OUR_REVOLUTION_HIS_ENTRANCE_INTO_THE_CORPS"></a>PART PLAYED BY FOURIER IN OUR REVOLUTION.&mdash;HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE CORPS
+OF PROFESSORS OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL AND THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL.&mdash;EXPEDITION TO EGYPT.</h3>
+
+<p>We had just left Fourier at Paris, submitting to the Academy of Sciences
+the analytical memoir of which I have just given a general view. Upon
+his return to Auxerre, the young geometer found the town, the
+surrounding country, and even the school to which he belonged, occupied
+intensely with the great questions relative to the dignity of human
+nature, philosophy, and politics, which were then discussed by the
+orators of the different parties of the National Assembly. Fourier
+abandoned himself also to this movement of the human mind. He embraced
+with enthusiasm the principles of the Revolution, and he ardently
+associated himself with every thing grand, just, and generous which the
+popular impulse offered. His patriotism made him accept the most
+difficult missions. We may assert, that never, even when his life was at
+stake, did he truckle to the base, covetous, and sanguinary passions
+which displayed themselves on all sides.</p>
+
+<p>A member of the popular society of Auxerre, Fourier exercised there an
+almost irresistible ascendency. One day&mdash;all Burgundy has preserved the
+remembrance of it&mdash;on the occasion of a levy of three hundred thousand
+men, he made the words honour, country, glory, ring so eloquently, he
+induced so many voluntary enrolments, that the ballot was not deemed
+necessary. At the command of the orator the contingent assigned to the
+chief town of the Yonne formed in order, assembled together within the
+very enclosure of the Assembly, and marched forthwith to the frontier.
+Unfortunately these struggles of the forum, in which so many noble lives
+then exercised themselves, were far from having always a real
+importance. Ridiculous, absurd, and burlesque motions injured
+incessantly the inspirations of a pure, sincere, and enlightened
+patriotism. The popular society of Auxerre would furnish us, in case of
+necessity, with more than one example of those lamentable contrasts.
+Thus I might say that in the very same apartment wherein Fourier knew
+how to excite the honourable sentiments which I have with pleasure
+recalled to mind, he had on another occasion to contend with a certain
+orator, perhaps of good intentions, but assuredly a bad astronomer, who,
+wishing to escape, said he, from <i>the good pleasure</i> of municipal
+rulers, proposed that the names of the north, east, south, and west
+quarters should be assigned by lot to the different parts of the town of
+Auxerre.</p>
+
+<p>Literature, the fine arts, and the sciences appeared for a moment to
+flourish under the auspicious influence of the French Revolution.
+Observe, for example, with what grandeur of conception the reformation
+of weights and measures was planned; what geometers, what astronomers,
+what eminent philosophers presided over every department of this noble
+undertaking! Alas! frightful revolutions in the interior of the country
+soon saddened this magnificent spectacle. The sciences could not prosper
+in the midst of the desperate contest of factions. They would have
+blushed to owe any obligations to the men of blood, whose blind passions
+immolated a Saron, a Bailly, and a Lavoisi&egrave;re.</p>
+
+<p>A few months after the 9th Thermidor, the Convention being desirous of
+diffusing throughout the country ideas of order, civilization, and
+internal prosperity, resolved upon organizing a system of public
+instruction, but a difficulty arose in finding professors. The members
+of the corps of instruction had become officers of artillery, of
+engineering, or of the staff, and were combating the enemies of France
+at the frontiers. Fortunately at this epoch of intellectual exaltation,
+nothing seemed impossible. Professors were wanting; it was resolved
+without delay to create some, and the Normal School sprung into
+existence. Fifteen hundred citizens of all ages, despatched from the
+principal district towns, assembled together, not to study in all their
+ramifications the different branches of human knowledge, but in order to
+learn the art of teaching under the greatest masters.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier was one of these fifteen hundred pupils. It will, no doubt,
+excite some surprise that he was elected at St. Florentine, and that
+Auxerre appeared insensible to the honour of being represented at Paris
+by the most illustrious of her children. But this indifference will be
+readily understood. The elaborate scaffolding of calumny which it has
+served to support will fall to the ground as soon as I recall to mind,
+that after the 9th Thermidor the capital, and especially the provinces,
+became a prey to a blind and disorderly reaction, as all political
+reactions invariably are; that crime (the crime of having changed
+opinions&mdash;it was nothing less hideous) usurped the place of justice;
+that excellent citizens, that pure, moderate, and conscientious patriots
+were daily massacred by hired bands of assassins in presence of whom the
+inhabitants remained mute with fear. Such are, Gentlemen, the formidable
+influences which for a moment deprived Fourier of the suffrages of his
+countrymen; and caricatured, as a partisan of Robespierre, the
+individual whom St. Just, making allusion to his sweet and persuasive
+eloquence, styled a <i>patriot in music</i>; who was so often thrown into
+prison by the decemvirs; who, at the very height of the Reign of Terror,
+offered before the Revolutionary Tribunal the assistance of his
+admirable talents to the mother of Marshal Davoust, accused of the crime
+of having at that unrelenting epoch sent some money to the emigrants;
+who had the incredible boldness to shut up at the inn of Tonnerre an
+agent of the Committee of Public Safety, into the secret of whose
+mission he penetrated, and thus obtained time to warn an honourable
+citizen that he was about to be arrested; who, finally, attaching
+himself personally to the sanguinary proconsul before whom every one
+trembled in Yonne, made him pass for a madman, and obtained his recall!
+You see, Gentlemen, some of the acts of patriotism, of devotion, and of
+humanity which signalized the early years of Fourier. They were, you
+have seen, repaid with ingratitude. But ought we in reality to be
+astonished at it? To expect gratitude from the man who cannot make an
+avowal of his feelings without danger, would be to shut one's eyes to
+the frailty of human nature, and to expose one's self to frequent
+disappointments.</p>
+
+<p>In the Normal School of the Convention, discussion from time to time
+succeeded ordinary lectures. On those days an interchange of characters
+was effected; the pupils interrogated the professors. Some words
+pronounced by Fourier at one of those curious and useful meetings
+sufficed to attract attention towards him. Accordingly, as soon as a
+necessity was felt to create Masters of Conference, all eyes were turned
+towards the pupil of St. Florentine. The precision, the clearness, and
+the elegance of his lectures soon procured for him the unanimous
+applause of the fastidious and numerous audience which was confided to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>When he attained the height of his scientific and literary glory,
+Fourier used to look back with pleasure upon the year 1794, and upon the
+sublime efforts which the French nation then made for the purpose of
+organizing a Corps of Public Instruction. If he had ventured, the title
+of Pupil of the original Normal School would have been beyond doubt that
+which he would have assumed by way of preference. Gentlemen, that school
+perished of cold, of wretchedness, and of hunger, and not, whatever
+people may say, from certain defects of organization which time and
+reflection would have easily rectified. Notwithstanding its short
+existence, it imparted to scientific studies quite a new direction which
+has been productive of the most important results. In supporting this
+opinion at some length, I shall acquit myself of a task which Fourier
+would certainly have imposed upon me, if he could have suspected, that
+with just and eloquent eulogiums of his character and his labours there
+should mingle within the walls of this apartment, and even emanate from
+the mouth of one of his successors, sharp critiques of his beloved
+Normal School.</p>
+
+<p>It is to the Normal School that we must inevitably ascend if we would
+desire to ascertain the earliest public teaching of <i>descriptive
+Geometry</i>, that fine creation of the genius of Monge. It is from this
+source that it has passed almost without modification to the Polytechnic
+School, to foundries, to manufactories, and the most humble workshops.</p>
+
+<p>The establishment of the Normal School accordingly indicates the
+commencement of a veritable revolution in the study of pure mathematics;
+with it demonstrations, methods, and important theories, buried in
+academical collections, appeared for the first time before the pupils,
+and encouraged them to recast upon new bases the works destined for
+instruction.</p>
+
+<p>With some rare exceptions, the philosophers engaged in the cultivation
+of science constituted formerly in France a class totally distinct from
+that of the professors. By appointing the first geometers, the first
+philosophers, and the first naturalists of the world to be professors,
+the Convention threw new lustre upon the profession of teaching, the
+advantageous influence of which is felt in the present day. In the
+opinion of the public at large a title which a Lagrange, a Laplace, a
+Monge, a Berthollet, had borne, became a proper match to the finest
+titles. If under the empire, the Polytechnic School counted among its
+active professors councillors of state, ministers, and the president of
+the senate, you must look for the explanation of this fact in the
+impulse given by the Normal School.</p>
+
+<p>You see in the ancient great colleges, professors concealed in some
+degree behind their portfolios, reading as from a pulpit, amid the
+indifference and inattention of their pupils, discourses prepared
+beforehand with great labour, and which reappear every year in the same
+form. Nothing of this kind existed at the Normal School; oral lessons
+alone were there permitted. The authorities even went so far as to
+require of the illustrious savans appointed to the task of instruction
+the formal promise never to recite any lectures which they might have
+learned by heart. From that time the chair has become a tribune where
+the professor, identified, so to speak, with his audience, sees in
+their looks, in their gestures, in their countenance, sometimes the
+necessity for proceeding at greater speed, sometimes, on the contrary,
+the necessity of retracing his steps, of awakening the attention by some
+incidental observations, of clothing in a new form the thought which,
+when first expressed, had left some doubts in the minds of his audience.
+And do not suppose that the beautiful impromptu lectures with which the
+amphitheatre of the Normal School resounded, remained unknown to the
+public. Short-hand writers paid by the State reported them. The sheets,
+after being revised by the professors, were sent to the fifteen hundred
+pupils, to the members of Convention, to the consuls and agents of the
+Republic in foreign countries, to all governors of districts. There was
+in this something certainly of profusion compared with the parsimonious
+and mean habits of our time. Nobody, however, would concur in this
+reproach, however slight it may appear, if I were permitted to point out
+in this very apartment an illustrious Academician, whose mathematical
+genius was awakened by the lectures of the Normal School in an obscure
+district town!</p>
+
+<p>The necessity of demonstrating the important services, ignored in the
+present day, for which the dissemination of the sciences is indebted to
+the first Normal School, has induced me to dwell at greater length on
+the subject than I intended. I hope to be pardoned; the example in any
+case will not be contagious. Eulogiums of the past, you know, Gentlemen,
+are no longer fashionable. Every thing which is said, every thing which
+is printed, induces us to suppose that the world is the creation of
+yesterday. This opinion, which allows to each a part more or less
+brilliant in the cosmogonic drama, is under the safeguard of too many
+vanities to have any thing to fear from the efforts of logic.</p>
+
+<p>I have already stated that the brilliant success of Fourier at the
+Normal School assigned to him a distinguished place among the persons
+whom nature has endowed in the highest degree with the talent of public
+tuition. Accordingly, he was not forgotten by the founders of the
+Polytechnic School. Attached to that celebrated establishment, first
+with the title of Superintendent of Lectures on Fortification,
+afterwards appointed to deliver a course of lectures on Analysis,
+Fourier has left there a venerated name, and the reputation of a
+professor distinguished by clearness, method, and erudition; I shall add
+even the reputation of a professor full of grace, for our colleague has
+proved that this kind of merit may not be foreign to the teaching of
+mathematics.</p>
+
+<p>The lectures of Fourier have not been collected together. The Journal of
+the Polytechnic School contains only one paper by him, a memoir upon the
+"principle of virtual velocities." This memoir, which probably had
+served for the text of a lecture, shows that the secret of our
+celebrated professor's great success consisted in the combination of
+abstract truths, of interesting applications, and of historical details
+little known, and derived, a thing so rare in our days, from original
+sources.</p>
+
+<p>We have now arrived at the epoch when the peace of Leoben brought back
+to the metropolis the principal ornaments of our armies. Then the
+professors and the pupils of the Polytechnic School had sometimes the
+distinguished honour of sitting in their amphitheatres beside Generals
+Desaix and Bonaparte. Every thing indicated to them then an active
+participation in the events which each foresaw, and which in fact were
+not long of occurring.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the precarious condition of Europe, the Directory
+decided upon denuding the country of its best troops, and launching them
+upon an adventurous expedition. The five chiefs of the Republic were
+then desirous of removing from Paris the conqueror of Italy, of thereby
+putting an end to the popular demonstrations of which he everywhere
+formed the object, and which sooner or later would become a real danger.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the illustrious general did not dream merely of the
+momentary conquest of Egypt; he wished to restore to that country its
+ancient splendour; he wished to extend its cultivation, to improve its
+system of irrigation, to create new branches of industry, to open to
+commerce numerous outlets, to stretch out a helping hand to the
+unfortunate inhabitants, to rescue them from the galling yoke under
+which they had groaned for ages, in a word, to bestow upon them without
+delay all the benefits of European civilization. Designs of such
+magnitude could not have been accomplished with the mere <i>personnel</i> of
+an ordinary army. It was necessary to appeal to science, to literature,
+and to the fine arts; it was necessary to ask the co&ouml;peration of several
+men of judgment and of experience. Monge and Berthollet, both members of
+the Institute and Professors in the Polytechnic School, became, with a
+view to this object, the principal recruiting aids to the chief of the
+expedition. Were our colleagues really acquainted with the object of
+this expedition? I dare not reply in the affirmative; but I know at all
+events that they were not permitted to divulge it. We are going to a
+distant country; we shall embark at Toulon; we shall be constantly with
+you; General Bonaparte will command the army, such was in form and
+substance the limited amount of confidential information which had been
+imperiously traced out to them. Upon the faith of words so vague, with
+the chances of a naval battle, with the English hulks in perspective, go
+in the present day and endeavour to enroll a father of a family, a
+savant already known by useful labours and placed in some honourable
+position, an artist in possession of the esteem and confidence of the
+public, and I am much mistaken if you obtain any thing else than
+refusals; but in 1798, France had hardly emerged from a terrible crisis,
+during which her very existence was frequently at stake. Who, besides,
+had not encountered imminent personal danger? Who had not seen with his
+own eyes enterprises of a truly desperate nature brought to a fortunate
+issue? Is any thing more wanted to explain that adventurous character,
+that absence of all care for the morrow, which appears to have been one
+of the most distinguishing features of the epoch of the Directory.
+Fourier accepted then without hesitation the proposals which his
+colleagues brought to him in the name of the Commander-in-Chief; he
+quitted the agreeable duties of a professor of the Polytechnic School,
+to go&mdash;he knew not where, to do&mdash;he knew not what.</p>
+
+<p>Chance placed Fourier during the voyage in the vessel in which Kl&eacute;ber
+sailed. The friendship which the philosopher and the warrior vowed to
+each other from that moment was not without some influence upon the
+events of which Egypt was the theatre after the departure of Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>He who signed his orders of the day, the <i>Member of the Institute,
+Commander-in-Chief of the Army in the East</i>, could not fail to place an
+Academy among the means of regenerating the ancient kingdom of the
+Pharaohs. The valiant army which he commanded had barely conquered at
+Cairo, on the occasion of the memorable battle of the Pyramids, when the
+Institute of Egypt sprung into existence. It consisted of forty-eight
+members, divided into four sections. Monge had the honour of being the
+first president. As at Paris, Bonaparte belonged to the section of
+Mathematics. The situation of perpetual secretary, the filling up of
+which was left to the free choice of the Society, was unanimously
+assigned to Fourier.</p>
+
+<p>You have seen the celebrated geometer discharge the same duty at the
+Academy of Sciences; you have appreciated his liberality of mind, his
+enlightened benevolence, his unvarying affability, his straightforward
+and conciliatory disposition: add in imagination to so many rare
+qualities the activity which youth, which health can alone give, and you
+will have again conjured into existence the Secretary of the Institute
+of Egypt; and yet the portrait which I have attempted to draw of him
+would grow pale beside the original.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the banks of the Nile, Fourier devoted himself to assiduous
+researches on almost every branch of knowledge which the vast plan of
+the Institute embraced. The <i>Decade</i> and the <i>Courier of Egypt</i> will
+acquaint the reader with the titles of his different labours. I find in
+these journals a memoir upon the general solution of algebraic
+equations; researches on the methods of elimination; the demonstration
+of a new theorem of algebra; a memoir upon the indeterminate analysis;
+studies on general mechanics; a technical and historical work upon the
+aqueduct which conveys the waters of the Nile to the Castle of Cairo;
+reflections upon the Oases; the plan of statistical researches to be
+undertaken with respect to the state of Egypt; programme of an intended
+exploration of the site of the ancient Memphis, and of the whole extent
+of burying-places; a descriptive account of the revolutions and manners
+of Egypt, from the time of its conquest by Selim.</p>
+
+<p>I find also in the Egyptian <i>Decade</i>, that, on the first complementary
+day of the year VI., Fourier communicated to the Institute the
+description of a machine designed to promote irrigation, and which was
+to be driven by the power of wind.</p>
+
+<p>This work, so far removed from the ordinary current of the ideas of our
+colleague, has not been printed. It would very naturally find a place in
+a work of which the Expedition to Egypt might again furnish the subject,
+notwithstanding the many beautiful publications which it has already
+called into existence. It would be a description of the manufactories of
+steel, of arms, of powder, of cloth, of machines, and of instruments of
+every kind which our army had to prepare for the occasion. If, during
+our infancy, the expedients which Robinson Crusoe practised in order to
+escape from the romantic dangers which he had incessantly to encounter,
+excite our interest in a lively degree, how, in mature age, could we
+regard with indifference a handful of Frenchmen thrown upon the
+inhospitable shores of Africa, without any possible communication with
+the mother country, obliged to contend at once with the elements and
+with formidable armies, destitute of food, of clothing, of arms, and of
+ammunition, and yet supplying every want by the force of genius!</p>
+
+<p>The long route which I have yet to traverse, will hardly allow me to add
+a few words relative to the administrative services of the illustrious
+geometer. Appointed French Commissioner at the Divan of Cairo, he
+became the official medium between the General-in-Chief and every
+Egyptian who might have to complain of an attack against his person, his
+property, his morals, his habits, or his creed. An invariable sauvity of
+manner, a scrupulous regard for prejudices to oppose which directly
+would have been vain, an inflexible sentiment of justice, had given him
+an ascendency over the Mussulman population, which the precepts of the
+Koran could not lead any one to hope for, and which powerfully
+contributed to the maintenance of friendly relations between the
+inhabitants of Cairo and the French soldiers. Fourier was especially
+held in veneration by the Cheiks and the Ul&eacute;mas. A single anecdote will
+serve to show that this sentiment was the offspring of genuine
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>The Emir Hadgey, or Prince of the Caravan, who had been nominated by
+General Bonaparte upon his arrival in Cairo, escaped during the campaign
+of Syria. There existed strong grounds at the time for supposing that
+four <i>Cheiks Ul&eacute;mas</i> had rendered themselves accomplices of the treason.
+Upon his return to Egypt, Bonaparte confided the investigation of this
+grave affair to Fourier. "Do not," said he, "submit half measures to me.
+You have to pronounce judgment upon high personages: we must either cut
+off their heads or invite them to dinner." On the day following that on
+which this conversation took place, the four Cheiks dined with the
+General-in-Chief. By obeying the inspirations of his heart, Fourier did
+not perform merely an act of humanity; it was moreover one of excellent
+policy. Our learned colleague, M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, to whom I am
+indebted for this anecdote, has stated in fact that Soleyman and
+Fayoumi, the principal of the Egyptian chiefs, whose punishment, thanks
+to our colleague, was so happily transformed into a banquet, seized
+every occasion of extolling among their countrymen the generosity of the
+French.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier did not display less ability when our generals confided
+diplomatic missions to him. It is to his tact and urbanity that our army
+is indebted for an offensive and defensive treaty of alliance with
+Mourad Bey. Justly proud of this result, Fourier omitted to make known
+the details of the negotiation. This is deeply to be regretted, for the
+plenipotentiary of Mourad was a woman, the same Sitty Nefi&ccedil;ah whom
+Kl&eacute;ber has immortalized by proclaiming her <i>beneficence</i>, <i>her noble
+character</i>, in the bulletin of Heliopolis, and who moreover was already
+celebrated from one extremity of Asia to the other, in consequence of
+the bloody revolutions which her unparalleled beauty had excited among
+the Mamelukes.</p>
+
+<p>The incomparable victory which Kl&eacute;ber gained over the army of the Grand
+Vizier did not damp the energy of the Janissaries, who had seized upon
+Cairo while the war was raging at Heliopolis. They defended themselves
+from house to house with heroic courage. The besieged had to choose
+between the entire destruction of the city and an honourable
+capitulation. The latter alternative was adopted. Fourier, charged, as
+usual, with the negotiations, conducted them to a favourable issue; but
+on this occasion the treaty was not discussed, agreed to, and signed
+within the mysterious precincts of a harem, upon downy couches, under
+the shade of balmy groves. The preliminary discussions were held in a
+house half ruined by bullets and grape-shot; in the centre of the
+quarter of which the insurgents valiantly disputed the possession with
+our soldiers; before even it would have been possible to agree to the
+basis of a treaty of a few hours. Accordingly, when Fourier was
+preparing to celebrate the welcome of the Turkish commissioner
+conformably to oriental usages, a great number of musket-shots were
+fired from the house in front, and a ball passed through the coffee-pot
+which he was holding in his hand. Without calling in question the
+bravery of any person, do you not think, Gentlemen, that if diplomatists
+were usually placed in equally perilous positions, the public would have
+less reason to complain of their proverbial slowness?</p>
+
+<p>In order to exhibit, under one point of view, the various administrative
+duties of our indefatigable colleague, I should have to show him to you
+on board the English fleet, at the instant of the capitulation of Menou,
+stipulating for certain guarantees in favour of the members of the
+Institute of Egypt; but services of no less importance and of a
+different nature demand also our attention. They will even compel us to
+retrace our steps, to ascend even to the epoch of glorious memory when
+Desaix achieved the conquest of Upper Egypt, as much by the sagacity,
+the moderation, and the inflexible justice of all his acts, as by the
+rapidity and boldness of his military operations. Bonaparte then
+appointed two numerous commissions to proceed to explore in those remote
+regions, a multitude of monuments of which the moderns hardly suspected
+the existence. Fourier and Costas were the commandants of these
+commissions; I say the commandants, for a sufficiently imposing military
+force had been assigned to them; since it was frequently after a combat
+with the wandering tribes of Arabs that the astronomer found in the
+movements of the heavenly bodies the elements of a future geographical
+map; that the naturalist collected unknown plants, determined the
+geological constitution of the soil, occupied himself with troublesome
+dissections; that the antiquary measured the dimensions of edifices,
+that he attempted to take a faithful sketch of the fantastic images with
+which every thing was covered in that singular country,&mdash;from the
+smallest pieces of furniture, from the simple toys of children, to those
+prodigious palaces, to those immense fa&ccedil;ades, beside which the vastest
+of modern constructions would hardly attract a look.</p>
+
+<p>The two learned commissions studied with scrupulous care the magnificent
+temple of the ancient Tentyris, and especially the series of
+astronomical signs which have excited in our days such lively
+discussions; the remarkable monuments of the mysterious and sacred Isle
+of Elephantine; the ruins of Thebes, with her hundred gates, before
+which (and yet they are nothing but ruins) our whole army halted, in a
+state of astonishment, to applaud.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier also presided in Upper Egypt over these memorable works, when
+the Commander-in-Chief suddenly quitted Alexandria and returned to
+France with his principal friends. Those persons then were very much
+mistaken who, upon not finding our colleague on board the frigate
+<i>Muiron</i> beside Monge and Berthollet, imagined that Bonaparte did not
+appreciate his eminent qualities. If Fourier was not a passenger, this
+arose from the circumstance of his having been a hundred leagues from
+the Mediterranean when the <i>Muiron</i> set sail. The explanation contains
+nothing striking, but it is true. In any case, the friendly feeling of
+Kl&eacute;ber towards the Secretary of the Institute of Egypt, the influence
+which he justly granted to him on a multitude of delicate occasions,
+amply compensated him for an unjust omission.</p>
+
+<p>I arrive, Gentlemen, at the epoch so suggestive of painful
+recollections, when the <i>Agas</i> of the Janissaries who had fled into
+Syria, having despaired of vanquishing our troops so admirably
+commanded, by the honourable arms of the soldier, had recourse to the
+dagger of the assassin. You are aware that a young fanatic, whose
+imagination had been wrought up to a high state of excitement in the
+mosques by a month of prayers and abstinence, aimed a mortal blow at the
+hero of Heliopolis at the instant when he was listening, without
+suspicion, and with his usual kindness, to a recital of pretended
+grievances, and was promising redress.</p>
+
+<p>This sad misfortune plunged our colony into profound grief. The
+Egyptians themselves mingled their tears with those of the French
+soldiers. By a delicacy of feeling which we should be wrong in supposing
+the Mahometans not to be capable of, they did not then omit, they have
+not since omitted, to remark, that the assassin and his three
+accomplices were not born on the banks of the Nile.</p>
+
+<p>The army, to mitigate its grief, desired that the funeral of Kl&eacute;ber
+should be celebrated with great pomp. It wished, also, that on that
+solemn day, some person should recount the long series of brilliant
+actions which will transmit the name of the illustrious general to the
+remotest posterity. By unanimous consent this honourable and perilous
+mission was confided to Fourier.</p>
+
+<p>There are very few individuals, Gentlemen, who have not seen the
+brilliant dreams of their youth wrecked one after the other against the
+sad realities of mature age. Fourier was one of those few exceptions.</p>
+
+<p>In effect, transport yourselves mentally back to the year 1789, and
+consider what would be the future prospects of the humble convert of St.
+Beno&icirc;t-sur-Loire. No doubt a small share of literary glory; the favour
+of being heard occasionally in the churches of the metropolis; the
+satisfaction of being appointed to eulogize such or such a public
+personage. Well! nine years have hardly passed and you find him at the
+head of the Institute of Egypt, and he is the oracle, the idol of a
+society which counted among its members Bonaparte, Berthollet, Monge,
+Malus, Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Cont&eacute;, &amp;c.; and the generals rely upon
+him for overcoming apparently insurmountable difficulties, and the army
+of the East, itself so rich in adornments of all kinds, would desire no
+other interpreter when it is necessary to recount the lofty deeds of the
+hero which it had just lost.</p>
+
+<p>It was upon the breach of a bastion which our troops had recently taken
+by assault, in sight of the most majestic of rivers, of the magnificent
+valley which it fertilizes, of the frightful desert of Lybia, of the
+colossal pyramids of Gizeh; it was in presence of twenty populations of
+different origins which Cairo unites together in its vast basin; in
+presence of the most valiant soldiers that had ever set foot on a land,
+wherein, however, the names of Alexander and of C&aelig;sar still resound; it
+was in the midst of every thing which could move the heart, excite the
+ideas, or exalt the imagination, that Fourier unfolded the noble life of
+Kl&eacute;ber. The orator was listened to with religious silence; but soon,
+addressing himself with a gesture of his hand to the soldiers ranged in
+battle array before him, he exclaims: "Ah! how many of you would have
+aspired to the honour of throwing yourselves between Kl&eacute;ber and his
+assassin! I call you to witness, intrepid cavalry, who rushed to save
+him upon the heights of Kora&iuml;m, and dispelled in an instant the
+multitude of enemies who had surrounded him!" At these words an electric
+tremor thrills throughout the whole army, the colours droop, the ranks
+close, the arms come into collision, a deep sigh escapes from some ten
+thousand breasts torn by the sabre and the bullet, and the voice of the
+orator is drowned amid sobs.</p>
+
+<p>A few months after, upon the same bastion, before the same soldiers,
+Fourier celebrated with no less eloquence the exploits, the virtues of
+the general whom the people conquered in Africa saluted with the name so
+flattering of <i>Just Sultan</i>; and who sacrificed his life at Marengo to
+secure the triumph of the French arms.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier quitted Egypt only with the last wreck of the army, in virtue of
+the capitulation signed by Menou. On his return to France, the object of
+his most constant solicitude was to illustrate the memorable expedition
+of which he had been one of the most active and most useful members. The
+idea of collecting together the varied labours of all his colleagues
+incontestibly belongs to him. I find the proof of this in a letter,
+still unpublished, which he wrote to Kl&eacute;ber from Thebes, on the 20th
+Vend&eacute;miaire, in the year VII. No public act, in which mention is made of
+this great literary monument, is of an earlier date. The Institute of
+Cairo having adopted the project of a <i>work upon Egypt</i> as early as the
+month of Frimaire, in the year VIII., confided to Fourier the task of
+uniting together the scattered elements of it, of making them consistent
+with each other, and drawing up the general introduction.</p>
+
+<p>This introduction was published under the title of <i>Historical Preface</i>:
+Fontanes saw in it the graces of Athens and the wisdom of Egypt united
+together. What could I add to such an eulogium? I shall say only that
+there are to be found there, in a few pages, the principal features of
+the government of the Pharaohs, and the results of the subjection of
+ancient Egypt by the kings of Persia, the Ptolemies, the successors of
+Augustus, the emperors of Byzantium, the first Caliphs, the celebrated
+Saladin, the Mamelukes and the Ottoman princes. The different phases of
+our adventurous expedition are there characterized with the greatest
+care. Fourier carries his scruples to so great a length as <i>to attempt</i>
+to prove that it was just. I have said only so far as <i>to attempt</i>, for
+in that case there might have been something to deduct from the second
+part of the eulogium of Fontanes. If, in 1797, our countryman
+experienced at Cairo, or at Alexandria, outrages and extortions which
+the Grand Seignior either would not or could not repress, one may in all
+rigour admit that France ought to have exacted justice to herself; that
+she had the right to send a powerful army to bring the Turkish
+Custom-house officers to reason. But this is far from maintaining that
+the divan of Constantinople ought to have favoured the French
+expedition; that our conquest was about to restore to him, <i>in some
+sort</i>, Egypt and Syria; that the capture of Alexandria and the battle of
+the <i>Pyramids would enhance the lustre of the Ottoman name</i>! However,
+the public hastened to acquit Fourier of what appears hazarded in this
+small part of his beautiful work. The origin of it has been sought for
+in political exigencies. Let us be brief; behind certain sophisms the
+hand of the original Commander-in-Chief of the army of the East was
+suspected to be seen!</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon, then, would appear to have participated by his instructions,
+by his counsels, or, if we choose, by his imperative orders, in the
+composition of the essay of Fourier. What was not long ago nothing more
+than a plausible conjecture, has now become an incontestable fact.
+Thanks to the courtesy of M. Champollion-Figeac, I held in my hands,
+within the last few days, some parts of the first <i>proof sheets</i> of the
+historical preface. These proofs were sent to the Emperor, who wished to
+make himself acquainted with them at leisure before reading them with
+Fourier. They are covered with marginal notes, and the additions which
+they have occasioned amount to almost a third of the original discourse.
+Upon these pages, as in the definitive work given to the public, one
+remarks a complete absence of proper names; the only exception is in the
+case of the three Generals-in-Chief. Thus Fourier had imposed upon
+himself the reserve which certain vanities have blamed so severely. I
+shall add that nowhere throughout the precious proof sheets of M.
+Champollion do we perceive traces of the miserable feelings of jealousy
+which have been attributed to Napoleon. It is true that upon pointing
+out with his finger the word illustrious applied to Kl&eacute;ber, the Emperor
+said to our colleague: "<span class="smcap">Some one</span> has directed my attention to
+<span class="smcap">this epithet</span>;" but, after a short pause, he added, "it is
+desirable that you should leave it, for it is just and well deserved."
+These words, Gentlemen, honoured the monarch still less than they
+branded with disgrace the <i>some one</i> whom I regret not being able to
+designate in more definite terms,&mdash;one of those vile courtiers whose
+whole life is occupied in spying out the frailties, the evil passions of
+their masters, in order to make them subservient in conducting
+themselves to honours and fortune!</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="FOURIER_PREFECT_OF_LISERE" id="FOURIER_PREFECT_OF_LISERE"></a>FOURIER PREFECT OF L'IS&Egrave;RE.</h3>
+
+<p>Fourier had no sooner returned to Europe, than he was named (January 2,
+1802) Prefect of the Department of l'Is&egrave;re. The Ancient Dauphiny was
+then a prey to ardent political dissensions. The republicans, the
+partisans of the emigrants, those who had ranged themselves under the
+banners of the consular government, formed so many distinct castes,
+between whom all reconciliation appeared impossible. Well, Gentlemen,
+this impossibility Fourier achieved. His first care was to cause the
+H&ocirc;tel of the Prefecture to be considered as a neutral ground, where each
+might show himself without even the appearance of a concession.
+Curiosity alone at first brought the people there, but the people
+returned; for in France they seldom desert the saloons wherein are to be
+found a polished and benevolent host, witty without being ridiculous,
+and learned without being pedantic. What had been divulged of the
+opinions of our colleague, respecting the anti-biblican antiquity of the
+Egyptian monuments, inspired the religious classes especially with
+lively apprehensions; they were very adroitly informed that the new
+prefect counted a <i>Saint</i> in his family; that the <i>blessed</i> Pierre
+Fourier, who established the religious sisters of the congregation of
+Notre-Dame, was his grand uncle, and this circumstance effected a
+reconciliation which the unalterable respect of the first magistrate of
+Grenoble for all conscientious opinions cemented every day more and
+more.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was assured of a truce with the political and religious
+parties, Fourier was enabled to devote himself exclusively to the duties
+of his office. These duties did not consist with him in heaping up old
+papers to no advantage. He took personal cognizance of the projects
+which were submitted to him; he was the indefatigable promoter of all
+those which narrow-minded persons sought to stifle in their birth; we
+may include in this last class, the superb road from Grenoble to Turin
+by Mount Gen&egrave;vre, which the events of 1814 have so unfortunately
+interrupted, and especially the drainage of the marshes of Bourgoin.</p>
+
+<p>These marshes, which Louis XIV. had given to Marshal Turenne, were a
+focus of infection to the thirty-seven communes, the lands of which were
+partially covered by them. Fourier directed personally the topographic
+operations which established the possibility of drainage. With these
+documents in his hand he went from village to village, I might almost
+say from house to house, to fix the sacrifice which each family ought to
+impose upon itself for the general interest. By tact and perseverance,
+taking "the <i>ear of corn always in the right direction</i>," thirty-seven
+municipal councils were induced to contribute to a common fund, without
+which the projected operation would not even have been commenced.
+Success crowned this rare perseverance. Rich harvests, fat pastures,
+numerous flocks, a robust and happy population now covered an immense
+territory, where formerly the traveller dared not remain more than a few
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>One of the predecessors of Fourier, in the situation of perpetual
+secretary of the Academy of Sciences, deemed it his duty, on one
+occasion, to beg an excuse for having given a detailed account of
+certain researches of Leibnitz, which had not required great efforts of
+the intellect: "We ought," says he, "to be very much obliged to a man
+such as he is, when he condescends, for the public good, to do something
+which does not partake of genius!" I cannot conceive the ground of such
+scruples; in the present day, the sciences are regarded from too high a
+point of view, that we should hesitate in placing in the first rank of
+the labours with which they are adorned, those which diffuse comfort,
+health, and happiness amidst the working population.</p>
+
+<p>In presence of a part of the Academy of Inscriptions, in an apartment
+wherein the name of hieroglyph has so often resounded, I cannot refrain
+from alluding to the service which Fourier rendered to science by
+retaining Champollion. The young professor of history of the Faculty of
+Letters of Grenoble had just attained the twentieth year of his age.
+Fate calls him to shoulder the musket. Fourier exempts him by investing
+him with the title of pupil of the School of Oriental Languages which he
+had borne at Paris. The Minister of War learns that the pupil formerly
+gave in his resignation; he denounces the fraud, and dispatches a
+peremptory order for his departure, which seems even to exclude all idea
+of remonstrance. Fourier, however, is not discouraged; his intercessions
+are skilful and of a pressing nature; finally, he draws so animated a
+portrait of the precocious talent of <i>his young friend</i>, that he
+succeeds in wringing from the government an order of special exemption.
+It was not easy, Gentlemen, to obtain such success. At the same time, a
+conscript, a <i>member of our Academy</i>, succeeded in obtaining a
+revocation of his order for departure only by declaring that he would
+follow on foot, in the costume of the Institute, the contingent of the
+arrondissement of Paris in which he was classed.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="MATHEMATICAL_THEORY_OF_HEAT" id="MATHEMATICAL_THEORY_OF_HEAT"></a>MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF HEAT.</h3>
+
+<p>The administrative duties of the prefect of l'Is&egrave;re hardly interrupted
+the labours of the geometer and the man of letters. It is from Grenoble
+that the principal writings of Fourier are dated; it was at Grenoble
+that he composed the <i>Th&eacute;orie Math&eacute;matique de la Chaleur</i>, which forms
+his principal title to the gratitude of the scientific world.</p>
+
+<p>I am far from being unconscious of the difficulty of analyzing that
+admirable work, and yet I shall attempt to point out the successive
+steps which he has achieved in the advancement of science. You will
+listen to me, Gentlemen, with indulgence, notwithstanding several minute
+details which I shall have to recount, since I thereby fulfil the
+mission with which you have honoured me.</p>
+
+<p>The ancients had a taste, let us say rather a passion, for the
+marvellous, which caused them to forget even the sacred duties of
+gratitude. Observe them, for example, grouping together the lofty deeds
+of a great number of heroes, whose names they have not even deigned to
+preserve, and investing the single personage of Hercules with them. The
+lapse of ages has not rendered us wiser in this respect. In our own time
+the public delight in blending fable with history. In every career of
+life, in the pursuit of science especially, they enjoy a pleasure in
+creating Herculeses. According to vulgar opinion, there is no
+astronomical discovery which is not due to Herschel. The theory of the
+planetary movements is identified with the name of Laplace; hardly is a
+passing allusion made to the eminent labours of D'Alembert, of Clairaut,
+of Euler, of Lagrange. Watt is the sole inventor of the steam-engine.
+Chaptal has enriched the arts of Chemistry with the totality of the
+fertile and ingenious processes which constitute their prosperity. Even
+within this apartment has not an eloquent voice lately asserted, that
+before Fourier the phenomenon of heat was hardly studied; that the
+celebrated geometer had alone made more observations than all his
+predecessors put together; that he had with almost a single effort
+invented a new science.</p>
+
+<p>Although he runs the risk of being less lively, the organ of the Academy
+of Sciences cannot permit himself such bursts of enthusiasm. He ought to
+bear in mind, that the object of these solemnities is not merely to
+celebrate the discoveries of academicians; that they are also designed
+to encourage modest merit; that an observer forgotten by his
+contemporaries, is frequently supported in his laborious researches by
+the thought that he will obtain a benevolent look from posterity. Let us
+act, so far as it depends upon us, in such a manner that a hope so just,
+so natural, may not be frustrated. Let us award a just, a brilliant
+homage to those rare men whom nature has endowed with the precious
+privilege of arranging a thousand isolated facts, of making seductive
+theories spring from them; but let us not forget to state, that the
+scythe of the reaper had cut the stalks before one had thought of
+uniting them into sheaves!</p>
+
+<p>Heat presents itself in natural phenomena, and in those which are the
+products of art under two entirely distinct forms, which Fourier has
+separately considered. I shall adopt the same division, commencing
+however with radiant heat, the historical analysis which I am about to
+submit to you.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody doubts that there is a physical distinction which is eminently
+worthy of being studied between the ball of iron at the ordinary
+temperature which may be handled at pleasure, and the ball of iron of
+the same dimensions which the flame of a furnace has very much heated,
+and which we cannot touch without burning ourselves. This distinction,
+according to the majority of physical inquirers, arises from a certain
+quantity of an elastic imponderable fluid, or at least a fluid which has
+not been weighed, with which the second ball has combined during the
+process of heating. The fluid which, upon combining with cold bodies
+renders them hot, has been designated by the name of <i>heat</i> or
+<i>caloric</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Bodies unequally heated act upon each other <i>even at great distances,
+even through empty space</i>, for the colder becomes more hot, and the
+hotter becomes more cold; for after a certain time they indicate the
+same degree of the thermometer, whatever may have been the difference of
+their original temperatures. According to the hypotheses above
+explained, there is but one way of conceiving this action at a distance;
+this is to suppose that it operates by the aid of certain effluvia which
+traverse space by passing from the hot body to the cold body; that is,
+to admit that a hot body emits in every direction rays of heat, as
+luminous bodies emit rays of light.</p>
+
+<p>The effluvia, the radiating emanations by the aid of which two distant
+bodies form a calorific communication with each other, have been very
+appropriately designated by the name of <i>radiating caloric</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be said to the contrary, radiating heat had already been
+the object of important experiments before Fourier undertook his
+labours. The celebrated academicians of the <i>Cimento</i> found, nearly two
+centuries ago, that this heat is reflected like light; that, as in the
+case of light, a concave mirror concentrates it at the focus. Upon
+substituting balls of snow for heated bodies, they even went so far as
+to prove that frigorific foci may be formed by way of reflection. Some
+years afterwards Mariotte, a member of this Academy, discovered that
+there exist different kinds of radiating heat; that the heat with which
+rays of light are accompanied traverses all transparent media as easily
+as light does; while, again, the caloric which emanates from a strongly
+heated, but opaque substance, while the rays of heat, which are found
+mingled with the luminous rays of a body moderately incandescent, are
+almost entirely arrested in their passage through the most transparent
+plate of glass!</p>
+
+<p>This striking discovery, let us remark in passing, will show,
+notwithstanding the ridicule of pretended savans, how happily inspired
+were the workmen in founderies, who looked at the incandescent matter of
+their furnaces, only through a plate of ordinary glass, thinking by the
+aid of this artifice to arrest the heat which would have burned their
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>In the experimental sciences, the epochs of the most brilliant progress
+are almost always separated by long intervals of almost absolute repose.
+Thus, after Mariotte, there elapsed more than a century without history
+having to record any new property of radiating heat. Then, in close
+succession, we find in the solar light obscure calorific rays, the
+existence of which could admit of being established only with the
+thermometer, and which may be completely separated from luminous rays by
+the aid of the prism; we discover, by the aid of terrestrial bodies,
+that the emission of caloric rays, and consequently the cooling of those
+bodies, is considerably retarded by the polish of the surfaces; that the
+colour, the nature, and the thickness of the outer coating of these
+same surfaces, exercise also a manifest influence upon their emissive
+power. Experience, finally, rectifying the vague predictions to which
+the most enlightened minds abandon themselves with so little reserve,
+shows that the calorific rays which emanate from the plane surface of a
+heated body have not the same force, the same intensity in all
+directions; that the <i>maximum</i> corresponds to the perpendicular
+emission, and the <i>minimum</i> to the emissions parallel to the surface.</p>
+
+<p>Between these two extreme positions, how does the diminution of the
+emissive power operate? Leslie first sought the solution of this
+important question. His observations seem to show that the intensities
+of the radiating rays are proportional (it is necessary, Gentlemen, that
+I employ the scientific expression) to the sines of the angles which
+these rays form with the heated surface. But the quantities upon which
+the experimenter had to operate were too feeble; the uncertainties of
+the thermometric estimations compared with the total effect were, on the
+contrary, too great not to inspire a strong degree of distrust: well,
+Gentlemen, a problem before which all the processes, all the instruments
+of modern physics have remained powerless, Fourier has completely solved
+without the necessity of having recourse to any new experiment. He has
+traced the law of the emission of caloric sought for, with a perspicuity
+which one cannot sufficiently admire, in the most ordinary phenomena of
+temperature, in the phenomena which at first sight appeared to be
+entirely independent of it.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the privilege of genius; it perceives, it seizes relations where
+vulgar eyes see only isolated facts.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody doubts, and besides experiment has confirmed the fact, that in
+all the points of a space terminated by any envelop maintained at a
+constant temperature, we ought also to experience a constant
+temperature, and precisely that of the envelop. Now Fourier has
+established, that if the calorific rays emitted were equally intense in
+all directions, if the intensity did not vary proportionally to the sine
+of the angle of emission, the temperature of a body situated in the
+enclosure would depend on the place which it would occupy there: <i>that
+the temperature of boiling water or of melting iron, for example, would
+exist in certain points of a hollow envelop of glass!</i> In all the vast
+domain of the physical sciences, we should be unable to find a more
+striking application of the celebrated method of the <i>reductio ad
+absurdum</i> of which the ancient mathematicians made use, in order to
+demonstrate the abstract truths of geometry.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not quit this first part of the labours of Fourier without
+adding, that he has not contented himself with demonstrating with so
+much felicity the remarkable law which connects the comparative
+intensities of the calorific rays, emanating under all angles from
+heated bodies; he has sought, moreover, the physical cause of this law,
+and he has found it in a circumstance which his predecessors had
+entirely neglected. Let us suppose, says he, that bodies emit heat not
+only from the molecules of their surfaces, but also from the particles
+in the interior. Let us suppose, moreover, that the heat of these latter
+particles cannot arrive at the surface by traversing a certain thickness
+of matter without undergoing some degree of absorption. Fourier has
+reduced these two hypotheses to calculation, and he has hence deduced
+mathematically the experimental law of the sines. After having resisted
+so radical a test, the two hypotheses were found to be completely
+verified, they have become laws of nature; they point out latent
+properties of caloric which could only be discerned by the eye of the
+intellect.</p>
+
+<p>In the second question treated by Fourier, heat presents itself under a
+new form. There is more difficulty in following its movements; but the
+conclusions deducible from the theory are also more general and more
+important.</p>
+
+<p>Heat excited, concentrated into a certain point of a solid body,
+communicates itself by way of conduction, first to the particles nearest
+the heated point, then gradually to all the regions of the body. Whence
+the problem of which the following is the enunciation.</p>
+
+<p>By what routes, and with what velocities, is the propagation of heat
+effected in bodies of different forms and different natures subjected to
+certain initial conditions?</p>
+
+<p>Fundamentally, the Academy of Sciences had already proposed this problem
+as the subject of a prize as early as the year 1736. Then the terms heat
+and caloric were not in use; it demanded <i>the study of nature, and the
+propagation</i> <span class="smcap">of fire</span>! The word <i>fire</i>, thrown thus into the
+programme without any other explanation, gave rise to a mistake of the
+most singular kind. The majority of philosophers imagined that the
+question was to explain in what way <i>burning</i> communicates itself, and
+increases in a mass of combustible matter. Fifteen competitors presented
+themselves; <i>three</i> were crowned.</p>
+
+<p>This competition was productive of very meagre results. However, a
+singular combination of circumstances and of proper names will render
+the recollection of it lasting.</p>
+
+<p>Has not the public a right to be surprised upon reading this Academic
+declaration: "the question affords no handle to geometry!" In matter of
+inventions, to attempt to dive into the future, is to prepare for one's
+self striking mistakes. One of the competitors, the great Euler, took
+these words in their literal sense; the reveries with which his memoir
+abounds, are not compensated in this instance by any of those brilliant
+discoveries in analysis, I had almost said of those sublime
+inspirations, which were so familiar to him. Fortunately Euler appended
+to his memoir a supplement truly worthy of his genius. Father Lozeran de
+Fiesc and the Count of Cr&eacute;qui were rewarded with the high honour of
+seeing their names inscribed beside that of the illustrious geometer,
+although it would be impossible in the present day to discern in their
+memoirs any kind of merit, not even that of politeness, for the courtier
+said rudely to the Academy: "the question, which you have raised,
+interests only the curiosity of mankind."</p>
+
+<p>Among the competitors less favourably treated, we perceive one of the
+greatest writers whom France has produced; the author of the <i>Henriade</i>.
+The memoir of Voltaire was, no doubt, far from solving the problem
+proposed; but it was at least distinguished by elegance, clearness, and
+precision of language; I shall add, by a severe style of argument; for
+if the author occasionally arrives at questionable results, it is only
+when he borrows false data from the chemistry and physics of the
+epoch,&mdash;sciences which had just sprung into existence. Moreover, the
+anti-Cartesian colour of some of the parts of the memoir of Voltaire was
+calculated to find little favour in a society, where Cartesianism, with
+its incomprehensible vortices, was everywhere held in high estimation.</p>
+
+<p>We should have more difficulty in discovering the causes of the failure
+of a fourth competitor, Madame the Marchioness du Ch&acirc;telet, for she also
+entered into the contest instituted by the Academy. The work of Emilia
+was not only an elegant portrait of all the properties of heat, known
+then to physical inquirers, there were remarked moreover in it,
+different projects of experiments, among the rest one which Herschel has
+since developed, and from which he has derived one of the principal
+flowers of his brilliant scientific crown.</p>
+
+<p>While such great names were occupied in discussing this question,
+physical inquirers of a less ambitious stamp laid experimentally the
+solid basis of a future mathematical theory of heat. Some established,
+that the same quantity of caloric does not elevate by the same number of
+degrees equal weights of different substances, and thereby introduced
+into the science the important notion of <i>capacity</i>. Others, by the aid
+of observations no less certain, proved that heat, applied at the
+extremity of a bar, is transmitted to the extreme parts with greater or
+less velocity or intensity, according to the nature of the substance of
+which the bar is composed; thus they suggested the original idea of
+<i>conductibility</i>. The same epoch, if I were not precluded from entering
+into too minute details, would present to us interesting experiments. We
+should find that it is not true that, at all degrees of the thermometer,
+the loss of heat of a body is proportional to the excess of its
+temperature above that of the medium in which it is plunged; but I have
+been desirous of showing you geometry penetrating, timidly at first,
+into questions of the propagation of heat, and depositing there the
+first germs of its fertile methods.</p>
+
+<p>It is to Lambert of Mulhouse, that we owe this first step. This
+ingenious geometer had proposed a very simple problem which any person
+may comprehend. A slender metallic bar is exposed at one of its
+extremities to the constant action of a certain focus of heat. The parts
+nearest the focus are heated first. Gradually the heat communicates
+itself to the more distant parts, and, after a short time, each point
+acquires the maximum temperature which it can ever attain. Although the
+experiment were to last a hundred years, the thermometric state of the
+bar would not undergo any modification.</p>
+
+<p>As might be reasonably expected, this maximum of heat is so much less
+considerable as we recede from the focus. Is there any relation between
+the final temperatures and the distances of the different particles of
+the bar from the extremity directly heated? Such a relation exists. It
+is very simple. Lambert investigated it by calculation, and experience
+confirmed the results of theory.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the somewhat elementary question of the <i>longitudinal</i>
+propagation of heat, there offered itself the more general but much more
+difficult problem of the propagation of heat in a body of three
+dimensions terminated by any surface whatever. This problem demanded the
+aid of the higher analysis. It was Fourier who first assigned the
+equations. It is to Fourier, also, that we owe certain theorems, by
+means of which we may ascend from the differential equations to the
+integrals, and push the solutions in the majority of cases to the final
+numerical applications.</p>
+
+<p>The first memoir of Fourier on the theory of heat dates from the year
+1807. The Academy, to which it was communicated, being desirous of
+inducing the author to extend and improve his researches, made the
+question of the propagation of heat the subject of the great
+mathematical prize which was to be awarded in the beginning of the year
+1812. Fourier did, in effect, compete, and his memoir was crowned. But,
+alas! as Fontenelle said: "In the country even of demonstrations, there
+are to be found causes of dissension." Some restrictions mingled with
+the favourable judgment. The illustrious commissioners of the prize,
+Laplace, Lagrange, and Legendre, while acknowledging the novelty and
+importance of the subject, while declaring that the real differential
+equations of the propagation of heat were finally found, asserted that
+they perceived difficulties in the way in which the author arrived at
+them. They added, that his processes of integration left something to be
+desired, even on the score of rigour. They did not, however, support
+their opinion by any arguments.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier never admitted the validity of this decision. Even at the close
+of his life he gave unmistakable evidence that he thought it unjust, by
+causing his memoir to be printed in our volumes without changing a
+single word. Still, the doubts expressed by the Commissioners of the
+Academy reverted incessantly to his recollection. From the very
+beginning they had poisoned the pleasure of his triumph. These first
+impressions, added to a high susceptibility, explain how Fourier ended
+by regarding with a certain degree of displeasure the efforts of those
+geometers who endeavoured to improve his theory. This, Gentlemen, was a
+very strange aberration of a mind of so elevated an order! Our colleague
+had almost forgotten that it is not allotted to any person to conduct a
+scientific question to a definitive termination, and that the important
+labours of D'Alembert, Clairaut, Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace, while
+immortalizing their authors, have continually added new lustre to the
+imperishable glory of Newton. Let us act so that this example may not be
+lost. While the civil law imposes upon the tribunes the obligation to
+assign the motives of <i>their judgments</i>, the academies, which are the
+tribunes of science, cannot have even a pretext to escape from this
+obligation. Corporate bodies, as well as individuals, act wisely when
+they reckon in every instance only upon the authority of reason.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="CENTRAL_HEAT_OF_THE_TERRESTRIAL_GLOBE" id="CENTRAL_HEAT_OF_THE_TERRESTRIAL_GLOBE"></a>CENTRAL HEAT OF THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE.</h3>
+
+<p>At any time the <i>Th&eacute;orie Math&eacute;matique de la Chaleur</i> would have excited
+a lively interest among men of reflection, since, upon the supposition
+of its being complete, it threw light upon the most minute processes of
+the arts. In our time the numerous points of affinity existing between
+it and the curious discoveries of the geologists, have made it, if I may
+use the expression, a work for the occasion. To point out the ultimate
+relation which exists between these two kinds of researches would be to
+present the most important part of the discoveries of Fourier, and to
+show how happily our colleague, by one of those inspirations reserved
+for genius, had chosen the subject of his researches.</p>
+
+<p>The parts of the earth's crust, which the geologists call the
+sedimentary formations, were not formed all at once. The waters of the
+ocean, on several former occasions, covered regions which are situated
+in the present day in the centre of the continent. There they deposited,
+in thin horizontal strata, a series of rocks of different kinds. These
+rocks, although superposed like the layers of stones of a wall, must not
+be confounded together; their dissimilarities are palpable to the least
+practised eye. It is necessary also to note this capital fact, that
+each stratum has a well-defined limit; that no process of transition
+connects it with the stratum which it supports. The ocean, the original
+source of all these deposits, underwent then formerly enormous changes
+in its chemical composition to which it is no longer subject.</p>
+
+<p>With some rare exceptions, resulting from local convulsions the effects
+of which are otherwise manifest, the order of antiquity of the
+successive strata of rocks which form the exterior crust of the globe
+ought to be that of their superposition. The deepest have been formed at
+the most remote epochs. The attentive study of these different envelops
+may aid us in ascending the stream of time, even beyond the most remote
+epochs, and enlightening us with respect to those stupendous revolutions
+which periodically overwhelmed continents beneath the waters of the
+ocean, or again restored them to their former condition. Crystalline
+rocks of granite upon which the sea has effected its original deposits
+have never exhibited any remains of life. Traces of such are to be found
+only in the sedimentary strata.</p>
+
+<p>Life appears to have first exhibited itself on the earth in the form of
+vegetables. The remains of vegetables are all that we meet with in the
+most ancient strata deposited by the waters; still, they belong to
+plants of the simplest structure,&mdash;to ferns, to species of rushes, to
+lycopodes.</p>
+
+<p>As we ascend into the upper strata, vegetation becomes more and more
+complex. Finally, near the surface, it resembles the vegetation actually
+existing on the earth, with this characteristic circumstance, however,
+which is well deserving attention, that certain vegetables which grow
+only in southern climates, that the large palm-trees, for example, are
+found in their fossil state in all latitudes, and even in the centre of
+the frozen regions of Siberia.</p>
+
+<p>In the primitive world, these northern regions enjoyed then, in winter,
+a temperature at least equal to that which is experienced in the present
+day under the parallels where the great palms commence to appear: at
+Tobolsk, the inhabitants enjoyed the climate of Alicante or Algiers!</p>
+
+<p>We shall deduce new proofs of this mysterious result from an attentive
+examination of the size of plants.</p>
+
+<p>There exist, in the present day, willow grass or marshy rushes, ferns,
+and lycopodes, in Europe as well as in the tropical regions; but they
+are not met with in large dimensions, except in warm countries. Thus, to
+compare together the dimensions of the same plants is, in reality, to
+compare, in respect to temperature, the regions where they are produced.
+Well, place beside the fossil plants of our coal mines, I will not say
+the analogous plants of Europe, but those which grow in the countries of
+South America, and which are most celebrated for the richness of their
+vegetation, and you will find the former to be of incomparably greater
+dimensions than the latter.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>fossil flora</i> of France, England, Germany, and Scandinavia offer,
+for example, ferns ninety feet high, the stalks being six feet in
+diameter, or eighteen feet in circumference.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>lycopodes</i> which, in the present day, whether in cold or temperate
+climates, are creeping-plants rising hardly to the height of a decim&egrave;tre
+above the soil; which even at the equator, under the most favourable
+circumstances, do not attain a height of more than <i>one</i> m&egrave;tre, had in
+Europe, in the primitive world, an altitude of twenty-five m&egrave;tres.</p>
+
+<p>One must be blind to all reason not to find, in these enormous
+dimensions, a new proof of the high temperature enjoyed by our country
+before the last irruptions of the ocean!</p>
+
+<p>The study of <i>fossil animals</i> is no less fertile in results. I should
+digress from my subject if I were to examine here how the organization
+of animals is developed upon the earth; what modifications, or more
+strictly speaking, what complications it has undergone after each
+cataclysm, or if I even stopped to describe one of those ancient epochs
+during which the earth, the sea, and the atmosphere had for inhabitants
+cold-blooded reptiles of enormous dimensions; tortoises with shells
+three feet in diameter; lizards seventeen m&egrave;tres long; pterodactyles,
+veritable flying dragons of such strange forms, that they might be
+classed on good grounds either among reptiles, among mammiferous
+animals, or among birds. The object, which I have proposed, does not
+require that I should enter into such details; a single remark will
+suffice.</p>
+
+<p>Among the bones contained in the strata nearest the present surface of
+the earth, are those of the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, and the
+elephant. These remains of animals of warm countries are to be found in
+all latitudes. Travellers have discovered specimens of them even at
+Melville Island, where the temperature descends, in the present day, 50&deg;
+beneath zero. In Siberia they are found in such abundance as to have
+become an article of commerce. Finally, upon the rocky shores of the
+Arctic Ocean, there are to be found not merely fragments of skeletons,
+but whole elephants still covered with their flesh and skin.</p>
+
+<p>I should deceive myself very much, Gentlemen, if I were to suppose that
+each of you had not deduced from these remarkable facts a conclusion no
+less remarkable, to which indeed the fossil flora had already habituated
+us; namely, that as they have grown older, the polar regions of the
+earth have cooled down to a prodigious extent.</p>
+
+<p>In the explanation of so curious a phenomenon, cosmologists have not
+taken into account the existence of possible variations of the intensity
+of the solar heat; and yet the stars, those distant suns, have not the
+constant brightness which the common people attribute to them. Nay, some
+of them have been observed to diminish in a sufficiently short space of
+time to the hundredth part of their original brightness; and several
+have even totally disappeared. They have preferred to attribute every
+thing to an internal or primitive heat with which the earth was at some
+former epoch impregnated, and which is gradually being dissipated in
+space.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this hypothesis the inhabitants of the polar regions, although
+deprived of the sight of the sun for whole months together, must have
+evidently enjoyed, at very ancient epochs, a temperature equal to that
+of the tropical regions, wherein exist elephants in the present day.</p>
+
+<p>It is not, however, as an explanation of the existence of elephants in
+Siberia, that the idea of the intrinsic heat of the globe has entered
+for the first time into science. Some savans had adopted it before the
+discovery of those fossil animals. Thus, Descartes was of opinion that
+originally (I cite his own words,) <i>the earth did not differ from the
+sun in any other respect than in being smaller</i>. Upon this hypothesis,
+then, it ought to be considered as an extinct sun.</p>
+
+<p>Leibnitz conferred upon this hypothesis the honour of appropriating it
+to himself. He attempted to deduce from it the mode of formation of the
+different solid envelopes of which the earth consists. Buffon, also,
+imparted to it the weight of his eloquent authority. According to that
+great naturalist, the planets of our system are merely portions of the
+sun, which the shock of a comet had detached from it some tens of
+thousands of years ago.</p>
+
+<p>In support of this igneous origin of the earth, Mairan and Buffon cited
+already the high temperature of deep mines, and, among others, those of
+the mines of Giromagny. It appears evident that if the earth was
+formerly incandescent, we should not fail to meet in the interior
+strata, that is to say, in those which ought to have cooled last, traces
+of their primitive temperature. The observer who, upon penetrating into
+the interior of the earth, did not find an increasing heat, might then
+consider himself amply authorized to reject the hypothetical conceptions
+of Descartes, of Mairan, of Leibnitz, and of Buffon. But has the
+converse proposition the same certainty? Would not the torrents of heat,
+which the sun has continued incessantly to launch for so many ages, have
+diffused themselves into the mass of the earth, so as to produce there a
+temperature increasing with the depth? This a question of high
+importance. Certain easily satisfied minds conscientiously supposed that
+they had solved it, when they stated that the idea of a constant
+temperature was by far the <i>most natural</i>; but woe to the sciences if
+they thus included vague considerations which escape all criticism,
+among the motives for admitting and rejecting facts and theories!
+Fontenelle, Gentlemen, would have traced their horoscope in these words,
+so well adapted for humbling our pride, and the truth of which the
+history of discoveries reveals in a thousand places: "When a thing may
+be in two different ways, it is almost always that which appears at
+first the least natural."</p>
+
+<p>Whatever importance these reflections may possess, I hasten to add that,
+instead of the arguments of his predecessors, which have no real value,
+Fourier has substituted proofs, demonstrations; and we know what meaning
+such terms convey to the Academy of Sciences.</p>
+
+<p>In all places of the earth, as soon as we descend to a certain depth,
+the thermometer no longer experiences either diurnal or annual
+variation. It marks the same degree, and the same fraction of a degree,
+from day to day, and from year to year. Such is the fact: what says
+theory?</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose, for a moment, that the earth has constantly received all
+its heat from the sun. Descend into its mass to a sufficient depth, and
+you will find, with Fourier, by the aid of calculation, a constant
+temperature for each day of the year. You will recognize further, that
+this solar temperature of the inferior strata varies from one climate to
+another; that in each country, finally, it ought to be always the same,
+so long as we do not descend to depths which are too great relatively to
+the earth's radius.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the phenomena of nature stand in manifest contradiction to this
+result. The observations made in a multitude of mines, observations of
+the temperature of hot springs coming from different depths, have all
+given an increase of one degree of the centigrade for every twenty or
+thirty metres of depth. Thus, there was some inaccuracy in the
+hypothesis which we were discussing upon the footsteps of our colleague.
+It is not true that the temperature of the terrestrial strata may be
+attributed solely to the action of the solar rays.</p>
+
+<p>This being established, the increase of heat which is observed in all
+climates when we penetrate into the interior of the globe, is the
+manifest indication of an intrinsic heat. The earth, as Descartes and
+Leibnitz maintained it to be, but without being able to support their
+assertions by any demonstrative reasoning,&mdash;thanks to a combination of
+the observations of physical inquirers with the analytical calculations
+of Fourier,&mdash;is <i>an encrusted sun</i>, the high temperature of which may be
+boldly invoked every time that the explanation of ancient geological
+phenomena will require it.</p>
+
+<p>After having established that there is in our earth an inherent heat,&mdash;a
+heat the source of which is not the sun, and which, if we may judge of
+it by the rapid increase which observation indicates, ought to be
+already sufficiently intense at the depth of only seven or eight leagues
+to hold in fusion all known substances,&mdash;there arises the question, what
+is its precise value at the surface of the earth; what weight are we to
+attach to it in the determination of terrestrial temperatures; what part
+does it play in the phenomena of life?</p>
+
+<p>According to Mairan, Buffon, and Bailly, this part is immense. For
+France, they estimate the heat which escapes from the interior of the
+earth, at twenty-nine times in summer, and four hundred times in winter,
+the heat which comes to us from the sun. Thus, contrary to general
+opinion, the heat of the body which illuminates us would form only a
+very small part of that whose propitious influence we feel.</p>
+
+<p>This idea was developed with ability and great eloquence in the <i>Memoirs
+of the Academy</i>, in the <i>Epoques sur la Nature</i> of Buffon, in the
+letters from Bailly to Voltaire <i>upon the Origin of the Sciences and
+upon the Atlantide</i>. But the ingenious romance to which it has served as
+a base, has vanished like a shadow before the torch of mathematical
+science.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier having discovered that the excess of the aggregate temperature
+of the earth's surface above that which would result from the sole
+action of the solar rays, has a determinate relation to the increase of
+temperature at different depths, succeeded in deducing from the
+experimental value of this increase a numerical determination of the
+excess in question. This excess is the thermometric effect which the
+solar heat produces at the surface; now, instead of the large numbers
+adopted by Mairan, Bailly, and Buffon, what has our colleague found? <i>A
+thirtieth</i> of a degree, not more.</p>
+
+<p>The surface of the earth, which originally was perhaps incandescent, has
+cooled then in the course of ages, so as hardly to preserve any sensible
+trace of its primitive heat. However, at great depths, the original heat
+is still enormous. Time will alter sensibly the internal temperature;
+but at the surface (and the phenomena of the surface can alone modify or
+compromise the existence of living beings), all the changes are almost
+accomplished. The frightful freezing of the earth, the epoch of which
+Buffon fixed at the instant when the central heat would be totally
+dissipated, is then a pure dream. At the surface, the earth is no longer
+impregnated except by the solar heat. So long as the sun shall continue
+to preserve the same brightness, mankind will find, from pole to pole,
+under each latitude, the climates which have permitted them to live and
+to establish their residence. These, Gentlemen, are great, magnificent
+results. While recording them in the annals of science, historians will
+not neglect to draw attention to this singular peculiarity: that the
+geometer to whom we owe the first certain demonstration of the existence
+of a heat independent of a solar influence in the interior of the earth,
+has annihilated the immense part which this primitive heat was made to
+play in the explanation of the phenomena of terrestrial temperature.</p>
+
+<p>Besides divesting the theory of climates of an error which occupied a
+prominent place in science, supported as it was by the imposing
+authority of Mairan, of Bailly, and of Buffon, Fourier is entitled to
+the merit of a still more striking achievement: he has introduced into
+this theory a consideration which hitherto had been totally neglected;
+he has pointed out the influence exercised by the <i>temperature of the
+celestial regions</i>, amid which the hearth describes its immense orb
+around the sun.</p>
+
+<p>When we perceive, even under the equator, certain mountains covered with
+eternal snow, upon observing the rapid diminution of temperature which
+the strata of the atmosphere undergo during ascents in balloons,
+meteorologists have supposed, that in the regions wherein the extreme
+rarity of the air will always exclude the presence of mankind, and that
+especially beyond the limits of the atmosphere, there ought to prevail a
+prodigious intensity of cold. It was not merely by hundreds, it was by
+thousands of degrees, that they had arbitrarily measured it. But, as
+usual, the imagination (<i>cette folie de la maison</i>) had exceeded all
+reasonable limits. The hundreds, the tens of thousands of degrees, have
+dwindled down, after the rigorous researches of Fourier, to fifty or
+sixty degrees only. Fifty or sixty degrees <i>beneath zero</i>, such is the
+temperature which the radiation of heat from the stars has established
+in the regions furrowed indefinitely by the planets of our system.</p>
+
+<p>You recollect, Gentlemen, with what delight Fourier used to converse on
+this subject. You know well that he thought himself sure of having
+assigned the temperature of space within eight or ten degrees. By what
+fatality has it happened that the memoir, wherein no doubt our colleague
+had recorded all the elements of that important determination, is not to
+be found? May that irreparable loss prove at least to so many observers,
+that instead of pursuing obstinately an ideal perfection, which it is
+not allotted to man to attain, they will act wisely in placing the
+public, as soon as possible, in the confidence of their labours.</p>
+
+<p>I should have yet a long course to pursue, if, after having pointed out
+some of those problems of which the condition of science enabled our
+learned colleague to give numerical solutions, I were to analyze all
+those which, still enveloped in general formul&aelig;, await merely the data
+of experience to assume a place among the most curious acquisitions of
+modern physics. Time, which is not at my disposal, precludes me from
+dwelling upon such developments. I should be guilty, however, of an
+unpardonable omission, if I did not state that, among the formulas of
+Fourier, there is one which serves to assign the value of the secular
+cooling of the earth, and in which there is involved the number of
+centuries which have elapsed since the origin of this cooling. The
+question of the antiquity of the earth, including even the period of
+incandescence, which has been so keenly discussed, is thus reduced to a
+thermometric determination. Unfortunately this point of theory is
+subject to serious difficulties. Besides, the thermometric
+determination, in consequence of its excessive smallness, must be
+reserved for future ages.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="RETURN_OF_NAPOLEON_FROM_ELBA_FOURIER_PREFECT_OF_THE_RHONEmdashHIS" id="RETURN_OF_NAPOLEON_FROM_ELBA_FOURIER_PREFECT_OF_THE_RHONEmdashHIS"></a>RETURN OF NAPOLEON FROM ELBA.&mdash;FOURIER PREFECT OF THE RHONE.&mdash;HIS
+NOMINATION TO THE OFFICE OF DIRECTOR OF THE BOARD OF STATISTICS OF THE SEINE.</h3>
+
+<p>I have just exhibited to you the scientific fruits of the leisure hours
+of the Prefect of l'Is&egrave;re. Fourier still occupied this situation when
+Napoleon arrived at Cannes. His conduct during this grave conjuncture
+has been the object of a hundred false rumours. I shall then discharge a
+duty by establishing the facts in all their truth, according to what I
+have heard from our colleague's own mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the news of the Emperor having disembarked, the principal
+authorities of Grenoble assembled at the residence of the Prefect. There
+each individual explained ably, but especially, said Fourier, with much
+detail, the difficulties which he perceived. As regards the means of
+vanquishing them, the authorities seemed to be much less inventive.
+Confidence in administrative eloquence was not yet worn out at that
+epoch; it was resolved accordingly to have recourse to proclamations.
+The commanding officer and the Prefect presented each a project. The
+assembly was discussing minutely the terms of them, when an officer of
+the gendarmes, an old soldier of the Imperial armies, exclaimed rudely,
+"Gentlemen, be quick, otherwise all deliberation will become useless.
+Believe me, I speak from experience; Napoleon always follows very
+closely the couriers who announce his arrival." Napoleon was in fact
+close at hand. After a short moment of hesitation, two companies of
+sappers which had been dispatched to cut down a bridge, joined their
+former commander. A battalion of infantry soon followed their example.
+Finally, upon the very glacis of the fortress, in presence of the
+numerous population which crowned the ramparts, the fifth regiment of
+the line to a man assumed the tricolour cockade, substituted for the
+white flag the eagle,&mdash;witness of twenty battles,&mdash;which it had
+preserved, and departed with shouts of <i>Vive l'Empereur!</i> After such a
+commencement, to attempt to hold the country would have been an act of
+folly. General Marchand caused accordingly the gates of the city to be
+shut. He still hoped, notwithstanding the evidently hostile disposition
+of the inhabitants, to sustain a siege with the sole assistance of the
+third regiment of engineers, the fourth regiment of artillery, and some
+weak detachments of infantry, which had not abandoned him.</p>
+
+<p>From that moment, the civil authority had disappeared. Fourier thought
+then that he might quit Grenoble, and repair to Lyons, where the princes
+had assembled together. At the second restoration, this departure was
+imputed to him as a crime. He was very near being brought before a court
+of assizes, or even a provost's court. Certain personages pretended that
+the presence of the Prefect of the chief place of l'Is&egrave;re might have
+conjured the storm; that the resistance might have been more animated,
+better arranged. People forgot that nowhere, and at Grenoble even less
+than anywhere else, was it possible to organize even a pretext of
+resistance. Let us see then, finally, how this martial city,&mdash;the fall
+of which Fourier might have prevented by his mere presence,&mdash;let us see
+how it was taken. It is eight o'clock in the evening. The inhabitants
+and the soldiers garrison the ramparts. Napoleon precedes his little
+troop by some steps; he advances even to the gate; he knocks (be not
+alarmed, Gentlemen, it is not a battle which I am about to describe,)
+<i>he knocks with his snuff-box!</i> "Who is there?" cried the officer of the
+guard. "It is the Emperor! Open!"&mdash;"Sire, my duty forbids me."&mdash;"Open&mdash;I
+tell you; I have no time to lose."&mdash;"But, sire, even though I should
+open to you, I could not. The keys are in the possession of General
+Marchand."&mdash;"Go, then, and fetch them."&mdash;"I am certain that he will
+refuse them to me."&mdash;"If the General refuse them, <i>tell him that I will
+dismiss him</i>."</p>
+
+<p>These words petrified the soldiers. During the previous two days,
+hundreds of proclamations designated Bonaparte as a wild beast which it
+was necessary to seize without scruple; they ordered everybody to run
+away from him, and yet this man threatened the general with deprivation
+of his command! The single word <i>dismissal</i>, effaced the faint line of
+demarcation which separated for an instant the old soldiers from the
+young recruits; one word established the whole garrison in the interest
+of the emperor.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances of the capture of Grenoble were not yet known when
+Fourier arrived at Lyons. He brought thither the news of the rapid
+advance of Napoleon; that of the revolt of two companies of sappers, of
+a regiment of infantry, and of the regiment commanded by Lab&eacute;doy&egrave;re.
+Moreover, he was a witness of the lively sympathy which the country
+people along the whole route displayed in favour of the proscribed exile
+of Elba.</p>
+
+<p>The Count d'Artois gave a very cold reception to the Prefect and his
+communications. He declared that the arrival of Napoleon at Grenoble was
+impossible; that no alarm need be apprehended respecting the disposition
+of the country people. "As regards the facts," said he to Fourier,
+"which would seem to have occurred in your presence at the very gates of
+the city, with respect to the tricoloured cockades substituted for the
+cockade of Henry IV., with respect to the eagles which you say have
+replaced the white flag, I do not suspect your good faith, but the
+uneasy state of your mind must have dazzled your eyes. Prefect, return
+then without delay to Grenoble; you will answer for the city with your
+head."</p>
+
+<p>You see, Gentlemen, after having so long proclaimed the necessity of
+telling the truth to princes, moralists will act wisely by inviting
+princes to be good enough to listen to its language.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier obeyed the order which had just been given him. The wheels of
+his carriage had made only a few revolutions in the direction of
+Grenoble, when he was arrested by hussars, and conducted to the
+head-quarters at Bourgoin. The Emperor, who was engaged in examining a
+large chart with a pair of compasses, said, upon seeing him enter:
+"Well, Prefect, you also have declared war against me?"&mdash;"Sire, my oath
+of allegiance made it my duty to do so!"&mdash;"A duty you say? and do you
+not see that in Dauphiny nobody is of the same mind? Do not imagine,
+however, that your plan of the campaign will frighten me much. It only
+grieved me to see among my enemies an <i>Egyptian</i>, a man who had eaten
+along with me the bread of the bivouac, an old friend!"</p>
+
+<p>It is painful to add that to those kind words succeeded these also:
+"How, moreover, could you have forgotten, Monsieur Fourier, that I have
+made you what you are?"</p>
+
+<p>You will regret with me, Gentlemen, that a timidity, which circumstances
+would otherwise easily explain, should have prevented our colleague from
+at once emphatically protesting against this confusion, which the
+powerful of the earth are constantly endeavouring to establish between
+the perishable bounties of which they are the dispensers, and the noble
+fruits of thought. Fourier was Prefect and Baron by the favour of the
+Emperor; he was one of the glories of France by his own genius!</p>
+
+<p>On the 9th of March, Napoleon, in a moment of anger, ordered Fourier, by
+a mandate, dated from Grenoble, <i>to quit the territory of the seventh
+military division within five days, under pain of being arrested and
+treated as an enemy of the country!</i> On the following day, our colleague
+departed from the Conference of Bourgoin, with the appointment of
+Prefect of the Rhone and the title of <i>Count</i>, for the Emperor after his
+return from Elba was again at his old practices.</p>
+
+<p>These unexpected proofs of favour and confidence afforded little
+pleasure to our colleague, but he dared not refuse them, although he
+perceived very distinctly the immense gravity of the events in which he
+was led by the vicissitude of fortune to play a part.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of my enterprise?" said the Emperor to him on the day
+of his departure from Lyons. "Sire," replied Fourier, "I am of opinion
+that you will fail. Let but a fanatic meet you on your way, and all is
+at an end."&mdash;"Bah!" exclaimed Napoleon, "the Bourbons have nobody on
+their side, not even a fanatic. In connection with this circumstance,
+you have read in the journals that they have excluded me from the
+protection of the law. I shall be more indulgent on my part; I shall
+content myself with excluding them from the Tuileries."</p>
+
+<p>Fourier held the appointment of Prefect of the Rhone only till the 1st
+of May. It has been alleged that he was recalled, because he refused to
+be accessory to the deeds of terrorism which the minister of the hundred
+days enjoined him to execute. The Academy will always be pleased when I
+collect together, and place on record, actions which, while honouring
+its members, throw new lustre around the entire body. I even feel that,
+in such a case, I may be disposed to be somewhat credulous. On the
+present occasion, it was imperatively necessary to institute a most
+rigorous examination. If Fourier honoured himself by refusing to obey
+certain orders, what are we to think of the minister of the interior
+from whom those orders emanated? Now this minister, it must not be
+forgotten, was also an academician, illustrious by his military
+services, distinguished by his mathematical works, esteemed and
+cherished by all his colleagues. Well! I declare, Gentlemen, with a
+satisfaction which you will all share, that a most scrupulous
+investigation of all the acts of the hundred days has not disclosed a
+trace of anything which might detract from the feelings of admiration
+with which the memory of Carnot is associated in your minds.</p>
+
+<p>Upon quitting the Prefecture of the Rhone, Fourier repaired to Paris.
+The Emperor, who was then upon the eve of setting out to join the army,
+perceiving him amid the crowd at the Tuileries, accosted him in a
+friendly manner, informed him that Carnot would explain to him why his
+displacement at Lyons had become indispensable, and promised to attend
+to his interest as soon as military affairs would allow him some leisure
+time. The second restoration found Fourier in the capital without
+employment, and justly anxious with respect to the future. He, who,
+during a period of fifteen years, administered the affairs of a great
+department; who directed works of such an expensive nature; who, in the
+affair of the marshes of Bourgoin, had to contract engagements for so
+many millions, with private individuals, with the communes and with
+public companies, had not <i>twenty thousand francs</i> in his possession.
+This honourable poverty, as well as the recollection of glorious and
+important services, was little calculated to make an impression upon
+ministers influenced by political passion, and subject to the capricious
+interference of foreigners. A demand for a pension was accordingly
+repelled with rudeness. Be reassured, however, France will not have to
+blush for having left in poverty one of her principal ornaments. The
+Prefect of Paris,&mdash;I have committed a mistake, Gentlemen, a proper name
+will not be out of place here,&mdash;M. Chabrol, learns that his old
+professor at the Polytechnic School, that the Perpetual Secretary of the
+Institute of Egypt, that the author of the <i>Th&eacute;orie Analytique de la
+Chaleur</i>, was reduced, in order to obtain the means of living, to give
+private lessons at the residences of his pupils. The idea of this
+revolts him. He accordingly shows himself deaf to the clamours of party,
+and Fourier receives from him the superior direction of the <i>Bureau de
+la Statistique</i> of the Seine, with a salary of 6,000 francs. It has
+appeared to me, Gentlemen, that I ought not to suppress these details.
+Science may show herself grateful towards all those who give her support
+and protection, when there is some danger in doing so, without fearing
+that the burden should ever become too heavy.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier responded worthily to the confidence reposed in him by M. de
+Chabrol. The memoirs with which he enriched the interesting volumes
+published by the Prefecture of the Seine, will serve henceforth as a
+guide to all those who have the good sense to see in statistics,
+something else than an indigestible mass of figures and tables.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="ENTRANCE_OF_FOURIER_INTO_THE_ACADEMY_OF_SCIENCES_HIS_ELECTION_TO_THE" id="ENTRANCE_OF_FOURIER_INTO_THE_ACADEMY_OF_SCIENCES_HIS_ELECTION_TO_THE"></a>ENTRANCE OF FOURIER INTO THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.&mdash;HIS ELECTION TO THE
+OFFICE OF PERPETUAL SECRETARY.&mdash;HIS ADMISSION TO THE FRENCH ACADEMY.</h3>
+
+<p>The Academy of Sciences seized the first occasion which offered itself
+to attach Fourier to its interests. On the 27th of May, 1816, he was
+nominated a free academician. This election was not confirmed. The
+solicitations and influence of the Dauphin whom circumstances detained
+at Paris, had almost disarmed the authorities, when a courtier exclaimed
+that an amnesty was to be granted to <i>the civil Lab&eacute;doy&egrave;re!</i><a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> This
+word,&mdash;for during many ages past the poor human race has been governed
+by words,&mdash;decided the fate of our colleague. Thanks to political
+intrigue, the ministers of Louis XVIII. decided that one of the most
+learned men of France should not belong to the Academy; that a citizen
+who enjoyed the friendship of all the most distinguished persons in the
+metropolis, should be publicly stricken with disapprobation!</p>
+
+<p>In our country, the reign of absurdity does not last long. Accordingly
+in 1817, when the Academy, without being discouraged by the ill success
+of its first attempt, unanimously nominated Fourier to the place which
+had just been vacant in the section of physics, the royal confirmation
+was accorded without difficulty. I ought to add that soon afterwards,
+the ruling authorities whose repugnances were entirely dissipated,
+frankly and unreservedly applauded the happy choice which you made of
+the learned geometer to replace Delambre as perpetual secretary. They
+even went so far as to offer him the Directorship of the Fine Arts; but
+our colleague had the good sense to refuse the appointment.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the death of L&eacute;montey, the French Academy, where Laplace and Cuvier
+already represented the sciences, called also Fourier into its bosom.
+The literary titles of the most eloquent of the writers connected with
+the work on Egypt were incontestable; they even were not contested, and
+still this nomination excited violent discussions in the journals, which
+profoundly grieved our colleague. And yet after all, was it not a fit
+subject for discussion, whether, these double nominations are of any
+real utility? Might it not be maintained, without incurring the reproach
+of paradox, that it extinguishes in youth an emulation which we are
+bound by every consideration to encourage? Besides, with double, triple,
+and quadruple academicians, what would eventually become of the justly
+boasted unity of the Institute? Without insisting further on these
+remarks, the justness of which you will admit if I mistake not, I hasten
+to repeat that the academic titles of Fourier did not form even the
+subject of a doubt. The applause which was lavished upon the eloquent
+&eacute;loges of Delambre, of Br&eacute;guet, of Charles, and of Herschel, would
+sufficiently evince that, if their author had not been already one of
+the most distinguished members of the Academy of Sciences, the public
+would have invited him to assume a place among the judges of French
+literature.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> In allusion to the <i>military</i> traitor Colonel Lab&eacute;doy&egrave;re,
+who was condemned to death for espousing the cause of
+Napoleon.&mdash;<i>Translator.</i></p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h3><a name="CHARACTER_OF_FOURIER_HIS_DEATH" id="CHARACTER_OF_FOURIER_HIS_DEATH"></a>CHARACTER OF FOURIER.&mdash;HIS DEATH.</h3>
+
+<p>Restored at length, after so many vicissitudes, to his favourite
+pursuits, Fourier passed the last years of his life in retirement and
+in the discharge of academic duties. <i>To converse</i> had become the half
+of his existence. Those who have been disposed to consider this the
+subject of just reproach, have no doubt forgotten that constant
+reflection is no less imperiously forbidden to man than the abuse of
+physical powers. Repose, in every thing, recruits our frail machine;
+but, Gentlemen, he who desires repose may not obtain it. Interrogate
+your own recollections and say, if, when you are pursuing a new truth, a
+walk, the intercourse of society, or even sleep, have the privilege of
+distracting you from the object of your thoughts? The extremely
+shattered state of Fourier's health enjoined the most careful attention.
+After many attempts, he only found one means of escaping from the
+contentions of mind which exhausted him: this consisted in speaking
+aloud upon the events of his life; upon his scientific labours, which
+were either in course of being planned, or which were already
+terminated; upon the acts of injustice of which he had reason to
+complain. Every person must have remarked, how insignificant was the
+state which our gifted colleague assigned to those who were in the habit
+of conversing with him; we are now acquainted with the cause of this.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier had preserved, in old age, the grace, the urbanity, the varied
+knowledge which, a quarter of a century previously, had imparted so
+great a charm to his lectures at the Polytechnic School. There was a
+pleasure in hearing him relate the anecdote which the listener already
+knew by heart, even the events in which the individual had taken a
+direct part. I happened to be a witness of the kind of <i>fascination</i>
+which he exercised upon his audience, in connection with an incident
+which deserves to be known, for it will prove that the word which I have
+just employed is not in anywise exaggerated.</p>
+
+<p>We found ourselves seated at the same table. The guest from whom I
+separated him was an old officer. Our colleague was informed of this,
+and the question, "Have you been in Egypt?" served as the commencement
+of a conversation between them. The reply was in the affirmative.
+Fourier hastened to add: "As regards myself, I remained in that
+magnificent country until the period of its complete evacuation.
+Although foreign to the profession of arms, I have, in the midst of our
+soldiers, fired against the insurgents of Cairo; I have had the honour
+of hearing the cannon of Heliopolis." Hence to give an account of the
+battle was but a step. This step was soon made, and we were presented
+with four battalions drawn up in squares in the plain of Quoubb&eacute;h, and
+man&oelig;uvring, with admirable precision, conformably to the orders of
+the illustrious geometer. My neighbour, with attentive ear, with
+immovable eyes, and with outstretched neck, listened to this recital
+with the liveliest interest. He did not lose a single syllable of it:
+one would have sworn that he had for the first time heard of those
+memorable events. Gentlemen, it is so delightful a task to please! After
+having remarked the effect which he produced, Fourier reverted, with
+still greater detail, to the principal fight of those great days: to the
+capture of the fortified village of Mattaryeh, to the passage of two
+feeble columns of French grenadiers across ditches heaped up with the
+dead and wounded of the Ottoman army. "Generals ancient and modern, have
+sometimes spoken of similar deeds of prowess," exclaimed our colleague,
+"but it was in the hyperbolic style of the bulletin: here the fact is
+materially true,&mdash;it is true like geometry. I feel conscious, however,"
+added he, "that in order to induce your belief in it, all my assurances
+will not be more than sufficient."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be anxious upon this point," replied the officer, who at that
+moment seemed to awaken from a long dream. "In case of necessity, I
+might guarantee the accuracy of your statement. It was I who, at the
+head of the grenadiers of the 13th and 85th semi-brigades, forced the
+entrenchments of Mattaryeh, by passing over the dead bodies of the
+Janissaries!"</p>
+
+<p>My neighbour was General Tarayre: you may imagine much better than I can
+express, the effect of the few words which had just escaped from him.
+Fourier made a thousand excuses, while I reflected upon the seductive
+influence, upon the power of language, which for more than half an hour
+had robbed the celebrated general even of the recollection of the part
+which he had played in the battle of giants he was listening to.</p>
+
+<p>The more our secretary had occasion to converse, the greater repugnance
+he experienced to verbal discussions. Fourier cut short every debate as
+soon as there presented itself a somewhat marked difference of opinion,
+only to resume afterwards the same subject upon the modest pretext of
+making a small step in advance each time. Some one asked Fontaine, a
+celebrated geometer of this Academy, how he occupied his thoughts in
+society, wherein he maintained an almost absolute silence: "I observe,"
+he replied, "the vanity of mankind, to wound it as occasion offers." If,
+like his predecessor, Fourier also studied the baser passions which
+contend for honours, riches, and power, it was not in order to engage in
+hostilities with them: resolved never to compromise matters with them,
+he yet so calculated his movements beforehand, as not to find himself in
+their way. We perceive a wide difference between this disposition and
+the ardent impetuous character of the young orator of the popular
+society of Auxerre. But what purpose would philosophy serve, if it did
+not teach us to conquer our passions? It is not that occasionally the
+natural disposition of Fourier did not display itself in full relief.
+"It is strange," said one day a certain very influential personage of
+the court of Charles X., whom Fourier's servant would not allow to pass
+beyond the antechamber of our colleague,&mdash;"it is truly strange that your
+master should be more difficult of access than a minister!" Fourier
+heard the conversation, leaped out of his bed to which he was confined
+by indisposition, opened the door of the chamber, and exclaimed, face to
+face with the courtier: "Joseph, tell Monsieur, that if I was minister,
+I should receive everybody, because it would be my duty to do so; but,
+being a private individual, I receive whomsoever I please, and at what
+hour soever I please!" Disconcerted by the liveliness of the retort, the
+great seignior did not utter one word in reply. We must even believe
+that from that moment he resolved not to visit any but ministers, for
+the plain man of science heard nothing more of him.</p>
+
+<p>Fourier was endowed with a constitution which held forth a promise of
+long life; but what can natural advantages avail against the
+anti-hygienic habits which men arbitrarily acquire! In order to guard
+against slight attacks of rheumatism, our colleague was in the habit of
+clothing himself, even in the hottest season of the year, after a
+fashion which is not practised even by travellers condemned to spend the
+winter amid the snows of the polar regions. "One would suppose me to be
+corpulent," he used to say occasionally with a smile; "be assured,
+however, that there is much to deduct from this opinion. If, after the
+example of the Egyptian mummies, I was subjected to the operation of
+disembowelment,&mdash;from which heaven preserve me,&mdash;the residue would be
+found to be a very slender body." I might add, selecting also my
+comparison from the banks of the Nile, that in the apartments of
+Fourier, which were always of small extent, and intensely heated even in
+summer, the currents of air to which one was exposed resembled sometimes
+the terrible simoon, that burning wind of the desert, which the caravans
+dread as much as the plague.</p>
+
+<p>The prescriptions of medicine which, in the mouth of M. Larrey, were
+blended with the anxieties of a long and constant friendship, failed to
+induce a modification of of this mortal r&eacute;gime. Fourier had already
+experienced, in Egypt and Grenoble, some attacks of aneurism of the
+heart. At Paris, it was impossible to be mistaken with respect to the
+primary cause of the frequent suffocations which he experienced. A fall,
+however, which he sustained on the 4th of May, 1830, while descending a
+flight of stairs, aggravated the malady to an extent beyond what could
+have been ever feared. Our colleague, notwithstanding pressing
+solicitations, persisted in refusing to combat the most threatening
+symptoms, except by the aid of patience and a high temperature. On the
+16th of May, 1830, about four o'clock in the evening, Fourier
+experienced in his study a violent crisis the serious nature of which he
+was far from being sensible of; for, having thrown himself completely
+dressed upon his bed, he requested M. Petit, a young doctor of his
+acquaintance who carefully attended him, not to go far away, in order,
+said he, that we may presently converse together. But to these words
+succeeded soon the cries, "Quick, quick! some vinegar! I am fainting!"
+and one of the men of science who has shed the brightest lustre upon the
+Academy had ceased to live.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen, this cruel event is too recent, that I should recall here
+the grief which the Institute experienced upon losing one of its most
+important members; and those obsequies, on the occasion of which so many
+persons, usually divided by interests and opinions, united together, in
+one common feeling of admiration and regret, around the mortal remains
+of Fourier; and the Polytechnic School swelling in a mass the cort&eacute;ge,
+in order to render homage to one of its earliest, of its most celebrated
+professors; and the words which, on the brink of the tomb, depicted so
+eloquently the profound mathematician, the elegant writer, the upright
+administrator, the good citizen, the devoted friend. We shall merely
+state that Fourier belonged to all the great learned societies of the
+world, that they united with the most touching unanimity in the mourning
+of the Academy, in the mourning of all France: a striking testimony that
+the republic of letters is no longer, in the present day, merely a vain
+name! What, then, was wanting to the memory of our colleague? A more
+able successor than I have been to exhibit in full relief the different
+phases of a life so varied, so laborious, so gloriously interlaced with
+the greatest events of the most memorable epochs of our history.
+Fortunately, the scientific discoveries of the illustrious secretary had
+nothing to dread from the incompetency of the panegyrist. My object will
+have been completely attained if, notwithstanding the imperfection of my
+sketches, each of you will have learned that the progress of general
+physics, of terrestrial physics, and of geology, will daily multiply the
+fertile applications of the <i>Th&eacute;orie Analytique de la Chaleur</i>, and that
+this work will transmit the name of Fourier down to the remotest
+posterity.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+
+<hr />
+<p class='center'><img src="images/hand30-14.png" width='30' height='14' alt="pointing hand" />Any books in this list will be sent free of
+postage, on receipt of price.</p>
+
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Boston, 135 Washington Street</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">January, 1859.</span></p>
+
+<h2>A LIST OF BOOKS</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>PUBLISHED BY</p>
+
+<h2>TICKNOR AND FIELDS.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>Sir Walter Scott.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Illustrated Household Edition of the Waverley Novels.</span> In
+portable size, 16mo. form. Price 75 cents a volume.</p>
+
+<p>The paper is of fine quality; the stereotype plates are not old ones
+repaired, the type having been cast expressly for this edition. The
+Novels are illustrated with capital steel plates engraved in the best
+manner, after drawings and paintings by the most eminent artists, among
+whom are Birket Foster, Darley, Billings, Landseer, Harvey, and Faed.
+This Edition contains all the latest notes and corrections of the
+author, a Glossary and Index; and some curious additions, especially in
+"Guy Mannering" and the "Bride of Lammermoor;" being the fullest edition
+of the Novels ever published. <i>The notes are at the foot of the
+page</i>,&mdash;a great convenience to the reader.</p>
+
+
+<p>Any of the following Novels sold separate.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+<span class="smcap">Waverley</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Guy Mannering</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Antiquary</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Rob Roy</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Old Mortality</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Black Dwarf</span>,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; )<br />
+<span class="smcap">Legend of Montrose</span>,&nbsp; &nbsp;  ) 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Heart of Mid Lothian</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Bride of Lammermoor</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Ivanhoe</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Monastery</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Abbot</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Kenilworth</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Pirate</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Fortunes of Nigel</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Peveril of the Peak</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Quentin Durward</span>, 2 Vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">St. Ronan's Well</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Redgauntlet</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Betrothed</span>,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; )<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Highland Widow</span>, &nbsp; &nbsp;  ) 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Talisman</span>,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; )<br />
+<span class="smcap">Two Drovers</span>,&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; )<br />
+<span class="smcap">My Aunt Margaret's Mirror</span>,&nbsp;  ) 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Tapestried Chamber</span>,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  )<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Laird's Jock</span>,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  )<br />
+<span class="smcap">Woodstock</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Fair Maid of Perth</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Anne of Geierstein</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Count Robert of Paris</span>, 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Surgeon's Daughter</span>,&nbsp; )<br />
+<span class="smcap">Castle Dangerous</span>,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  ) 2 vols.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Index and Glossary</span>.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  )</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Thomas De Quincey.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+<span class="smcap">Confessions of an English Opium-eater, and Suspiria de Profundis</span>. With Portrait. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Biographical Essays</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Miscellaneous Essays</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The C&aelig;sars</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Literary Reminiscences</span>. 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers</span>. 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Essays on the Poets</span>, &amp;c. 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Historical and Critical Essays</span>. 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Autobiographic Sketches</span>. 1 vol. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Essays on Philosophical Writers</span>, &amp;c. 2 vols. 16mo. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Letters To a Young Man</span>, and other Papers. 1 vol. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Theological Essays and other Papers</span>. 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Note Book</span>. 1 vol. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Memorials and other Papers</span>. 2 vols. 16mo. $1.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Alfred Tennyson.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poetical Works</span>. With Portrait. 2 vols. Cloth. $2.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Pocket Edition of Poems Complete</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Princess</span>. Cloth. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">In Memoriam</span>. Cloth. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Maud, and other Poems</span>. Cloth. 50 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<h3>Charles Reade.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Peg Woffington. A Novel.</span> 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Christie Johnstone. A Novel.</span> 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Clouds and Sunshine. A Novel.</span> 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">'Never too late to mend.'</span> 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">White Lies. A Novel.</span> 1 vol. $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Propria Qu&aelig; Maribus and The Box Tunnel.</span> 25 cts.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Henry W. Longfellow.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poetical Works</span>. In two volumes. 16mo. Boards. $2.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Pocket Edition of Poetical Works</span>. In two volumes. $1.75.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Pocket Edition of Prose Works Complete</span> In two volumes. $1.75.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Song of Hiawatha</span>. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Golden Legend. A Poem</span>. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Hyperion. A Romance</span>. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Outre-Mer. A Pilgrimage</span>. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Kavanagh. A Tale</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Courtship of Miles Standish</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents.<br />
+Illustrated editions of <span class="smcap">Evangeline</span>, <span class="smcap">Poems</span>, <span class="smcap">Hyperion</span>,
+and <span class="smcap">The Golden Legend</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Oliver Wendell Holmes.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. With fine Portrait. Boards. $1.00. Cloth. $1.12.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Astr&aelig;a</span>. Fancy paper. 25 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>William Howitt.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Land, Labor, and Gold</span>. 2 vols. $2.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">A Boy's Adventures in Australia</span>. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Charles Kingsley.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Two Years Ago. A New Novel</span>. $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Amyas Leigh. A Nove</span>l $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Glaucus; or, the Wonders of the Shore</span>. 50 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Poetical Works</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Andromeda and other Poems</span>. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time</span>, &amp;c. $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Nathaniel Hawthorne.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Twice-Told Tales.</span> Two volumes. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Scarlet Letter.</span> 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The House of the Seven Gables.</span> $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Snow Image, and other Tales</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Blithedale Romance.</span> 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Mosses from an Old Manse.</span> 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">True Stories from History and Biography</span>. With four fine Engravings. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys.</span> With seven fine Engravings. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Tanglewood Tales</span>. Another "Wonder-Book." With Engravings. 88 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Barry Cornwall.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">English Songs and other Small Poems</span>. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Dramatic Poems</span>. Just published. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Essays and Tales in Prose</span>. 2 vols. $1.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>James Russell Lowell.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Complete Poetical Works</span>. In Blue and Gold. 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Poetical Works</span>. 2 vols. 16mo. Cloth. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Sir Launfal</span>. New Edition. 25 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">A Fable for Critics.</span> New Edition. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Biglow Papers.</span> A New Edition. 63 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Coventry Patmore.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">The Angel in the House. Betrothal</span>.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Angel in the House. Espousals</span>. 75 cts. each.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Charles Sumner.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Orations and Speeches</span>. 2 vols. $2.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Recent Speeches and Addresses</span>. $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>John G. Whittier.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Pocket Edition of Poetical Works</span>. 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Old Portraits and Modern Sketches</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Margaret Smith's Journal</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Songs of Labor, and other Poems</span>. Boards. 50 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Chapel of the Hermits</span>. Cloth. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Literary Recreations, &amp;c.</span> Cloth. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Panorama, and other Poems</span>. Cloth. 50 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Alexander Smith.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">A Life Drama</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">City Poems</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. 63 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Bayard Taylor.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems of Home and Travel</span>. Cloth. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Poems of the Orient</span>. Cloth. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Edwin P. Whipple.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Essays and Reviews</span>. 2 vols. $2.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Lectures of Literature and Life</span>. 63 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Washington and the Revolution</span>. 20 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>George S. Hillard.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Six Months in Italy</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Profession</span>. 25 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor</span> 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Robert Browning.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poetical Works</span>. 2 vols. $2.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Men and Women</span>. 1 vol. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Henry Giles.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lectures, Essays</span>, &amp;c. 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Discourses on Life</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Illustrations of Genius</span>. Cloth. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>William Motherwell.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems, Narrative and Lyrical</span>. New Ed. $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Posthumous Poems</span>. Boards. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Minstrelsy, Anc. and Mod.</span> 2 vols. Boards. $1.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Capt. Mayne Reid.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">The Plant Hunters</span>. With Plates. 75 cents.<br />
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+<span class="smcap">The Bush Boys</span>. With fine Plates. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Young Yagers</span>. With fine Plates. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Ran Away to Sea: An Autobiography for Boys</span>. With fine Plates. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Goethe.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Wilhelm Meister</span>. Translated by <i>Carlyle</i>. 2 vols. $2.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Faust</span>. Translated by <i>Hayward</i>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Faust</span>. Translated by <i>Charles T. Brooks</i>. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Rev. Charles Lowell.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Practical Sermons</span>. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Occasional Sermons</span>. With fine Portrait. $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Rev. F.W. Robertson.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Sermons</span>. First Series. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Sermons</span>. Second Series. $1.00.<br />
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+
+<h3>R.H. Stoddard.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. Cloth. 63 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Adventures in Fairy Land</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Songs of Summer.</span> 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>George Lunt.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lyric Poems</span>, &amp;c. Cloth. 63 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Julia</span>. A Poem. 50 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Philip James Bailey.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">The Mystic, and other Poems.</span> 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Angel World</span>, &amp;c. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Age, a Satire.</span> 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Anna Mary Howitt.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">An Art Student in Munich</span>. $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">A School Of Life.</span> A Story. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mary Russell Mitford.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Our Village</span>. Illustrated. 2 vols. 16mo. $2.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Atherton, and other Stories</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Josiah Phillips Quincy.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lyteria: a Dramatic Poem.</span> 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Charicles: a Dramatic Poem.</span> 50 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Grace Greenwood.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Greenwood Leaves</span>. 1st &amp; 2d Series. $1.25 each.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Poetical Works</span>. With fine Portrait. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">History of My Pets</span>. With six fine Engravings. Scarlet cloth. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Recollections of My Childhood</span>. With six fine Engravings. Scarlet cloth. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe.</span> $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Merrie England.</span> A new Juvenile. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">A Forest Tragedy, and other Tales</span>. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Stories and Legends.</span> A new Juvenile. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Crosland.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lydia: a Woman's Book.</span> Cloth. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">English Tales and Sketches.</span> Cloth. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Memorable Women.</span> Illustrated. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Jameson.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Characteristics of Women.</span> Blue and Gold. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Loves of the Poets</span>. Blue and Gold. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Diary of an Ennuy&eacute;e</span> Blue and Gold. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Sketches of Art,</span> &amp;c. Blue and Gold. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Mowatt.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Autobiography of an Actress</span>. $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Plays. Armand and Fashion.</span> 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Mimic Life.</span> 1 vol. $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Twin Roses.</span> 1 vol. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Howe.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Passion Flowers</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Words for the Hour.</span> 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The World's Own</span>. 50 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Alice Cary.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Clovernook Children</span>. With Plates. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Eliza B. Lee.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Memoir of the Buckminsters</span>. $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Florence, the Parish Orphan</span>. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Parthenia</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Samuel Smiles.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Life of George Stephenson: Railway Engineer.</span> $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Blanchard Jerrold.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Douglas Jerrold's Wit</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Life and Letters of Douglas Jerrold</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Judson.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Alderbrook</span>. By <i>Fanny Forrester</i>. 2 vols. $1.75.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Kathayan Slave, and other Papers</span>. 1 vol. 63 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">My Two Sisters: a Sketch from Memory</span>. 50 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Trelawny.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Recollections of Shelley and Byron</span>. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Charles Sprague.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poetical and Prose Writings</span>. With fine Portrait. Boards. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Lawrence.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Light on the Dark River: Or Memoirs of Mrs. Hamlin</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>G.A. Sala.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">A Journey due North</span>. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Thomas W. Parsons.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>John G. Saxe.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. With Portrait. Boards. 63 cents. Cloth. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Charles T. Brooks.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">German Lyrics</span>. Translated. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Samuel Bailey.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Essays on the Formation of Opinions and the Pursuit of Truth</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Tom Brown.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">School Days at Rugby</span>. By <i>An Old Boy</i>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Scouring of the White Horse, or the Long Vacation Holiday of a London Clerk</span>. By <i>The Author of 'School Days at Rugby.'</i> 1 vol. 16mo.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Leigh Hunt.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. Blue and Gold. 2 vols. $1.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Gerald Massey.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poetical Works</span>. Blue and Gold. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>C.W. Upham.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">John C. Fremont's Life, Explorations</span>, &amp;c. With Illustrations. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>W.M. Thackeray.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Ballads</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Charles Mackay.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. 1 vol. Cloth. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Henry Alford.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Richard Monckton Milnes.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems of Many Years</span>. Boards. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>George H. Boker.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Plays and Poems</span>. 2 vols. $2.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Matthew Arnold.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>W. Edmondstoune Aytoun.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Bothwell</span>. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Rosa V. Johnson.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Henry T. Tuckerman.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. Cloth. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>William Mountford.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Thorpe: A Quiet English Town, and Human Life Therein</span>. 16mo. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>John Bowring.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Matins and Vespers</span>. 50 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Yriarte.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Fables</span>. Translated by <i>G.H. Devereux</i>. 63 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Ph&oelig;be Cary.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems and Parodies</span>. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>E. Foxton.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Premices</span>. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Paul H. Hayne.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. 63 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. A.C. Lowell.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Seed-Grain for Thought and Discussion</span>. 2 vols. $1.75.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Education of Girls</span>. 25 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>G.H. Lewes.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">The Life and Works of Goethe</span>. 2 vols. 16mo. $2.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Lieut. Arnold.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Oakfield</span>. A Novel. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Henry D. Thoreau.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Walden: or, Life in the Woods</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Washington Allston.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Monaldi, a Tale</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Professor E.T. Channing.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lectures on Oratory and Rhetoric</span>. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Dr. Walter Charming.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">A Physician's Vacation</span>. $1.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Horace Mann.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">A Physiological Cookery Book</span>. 63 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Horace and James Smith.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Rejected Addresses</span>. Cloth, 63 cts.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Christopher Wordsworth.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">William Wordsworth's Biography</span>. 2 vols. $2.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Henry Taylor.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Notes from Life</span>. By the Author of "Philip Van Artevelde." 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. 63 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Hufeland.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Art of Prolonging Life</span>. Edited by Erasmus Wilson, 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Dr. Jacob Bigelow.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Nature in Disease</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Dr. John C. Warren.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">The Preservation of Health</span>, &amp;c. 1 vol. 38 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>James Prior.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Life of Edmund Burke</span>. 2 vols. $2.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Joseph T. Buckingham.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Personal Memoirs and Recollections of Editorial Life</span>. With Portrait. 2 vols. 16mo. $1.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Bayle St. John.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Village Life in Egypt</span>. By the Author of "Purple Tints of Paris." 2 vols. 16mo. $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Edmund Quincy.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Wensley: A Story without a Moral</span>. 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Henry Morley.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Palissy the Potter</span>. By the Author of "How to make Home Unhealthy." 2 vols. 16mo. $1.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Goldsmith.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">The Vicar of Wakefield</span>. Illustrated Edition. $3.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>C.A. Bartol.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Church and Congregation</span>. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. H.G. Otis.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">The Barclays of Boston</span>. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Horace Mann.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Thoughts for a Young Man</span>. 25 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Addison.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Sir Roger de Coverley</span>. From the "Spectator." 75 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>F.W.P. Greenwood.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Sermons of Consolation</span>. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>S.T. Wallis.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Spain, her Institutions, Politics, and Public Men</span>. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Dr. William E. Coale.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Hints on Health</span>. 3d Edition. 63 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Gaskell.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Ruth</span>. A Novel by the Author of "Mary Barton." Cheap Edition. 38 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Lord Dufferin.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">A Yacht Voyage of 6,000 Miles</span>. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Fanny Kemble.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>. Enlarged Edition. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Arago.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men</span>. $1.00.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>William Smith.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Thorndale, or the Conflict of Opinions</span>. $1.25.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">The Life and Times of Sir Philip Sidney</span>. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00.<br />
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+<span class="smcap">Christmas Hours</span>. By the Author of "The Homeward Path," &amp;c. 1 vol. 16mo.<br />
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+<span class="smcap">Thalatta; a Book for the Seaside</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Warreniana; a Companion to Rejected Addresses</span>. 63 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Angel Voices</span>. 38 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Boston Book</span>. $1.25.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Memoir of Robert Wheaton</span>. 1 vol. $1.00.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Labor and Love</span>: A Tale of English Life. 50 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Solitary of Juan Fernandez</span>. By the Author of Picciola. 50 cents.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>In Blue and Gold.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Longfellow's Poetical Works</span>. 2 vols. $1.75<br />
+<span class="smcap">Longfellow's Prose Works</span>. 2 vols. $1.75.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Tennyson's Poetical Works</span>. 1 vol. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Whittier's Poetical Works</span>. 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Leigh Hunt's Poetical Works</span>. 2 vols. $1.50.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Gerald Massey's Poetical Works</span>. 1 vol. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics of Women</span>. 75 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Mrs. Jameson's Diary of an Ennuy&eacute;e</span>. 1 vol. 75 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Mrs. Jameson's Loves of the Poets</span>. 1 vol. 75 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Mrs. Jameson's Sketches of Art</span>, &amp;c. 1 vol. 75 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Bowring's Matins and Vespers</span>. 1 vol. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Lowell's (J. Russell) Poetical Works</span>. 2 vols. $1.50.</p></blockquote>
+
+<h3>Illustrated Juvenile Books.</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Willie Winkie's Nursery Songs of Scotland</span>. 75 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Curious Stories about Fairies</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Kit Bam's Adventures</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Rainbows for Children</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Magician's Show Box</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Our Grandmother's Stories</span>. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Memoirs of a London Doll</span>. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Doll and her Friends</span>. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Tales from Catland</span>. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Aunt Effie's Rhymes for Little Children</span>. 75 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Story of an Apple</span>. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Good-Natured Bear</span>. 75 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Peter Parley's Short Stories</span>. 50 cents.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The History of the American Revolution</span>. 38 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The History of the New England States</span>. 38 cts.<br />
+<span class="smcap">The History of the Middle States</span>. 38 cents.<br />
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men
+by Francois Arago
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men
+
+Author: Francois Arago
+
+Translator: W. H. Smyth, Baden Powell and Robert Grant
+
+Release Date: September 30, 2005 [EBook #16775]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Martin Pettit and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHIES
+
+OF
+
+DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN.
+
+BY FRANCOIS ARAGO,
+
+MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE.
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+ADMIRAL W.H. SMYTH, D.C.L., F.R.S., &c.
+
+THE REV. BADEN POWELL, M.A., F.R.S., &c.
+
+AND
+
+ROBERT GRANT, Esq., M.A., F.R.A.S.
+
+FIRST SERIES.
+
+BOSTON:
+
+TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
+
+M DCCC LIX.
+
+
+
+
+RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
+
+PRINTED BY H.O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATORS' PREFACE.
+
+
+The present volume of the series of English translations of M. Arago's
+works consists of his own autobiography and a selection of some of his
+memoirs of eminent scientific men, both continental and British.
+
+It does not distinctly appear at what period of his life Arago composed
+the autobiography, but it bears throughout the characteristic stamp of
+his ardent and energetic disposition. The reader will, perhaps, hardly
+suppress a smile at the indications of self-satisfaction with which
+several of the incidents are brought forward, while the air of romance
+which invests some of the adventures may possibly give rise to some
+suspicion of occasional embellishment; on these points, however, we
+leave each reader to judge for himself. In relation to the history of
+science, this memoir gives some interesting particulars, which disclose
+to us much of the interior spirit of the Academy of Sciences, not always
+of a kind the most creditable to some of Arago's former contemporaries.
+
+But a far higher interest will be found to belong to those eloquent
+memoirs, or eloges of eminent departed men of science, who had attained
+the distinction of being members of the Academy.
+
+In these the reader will find a luminous, eminently simple, and popular
+account of the discoveries of each of those distinguished individuals,
+of a kind constituting in fact a brief history of the particular branch
+of science to which he was devoted. And in the selection included in the
+present volume, which constitutes but a portion of the entire series, we
+have comprised the accounts of men of such varied pursuits as to convey
+no inadequate impression of the progress of discovery throughout a
+considerable range of the whole field of the physical sciences within
+the last half century.
+
+The account given by the author, of the principal discoveries made by
+the illustrious subjects of his memoirs, is in general very luminous,
+but at the same time presupposes a familiarity with some parts of
+science which may not really be possessed by all readers. For the sake
+of a considerable class, then, we have taken occasion, wherever the use
+of new technical terms or other like circumstances seemed to require it,
+to introduce original notes and commentaries, sometimes of considerable
+extent, by the aid of which we trust the scientific principles adverted
+to in the text will be rendered easily intelligible to the general
+reader.
+
+In some few instances also we have found ourselves called upon to adopt
+a more critical tone; where we were disposed to dissent from the view
+taken by the author on particular questions of a controversial kind, or
+when he is arguing in support, or in refutation, of opposing theories on
+some points of science not yet satisfactorily cleared up.
+
+We could have wished that our duty as translators and editors had not
+extended beyond such mere occasional scientific or literary criticism.
+But there unfortunately seemed to be one or two points where, in
+pronouncing on the claims of distinguished individuals, or criticizing
+their inventions, a doubt could not but be felt as to the perfect
+_fairness_ of Arago's judgment, and in which we were constrained to
+express an unfavourable opinion on the manner in which the relative
+pretensions of men of the highest eminence seemed to be decided,
+involving what might sometimes be fairly regarded as undue prejudice,
+or possibly a feeling of personal or even national jealousy. Much as we
+should deprecate the excitement of any feeling of hostility of this
+kind, yet we could not, in our editorial capacity, shrink from the plain
+duty of endeavouring to advocate what appeared to us right and true; and
+we trust that whatever opinion may be entertained as to the
+_conclusions_ to which we have come on such points, we shall not have
+given ground for any complaint that we have violated any due courtesy or
+propriety in our _mode_ of expressing those conclusions, or the reasons
+on which they are founded.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+THE HISTORY OF MY YOUTH.
+
+An Autobiography of Francis Arago                                    1
+
+
+BAILLY.
+
+Introduction                                                        91
+
+Infancy of Bailly.--His Youth.--His Literary Essays.--His
+Mathematical Studies                                                93
+
+Bailly becomes the Pupil of Lacaille.--He is associated
+with him in his Astronomical Labours                                97
+
+Bailly a Member of the Academy of Sciences.--His Researches
+on Jupiter's Satellites                                            103
+
+Bailly's Literary Works.--His Biographies of Charles V.--of
+Leibnitz--of Peter Corneille--of Moliere                           106
+
+Debates relative to the Post of Perpetual Secretary of
+the Academy of Sciences                                            110
+
+History of Astronomy.--Letters on the Atlantis of Plato
+and on the Ancient History of Asia                                 114
+
+First Interview of Bailly with Franklin.--His Entrance
+into the French Academy in 1783.--His Reception.--Discourse.--His
+Rupture with Buffon                                                121
+
+Report on Animal Magnetism                                         127
+
+Election of Bailly into the Academy of Inscriptions                155
+
+Report on the Hospitals                                            157
+
+Report on the Slaughter-Houses                                     165
+
+Biographies of Cook and of Gresset                                 167
+
+Assembly of the Notables.--Bailly is named First Deputy
+of Paris; and soon after Dean or Senior of the Deputies
+of the Communes                                                    169
+
+Bailly becomes Mayor of Paris.--Scarcity.--Marat declares
+himself inimical to the Mayor.--Events of the 6th of October       179
+
+A Glance at the Posthumous Memoir of Bailly                        193
+
+Examination of Bailly's Administration as Mayor                    195
+
+The King's Flight.--Events on the Champ de Mars                    206
+
+Bailly quits the Mayoralty the 12th of November, 1791.--The
+Eschevins.--Examination of the Reproaches that might be
+addressed to the Mayor                                             211
+
+Bailly's Journey from Paris to Nantes, and then from Nantes to
+Melun.--His Arrest in this last Town.--He is transferred to Paris  217
+
+Bailly is called as a Witness in the Trial of the Queen.--His own
+Trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal.--His Condemnation to
+Death.--His Execution.--Imaginary Details added by ill-informed
+Historians to what that odious and frightful Event already
+presented                                                          225
+
+Portrait of Bailly.--His Wife                                      250
+
+
+HERSCHEL.
+
+Personal History                                                   258
+
+Chronological Table of the Memoirs of William Herschel             266
+
+Improvements in the Means of Observation                           271
+
+Labours in Sidereal Astronomy                                      285
+
+Labours relative to the Solar System                               289
+
+Optical Labours                                                    301
+
+
+LAPLACE.
+
+Preliminary Notice                                                 303
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+    (A.) Brief Notice of some other interesting Results
+         of the Researches of Laplace which have not
+         been mentioned in the Text                                368
+
+    (B.) The Mecanique Celeste                                     372
+
+
+JOSEPH FOURIER.
+
+Preliminary Notice                                                 374
+
+Birth of Fourier.--His Youth                                       377
+
+Memoir on the Resolution of Numerical Equations                    380
+
+Part played by Fourier in our Revolution.--His Entrance
+into the Corps of Professors of the Normal School and
+the Polytechnic School.--Expedition to Egypt                       384
+
+Fourier Prefect of L'Isere                                         405
+
+Mathematical Theory of Heat                                        408
+
+Central Heat of the Terrestrial Globe                              419
+
+Return of Napoleon from Elba.--Fourier Prefect of the
+Rhone.--His Nomination to the Office of Director of the
+Board of Statistics of the Seine                                   430
+
+Entrance of Fourier into the Academy of Sciences.--His
+Election to the Office of Perpetual Secretary.--His Admission
+to the French Academy                                              437
+
+Character of Fourier.--His Death                                   438
+
+
+
+
+LIVES
+
+OF
+
+DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC MEN.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF MY YOUTH:
+
+AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO.
+
+
+I have not the foolish vanity to imagine that any one, even a short time
+hence, will have the curiosity to find out how my first education was
+given, and how my mind was developed; but some biographers, writing off
+hand and without authority, having given details on this subject utterly
+incorrect, and of a nature to imply negligence on the part of my
+parents, I consider myself bound to put them right.
+
+I was born on the 26th of February, 1786, in the commune of Estagel, an
+ancient province of Roussillon (department of the Eastern Pyrenees). My
+father, a licentiate in law, had some little property in arable land, in
+vineyards, and in plantations of olive-trees, the income from which
+supported his numerous family.
+
+I was thus three years old in 1789, four years old in 1790, five years
+in 1791, six years in 1792, and seven years old in 1793, &c.
+
+The reader has now himself the means of judging whether, as has been
+said, and even stated in print, I had a hand in the excesses of our
+first revolution.
+
+My parents sent me to the primary school in Estagel, where I learnt the
+rudiments of reading and writing. I received, besides, in my father's
+house, some private lessons in vocal music. I was not otherwise either
+more or less advanced than other children of my age. I enter into these
+details merely to show how much mistaken are those who have printed that
+at the age of fourteen or fifteen years I had not yet learnt to read.
+
+Estagel was a halting-place for a portion of the troops who, coming from
+the interior, either went on to Perpignan, or repaired direct to the
+army of the Pyrenees. My parents' house was therefore constantly full of
+officers and soldiers. This, joined to the lively excitement which the
+Spanish invasion had produced within me, inspired me with such decided
+military tastes, that my family was obliged to have me narrowly watched
+to prevent my joining by stealth the soldiers who left Estagel. It often
+happened that they caught me at a league's distance from the village,
+already on my way with the troops.
+
+On one occasion these warlike tastes had nearly cost me dear. It was the
+night of the battle of Peires-Tortes. The Spanish troops in their
+retreat had partly mistaken their road. I was in the square of the
+village before daybreak; I saw a brigadier and five troopers come up,
+who, at the sight of the tree of liberty, called out, "_Somos
+perdidos!_" I ran immediately to the house to arm myself with a lance
+which had been left there by a soldier of the _levee en masse_, and
+placing myself in ambush at the corner of a street, I struck with a blow
+of this weapon the brigadier placed at the head of the party. The wound
+was not dangerous; a cut of the sabre, however, was descending to punish
+my hardihood, when some countrymen came to my aid, and, armed with
+forks, overturned the five cavaliers from their saddles, and made them
+prisoners. I was then seven years old.[1]
+
+My father having gone to reside at Perpignan, as treasurer of the mint,
+all the family quitted Estagel to follow him there. I was then placed as
+an out-door pupil at the municipal college of the town, where I occupied
+myself almost exclusively with my literary studies. Our classic authors
+had become the objects of my favourite reading. But the direction of my
+ideas became changed all at once by a singular circumstance which I will
+relate.
+
+Walking one day on the ramparts of the town, I saw an officer of
+engineers who was directing the execution of the repairs. This officer,
+M. Cressac, was very young; I had the hardihood to approach him, and to
+ask him how he had succeeded in so soon wearing an epaulette. "I come
+from the Polytechnic School," he answered. "What school is that?" "It is
+a school which one enters by an examination." "Is much expected of the
+candidates?" "You will see it in the programme which the Government
+sends every year to the departmental administration; you will find it
+moreover in the numbers of the journal of the school, which are in the
+library of the central school."
+
+I ran at once to the library, and there, for the first time, I read the
+programme of the knowledge required in the candidates.
+
+From this moment I abandoned the classes of the central school, where I
+was taught to admire Corneille, Racine, La Fontaine, Moliere, and
+attended only the mathematical course. This course was entrusted to a
+retired ecclesiastic, the Abbe Verdier, a very respectable man, but
+whose knowledge went no further than the elementary course of La Caille.
+I saw at a glance that M. Verdier's lessons would not be sufficient to
+secure my admission to the Polytechnic School; I therefore decided on
+studying by myself the newest works, which I sent for from Paris. These
+were those of Legendre, Lacroix, and Garnier. In going through these
+works I often met with difficulties which exceeded my powers; happily,
+strange though it be, and perhaps without example in all the rest of
+France, there was a proprietor at Estagel, M. Raynal, who made the study
+of the higher mathematics his recreation. It was in his kitchen, whilst
+giving orders to numerous domestics for the labours of the next day,
+that M. Raynal read with advantage the "Hydraulic Architecture" of
+Prony, the "Mecanique Analytique," and the "Mecanique Celeste." This
+excellent man often gave me useful advice; but I must say that I found
+my real master in the cover of M. Garnier's "Treatise on Algebra." This
+cover consisted of a printed leaf, on the outside of which blue paper
+was pasted. The reading of the page not covered made me desirous to know
+what the blue paper hid from me. I took off this paper carefully, having
+first damped it, and was able to read underneath it the advice given by
+d'Alembert to a young man who communicated to him the difficulties which
+he met with in his studies: "Go on, sir, go on, and conviction will come
+to you."
+
+This gave me a gleam of light; instead of persisting in attempts to
+comprehend at first sight the propositions before me, I admitted their
+truth provisionally; I went on further, and was quite surprised, on the
+morrow, that I comprehended perfectly what overnight appeared to me to
+be encompassed with thick clouds.
+
+I thus made myself master, in a year and a half, of all the subjects
+contained in the programme for admission, and I went to Montpellier to
+undergo the examination. I was then sixteen years of age. M. Monge,
+junior, the examiner, was detained at Toulouse by indisposition, and
+wrote to the candidates assembled at Montpellier that he would examine
+them in Paris. I was myself too unwell to undertake so long a journey,
+and I returned to Perpignan.
+
+There I listened for a moment to the solicitations of my family, who
+pressed me to renounce the prospects which the Polytechnic School
+opened. But my taste for mathematical studies soon carried the day; I
+increased my library with Euler's "Introduction a l'Analyse
+Infinitesimale," with the "Resolution des Equations Numeriques," with
+Lagrange's "Theorie des Fonctions Analytiques," and "Mecanique
+Analytique," and finally with Laplace's "Mecanique Celeste." I gave
+myself up with great ardour to the study of these books. From the
+journal of the Polytechnic School containing such investigations as
+those of M. Poisson on Elimination, I imagined that all the pupils were
+as much advanced as this geometer, and that it would be necessary to
+rise to this height to succeed.
+
+From this moment, I prepared myself for the artillery service,--the aim
+of my ambition; and as I had heard that an officer ought to understand
+music, fencing, and dancing, I devoted the first hours of each day to
+the cultivation of these accomplishments.
+
+The rest of the time I was seen walking in the moats of the citadel of
+Perpignan, seeking by more or less forced transitions to pass from one
+question to another, so as to be sure of being able to show the examiner
+how far my studies had been carried.[2]
+
+At last the moment of examination arrived, and I went to Toulouse in
+company with a candidate who had studied at the public college. It was
+the first time that pupils from Perpignan had appeared at the
+competition. My intimidated comrade was completely discomfited. When I
+repaired after him to the board, a very singular conversation took
+place between M. Monge (the examiner) and me.
+
+"If you are going to answer like your comrade, it is useless for me to
+question you."
+
+"Sir, my comrade knows much more than he has shown; I hope I shall be
+more fortunate than he; but what you have just said to me might well
+intimidate me and deprive me of all my powers."
+
+"Timidity is always the excuse of the ignorant; it is to save you from
+the shame of a defeat that I make you the proposal of not examining
+you."
+
+"I know of no greater shame than that which you now inflict upon me.
+Will you be so good as to question me? It is your duty."
+
+"You carry yourself very high, sir! We shall see presently whether this
+be a legitimate pride."
+
+"Proceed, sir; I wait for you."
+
+M. Monge then put to me a geometrical question, which I answered in such
+a way as to diminish his prejudices. From this he passed on to a
+question in algebra, then the resolution of a numerical equation. I had
+the work of Lagrange at my fingers' ends; I analyzed all the known
+methods, pointing out their advantages and effects; Newton's method, the
+method of recurring series, the method of depression, the method of
+continued fractions,--all were passed in review; the answer had lasted
+an entire hour. Monge, brought over now to feelings of great kindness,
+said to me, "I could, from this moment, consider the examination at an
+end. I will, however, for my own pleasure, ask you two more questions.
+What are the relations of a curved line to the straight line that is a
+tangent to it?" I looked upon this question as a particular case of the
+theory of osculations which I had studied in Legrange's "Fonctions
+Analytiques." "Finally," said the examiner to me, "how do you determine
+the tension of the various cords of which a funicular machine is
+composed?" I treated this problem according to the method expounded in
+the "Mecanique Analytique." It was clear that Lagrange had supplied all
+the resources of my examination.
+
+I had been two hours and a quarter at the board. M. Monge, going from
+one extreme to the other, got up, came and embraced me, and solemnly
+declared that I should occupy the first place on his list. Shall I
+confess it? During the examination of my comrade I had heard the
+Toulousian candidates uttering not very favourable sarcasms on the
+pupils from Perpignan; and it was principally for the sake of reparation
+to my native town that M. Monge's behaviour and declaration transported
+me with joy.
+
+Having entered the Polytechnic School, at the end of 1803, I was placed
+in the excessively boisterous brigade of the Gascons and Britons. I
+should have much liked to study thoroughly physics and chemistry, of
+which I did not even know the first rudiments; but the behaviour of my
+companions rarely left me any time for it. As for analysis, I had
+already, before entering the Polytechnic School, learnt much more than
+was required for leaving it.
+
+I have just related the strange words which M. Monge, junior, addressed
+to me at Toulouse in commencing my examination for admission. Something
+analogous occurred at the opening of my examination in mathematics for
+passing from one division of the school to another. The examiner, this
+time, was the illustrious geometer Legendre, of whom, a few years after,
+I had the honour of becoming the colleague and the friend.
+
+I entered his study at the moment when M. T----, who was to undergo his
+examination before me, having fainted away, was being carried out in the
+arms of two servants. I thought that this circumstance would have moved
+and softened M. Legendre; but it had no such effect "What is your name,"
+he said to me sharply. "Arago," I answered. "You are not French then?"
+"If I was not French I should not be before you; for I have never heard
+of any one being admitted into the school unless his nationality had
+been proved." "I maintain that he is not French whose name is Arago." "I
+maintain, on my side, that I am French, and a very good Frenchman too,
+however strange my name may appear to you." "Very well; we will not
+discuss the point farther; go to the board."
+
+I had scarcely taken up the chalk, when M. Legendre, returning to the
+first subject of his preoccupations, said to me: "You were born in one
+of the departments recently united to France?" "No, sir; I was born in
+the department of the Eastern Pyrenees, at the foot of the Pyrenees."
+"Oh! why did you not tell me that at once? all is now explained. You are
+of Spanish origin, are you not?" "Possibly; but in my humble family
+there are no authentic documents preserved which could enable me to
+trace back the civil position of my ancestors; each one there is the
+child of his own deeds. I declare to you again that I am French, and
+that ought to be sufficient for you."
+
+The vivacity of this last answer had not disposed M. Legendre in my
+favour. I saw this very soon; for, having put a question to me which
+required the use of double integrals, he stopped me, saying: "The method
+which you are following was not given to you by the professor. Whence
+did you get it?" "From one of your papers." "Why did you choose it? was
+it to bribe me?" "No; nothing was farther from my thoughts. I only
+adopted it because it appeared to me preferable." "If you are unable to
+explain to me the reasons for your preference, I declare to you that you
+shall receive a bad mark, at least as to character."
+
+I then entered upon the details which established, as I thought, that
+the method of double integrals was in all points more clear and more
+rational than that which Lacroix had expounded to us in the
+amphitheatre. From this moment Legendre appeared to me to be satisfied,
+and to relent.
+
+Afterwards, he asked me to determine the centre of gravity of a
+spherical sector. "The question is easy," I said to him. "Very well;
+since you find it easy, I will complicate it: instead of supposing the
+density constant, I will suppose that it varies from the centre to the
+surface according to a determined function." I got through this
+calculation very happily; and from this moment I had entirely gained the
+favour of the examiner. Indeed, on my retiring, he addressed to me these
+words, which, coming from him, appeared to my comrades as a very
+favourable augury for my chance of promotion: "I see that you have
+employed your time well; go on in the same way the second year, and we
+shall part very good friends."
+
+In the mode of examination adopted at the Polytechnic School in 1804,
+which is always cited as being better than the present organization,
+room was allowed for the exercise of some unjustifiable caprices. Would
+it be believed, for example, that the old M. Barruel examined two pupils
+at a time in physics, and gave them, it is said, the same mark, which
+was the mean between the actual merits of the two? For my part, I was
+associated with a comrade full of intelligence, but who had not studied
+this branch of the course. We agreed that he should leave the answering
+to me, and we found the arrangement advantageous to both.
+
+As I have been led to speak of the school as it was in 1804, I will say
+that its faults were less those of organization than those of personal
+management; for many of the professors were much below their office, a
+fact which gave rise to somewhat ridiculous scenes. The pupils, for
+instance, having observed the insufficiency of M. Hassenfratz, made a
+demonstration of the dimensions of the rainbow, full of errors of
+calculation, but in which the one compensated the other so that the
+final result was true. The professor, who had only this result whereby
+to judge of the goodness of the answer, when he saw it appear on the
+board, did not hesitate to call out, "Good, good, perfectly good!" which
+excited shouts of laughter on all the benches of the amphitheatre.
+
+When a professor has lost consideration, without which it is impossible
+for him to do well, they allow themselves to insult him to an incredible
+extent. Of this I will cite a single specimen.
+
+A pupil, M. Leboullenger, met one evening in company this same M.
+Hassenfratz, and had a discussion with him. When he reentered the school
+in the morning, he mentioned this circumstance to us. "Be on your
+guard," said one of our comrades to him; "you will be interrogated this
+evening. Play with caution, for the professor has certainly prepared
+some great difficulties so as to cause laughter at your expense."
+
+Our anticipations were not mistaken. Scarcely had the pupils arrived in
+the amphitheatre, when M. Hassenfratz called to M. Leboullenger, who
+came to the board.
+
+"M. Leboullenger," said the professor to him, "you have seen the moon?"
+"No, sir." "How, sir! you say that you have never seen the moon?" "I can
+only, repeat my answer--no, sir." Beside himself, and seeing his prey
+escape him, by means of this unexpected answer, M. Hassenfratz addressed
+himself to the inspector charged with the observance of order that day,
+and said to him, "Sir, there is M. Leboullenger, who pretends never to
+have seen the moon." "What would you wish me to do?" stoically replied
+M. Le Brun. Repulsed on this side, the professor turned once more
+towards M. Leboullenger, who remained calm and earnest in the midst of
+the unspeakable amusement of the whole amphitheatre, and cried out with
+undisguised anger, "You persist in maintaining that you have never seen
+the moon?" "Sir," returned the pupil, "I should deceive you if I told
+you that I had not heard it spoken of, but I have never seen it." "Sir,
+return to your place."
+
+After this scene, M. Hassenfratz was but a professor in name; his
+teaching could no longer be of any use.
+
+At the commencement of the second year, I was appointed "_chef de
+brigade_." Hatchette had been professor of hydrography at Collioure; his
+friends from Roussillon recommended me to him. He received me with great
+kindness, and even gave me a room in his lodgings. It was there that I
+had the pleasure of making Poisson's acquaintance, who lived next to us.
+Every evening the great geometer entered my room, and we passed entire
+hours in conversing on politics and mathematics, which is certainly not
+quite the same thing.
+
+In the course of 1804, the school was a prey to political passions, and
+that through the fault of the government.
+
+They wished forthwith to oblige the pupils to sign an address of
+congratulation on the discovery of the conspiracy in which Moreau was
+implicated. They refused to do so on the ground that it was not for them
+to pronounce on a cause which had been in the hands of justice. It must,
+however, be remarked, that Moreau had not yet dishonoured himself by
+taking service in the Russian army, which had come to attack the French
+under the walls of Dresden.
+
+The pupils were invited to make a manifestation in favour of the
+institution of the Legion of Honour. This again they refused. They knew
+well that the cross, given without inquiry and without control, would
+be, in most cases, the recompense of charlatanism, and not of true
+merit.
+
+The transformation of the Consular into the Imperial Government gave
+rise to very animated discussions in the interior of the school.
+
+Many pupils refused to add their felicitations to the mean adulations of
+the constituted bodies.
+
+General Lacuee, who was appointed governor of the school, reported this
+opposition to the Emperor.
+
+"M. Lacuee," cried Napoleon, in the midst of a group of courtiers, who
+applauded with speech and gesture, "you cannot retain at the school
+those pupils who have shown such ardent Republicanism; you will send
+them away." Then, collecting himself, he added, "I will first know their
+names and their stages of promotion." Seeing the list the next day, he
+did not proceed further than the first name, which was the first in the
+artillery. "I will not drive away the first men in advancement," said
+he. "Ah! if they had been at the bottom of the list! M. Lacuee, leave
+them alone."
+
+Nothing was more curious than the _seance_ to which General Lacuee came
+to receive the oath of obedience from the pupils. In the vast
+amphitheatre which contained them, one could not discern a trace of the
+gravity which such a ceremony should inspire. The greater part, instead
+of answering, at the call of their names, "I swear it," cried out,
+"Present."
+
+All at once the monotony of this scene was interrupted by a pupil, son
+of the Conventionalist Brissot, who called out in a stentorian voice, "I
+will not take the oath of obedience to the Emperor." Lacuee, pale and
+with little presence of mind, ordered a detachment of armed pupils
+placed behind him to go and arrest the recusant. The detachment, of
+which I was at the head, refused to obey. Brissot, addressing himself to
+the General, with the greatest calmness said to him, "Point out the
+place to which you wish me to go; do not force the pupils to dishonour
+themselves by laying hands on a comrade who has no desire to resist."
+
+The next morning Brissot was expelled.
+
+About this time, M. Mechain, who had been sent to Spain to prolong the
+meridional line as far as Formentera, died at Castellon de la Plana. His
+son, Secretary at the Observatory, immediately gave in his resignation.
+Poisson offered me the situation. I declined his first proposal. I did
+not wish to renounce the military career,--the object of all my
+predilections, and in which, moreover, I was assured of the protection
+of Marshal Lannes,--a friend of my father's. Nevertheless I accepted, on
+trial, the position offered me in the Observatory, after a visit which I
+made to M. de Laplace in company with M. Poisson, under the express
+condition that I could re-enter the Artillery if that should suit me. It
+was from this cause that my name remained inscribed on the list of the
+pupils of the school. I was only detached to the Observatory on a
+special service.
+
+I entered this establishment, then, on the nomination of Poisson, my
+friend, and through the intervention of Laplace. The latter loaded me
+with civilities. I was happy and proud when I dined in the Rue de
+Tournon with the great geometer. My mind and my heart were much disposed
+to admire all, to respect all, that was connected with him who had
+discovered the cause of the secular equation of the moon, had found in
+the movement of this planet the means of calculating the ellipticity of
+the earth, had traced to the laws of attraction the long inequalities of
+Jupiter and of Saturn, &c. &c. But what was my disenchantment, when one
+day I heard Madame de Laplace, approaching her husband, say to him,
+"Will you entrust to me the key of the sugar?"
+
+Some days afterwards, a second incident affected me still more vividly.
+M. de Laplace's son was preparing for the examinations of the
+Polytechnic School. He came sometimes to see me at the Observatory. In
+one of his visits I explained to him the method of continued fractions,
+by help of which Lagrange obtains the roots of numerical equations. The
+young man spoke of it to his father with admiration. I shall never
+forget the rage which followed the words of Emile de Laplace, and the
+severity of the reproaches which were addressed to me, for having
+patronized a mode of proceeding which may be very long in theory, but
+which evidently can in no way be found fault with on the score of its
+elegance and precision. Never had a jealous prejudice shown itself more
+openly, or under a more bitter form. "Ah!" said I to myself, "how true
+was the inspiration of the ancients when they attributed weaknesses to
+him who nevertheless made Olympus tremble by a frown!"
+
+Here I should mention, in order of time, a circumstance which might have
+produced the most fatal consequences for me. The fact was this:--
+
+I have described above, the scene which caused the expulsion of
+Brissot's son from the Polytechnic School. I had entirely lost sight of
+him for several months, when he came to pay me a visit at the
+Observatory, and placed me in the most delicate, the most terrible,
+position that an honest man ever found himself in.
+
+"I have not seen you," he said to me, "because since leaving the school
+I have practised daily firing with a pistol; I have now acquired a skill
+beyond the common, and I am about to employ it in ridding France of the
+tyrant who has confiscated all her liberties. My measures are taken: I
+have hired a small room on the Carrousel, close to the place by which
+Napoleon, on coming out from the court, will pass to review the cavalry;
+from the humble window of my apartment will the ball be fired which will
+go through his head."
+
+I leave it to be imagined with what despair I received this confidence.
+I made every imaginable effort to deter Brissot from his sinister
+project; I remarked how all those who had rushed on enterprises of this
+nature had been branded in history by the odious title of assassin.
+Nothing succeeded in shaking his fatal resolution; I only obtained from
+him a promise on his honour that the execution of it should be postponed
+for a time, and I put myself in quest of means for rendering it
+abortive.
+
+The idea of announcing Brissot's project to the authorities did not
+even enter my thoughts. It seemed a fatality which came to smite me, and
+of which I must undergo the consequences, however serious they might be.
+
+I counted much on the solicitations of Brissot's mother, already so
+cruelly tried during the revolution. I went to her home, in the Rue de
+Conde, and implored her earnestly to cooeperate with me in preventing her
+son from carrying out his sanguinary resolution. "Ah, sir," replied this
+lady, who was naturally a model of gentleness, "if Silvain" (this was
+the name of her son) "believes that he is accomplishing a patriotic
+duty, I have neither the intention nor the desire to turn him from his
+project."
+
+It was from myself that I must henceforth draw all my resources. I had
+remarked that Brissot was addicted to the composition of romances and
+pieces of poetry. I encouraged this passion, and every Sunday, above
+all, when I knew that there would be a review, I went to fetch him, and
+drew him into the country, in the environs of Paris. I listened then
+complacently to the reading of those chapters of his romance which he
+had composed during the week.
+
+The first excursions frightened me a little, for armed with his pistols,
+Brissot seized every occasion of showing his great skill; and I
+reflected that this circumstance would lead to my being considered as
+his accomplice, if he ever carried out his project. At last, his
+pretensions to literary fame, which I flattered to the utmost, the hopes
+(though I had none myself) which I led him to conceive of the success of
+an attachment of which he had confided the secret to me, made him
+receive with attention the reflections which I constantly made to him on
+his enterprise. He determined on making a journey beyond the seas, and
+thus relieved me from the most serious anxiety which I have experienced
+in all my life.
+
+Brissot died after having covered the walls of Paris with printed
+handbills in favour of the Bourbon restoration.
+
+I had scarcely entered the Observatory, when I became the
+fellow-labourer of Biot in researches on the refraction of gases,
+already commenced by Borda.
+
+While engaged in this work the celebrated academician and I often
+conversed on the interest there would be in resuming in Spain the
+measurement interrupted by the death of Mechain. We submitted our
+project to Laplace, who received it with ardour, procured the necessary
+funds, and the Government confided to us two this important mission.
+
+M. Biot, I, and the Spanish commissary Rodriguez departed from Paris in
+the commencement of 1806. We visited, on our way, the stations indicated
+by Mechain; we made some important modifications in the projected
+triangulation, and at once commenced operations.
+
+An inaccurate direction given to the reflectors established at Iviza, on
+the mountain Campvey, rendered the observations made on the continent
+extremely difficult. The light of the signal of Campvey was very rarely
+seen, and I was, during six months, in the _Desierto de las Palmas_,
+without being able to see it, whilst at a later period the light
+established at the Desierto, but well directed, was seen every evening
+from Campvey. It will easily be imagined what must be the _ennui_
+experienced by a young and active astronomer, confined to an elevated
+peak, having for his walk only a space of twenty square metres, and for
+diversion only the conversation of two Carthusians, whose convent was
+situated at the foot of the mountain, and who came in secret,
+infringing the rule of their order.
+
+At the time when I write these lines, old and infirm, my legs scarcely
+able to sustain me, my thoughts revert involuntarily to that epoch of my
+life when, young and vigorous, I bore the greatest fatigues, and walked
+day and night, in the mountainous countries which separate the kingdoms
+of Valencia and Catalonia from the kingdom of Aragon, in order to
+reestablish our geodesic signals which the storms had overset.
+
+I was at Valencia towards the middle of October, 1806. One morning early
+the French consul entered my room quite alarmed: "Here is sad news,"
+said M. Lanusse to me; "make preparations for your departure; the whole
+town is in agitation; a declaration of war against France has just been
+published; it appears that we have experienced a great disaster in
+Prussia. The Queen, we are assured, has put herself at the head of the
+cavalry and of the royal guard; a part of the French army has been cut
+to pieces; the rest is completely routed. Our lives would not be in
+safety if we remained here; the French ambassador at Madrid will inform
+me as soon as an American vessel now at anchor in the 'Grao' of Valencia
+can take us on board, and I will let you know as soon as the moment is
+come." This moment never came; for a few days afterwards the false news,
+which one must suppose had dictated the proclamation of the Prince of
+the Peace, was replaced by the bulletin of the battle of Jena. People
+who at first played the braggart and threatened to root us out, suddenly
+became disgracefully cast down; we could walk in the town, holding up
+our heads, without fear henceforth of being insulted.
+
+This proclamation, in which they spoke of the critical circumstances in
+which the Spanish nation was placed; of the difficulties which
+encompassed this people; of the safety of their native country; of
+laurels, and of the god of victory; of enemies with whom they ought to
+fight;--did not contain the name of France. They availed themselves of
+this omission (will it be believed?) to maintain that it was directed
+against Portugal.
+
+Napoleon pretended to believe in this absurd interpretation; but from
+this moment it became evident that Spain would sooner or later be
+obliged to render a strict account of the warlike intentions which she
+had suddenly evinced in 1806; this, without justifying the events of
+Bayonne, explains them in a very natural way.
+
+I was expecting M. Biot at Valencia, he having undertaken to bring some
+new instruments with which we were to measure the latitude of
+Formentera. I shall take advantage of these short intervals of repose to
+insert here some details of manners, which may, perhaps, be read with
+interest.
+
+I will recount, in the first instance, an adventure which nearly cost me
+my life under somewhat singular circumstances.
+
+One day, as a recreation, I thought I could go, with a
+fellow-countryman, to the fair at Murviedro, the ancient Saguntum, which
+they told me was very curious. I met in the town the daughter of a
+Frenchman resident at Valencia, Madlle. B----. All the hotels were
+crowded; Madlle. B---- invited us to take some refreshments at her
+grandmother's; we accepted; but on leaving the house she informed us
+that our visit had not been to the taste of her betrothed, and that we
+must be prepared for some sort of attack on his part; we went directly
+to an armourer's, bought some pistols, and commenced our return to
+Valencia.
+
+On our way I said to the calezero (driver), a man whom I had employed
+for a long time, and who was much devoted to me:--
+
+"Isidro, I have some reason to believe that we shall be stopped; I warn
+you of it, so that you may not be surprised at the shots which will be
+fired from the caleza (vehicle)."
+
+Isidro, seated on the shaft, according to the custom of the country,
+answered:--
+
+"Your pistols are completely useless, gentlemen; leave me to act; one
+cry will be enough; my mule will rid us of two, three, or even four
+men."
+
+Scarcely one minute had elapsed after the calezero had uttered these
+words, when two men presented themselves before the mule and seized her
+by the nostrils. At the same instant a formidable cry, which will never
+be effaced from my remembrance,--the cry of _Capitana!_--was uttered by
+Isidro. The mule reared up almost vertically, raising up one of the men,
+came down again, and set off at a rapid gallop. The jolt which the
+carriage made led us to understand too well what had just occurred. A
+long silence succeeded this incident; it was only interrupted by these
+words of the calezero, "Do you not think, gentlemen, that my mule is
+worth more than any pistols?"
+
+The next day the captain-general, Don Domingo Izquierdo, related to me
+that a man had been found crushed on the road to Murviedro. I gave him
+an account of the prowess of Isidro's mule, and no more was said.
+
+One anecdote, taken from among a thousand, will show what an adventurous
+life was led by the delegate of the _Bureau of Longitude_.
+
+During my stay on a mountain near Cullera, to the north of the mouth of
+the river Xucar, and to the south of the Albufera, I once conceived the
+project of establishing a station on the high mountains which are in
+front of it. I went to see them. The alcaid of one of the neighbouring
+villages warned me of the danger to which I was about to expose myself.
+"These mountains," said he to me, "form the resort of a band of highway
+robbers." I asked for the national guard, as I had the power to do so.
+My escort was supposed by the robbers to be an expedition directed
+against them, and they dispersed themselves at once over the rich plain
+which is watered by the Xucar. On my return I found them engaged in
+combat with the authorities of Cullera. Wounds had been given on both
+sides, and, if I recollect right, one alguazil was left dead on the
+plain.
+
+The next morning I regained my station. The following night was a
+horrible one; the rain fell in a deluge. Towards night, there was
+knocking at my cabin door. To the question "Who is there?" the answer
+was, "A custom-house guard, who asks of you a shelter for some hours."
+My servant having opened the door to him, I saw a magnificent man enter,
+armed to the teeth. He laid himself down on the earth, and went to
+sleep. In the morning, as I was chatting with him at the door of my
+cabin, his eyes flashed on seeing two persons on the slope of the
+mountain, the alcaid of Cullera and his principal alguazil, who were
+coming to pay me a visit. "Sir," cried he, "nothing less than the
+gratitude which I owe to you, on account of the service which you have
+rendered to me this night, could prevent my seizing this occasion for
+ridding myself, by one shot of this carabine, of my most cruel enemy.
+Adieu, sir!" And he departed, springing from rock to rock as light as a
+gazelle.
+
+On reaching the cabin, the alcaid and his alguazil recognized in the
+fugitive the chief of all the brigands in the country.
+
+Some days afterwards, the weather having again become very bad, I
+received a second visit from the pretended custom-house guard, who went
+soundly to sleep in my cabin. I saw that my servant, an old soldier, who
+had heard the recital of the deeds and behaviour of this man, was
+preparing to kill him. I jumped down from my camp bed, and, seizing my
+servant by the throat,--"Are you mad?" said I to him; "are we to
+discharge the duties of police in this country? Do you not see,
+moreover, that this would expose us to the resentment of all those who
+obey the orders of this redoubted chief? And we should thus render it
+impossible for us to terminate our operations."
+
+Next morning, when the sun rose, I had a conversation with my guest,
+which I will try to reproduce faithfully.
+
+"Your situation is perfectly known to me; I know that you are not a
+custom-house guard; I have learnt from certain information that you are
+the chief of the robbers of the country. Tell me whether I have any
+thing to fear from your confederates?"
+
+"The idea of robbing you did occur to us; but we concluded that all your
+funds would be in the neighbouring towns; that you would carry no money
+to the summit of mountains, where you would not know what to do with it,
+and that our expedition against you could have no fruitful result.
+Moreover, we cannot pretend to be as strong as the King of Spain. The
+King's troops leave us quietly enough to exercise our industry; but on
+the day that we molested an envoy from the Emperor of the French, they
+would direct against us several regiments, and we should soon have to
+succumb. Allow me to add, that the gratitude which I owe to you is your
+surest guarantee."
+
+"Very well, I will trust in your words; I shall regulate my conduct by
+your answer. Tell me if I can travel at night? It is fatiguing to me to
+move from one station to another in the day under the burning influence
+of the sun."
+
+"You can do so, sir; I have already given my orders to this purpose;
+they will not be infringed."
+
+Some days afterwards, I left for Denia; it was midnight, when some
+horsemen rode up to me, and addressed these words to me:--
+
+"Stop there, senor; times are hard; those who have something must aid
+those who have nothing. Give us the keys of your trunks; we will only
+take your superfluities."
+
+I had already obeyed their orders, when it came into my head to call
+out--"But I have been told, that I could travel without risk."
+
+"What is your name, sir?"
+
+"Don Francisco Arago."
+
+"_Hombre! vaya usted con Dios_ (God be with you)."
+
+And our cavaliers, spurring away from us, rapidly lost themselves in a
+field of "algarrobos."
+
+When _my friend_ the robber of Cullera assured me that I had nothing to
+fear from his subordinates, he informed me at the same time that his
+authority did not extend north of Valencia. The banditti of the northern
+part of the kingdom obeyed other chiefs; one of whom, after having been
+taken, was condemned and hung, and his body divided into four quarters,
+which were fastened to posts, on four royal roads, but not without
+their having previously been boiled in oil, to make sure of their longer
+preservation.
+
+This barbarous custom produced no effect; for scarcely was one chief
+destroyed before another presented himself to replace him.
+
+Of all these brigands those had the worst reputation who carried on
+their depredations in the environs of Oropeza. The proprietors of the
+three mules, on which M. Rodriguez, I, and my servant were riding one
+evening in this neighbourhood, were recounting to us the "grand deeds"
+of these robbers, which, even in full daylight, would have made the hair
+of one's head stand on end, when, by the faint light of the moon, we
+perceived a man hiding himself behind a tree; we were six, and yet this
+sentry on horseback had the audacity to demand our purses or our lives:
+my servant, at once answered him--"You must then believe us to be very
+cowardly; take yourself off, or I will bring you down by one shot of my
+carabine." "I will be off," returned the worthless fellow "but you will
+soon hear news of me." Still full of fright at the remembrance of the
+stories which they had just been relating, the three "arieros" besought
+us to quit the high road and cast ourselves into a wood which was on our
+left. We yielded to their proposal; but we lost our way. "Dismount,"
+said they, "the mules have been obeying the bridle and you have directed
+them wrongly. Let us retrace our way as far as the high road, and leave
+the mules to themselves, they will well know how to find their right way
+again." Scarcely had we effected this manoeuvre, which succeeded
+marvellously well, when we heard a lively discussion taking place at a
+short distance from us. Some were saying: "We must follow the high
+road, and we shall meet with them." Others maintained that they must get
+into the wood on the left. The barking of the dogs, by which these
+individuals were accompanied, added to the tumult. During this time we
+pursued our way silently, more dead than alive. It was two o'clock in
+the morning. All at once we saw a faint light in a solitary house; it
+was like a light-house for the mariner in the midst of the tempest, and
+the only means of safety which remained to us. Arrived at the door of
+the farm, we knocked and asked for hospitality. The inmates, very little
+reassured, feared that we were thieves, and did not hurry themselves to
+open to us.
+
+Impatient at the delay, I cried out, as I had received authority to do
+so, "In the name of the King, open to us!" They obeyed an order thus
+given; we entered pell-mell, and in the greatest haste, men and mules,
+into the kitchen, which was on the ground-floor; and we hurried to
+extinguish the lights, in order not to awaken the suspicions of the
+bandits who were seeking for us. Indeed, we heard them, passing and
+repassing near the house, vociferating with the whole force of their
+lungs against their unlucky fate. We did not quit this solitary house
+until broad day, and we continued our route for Tortosa, not without
+having given a suitable recompense to our hosts. I wished to know by
+what providential circumstance they happened to have a lamp burning at
+that unseasonable hour. "We had killed a pig," they told me, "in the
+course of the day, and we were busy preparing the black puddings." Had
+the pig lived one day more, or had there been no black puddings, I
+should certainly have been no longer in this world, and I should not
+have the opportunity to relate the story of the robbers of Oropeza.
+
+Never could I better appreciate the intelligent measure by which the
+constituent assembly abolished the ancient division of France into
+provinces, and substituted its division into departments, than in
+traversing for my triangulation the Spanish border kingdoms of
+Catalonia, Valencia, and Aragon. The inhabitants of these three
+provinces detested each other cordially, and nothing less than the bond
+of a common hatred was necessary to make them act simultaneously against
+France. Such was their animosity in 1807 that I could scarcely make use
+at the same time of Catalonians, Aragons, and Valencians, when I moved
+with my instruments from one station to another. The Valencians, in
+particular, were treated by the Catalonians as a light, trifling,
+inconsistent people. They were in the habit of saying to me, "_En el
+reino de Valencia la carne es verdura, la verdura agua, los hombres
+mugeres, las mugeres nada_"; which may be translated thus: "In the
+kingdom of Valencia meat is a vegetable, vegetables are water, men are
+women, and women nothing."
+
+On the other hand, the Valencians, speaking of the Aragons, used to call
+them "_schuros_."
+
+Having asked of a herdsman of this province who had brought some goats
+near to one of my stations, what was the origin of this denomination, at
+which his compatriots showed themselves so offended:
+
+"I do not know," said he, smiling cunningly at me, "whether I dare
+answer you." "Go on, go on," I said to him, "I can hear anything without
+being angry." "Well, the word _schuros_ means that, to our great shame,
+we have sometimes been governed by French kings. The sovereign, before
+assuming power, was bound to promise under oath to respect our freedom
+and to articulate in a loud voice the solemn words _lo Juro!_ As he did
+not know how to pronounce the J he said _schuro_. Are you satisfied,
+senor?" I answered him, "Yes, yes. I see that vanity and pride are not
+dead in this country."
+
+Since I have just spoken of a shepherd, I will say that in Spain, the
+class of individuals of both sexes destined to look after herds,
+appeared to me always less further removed than in France, from the
+pictures which the ancient poets have left us of the shepherds and
+shepherdesses in their pastoral poetry. The songs by which they
+endeavour to while away the tedium of their monotonous life, are more
+remarkable in their form and substance than in the other European
+nations to which I have had access. I never recollect without surprise,
+that being on a mountain situated at the junction-point of the kingdoms
+of Valencia, Aragon, and Catalonia, I was all at once overtaken by a
+violent storm, which forced me to take refuge in my tent, and to remain
+there squatting on the ground. When the storm was over and I came out
+from my retreat, I heard, to my great astonishment, on an isolated peak
+which looked down upon my station, a shepherdess who was singing a song
+of which I only recollect these eight lines, which will give an idea of
+the rest:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     A los que amor no saben
+       Ofreces las dulzuras
+     Y a mi las amarguras
+       Que s'e lo quo es amar.
+
+     Las gracias al me certe
+       Eran cuadro de flores
+     Te cantaban amores
+       Por hacerte callar.
+
+Oh! how much sap there is in this Spanish nation! What a pity that they
+will not make it yield fruit!
+
+In 1807, the tribunal of the Inquisition existed still at Valencia, and
+at times performed its functions. The reverend fathers, it is true, did
+not burn people, but they pronounced sentences in which the ridiculous
+contended with the odious. During my residence in this town, the holy
+office had to busy itself about a pretended sorceress; it doomed her to
+go through all quarters of the town astride on an ass, her face turned
+towards the tail, and naked down to the waist. Merely to observe the
+commonest rules of decency, the poor woman had been plastered with a
+sticky substance, partly honey, they told me, to which adhered an
+enormous quantity of little feathers, so that to say the truth, the
+victim resembled a fowl with a human head. The procession, whether
+attended by a crowd I leave it to be imagined, stationed itself for some
+time in the cathedral square, where I lived. I was told that the
+sorceress was struck on the back a certain number of blows with a
+shovel; but I do not venture to affirm this, for I was absent at the
+moment when this hideous procession passed before my windows.
+
+We thus see, however, what sort of spectacles were given to the people
+in the commencement of the nineteenth century, in one of the principal
+towns of Spain, the seat of a celebrated university, and the native
+country of numerous citizens distinguished by their knowledge, their
+courage, and their virtues. Let not the friends of humanity and of
+civilization disunite; let them form, on the contrary, an indissoluble
+union, for superstition is always on the watch, and waits for the moment
+again to seize its prey.
+
+I have mentioned in the course of my narrative that two Carthusians
+often left their convent in the _Desierto de las Palmas_, and came,
+though prohibited, to see me at my station, situated about two hundred
+metres higher. A few particulars will give an idea of what certain monks
+were, in the Peninsula, in 1807.
+
+One of them, Father Trivulce, was old; the other was very young. The
+former, of French origin, had played a part at Marseilles, in the
+counter-revolutionary events of which this town was the theatre, at the
+commencement of our first revolution. His part had been a very active
+one; one might see the proof of this in the scars of sabre cuts which
+furrowed his breast. It was he who was the first to come. When he saw
+his young comrade march up, he hid himself; but as soon as the latter
+had fully entered into conversation with me, Father Trivulce showed
+himself all at once. His appearance had the effect of Medusa's head.
+"Reassure yourself," said he to his young compeer; "only let us not
+denounce each other, for our prior is not a man to pardon us for having
+come here and infringed our vow of silence, and we should both receive a
+punishment, the recollection of which would long remain." The treaty was
+at once concluded, and from that day forward the two Carthusians came
+very often to converse with me.
+
+The youngest of our two visitors was an Aragonian, his family had made
+him a monk against his will. He related to me one day, before M. Biot,
+(then returned from Tarragon, where he had taken refuge to get cured of
+his fever,) some particulars which, according to him, proved that in
+Spain there was no longer more than the ghost of religion. These details
+were mostly borrowed from the secrets of confession. M. Biot manifested
+sharply the displeasure which this conversation caused him; there were
+even in his language some words which led the monk to suppose that M.
+Biot took him for a kind of spy. As soon as this suspicion had entered
+his mind, he quitted us without saying a word, and the next morning I
+saw him come up early, armed with a light gun. The French monk had
+preceded him, and had whispered in my ear the danger that threatened my
+companion. "Join with me," he said, "to turn the young Aragonian monk
+from his murderous project." I need scarcely say that I employed myself
+with ardour in this negotiation, in which I had the happiness to
+succeed. There were here, as must be seen, the materials for a chief of
+_guerilleros_. I should be much astonished if my young monk did not play
+his part in the war of independence.
+
+The anecdote which I am about to relate will amply prove that religion
+was, with the Carthusian monks of the _Desierto de las Palmas_, not the
+consequence of elevated sentiments, but a mere compound of superstitious
+practices.
+
+The scene with the gun, always present to my mind, seemed to make it
+clear to me that the Aragon monk, if actuated by his passions, would be
+capable of the most criminal actions. Hence, I had a very disagreeable
+impression when one Sunday, having come down to hear mass, I met this
+monk, who, without saying a word, conducted me by a series of dark
+corridors into a chapel where the daylight penetrated only by a very
+small window. There I found Father Trivulce, who prepared himself to say
+mass for me alone. The young monk assisted. All at once, an instant
+before the consecration, Father Trivulce, turning towards me, said these
+exact words: "We have permission to say mass with white wine; we
+therefore make use of that which we gather from our own vines: this wine
+is very good. Ask the prior to let you taste it, when on leaving this
+you go to breakfast with him. For the rest, you can assure yourself this
+instant of the truth of what I say to you." And he presented me the
+goblet to drink from. I resisted strongly, not only because I considered
+it indecent to give this invitation in the middle of the mass, but
+because, besides, I must own I conceived the thought for a moment that
+the monks wished, by poisoning me, to revenge themselves on me for M.
+Biot having insulted them. I found that I was mistaken, that my
+suspicions had no foundation; for Father Trivulce went on with the
+interrupted mass, drank, and drank largely, of the white wine contained
+in one of the goblets. But when I had got out of the hands of the two
+monks, and was able to breathe the pure air of the country, I
+experienced a lively satisfaction.
+
+The right of asylum accorded to some churches was one of the most
+obnoxious privileges among those of which the revolution of 1789 rid
+France. In 1807, this right still existed in Spain, and belonged, I
+believe, to all the cathedrals. I learnt, during my stay at Barcelona,
+that there was, in a little cloister contiguous to the largest church of
+the town, a brigand,--a man guilty of several assassinations, who lived
+quietly there, guaranteed against all pursuit by the sanctity of the
+place. I wished to assure myself with my own eyes of the reality of the
+fact, and I went with my friend Rodriguez into the little cloister in
+question. The assassin was then eating a meal which a woman had just
+brought him. He easily guessed the object of our visit, and made
+immediately such demonstrations as convinced us that, if the asylum was
+safe for the robber, it would not be so long for us. We retired at once,
+deploring that, in a country calling itself civilized, there should
+still exist such crying, such monstrous abuses.
+
+In order to succeed in our geodesic operations, to obtain the
+coeoperation of the inhabitants of the villages near our stations, it was
+desirable for us to be recommended to the priests. We went,
+therefore,--M. Lanusse, the French Vice-Consul, M. Biot, and I,--to pay
+a visit to the Archbishop of Valencia, to solicit his protection. This
+archbishop, a man of very tall figure, was then chief of the
+Franciscans; his costume more than negligent, his gray robe, covered
+with tobacco, contrasted with the magnificence of the archiepiscopal
+palace. He received us with kindness, and promised us all the
+recommendations we desired; but, at the moment of taking leave of him,
+the whole affair seemed to be spoiled. M. Lanusse and M. Biot went out
+of the reception room without kissing the hand of his grace, although he
+had presented it to each of them very graciously. The archbishop
+indemnified himself on my poor person. A movement, which was very near
+breaking my teeth, a gesture which I might justly call a blow of the
+fist, proved to me that the chief of the Franciscans, notwithstanding
+his vow of humility, had taken offence at the want of ceremony in my
+fellow visitors. I was going to complain of the abrupt way in which he
+had treated me, but I had the necessities of our trigonometrical
+operations before my eyes, and I was silent.
+
+Besides this, at the instant when the closed fist of the archbishop was
+applied to my lips, I was still thinking of the beautiful optical
+experiments which it would have been possible to make with the
+magnificent stone which ornamented his pastoral ring. This idea, I must
+frankly declare, had preoccupied me during the whole of the visit.
+
+M. Biot having at last come to seek me again at Valencia, where I
+expected, as I have before said, some new instruments, we went on to
+Formentera, the southern extremity of our arc, of which place we
+determined the latitude. M. Biot quitted me afterwards to return to
+Paris, whilst I made the geodesical junction of the island of Majorca to
+Iviza, and to Formentera, obtaining thus, by means of one single
+triangle, the measure of an arc of parallel of one degree and a half.
+
+I then went to Majorca, to measure there the latitude and the azimuth.
+
+At this epoch, the political fermentation, engendered by the entrance of
+the French into Spain, began to invade the whole Peninsula and the
+islands dependent on it. This ferment had as yet in Majorca only reached
+to the ministers, the partisans, and the relations of the Prince of
+Peace. Each evening, I saw, drawn in triumph in the square of Palma, the
+capital of the island of Majorca, on carriages, the effigies in flames,
+sometimes of the minister Soller, another time those of the bishop, and
+even those of private individuals supposed to be attached to the
+fortunes of the favourite Godoi. I was far from suspecting then that my
+turn would soon arrive.
+
+My station at Majorca, the _Clop de Galazo_, a very high mountain, was
+situated exactly over the port where _Don Jayme el Conquistator_
+disembarked when he went to deliver the Balearic Islands from the Moors.
+The report spread itself through the population that I had established
+myself there in order to favour the arrival of the French army, and that
+every evening I made signals to it. But these reports had nothing
+menacing until the moment of the arrival at Palma, the 27th of May,
+1808, of an ordnance officer from Napoleon. This officer was M.
+Berthemie; he carried to the Spanish squadron, at Mahon, the order to go
+in all haste to Toulon. A general rising, which placed the life of this
+officer in danger, followed the news of his mission. The Captain-General
+Vives only saved his life by shutting him up in the strong castle of
+Belver. They then bethought themselves of the Frenchman established on
+the _Clop de Galazo_, and formed a popular expedition to go and seize
+him.
+
+M. Damian, the owner of a small kind of vessel called a Mistic, which
+the Spanish Government had placed at my disposal, was beforehand with
+them, and brought me a costume by means of which I disguised myself. In
+directing myself towards Palma, in company with this brave seaman, we
+met with the rioters who were going in search of me. They did not
+recognize me, for I spoke Majorcan perfectly. I strongly encouraged the
+men of this detachment to continue their route, and I pursued my way
+towards Palma. At night I went on board the Mistic, commanded by Don
+Manuel de Vacaro, whom the Spanish Government had placed under my
+orders. I asked this officer if he would conduct me to Barcelona,
+occupied by the French, promising him that if they made any attempt to
+keep him there, I would at once return and surrender myself a prisoner.
+
+Don Manuel, who up to this time had shown extreme obsequiousness towards
+me, had now no words but those of rudeness and distrust. There occurred
+on the pier where the Mistic was moored a riotous movement, which Vacaro
+assured me was directed against me. "Do not be uneasy," said he to me;
+"if they should penetrate into the vessel you can hide yourself in this
+trunk." I made the attempt; but the chest which he showed me was so
+small that my legs were entirely outside, and the cover could not be
+shut down. I understood perfectly what that meant, and I asked M. Vacaro
+to let me also be shut up in the castle of Belver. The order for
+incarceration having arrived from the captain-general, I got into the
+boat, where the sailors of the Mistic received me with emotion.
+
+At the moment of their crossing the harbour the populace perceived me,
+commenced a pursuit, and it was not without much difficulty that I
+reached Belver safe and sound. I had only, indeed, received on my way
+one slight wound from a dagger in the thigh. Prisoners have often been
+seen to run with all speed _from_ their dungeon; I am the first,
+perhaps, to whom it has happened to do the reverse. This took place on
+the 1st or 2d of June, 1808.
+
+The governor of Belver was a very extraordinary personage. If he is
+still alive he may demand of me a certificate as to his priority to the
+modern hydropathists; the grenadier-captain maintained that pure water,
+suitably administered, was a means of treatment for all illnesses, even
+for amputations. By listening very patiently to his theories, and never
+interrupting him, I won his good opinion. It was at his request, and
+from interest in our safety, that a Swiss garrison replaced the Spanish
+troop which until then had been employed as the guard of Belver. It was
+also through him that I one day learnt that a monk had proposed to the
+soldiers who went to bring my food from the town, to put some poison
+into one of the dishes.
+
+All my old Majorcan friends had abandoned me at the moment of my
+detention. I had had a very sharp correspondence with Don Manuel de
+Vacaro in order to obtain the restitution of the passport of safety
+which the English Admiralty had granted to us. M. Rodriguez alone
+ventured to visit me in full daylight, and bring me every consolation in
+his power.
+
+The excellent M. Rodriguez, to while away the monotony of my
+incarceration, remitted to me from time to time the journals which were
+then published at different parts of the Peninsula. He often sent them
+to me without reading them. Once I saw in these journals the recital of
+the horrible massacres of which the town of Valencia--I make a mistake,
+the _square of the Bull-fights_--had been the theatre, and in which
+nearly the whole of the French established in this town (more than 350)
+had disappeared under the pike of the bull-fighter. Another journal
+contained an article bearing this title: "Relacion de la ahorcadura del
+senor Arago e del senor Berthemie,"--literally, "Account of the
+execution of M. Arago and M. Berthemie." This account spoke of the two
+executed men in very different terms. M. Berthemie was a Huguenot; he
+had been deaf to all exhortations; he had spit in the face of the
+ecclesiastic who was present, and even on the image of Christ. As for
+me, I had conducted myself with much decency, and had allowed myself to
+be hung without giving rise to any scandal. The writer also expressed
+his regret that a young astronomer had been so weak as to associate
+himself with treason, coming under the disguise of science to assist the
+entrance of the French army into a friendly kingdom.
+
+After reading this article I immediately made my decision: "Since they
+talk of my death," said I to my friend Rodriguez, "the event will not be
+long in coming. I should prefer being drowned to being hung. I will make
+my escape from this fortress; it is for you to furnish me with the
+means."
+
+Rodriguez, knowing better than any one how well founded my apprehensions
+were, set himself at once to the work.
+
+He went to the captain-general, and made him feel what would be the
+danger of his position if I should disappear in a popular riot, or even
+if he were forced to give me up. His observations were so much the
+better comprehended, as no one could then predict what might be the
+issue of the Spanish revolution. "I will undertake," said the
+captain-general Vives to my colleague Rodriguez, "to give an order to
+the commander of the fortress, that when the right moment arrives, he
+shall allow M. Arago, and even the two or three other Frenchmen who are
+with him in the castle of Belver, to pass out. They will then have no
+need of the means of escape which they have procured; but I will take no
+part in the preparations which will become necessary to enable the
+fugitives to leave the island; I leave all that to your responsibility."
+
+Rodriguez immediately conferred secretly with the brave commander
+Damian. It was agreed between them that Damian should take the command
+of a half-decked boat, which the wind had driven ashore; that he should
+equip it as if for a fishing expedition; that he should carry us to
+Algiers; after which his reentrance at Palmas, with or without fish,
+would inspire no suspicion.
+
+All was executed according to agreement, notwithstanding the
+inquisitorial surveillance which Don Manuel de Vacaro exercised over the
+commander of his "Mistic."
+
+On the 28th July, 1808, we silently descended the hill on which Belver
+is built, at the same moment that the family of the minister Soller
+entered the fortress to escape the fury of the populace. Arrived at the
+shore, we found there Damian, his boat, and three sailors. We embarked
+at once, and set sail. Damian had taken the precaution of bringing with
+us in this frail vessel the instruments of value which he had carried
+off from my station at the Clop de Galazo. The sea was unfavourable;
+Damian thought it prudent to stop at the little island of Cabrera,
+destined to become a short time afterwards so sadly celebrated by the
+sufferings which the soldiers of the army of Dupont experienced after
+the shameful capitulation of Baylen. There a singular incident was very
+near compromising all. Cabrera, tolerably near to the southern extremity
+of Majorca, is often visited by fishermen coming from that part of the
+island. M. Berthemie feared, justly enough, that the rumour of our
+escape having spread about, they might dispatch some boats to seize us.
+He looked upon our going into harbour as inopportune; I maintained that
+we must yield to the prudence of the commander. During this discussion,
+the three seamen whom Damian had engaged saw that M. Berthemie, whom I
+had endeavoured to pass off as my servant, maintained his opinion
+against me on a footing of equality. They then addressed themselves in
+these terms to the commander:--
+
+"We only consented to take part in this expedition upon condition that
+the Emperor's aide-de-camp, shut up at Belver, should not be of the
+number of those persons whom we should help off. We only wished to aid
+the flight of the astronomer. Since it seems to be otherwise, you must
+leave this officer here, unless you would prefer to throw him into the
+sea."
+
+Damian at once informed me of the imperative wishes of his boat's crew.
+M. Berthemie agreed with me to suffer some abuse such as could only be
+tolerated by a servant threatened by his master; all the suspicions
+disappeared.
+
+Damian, who feared also for himself the arrival of Majorcan fishermen,
+hastened to set sail on the 29th of July, 1808, the first moment that
+was favourable, and we arrived at Algiers on the 3d of August.
+
+Our looks were anxiously directed towards the port, to guess what
+reception might await us. We were reassured by the sight of the
+tri-coloured flag, which was flying on two or three buildings. But we
+were mistaken; these buildings were Dutch. Immediately upon our
+entrance, a Spaniard, whom, from his tone of authority, we took for a
+high functionary of the Regency, came up to Damian, and asked him: "What
+do you bring?" "I bring," answered the commander, "four Frenchmen." "You
+will at once take them back again. I prohibit you from disembarking." As
+we did not seem inclined to obey his order, our Spaniard, who was the
+constructing engineer of the ships of the Dey, armed himself with a
+pole, and commenced battering us with blows. But immediately a Genoese
+seaman, mounted on a neighbouring vessel, armed himself with an oar, and
+struck our assailant both with edge and point. During this animated
+combat we managed to land without any opposition. We had conceived a
+singular idea of the manner in which the police act on the coast of
+Africa.
+
+We pursued our way to the French Consul's, M. Dubois Thainville. He was
+at his country house. Escorted by the janissary of the consulate, we
+went off towards this country house, one of the ancient residences of
+the Dey, situated not far from the gate of Bab-azoum. The consul and his
+family received us with great amity, and offered us hospitality.
+
+Suddenly transported to a new continent, I looked forward anxiously to
+the rising of the sun to enjoy all that Africa might offer of interest
+to a European, when all at once I believed myself to be engaged in a
+serious adventure. By the faint light of the dawn, I saw an animal
+moving at the foot of my bed. I gave a kick with my foot: all movement
+ceased. After some time, I felt the same movement made under my legs. A
+sharp jerk made this cease quickly. I then heard the fits of laughter of
+the janissary, who lay on the couch in the same room as I did; and I
+soon saw that he had simply placed on my bed a large hedgehog to amuse
+himself by my uneasiness.
+
+The consul occupied himself the next day in procuring a passage for us
+on board a vessel of the Regency which was going to Marseilles. M.
+Ferrier, the Chancellor of the French Consulate, was at the same time
+Consul for Austria. He procured for us two false passports, which
+transformed us--M. Berthemie and me--into two strolling merchants, the
+one from _Schwekat_, in Hungary, the other from _Leoben_.
+
+The moment of departure had arrived; the 13th of August, 1808, we were
+on board, but our ship's company was not complete. The captain, whose
+title was Rai Braham Ouled Mustapha Goja, having perceived that the Dey
+was on his terrace, and fearing punishment if he should delay to set
+sail, completed his crew at the expense of the idlers who were looking
+on from the pier, and of whom the greater part were not sailors. These
+poor people begged as a favour for permission to go and inform their
+families of this precipitate departure, and to get some clothes. The
+captain remained deaf to their remonstrances. We weighed anchor.
+
+The vessel belonged to the Emir of Seca, Director of the Mint. The real
+commander was a Greek captain, named Spiro Calligero. The cargo
+consisted of a great number of _groups_. Amongst the passengers there
+were five members of the family which the Bakri had succeeded as kings
+of the Jews; two ostrich-feather merchants, Moroccans; Captain Krog,
+from Berghen in Norway, who had sold his ship at Alicant; two lions sent
+by the Dey to the emperor Napoleon, and a great number of monkeys. Our
+voyage was prosperous. Off Sardinia we met with an American ship coming
+out from Cagliari. A cannon-shot (we were armed with forty pieces of
+small power) warned the captain to come to be recognized. He brought on
+board a certain number of counterparts of passports, one of which agreed
+perfectly with that which we carried. The captain being thus all right,
+was not a little astonished when I ordered him, in the name of Captain
+Braham, to furnish us with tea, coffee, and sugar. The American captain
+protested; he called us brigands, pirates, robbers. Captain Braham
+admitted without difficulty all these qualifications, and persisted none
+the less in the exaction of sugar, coffee, and tea.
+
+The American, then driven to the last stage of exasperation, addressed
+himself to me, who acted as interpreter, and cried out, "Oh! rogue of a
+renegade! if ever I meet you on holy ground I will break your head."
+"Can you then suppose," I answered him, "that I am here for my pleasure,
+and that, notwithstanding your menace, I would not rather go with you,
+if I could?" These words calmed him; he brought the sugar, the coffee,
+and the tea claimed by the Moorish chief, and we again set sail, though
+without having exchanged the usual farewell.
+
+We had already entered the Gulf of Lyons, and were approaching
+Marseilles, when on the 16th August, 1808, we met with a Spanish corsair
+from Palamos, armed at the prow with two twenty-four pounders. We made
+full sail; we hoped to escape it: but a cannon-shot, a ball from which
+went through our sails, taught us that she was a much better sailer than
+we were.
+
+We obeyed an injunction thus expressed, and awaited the great boat from
+the corsair. The captain declared that he made us prisoners, although
+Spain was at peace with Barbary, under the pretext that we were
+violating the blockade which had been lately raised on all the coasts of
+France: he added, that he intended to take us to Rosas, and that there
+the authorities would decide on our fate.
+
+I was in the cabin of the vessel; I had the curiosity to look furtively
+at the crew of the boat, and there I perceived, with a dissatisfaction
+which may easily be imagined, one of the sailors of the "Mistic,"
+commanded by Don Manuel de Vacaro, of the name of Pablo Blanco, of
+Palamos, who had often acted as my servant during my geodesic
+operations. My false passport would become from this moment useless, if
+Pablo should recognize me: I went to bed at once, covered my head with
+the counterpane, and lay as still as a statue.
+
+During the two days which elapsed between our capture and our entrance
+into the roads of Rosas, Pablo, whose curiosity often brought him into
+the room, used to exclaim, "There is one passenger whom I have not yet
+managed to get a sight of."
+
+When we arrived at Rosas it was decided that we should be placed in
+quarantine in a dismantled windmill, situated on the road leading to
+Figueras. I was careful to disembark in a boat to which Pablo did not
+belong. The corsair departed for a new cruise, and I was for a moment
+freed from the harassing thoughts which my old servant had caused me.
+
+Our ship was richly laden; the Spanish authorities were immediately
+desirous to declare it a lawful prize. They pretended to believe that I
+was the proprietor of it, and wished, in order to hasten things, to
+interrogate me, even without awaiting the completion of the quarantine.
+They stretched two cords between the mill and the shore, and a judge
+placed himself in front of me. As the interrogatories were made from a
+good distance, the numerous audience which encircled us took a direct
+part in the questions and answers. I will endeavour to reproduce this
+dialogue with all possible fidelity:--
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"A poor roving merchant."
+
+"Whence do you come?"
+
+"From a country where you certainly never were."
+
+"In a word, what country is it?"
+
+I was afraid to answer, for the passports, steeped in vinegar, were in
+the hands of the judge-instructor, and I had forgotten whether I was
+from Schwekat or from Leoben. Finally I answered at all hazards:--
+
+"I come from Schwekat."
+
+And this information happily was found to agree with that of the
+passport.
+
+"You are as much from Schwekat as I am," answered the judge. "You are
+Spanish, and, moreover, a Spaniard from the kingdom of Valencia, as I
+perceive by your accent."
+
+"Would you punish me, sir, because nature has endowed me with the gift
+of languages? I learn with facility the dialects of those countries
+through which I pass in the exercise of my trade; I have learnt, for
+example, the dialect of Iviza."
+
+"Very well, you shall be taken at your word. I see here a soldier from
+Iviza; you shall hold a conversation with him."
+
+"I consent; I will even sing the goat song."
+
+Each of the verses of this song (if verses they be) terminates by an
+imitation of the bleating of the goat.
+
+I commenced at once, with an audacity at which I really feel astonished,
+to chant this air, which is sung by all the shepherds of the island.
+
+     Ah graciada senora
+     Una canzo bouil canta
+       Be, be, be, be.
+
+     No sera gaira pulida
+     Nose si vos agradara
+       Be, be, be, be.
+
+At once my Ivizacan, upon whom this air had the effect of the _ranz des
+vaches_ on the Swiss, declared, all in tears, that I was a native of
+Iviza.
+
+I then said to the judge that if he would put me in communication with a
+person knowing the French language, he would arrive at just as
+embarrassing a result. An _emigre_ officer of the Bourbon regiment
+offered at once to make the experiment, and, after some phrases
+interchanged between us, affirmed without hesitation that I was French.
+
+The judge, rendered impatient, exclaimed, "Let us put an end to these
+trials which decide nothing. I summon you, sir, to tell me who you are.
+I promise that your life will be safe if you answer me with sincerity.
+
+"My greatest wish would be to give an answer to your satisfaction. I
+will, then, try to do so; but I warn you that I am not going to tell you
+the truth. I am son of the innkeeper at Mataro." "I know that innkeeper;
+you are not his son." "You are right. I announced to you that I should
+vary my answers until one of them should suit you. I retract then, and
+tell you that I am a _titiretero_, (player of marionettes,) and that I
+practised at Lerida."
+
+A loud shout of laughter from the multitude encircling us greeted this
+answer, and put an end to the questions.
+
+"I swear by the d----l," exclaimed the judge, "that I will discover
+sooner or later who you are!"
+
+And he retired.
+
+The Arabs, the Moroccans, the Jews, who witnessed this interrogatory,
+understood nothing of it; they had only seen that I had not allowed
+myself to be intimidated. At the close of the interview they came to
+kiss my hand, and gave me, from this moment, their entire confidence.
+
+I became their secretary for all the individual or collective
+remonstrances which they thought they had a right to address to the
+Spanish Government; and this right was incontestable. Every day I was
+occupied in drawing up petitions, especially in the name of the two
+ostrich-feather merchants, one of whom called himself a tolerably near
+relation of the Emperor of Morocco. Astonished at the rapidity with
+which I filled a page of my writing, they imagined, doubtless, that I
+should write as fast in Arabic characters, when it should be requisite
+to transcribe passages from the Koran; and that this would form both for
+me and for them the source of a brilliant fortune, and they besought me,
+in the most earnest way, to become a Mahometan.
+
+Very little reassured by the last words of the judge, I sought means of
+safety from another quarter.
+
+I was the possessor of a safe-conduct from the English Admiralty; I
+therefore wrote a confidential letter to the captain of an English
+vessel, The Eagle, I think, which had cast anchor some days before in
+the roads at Rosas. I explained to him my position. "You can," I said to
+him, "claim me, because I have an English passport. If this proceeding
+should cost you too much, have the goodness at least to take my
+manuscripts and to send them to the Royal Society in London."
+
+One of the soldiers who guarded us, and in whom I had fortunately
+inspired some interest, undertook to deliver my letter. The English
+captain came to see me; his name was, if my memory is right, George
+Eyre. We had a private conversation on the shore. George Eyre thought,
+perhaps, that the manuscripts of my observations were contained in a
+register bound in morocco, and with gilt edges to the leaves. When he
+saw that these manuscripts were composed of single leaves, covered with
+figures, which I had hidden under my shirt, disdain succeeded to
+interest, and he quitted me hastily. Having returned on board, he wrote
+me a letter which I could find if needful, in which he said to me,--"I
+cannot mix myself up in your affairs; address yourself to the Spanish
+Government; I am persuaded that it will do justice to your
+remonstrance, and will not molest you." As I had not the same persuasion
+as Captain George Eyre, I chose to take no notice of his advice.
+
+I ought to mention that some time after having related these particulars
+in England, at Sir Joseph Banks's, the conduct of George Eyre was
+severely blamed; but when a man breakfasts and dines to the sound of
+harmonious music, can he accord his interest to a poor devil sleeping on
+straw and nibbled by vermin, even though he have manuscripts under his
+shirt? I may add that I (unfortunately for me) had to do with a captain
+of an unusual character. For, some days later, a new vessel, The
+Colossus, having arrived in the roads, the Norwegian, Captain Krog,
+although he had not, like me, an Admiralty passport, made an application
+to the commander of this new ship; he was immediately claimed, and
+relieved from captivity.
+
+The report that I was a Spanish deserter, and proprietor of the vessel,
+acquiring more and more credit, and this position being the most
+dangerous of all, I resolved to get out of it. I begged the commandant
+of the place, M. Alloy, to come to receive my declaration, and I
+announced to him that I was French. To prove to him the truth of my
+words, I invited him to send for Pablo Blanco, the sailor in the service
+of the corsair who took us, and who had returned from his cruise a short
+time before. This was done as I wished. In disembarking, Pablo Blanco,
+who had not been warned, exclaimed with surprise: "What! you, Don
+Francisco, mixed up with all these miscreants!" The sailor gave the
+Governor circumstantial evidence as to the mission which I fulfilled
+with two Spanish commissaries. My nationality thus became proved.
+
+That same day Alloy was replaced in the command of the fortress by the
+Irish Colonel of the Ultonian regiment; the corsair left for a fresh
+cruise, taking away Pablo Blanco; and I became once more the roving
+merchant from Schwekat.
+
+From the windmill, where we underwent our quarantine, I could see the
+tricoloured flag flying on the fortress of Figueras. The reconnoitring
+parties of the cavalry came sometimes within five or six hundred metres;
+it would not then have been difficult for me to escape. However, as the
+regulations against those who violate the sanitary laws are very
+rigorous in Spain, as they pronounce the penalty of death against him
+who infringes them, I only determined to make my escape on the eve of
+our admission to pratique.
+
+The night being come I crept on all-fours along the briars, and I should
+soon have got beyond the line of sentinels who guarded us. A noisy
+uproar which I heard among the Moors made me determine to reenter, and I
+found these poor people in an unspeakable state of uneasiness, thinking
+themselves lost if I left; I therefore remained.
+
+The next day a strong picquet of troops presented itself before the
+mill. The manoeuvres made by it inspired all of us with anxiety, but
+especially Captain Krog.[3] "What will they do with us?" he exclaimed.
+"Alas! you will see only too soon," replied the Spanish officer. This
+answer made every one believe that they were going to shoot us. What
+might have strengthened me in this idea was the obstinacy with which
+Captain Krog and two other individuals of small size hid themselves
+behind me. A handling of arms made us think that we had but a few
+seconds to live.
+
+In analyzing the feelings which I experienced on this solemn occasion, I
+have come to the conclusion that the man who is led to death is not as
+unhappy as the public imagines him to be. Fifty ideas presented
+themselves nearly simultaneously to my mind, and I did not rack my brain
+for any of them; I only recollect the two following, which have remained
+engraved on my memory. On turning my head to the right, I saw the
+national flag flying on the bastions of Figueras, and I said to myself,
+"If I were to move a few hundred metres, I should be surrounded by
+comrades, by friends, by fellow citizens, who would receive me
+affectionately. Here, without their being able to impute any crime to
+me, I am going to suffer death at twenty-two years of age." But what
+agitated me more deeply was this: looking towards the Pyrenees, I could
+distinctly see their peaks, and I reflected that my mother, on the other
+side of the chain, might at this awful moment be looking peaceably at
+them.
+
+The Spanish authorities, finding that to redeem my life I would not
+declare myself the owner of the vessel, had us conducted without farther
+molestation to the fortress of Rosas. Having to file through nearly all
+the inhabitants of the town, I had wished at first, through a false
+feeling of shame, to leave in the mill the remains of our week's meals.
+But M. Berthemie, more prudent than I, carried over his shoulder a great
+quantity of pieces of black bread, tied up with packthread. I imitated
+him. I furnished myself famously from our old stock, set it on my
+shoulder, and it was with this accoutrement that I made my entrance into
+the famous fortress.
+
+They placed us in a casemate, where we had barely the space necessary
+for lying down. In the windmill, they used to bring us, from time to
+time, some provisions, which came from our boat. Here, the Spanish
+government purveyed our food. We received every day some bread and a
+ration of rice; but as we had no means of dressing food, we were in
+reality reduced to dry bread.
+
+Dry bread was very unsubstantial food for one who could see from his
+casemate, at the door of his prison, a sutler selling grapes at two
+farthings a pound, and cooking, under the shelter of half a cask, bacon
+and herrings; but we had no money to bring us into connection with this
+merchant. I then decided, though with very great regret, to sell a watch
+which my father had given me. I was only offered about a quarter of its
+value; but I might well accept it, since there were no competitors for
+it.
+
+As possessors of sixty francs, M. Berthemie and I could now appease the
+hunger from which we had long suffered; but we did not like this return
+of fortune to be profitable to ourselves alone, and we made some
+presents, which were very well received by our companions in captivity.
+Though this sale of my watch brought some comfort to us, it was doomed
+at a later period to plunge a family into sorrow.
+
+The town of Rosas fell into the power of the French after a courageous
+resistance. The prisoners of the garrison were sent to France, and
+naturally passed through Perpignan. My father went in quest of news
+wherever Spaniards were to be found. He entered a cafe at the moment
+when a prisoner officer drew from his fob the watch which I had sold at
+Rosas. My good father saw in this act the proof of my death, and fell
+into a swoon. The officer had got the watch from a third party, and
+could give no account of the fate of the person to whom it had
+originally belonged.
+
+The casemate having become necessary to the defenders of the fortress,
+we were taken to a little chapel, where they deposited for twenty-four
+hours those who had died in the hospital. There we were guarded by
+peasants who had come across the mountain, from various villages, and
+particularly from Cadaques. These peasants, eager to recount all that
+they had seen of interest during their one day's campaign, questioned me
+as to the deeds and behaviour of all my companions in misfortune. I
+satisfied their curiosity amply, being the only one of the set who could
+speak Spanish.
+
+To enlist their good will, I also questioned them at length upon the
+subject of their village, on the work that they did there, on smuggling,
+their principal sources of employment, &c. &c. They answered my
+questions with the loquacity common to country rustics. The next day our
+guards were replaced by some others who were inhabitants of the same
+village. "In my business of a roving merchant," I said to these last, "I
+have been at Cadaques;" and then I began to talk to them of what I had
+learnt the night before, of such an individual, who gave himself up to
+smuggling with more success than others, of his beautiful residence, of
+the property which he possessed near the village,--in short, of a number
+of particulars which it seemed impossible for any but an inhabitant of
+Cadaques to know. My jest produced an unexpected effect. Such
+circumstantial details, our guards said to themselves, cannot be known
+by a roving merchant; this personage, whom we have found here in such
+singular society, is certainly a native of Cadaques; and the son of the
+apothecary must be about his age. He had gone to try his fortune in
+America; it is evidently he who fears to make himself known, having been
+found with all his riches in a vessel on its way to France. The report
+spread, became more consistent, and reached the ears of a sister of the
+apothecary established at Rosas. She runs to me, believes she recognizes
+me, and falls on my neck. I protest against the identity. "Well played!"
+said she to me; "the case is serious, as you have been found in a vessel
+coming to France; persist in your denial; circumstances may perhaps take
+a more favourable turn, and I shall profit by them to insure your
+deliverance. In the mean time, my dear nephew, I will let you want for
+nothing." And truly every morning M. Berthemie and I received a
+comfortable repast.
+
+The church having become necessary to the garrison to serve as a
+magazine, we were moved on the 25th of September, 1808, to a Trinity
+fort, called the _Bouton de Rosas_, a citadel situated on a little
+mountain at the entrance of the roads, and we were deposited deep under
+ground, where the light of day did not penetrate on any side. We did not
+long remain in this infected place, not because they had pity upon us,
+but because it offered shelter for a part of the garrison attacked by
+the French. They made us descend by night to the edge of the sea, and
+then transported us on the 17th of October to the port of Palamos. We
+were shut up in a hulk; we enjoyed, however, a certain degree of
+liberty;--they allowed us to go on land, and to parade our miseries and
+our rags in the town. It was there that I made the acquaintance of the
+dowager Duchess of Orleans, mother of Louis Philippe. She had left the
+town of Figueras, where she resided, because, she told me, thirty-two
+bombs sent from the fortress had fallen in her house. She was then
+intending to take refuge in Algiers, and she asked me to bring the
+captain of the vessel to her, of whom, perhaps, she would have to
+implore protection. I related to my "_rais_" the misfortunes of the
+Princess; he was moved by them, and I conducted him to her. On entering,
+he took off his slippers from respect, as if he had entered within a
+mosque, and holding them in his hand, he went to kiss the front of the
+dress of Madame d'Orleans. The Princess Was alarmed at the sight of this
+manly figure, wearing the longest beard I ever saw; she quickly
+recovered herself, and the interview proceeded with a mixture of French
+politeness and Oriental courtesy.
+
+The sixty francs from Rosas were expended. Madame D'Orleans would have
+liked much to assist us, but she was herself without money. All that she
+could gratify us with was a piece of sugarbread. The evening of our
+visit I was richer than the Princess. To avoid the fury of the people
+the Spanish Government sent those French who had escaped the first
+massacres back to France in slight boats. One of the _cartels_ came and
+cast anchor by the side of our hulk. One of the unhappy emigrants
+offered me a pinch of snuff. On opening the snuff-box I found there
+"_una onza de oro_," (an ounce of gold,) the sole remains of his
+fortune. I returned the snuff-box to him, with warm thanks, after having
+shut up in it a paper containing these words:--"My fellow-countryman who
+carries this note has rendered me a great service;--treat him as one of
+your children." My petition was naturally favourably received; it was by
+this bit of paper, the size of the _onza de oro_, that my family learnt
+that I was still in existence, and it enabled my mother--a model of
+piety--to cease saying masses for the repose of my soul.
+
+Five days afterwards, one of my hardy compatriots arrived at Palamos,
+after having traversed the line of posts both French and Spanish,
+carrying to a merchant who had friends at Perpignan the proposal to
+furnish me with all I was in need of. The Spaniard showed a great
+inclination to agree to the proposal; but I did not profit by his good
+will, because of the occurrence of events which I shall relate
+presently.
+
+The Observatory at Paris is very near the barrier. In my youth, curious
+to study the manners of the people, I used to walk in sight of the
+public-houses which the desire of escaping payment of the duty has
+multiplied outside the walls of the capital; on these excursions I was
+often humiliated to see men disputing for a piece of bread, just as
+animals might have done. My feelings on this subject have very much
+altered since I have been personally exposed to the tortures of hunger.
+I have discovered, in fact, that a man, whatever may have been his
+origin, his education, and his habits, is governed, under certain
+circumstances, much more by his stomach than by his intelligence and his
+heart. Here is the fact which suggested these reflections to me.
+
+To celebrate the unhoped-for arrival of _una onza de oro_, M. Berthemie
+and I had procured an immense dish of potatoes. The ordnance officer of
+the Emperor was already devouring it with his eyes, when a Moroccan, who
+was making his ablutions near us with one of his companions,
+accidentally filled it with dirt. M. Berthemie could not control his
+anger; he darted upon the clumsy Mussulman, and inflicted upon him a
+rough punishment.
+
+I remained a passive spectator of the combat, until the second Moroccan
+came to the aid of his compatriot. The party no longer being equal, I
+also took part in the conflict by seizing the new assailant by the
+beard. The combat ceased at once, because the Moroccan would not raise
+his hand against a man who could write a petition so rapidly. This
+conflict, like the struggles of which I had often been a witness outside
+the barriers of Paris, had originated in a dish of potatoes.
+
+The Spaniards always cherished the idea that the ship and her cargo
+might be confiscated; a commission came from Girone to question us. It
+was composed of two civil judges and one inquisitor. I acted as
+interpreter. When M. Berthemie's turn came, I went to fetch him, and
+said to him, "Pretend that you can only talk Styrian, and be at ease; I
+will not compromise you in translating your answers."
+
+It was done as we had agreed; unfortunately the language spoken by M.
+Berthemie had but little variety, and the _sacrement der Teufel_, which
+he had learnt in Germany, when he was aide-de-camp to Hautpoul,
+predominated too much in his discourse. Be that as it may, the judges
+observed that there was too great a conformity between his answers and
+those which I had made myself, to render it necessary to continue an
+interrogatory, which I may say, by the way, disturbed me much. The wish
+to terminate it was still more decided on the part of the judges, when
+it came to the turn of a sailor named Mehemet. Instead of making him
+swear on the Koran to tell the truth, the judge was determined to make
+him place his thumb on the forefinger so as represent the cross. I
+warned him that great offence would thus be given; and, accordingly,
+when Mehemet became aware of the meaning of this sign, he began to spit
+upon it with inconceivable violence. The meeting ended at once.
+
+The next day things had wholly changed their appearance; one of the
+judges from Girone came to declare to us that we were free to depart,
+and to go with our ship wherever we chose. What was the cause of this
+sudden change? It was this.
+
+During our quarantine in the windmill at Rosas, I had written, in the
+name of Captain Braham, a letter to the Dey of Algiers. I gave him an
+account of the illegal arrest of his vessel, and of the death of one of
+the lions which the Dey had sent to the Emperor. This last circumstance
+transported the African monarch with rage. He sent immediately for the
+Spanish Consul, M. Onis, claimed pecuniary damages for his dear lion,
+and threatened war if his ship was not released directly. Spain had then
+to do with too many difficulties to undertake wantonly any new ones, and
+the order to release the vessel so anxiously coveted arrived at Girone,
+and from thence at Palamos.
+
+This solution, to which our Consul at Algiers, M. Dubois Thainville, had
+not remained inattentive, reached us at the moment when we least
+expected it. We at once made preparations for our departure, and on the
+28th of November, 1808, we set sail, steering for Marseilles; but, as
+the Mussulmen on board the vessel declared, it was written above that we
+should not enter that town. We could already perceive the white
+buildings which crown the neighbouring hills of Marseilles, when a gust
+of the "mistral," of great violence, sent us from the north towards the
+south.
+
+I do not know what route we followed, for I was lying in my cabin,
+overcome with sea-sickness; I may therefore, though an astronomer, avow
+without shame, that at the moment when our unqualified pilots supposed
+themselves to be off the Baleares, we landed, on the 5th of December,
+at Bougie.
+
+There, they pretended that during the three months of winter, all
+communication with Algiers, by means of the little boats named
+_sandalis_, would be impossible, and I resigned myself to the painful
+prospect of so long a stay in a place at that time almost a desert. One
+evening I was making these sad reflections while pacing the deck of the
+vessel, when a shot from a gun on the coast came and struck the side
+planks close to which I was passing. This suggested to me the thought of
+going to Algiers by land.
+
+I went next day, accompanied by M. Berthemie and Captain Spiro
+Calligero, to the Caid of the town: "I wish," said I to him, "to go to
+Algiers by land." The man, quite frightened, exclaimed, "I cannot allow
+you to do so; you would certainly be killed on the road; your Consul
+would make a complaint to the Dey, and I should have my head cut off."
+
+"Fear not on that ground. I will give you an acquittance."
+
+It was immediately drawn up in these terms: "We, the undersigned,
+certify that the Caid of Bougie wished to dissuade us from going to
+Algiers by land; that he has assured us that we shall be massacred on
+the road; that notwithstanding his representations, reiterated twenty
+times, we have persisted in our project. We beg the Algerine
+authorities, particularly our Consul, not to make him responsible for
+this event if it should occur. We once more repeat, that the voyage has
+been undertaken against his will.
+
+     _Signed_: ARAGO and BERTHEMIE."
+
+Having given this declaration to the Caid, we considered ourselves quit
+of this functionary; but he came up to me, undid, without saying a word,
+the knot of my cravat, took it off, and put it into his pocket. All this
+was done so quickly that I had not time, I will add that I had not even
+the wish, to reclaim it.
+
+At the conclusion of this audience, which had terminated in so singular
+a manner, we made a bargain with a Mahomedan priest, who promised to
+conduct us to Algiers for the sum of twenty "piastres fortes," and a red
+mantle. The day was occupied in disguising ourselves well or ill, and we
+set out the next morning, accompanied by several Moorish sailors
+belonging to the crew of the ship, after having shown the Mahomedan
+priest that we had nothing with us worth a sou, so that if we were
+killed on the road he would inevitably lose all reward.
+
+I went, at the last moment, to make my bow to the only lion that was
+still alive, and with whom I had lived in very good harmony; I wished
+also to say good-bye to the monkeys, who during nearly five months had
+been equally my companions in misfortune.[4] These monkeys during our
+frightful misery had rendered us a service which I scarcely dare
+mention, and which will scarcely be guessed by the inhabitants of our
+cities, who look upon these animals as objects of diversion; they freed
+us from the vermin which infested us, and showed particularly a
+remarkable cleverness in seeking out the hideous insects which lodged
+themselves in our hair.
+
+Poor animals! they seemed to me very unfortunate in being shut up in
+the narrow enclosure of the vessel, when, on the neighbouring coast,
+other monkeys, as if to bully them, came on to the branches of the
+trees, giving innumerable proofs of their agility.
+
+At the commencement of the day, we saw on the road two Kabyls, similar
+to the soldiers of Jugurtha, whose harsh appearance powerfully allayed
+our fancy for wandering. In the evening we witnessed a fearful tumult,
+which appeared to be directed against us. We learnt afterwards that the
+Mahomedan priest had been the object of it; that it originated with some
+Kabyls whom he had disarmed on one of their journeys to Bougie. This
+incident, which appeared likely to be repeated, inspired us for a moment
+with the thought of returning; but the sailors were resolute, and we
+continued our hazardous enterprise.
+
+In proportion as we advanced, our troops became increased by a certain
+number of Kabyls, who wished to go to Algiers to work there in the
+quality of seamen, and who dared not undertake alone this dangerous
+journey.
+
+The third day we encamped in the open air, at the entrance of a forest.
+The Arabs lighted a very large fire in the form of a circle, and placed
+themselves in the middle. Towards eleven o'clock, I was awakened by the
+noise which the mules made, all trying to break their fastenings. I
+asked what was the cause of this disturbance. They answered me that a
+"_sebaa_" had come roaming in the neighbourhood. I was not aware then
+that a "_sebaa_" was a lion, and I went to sleep again. The next day, in
+traversing the forest, the arrangement of the caravan was changed. It
+was grouped in the smallest space possible; one Kabyl was at the head,
+his gun ready for service; another was in the rear, in the same
+position. I inquired of the owner of the mule the cause of these unusual
+precautions. He answered me, that they were dreading an attack from a
+"_sebaa_" and that if this should occur, one of us would be carried off
+without having time to put himself on the defensive. "I would rather be
+a spectator," I said to him, "than an actor in the scene you describe;
+consequently, I will give you two piastres more if you will keep your
+mule always in the centre of the moving group." My proposal was
+accepted. It was then for the first time that I saw that my Arab carried
+a yatagan under his tunic, which he used for pricking on the mule the
+whole time that we were in the thicket. Superfluous cautions! The
+"_sebaa_" did not show himself.
+
+Each village being a little republic, whose territory we could not cross
+without obtaining permission and a passport from the Mahomedan priest
+_president_, the priest who conducted our caravan used to leave us in
+the fields, and went sometimes a good way off to a village to solicit
+the permission without which it would have been dangerous to continue
+our route. He remained entire hours without returning to us, and we then
+had occasion to reflect sadly on the imprudence of our enterprise. We
+generally slept amongst habitations. Once, we found the streets of a
+village barricaded, because they were fearing an attack from a
+neighbouring village. The foremost man of our caravan removed the
+obstacles; but a woman came out of her house like a fury, and belaboured
+us with blows from a pole. We remarked that she was fair, of brilliant
+whiteness, and very pretty.
+
+Another time we lay down in a lurking-place dignified by the beautiful
+name of caravansary. In the morning, when the sun rose, cries of
+"_Roumi! Roumi!_" warned us that we had been discovered. The sailor,
+Mehemet, he who figured in the scene of the oath at Palamos, entered in
+a melancholy mood the enclosure where we were together, and made us
+understand that the cries of "Roumi!" vociferated under these
+circumstances, were equivalent to a sentence of death. "Wait," said he;
+"a means of saving you has occurred to me." Mehemet entered some moments
+afterwards, told us that his means had succeeded, and invited me to join
+the Kabyls, who were going to say prayers.
+
+I accordingly went out, and prostrated myself towards the East. I
+imitated minutely the gestures which I saw made around me, pronouncing
+the sacred words,--_La elah il Allah! oua Mahommed racoul Allah!_ It was
+the scene of Mamamouchi of the "Bourgeois Gentilhomme," which I had so
+often seen acted by Dugazon,--with this one difference, that this time
+it did not make me laugh. I was, however, ignorant of the consequences
+it might have brought upon me on my arrival at Algiers. After having
+made the profession of faith before Mahomedans--_There is but one God,
+and Mahomet is his prophet_, if I had been informed against to the
+mufti, I must inevitably have become Mussulman, and they would not have
+allowed me to go out of the Regency.
+
+I must not forget to relate by what means Mehemet had saved us from
+inevitable death. "You have guessed rightly," said he to the Kabyls;
+"there are two Christians in the caravansary, but they are Mahomedans at
+heart, and are going to Algiers to be adopted by the mufti into our holy
+religion. You will not doubt this when I tell you that I was myself a
+slave to some Christians, and that they redeemed me with their money."
+
+"In cha Allah!" they exclaimed with one voice. And it was then that the
+scene took place which I have just described.
+
+We arrived in sight of Algiers the 25th December, 1808. We took leave of
+the Arab owners of our mules, who walked on foot by the side of us, and
+we spurred them on, in order to reach the town before the closing of the
+gates. On our arrival, we learnt that the Dey, to whom we owed our first
+deliverance, had been beheaded. The guard of the palace before which we
+passed, stopped us and questioned us as to whence we came. We replied
+that we came from Bougie by land. "It is not possible!" exclaimed all
+the janissaries at once; "the Dey himself would not venture to undertake
+such a journey!" "We acknowledge that we have committed a great
+imprudence; that we would not undertake to recommence the journey for
+millions; but the fact that we have just declared is the strict truth."
+
+Arrived at the consular house, we were, as on the first occasion, very
+cordially welcomed. We received a visit from a dragoman sent by the Dey,
+who asked whether we persisted in maintaining that Bougie had been our
+point of departure, and not Cape Matifou, or some neighbouring port. We
+again affirmed the truth of our recital; it was confirmed, the next day,
+on the arrival of the proprietors of our mules.
+
+At Palamos, during the various interviews which I had with the dowager
+Duchess of Orleans, one circumstance had particularly affected me. The
+Princess spoke to me unceasingly of the wish she had to go and rejoin
+one of her sons, whom she believed to be alive, but of whose death I had
+been informed by a person belonging to her household. Hence I was
+anxious to do all that lay in my power to mitigate a sorrow which she
+must experience before long.
+
+At the moment when I quitted Spain for Marseilles, the Duchess confided
+to me two letters which I was to forward in safety to their addresses.
+One was destined for the Empress-mother of Russia, the other for the
+Empress of Austria.
+
+Scarcely had I arrived at Algiers, when I mentioned these two letters to
+M. Dubois Thainville, and begged him to send them to France by the first
+opportunity. "I shall do nothing of the sort," he at once answered me.
+"Do you know that you have behaved in this affair like a young
+inexperienced man, or, to speak out, like a blunderer? I am surprised
+that you did not comprehend that the Emperor, with his pettish spirit,
+might take this much amiss, and consider you, according to the contents
+of the two letters, as the promoter of an intrigue in favour of the
+exiled family of the Bourbons." Thus the paternal advice of the French
+Consul taught me that in all that regards politics, however nearly or
+remotely, one cannot give himself up without danger to the dictates of
+the heart and the reason.
+
+I enclosed my two letters in an envelope bearing the address of a
+trustworthy person, and gave them into the hands of a corsair, who,
+after touching at Algiers, would proceed to France. I have never known
+whether they reached their destination.
+
+The reigning Dey, successor to the beheaded Dey, had formerly filled the
+humble office of "_epileur_"[5] of dead bodies in the mosques. He
+governed the Regency with much gentleness, occupying himself with
+little but his harem. This disgusted those who had raised him to this
+eminent post, and they resolved upon getting rid of him. We became aware
+of the danger which menaced him, by seeing the courts and vestibules of
+the consular house full, according to the custom under such
+circumstances, of Jews, carrying with them whatever they had of most
+value. It was a rule at Algiers, that all that happened in the interval
+comprised between the death of a Dey and the installation of his
+successor, could not be followed up by justice, and must remain
+unpunished. One can imagine, then, why the children of Moses should seek
+safety in the consular houses, the European inhabitants of which had the
+courage to arm themselves for self-defence as soon as the danger was
+apparent, and who, moreover, had a janissary to guard them.
+
+Whilst the unfortunate Dey "epileur" was being conducted towards the
+place where he was to be strangled, he heard the cannon which announced
+his death and the installation of his successor. "They are in great
+haste," said he; "what will you gain by carrying matters to extremities?
+Send me to the Levant; I promise you never to return. What have you to
+reproach me with?" "With nothing," answered his escort, "but your
+insignificance. However, a man cannot live as a mere private man, after
+having been Dey of Algiers." And the unfortunate man perished by the
+rope.
+
+The communication by sea between Bougie and Algiers was not so
+difficult, even with the "_sandalas_," as the Caid of the former town
+wished to assure me. Captain Spiro had the cases landed, which belonged
+to me. The Caid sought to discover what they contained; and, having
+perceived through a chink something yellowish, he hastened to send the
+news to the Dey, that the Frenchmen who had come to Algiers by land had
+among their baggage cases filled with zechins, destined to revolutionize
+the Kabylie. They immediately had these cases forwarded to Algiers, and
+at their opening, before the Minister of Naval Affairs, all the
+phantasmagoria of zechins, of treasure, of revolution, disappeared at
+the sight of the stands and the limbs of several repeating circles in
+copper.
+
+We are now going to sojourn several months in Algiers. I will take
+advantage of this to put together some details of manners which may be
+interesting as the picture of a state of things anterior to that of the
+occupation of the Regency by the French. This occupation, it must be
+remarked, has already fundamentally altered the manners and the habits
+of the Algerine population.
+
+I am about to report a curious fact, and one which shows that politics,
+which insinuate themselves and bring discord into the bosom of the most
+united families, had succeeded, strange to say, in penetrating as far as
+the galley-slaves' prison at Algiers. The slaves belonged to three
+nations: there were in 1809 in this prison, Portuguese, Neapolitans, and
+Sicilians; among these two latter classes were counted partisans of
+Murat and those of Ferdinand of Naples. One day, at the beginning of the
+year, a dragoman came in the name of the Dey to beg M. Dubois Thainville
+to go without delay to the prison, where the friends of the French and
+their adversaries had involved themselves in a furious combat; and
+already several had fallen. The weapon with which they struck each other
+was the heavy long chain attached to their legs.
+
+Each Consul, as I said above, had a janissary placed with him as his
+guard; the one belonging to the French Consul was a Candiote; he had
+been surnamed _the Terror_. Whenever some news unfavourable to France
+was announced in the cafes, he came to the Consulate to inform himself
+as to the reality of the fact; and when we told him that the other
+janissaries had propagated false news, he returned to them, and there,
+yatagan in hand, he declared himself ready to enter the lists in combat
+against those who should still maintain the truth of the news. As these
+continual threats might endanger him, (for they had no support beyond
+his mere animal courage,) we had wished to render him expert in the
+handling of arms by giving him some lessons in fencing; but he could not
+endure the idea that Christians should touch him at every turn with
+foils; he therefore proposed to substitute for the simulated duel a real
+combat with the yatagan.
+
+One may gain an exact idea of this savage nature when I mention that,
+having one day heard a pistol-shot, the sound of which proceeded from
+his room, people ran, and found him bathed in his blood; he had just
+shot off a ball into his arm to cure himself of a rheumatic pain.
+
+Seeing with what facility the Deys disappeared, I said one day to our
+janissary, "With this prospect before your eyes, would you consent to
+become Dey?" "Yes, doubtless," answered he. "You seem to count as
+nothing the pleasure of doing all that one likes, if only even for a
+single day!"
+
+When we wished to take a turn in the town of Algiers, we generally took
+care to be escorted by the janissary attached to the consular house; it
+was the only means of escaping insults, affronts, and even acts of
+violence. I have just said it was the only means. I made a mistake;
+there was one other; that was, to go in the company of a French
+"lazarist" of seventy years of age, and whose name, if my memory serves
+me, was Father Joshua; he had lived in this country for half a century.
+This man, of exemplary virtue, had devoted himself with admirable
+self-denial to the service of the slaves of the Regency, and had
+divested himself of all considerations of nationality;--the Portuguese,
+Neapolitans, Sicilians, all were equally his brethren.
+
+In the times of plague he was seen day and night carrying eager help to
+the Mussulmans; thus, his virtue had conquered even religious hatreds;
+and wherever he passed, he and the persons who might accompany him
+received from multitudes of the people, from the janissaries, and even
+from the officials of the mosques, the most respectful salutations.
+
+During our long hours of sailing on board the Algerine vessel, and our
+compulsory stay in the prisons at Rosas, and on the hulk at Palamos, I
+gathered some ideas as to the interior life of the Moors or the
+Coulouglous, which, even now when Algiers has fallen under the dominion
+of France, would perhaps be yet worth preserving. I shall, however,
+confine myself to recounting, nearly word for word, a conversation which
+I had with Rais Braham, whose father was a "_Turc fin_," that is to say,
+a Turk born in the Levant.
+
+"How is it that you consent," said I to him, "to marry a young girl whom
+you have never seen, and find in her, perhaps, an excessively ugly
+woman, instead of the beauty whom you had fancied to yourself?"
+
+"We never marry without having obtained information from the women who
+serve in the capacity of servants at the public baths. The Jewesses are
+moreover, in these cases, very useful go-betweens."
+
+"How many legitimate wives have you?"
+
+"I have four, that is to say, the number authorized by the Koran."
+
+"Do they live together on a good understanding?"
+
+"Ah, sir, my house is a hell. I never enter it without finding them at
+the step of the door, or at the bottom of the stairs; then, each wants
+to be the first to make me listen to the complaints which she has to
+bring against her companions. I am about to utter blasphemy, but I think
+that our holy religion ought to prohibit a plurality of wives to those
+who are not rich enough to give to each a separate habitation."
+
+"But since the Koran allows you to repudiate even legitimate wives, why
+do you not send back three of them to their parents?"
+
+"Why? because that would ruin me. On the day of the marriage the father
+of the young woman to be married stipulates for a dowry, and the half of
+it is paid. The other half may be exacted the day that the woman is
+repudiated. It would then be three half dowries that I should have to
+pay if I sent back three of my wives. I ought, however, to rectify one
+inaccuracy in what I said just now, that my four wives had never agreed
+together. Once, they were agreed among themselves in the feeling of a
+common hatred. In going through the market I had bought a young negress.
+In the evening, when I retired to rest, I perceived that my wives had
+prepared no bed for her, and that the unfortunate girl was extended on
+the ground. I rolled up my trowsers and laid them under her head as a
+kind of pillow. In the morning the distracting cries of the poor slave
+made me run to her, and I found her nearly sinking under the blows of my
+four wives; for once they understood each other marvellously well."
+
+In February, 1809, the new Dey, the successor of the "epileur," a short
+time after having entered on his functions, claimed from two to three
+hundred thousand francs,--I do not remember exactly the sum,--which he
+pretended was due to him from the French Government. M. Dubois
+Thainville answered that he had received the Emperor's orders not to pay
+one centime.
+
+The Dey was furious, and decided upon declaring war against us. A
+declaration of war at Algiers used to be immediately followed by putting
+all the persons of other nations into prison. This time matters were not
+pushed to this extreme limit. Our names might be figuring on the list of
+the slaves of the Regency; but in fact, so far as I was concerned, I
+remained free in the consular house. By means of a pecuniary guarantee,
+contracted with the Swedish Consul, M. Norderling, I was even permitted
+to live at his country house, situated near the Emperor's fort.
+
+The most insignificant event was sufficient to modify the ideas of these
+barbarians. I had come into the town one day, and was seated at table at
+M. Dubois Thainville's, when the English Consul, Mr. Blankley, arrived
+in great haste, announcing to our Consul the entrance into the port of a
+French prize. "I never will uselessly add," said he, generously, "to the
+severities of war; I came to announce to you, my colleague, that I will
+give up your prisoners on a receipt which will insure me the deliverance
+of an equal number of Englishmen detained in France." "I thank you,"
+answered M. Dubois Thainville; "but I do not the less deplore this event
+that it will retard, indefinitely, perhaps, the settlement of the
+account in which I am engaged with the Dey."
+
+During this conversation, armed with a telescope, I was looking through
+the window of the dining-room, trying to persuade myself at least that
+the captured vessel was not one of much importance. But one must yield
+to evidence. It was pierced for a great number of guns. All at once, the
+wind having displayed the flags, I perceived with surprise the French
+flag over the English flag. I communicated what I observed to Mr.
+Blankley. He answered immediately, "You do not surely pretend to observe
+better with your bad telescope than I did with my _Dollond_?"
+
+"And you cannot pretend," said I to him in _my_ turn, "to see better
+than an astronomer by profession? I am sure of my fact. I beg M.
+Thainville's permission, and will go this instant to visit this
+mysterious prize."
+
+In short, I went there; and this is what I learnt:--
+
+General Duhesme, Governor of Barcelona, wishing to rid himself of the
+most ill-disciplined portion of his garrison, formed the principal part
+into the crew of a vessel, the command of which he gave to a lieutenant
+of Babastre, a celebrated corsair of the Mediterranean.
+
+There were amongst these improvised seamen a hussar, a dragoon, two
+veterans, a miner with his long beard, &c. &c. The vessel, leaving
+Barcelona by night, escaped the English cruiser, and got to the entrance
+of Port Mahon. An English "lettre de marque" was coming out of the port.
+The crew of the French vessel boarded her; and a furious combat on the
+deck ensued, in which the French got the upper hand. It was this "lettre
+de marque" which had now arrived at Algiers.
+
+Invested with full power by M. Dubois Thainville, I announced to the
+prisoners that they were about to be immediately given up to their
+Consul. I respected even the trick of the captain, who, wounded by
+several sabre-cuts, had contrived to cover up his head with his
+principal flag. I re-assured his wife; but my chief care was especially
+devoted to a passenger whom I saw with one arm amputated.
+
+"Where is the surgeon," I said to him, "who operated on you?"
+
+"It was not our surgeon," he answered. "He basely fled with a part of
+the crew, and saved himself on land."
+
+"Who, then, cut off your arm?"
+
+"It was the hussar whom you see here."
+
+"Unhappy man!" I exclaimed; "what could lead you, when it was not your
+profession, to perform this operation?"
+
+"The pressing request of the wounded man. His arm had already swollen to
+an enormous size. He wanted some one to cut it off for him with a blow
+of a hatchet. I told him that in Egypt, when I was in hospital, I had
+seen several amputations made; that I would imitate what I had seen, and
+might perhaps succeed. That at any rate it would be better than the blow
+of a hatchet. All was agreed; I armed myself with the carpenter's saw;
+and the operation was done."
+
+I went off immediately to the American consul, to claim the assistance
+of the only surgeon worthy of confidence who was then in Algiers. M.
+Triplet--I think I recollect that that was the name of the man of the
+distinguished art whose aid I invoked--came at once on board the vessel,
+examined the dressing of the wound, and declared, to my very lively
+satisfaction, that all was going on well, and that the Englishman would
+survive his horrible injury.
+
+The same day we had the wounded men carried on litters to Mr. Blankley's
+house; this operation, executed with somewhat of ceremony, modified,
+though slightly, the feelings of the Dey in our favour, and his
+sentiments became yet more favourable towards us in consequence of
+another maritime occurrence, although a very insignificant one.
+
+One day a corvette was seen in the horizon armed with a very great
+number of guns, and shaping her way towards the port of Algiers; there
+appeared immediately after an English brig of war, in full sail; a
+combat was therefore expected, and all the terraces of the town were
+covered with spectators; the brig appeared to be the best sailer, and
+seemed to us likely to reach the corvette, but the latter tacked about,
+and seemed desirous to engage in battle; the English vessel fled before
+her; the corvette tacked about a second time, and again directed her
+course towards Algiers, where, one would have supposed, she had some
+special mission to execute. The brig, in her turn now changed her
+course, but held herself constantly beyond the reach of shot from the
+corvette; at last the two vessels arrived in succession in the port, and
+cast anchor, to the lively disappointment of the Algerine population,
+who had hoped to be present without danger at a maritime combat between
+the "Christian dogs," belonging to two nations equally detested in a
+religious point of view; but shouts of laughter could not be repressed
+when it was seen that the corvette was a merchant vessel, and that she
+was only armed with wooden imitations of cannon. It was said in the town
+that the English sailors were furious, and had been on the point of
+mutiny against their too prudent captain.
+
+I have very little to tell in favour of the Algerines; hence I must do
+an act of justice by mentioning, that the corvette departed the next day
+for the Antilles, her destination, and that the brig was not permitted
+to set sail until the next day but one.
+
+Bakri often came to the French Consulate to talk of our affairs with M.
+Dubois Thainville: "What can you want?" said the latter, "you are an
+Algerine; you will be the first victim of the Dey's obstinacy. I have
+already written to Livorno that your families and your goods are to be
+seized. When the vessels laden with cotton, which you have in this port,
+arrive at Marseilles, they will be immediately confiscated; it is for
+you to judge whether it would not better suit you to pay the sum which
+the Dey claims, than to expose yourself to tenfold and certain loss."
+
+Such reasoning was unanswerable; and whatever it might cost him, Bakri
+decided on paying the sum that was demanded of France.
+
+Permission to depart was immediately granted to us; I embarked the 21st
+of June, 1809, on board a vessel in which M. Dubois Thainville and his
+family were passengers.
+
+The evening before our departure from Algiers, a corsair deposited at
+the consul's the Majorcan mail, which he had taken from a vessel which
+he had captured. It was a complete collection of the letters which the
+inhabitants of the Baleares had been writing to their friends on the
+Continent.
+
+"Look here," said M. Dubois Thainville to me, "here is something to
+amuse you during the voyage,--you who generally keep your room from
+sea-sickness,--break the seals and read all these letters, and see
+whether they contain any accounts by which we might profit how to aid
+the unhappy soldiers who are dying of misery and despair in the little
+island of Cabrera."
+
+Scarcely had we arrived on board the vessel, when I set myself to the
+work, and acted without scruple or remorse the part of an official of
+the black chamber, with this sole difference, that the letters were
+unsealed without taking any precautions. I found amongst them several
+dispatches, in which Admiral Collingwood signified to the Spanish
+Government the ease with which the prisoners might be delivered.
+Immediately on our arrival at Marseilles these letters were sent to the
+minister of naval affairs, who, I believe, did not pay much attention to
+them.
+
+I knew almost every one at Palma, the capital of Majorca. I leave it to
+be imagined with what curiosity I read the missives in which the
+beautiful ladies of the town expressed their hatred against _los
+malditos cavachios_, (French,) whose presence in Spain had rendered
+necessary the departure for the Continent of a magnificent regiment of
+hussars; how many persons might I not have embroiled, if under a mask I
+had found myself with them at the opera ball!
+
+Many of the letters made mention of me, and were particularly
+interesting to me; I was sure in this instance there was nothing to
+constrain the frankness of those who had written them. It is an
+advantage which few people can boast having enjoyed to the same degree.
+
+The vessel in which I was, although laden with bales of cotton, had some
+corsair papers of the Regency, and was the reputed escort of three
+richly laden merchant vessels which were going to France.
+
+We were off Marseilles on the 1st of July, when an English frigate came
+to stop our passage: "I will not take you," said the English captain;
+"but you will go towards the Hyeres Islands, and Admiral Collingwood
+will decide on your fate."
+
+"I have received," answered the Barbary captain, "an express commission
+to conduct these vessels to Marseilles, and I will execute it."
+
+"You, individually, can do what may seem to you best," answered the
+Englishman; "as to the merchant vessels under your escort, they will be,
+I repeat to you, taken to Admiral Collingwood." And he immediately gave
+orders to those vessels to set sail to the East.
+
+The frigate had already gone a little distance when she perceived that
+we were steering towards Marseilles. Having then learnt from the crews
+of the merchant vessels that we were ourselves laden with cotton, she
+tacked about to seize us.
+
+She was very near reaching us, when we were enabled to enter the port of
+the little island of Pomegue. In the night she put her boats to sea to
+try to carry us off; but the enterprise was too perilous, and she did
+not dare attempt it.
+
+The next morning, 2d of July, 1809, I disembarked at the lazaretto.
+
+At the present day they go from Algiers to Marseilles in four days; it
+had taken me eleven months to make the same voyage. It is true that here
+and there I had made involuntary sojourns.
+
+My letters sent from the lazaretto at Marseilles were considered by my
+relatives and friends as certificates of resurrection, they having for a
+long time past supposed me dead. A great geometer had even proposed to
+the Bureau of Longitude no longer to pay my allowance to my authorized
+representative; which appears the more cruel inasmuch as this
+representative was my father.
+
+The first letter which I received from Paris was full of sympathy and
+congratulations on the termination of my laborious and perilous
+adventures; it was from a man already in possession of an European
+reputation, but whom I had never seen: M. de Humboldt, after what he had
+heard of my misfortunes, offered me his friendship. Such was the first
+origin of a connection which dates from nearly forty-two years back,
+without a single cloud ever paving troubled it.
+
+M. Dubois Thainville had numerous acquaintances in Marseilles; his wife
+was a native of that town, and her family resided there. They received,
+therefore, both of them, numerous visits in the parlour of the
+lazaretto. The bell which summoned them, for me alone was dumb; and I
+remained as solitary and forsaken, at the gates of a town peopled with a
+hundred thousand of my countrymen, as if I had been in the heart of
+Africa. One day, however, the parlour-bell rang three times (the number
+of times corresponding to the number of my room); I thought it must be a
+mistake. I did not, however, allow this to appear. I traversed proudly
+under the escort of my guard of health the long space which separates
+the lazaretto, properly so called, from the parlour; and there I found,
+with very lively satisfaction, M. Pons, the director of the Observatory
+at Marseilles, and the most celebrated discoverer of comets of whom the
+annals of Astronomy have ever had to register the success.
+
+At any time a visit from the excellent M. Pons, whom I have since seen
+director of the Observatory at Florence, would have been very agreeable
+to me; but, during my quarantine, I felt it unappreciably valuable. It
+proved to me that I had returned to my native soil.
+
+Two or three days before our admission to freedom, we experienced a loss
+which was deeply felt by each of us. To pass away the heavy time of a
+severe quarantine, the little Algerine colony was in the habit of going
+to an enclosure near the lazaretto, where a very beautiful gazelle,
+belonging to M. Dubois Thainville, was confined; she bounded about there
+in full liberty with a grace which excited our admiration. One of us
+endeavoured to stop this elegant animal in her course; he seized her
+unluckily by the leg, and broke it. We all ran, but only, alas! to
+witness a scene which excited the deepest emotion in us.
+
+The gazelle, lying on her side, raised her head sadly; her beautiful
+eyes (the eyes of a gazelle!) shed torrents of tears; no cry of
+complaint escaped her mouth; she produced that effect upon us which is
+always felt when a person who is suddenly struck by an irreparable
+misfortune, resigns himself to it, and shows his profound anguish only
+by silent tears.
+
+Having ended my quarantine, I went at once to Perpignan, to the bosom of
+my family, where my mother, the most excellent and pious of women,
+caused numerous masses to be said to celebrate my return, as she had
+done before to pray for the repose of my soul, when she thought that I
+had fallen under the daggers of the Spaniards. But I soon quitted my
+native town to return to Paris; and I deposited at the Bureau of
+Longitude and the Academy of Sciences my observations, which I had
+succeeded in preserving amidst the perils and tribulations of my long
+campaign.
+
+A few days after my arrival, on the 18th of September, 1809, I was
+nominated an academician in the place of Lalande. There were fifty-two
+voters; I obtained forty-seven voices, M. Poisson four, and M. Nouet
+one. I was then twenty-three years of age.
+
+A nomination made with such a majority would appear, at first sight, as
+if it could give rise to no serious difficulties; but it proved
+otherwise. The intervention of M. de Laplace, before the day of ballot,
+was active and incessant to have my admission postponed until the time
+when a vacancy, occurring in the geometry section, might enable the
+learned assembly to nominate M. Poisson at the same time as me. The
+author of the _Mecanique Celeste_ had vowed to the young geometer an
+unbounded attachment, completely justified, certainly, by the beautiful
+researches which science already owed to him. M. de Laplace could not
+support the idea that a young astronomer, younger by five years than M.
+Poisson, a pupil, in the presence of his professor at the Polytechnic
+School, should become an academician before him. He proposed to me,
+therefore, to write to the Academy that I would not stand for election
+until there should be a second place to give to Poisson. I answered by a
+formal refusal, and giving my reasons in these terms: "I care little to
+be nominated at this moment. I have decided upon leaving shortly with M.
+de Humboldt for Thibet. In those savage regions the title of member of
+the Institute will not smooth the difficulties which we shall have to
+encounter. But I would not be guilty of any rudeness towards the
+Academy. If they were to receive the declaration for which I am asked,
+would not the savans who compose this illustrious body have a right to
+say to me: 'How are you certain that we have thought of you? You refuse
+what has not yet been offered to you.'"
+
+On seeing my firm resolution not to lend myself to the inconsiderate
+course which he had advised me to follow, M. de Laplace went to work in
+another way; he maintained that I had not sufficient distinction for
+admission into the Academy. I do not pretend that, at the age of
+three-and-twenty, my scientific attainments were very considerable, if
+estimated in an _absolute_ manner; but when I judged by _comparison_, I
+regained courage, especially on considering that the three last years of
+my life had been consecrated to the measurement of an arc of the
+meridian in a foreign country; that they were passed amid the storms of
+the war with Spain; often enough in dungeons, or, what was yet worse, in
+the mountains of Kabylia, and at Algiers, at that time a very dangerous
+residence.
+
+Here is, therefore, my statement of accounts for that epoch. I make it
+over to the impartial appreciation of the reader.
+
+On leaving the Polytechnic School, I had made, in conjunction with M.
+Biot, an extensive and very minute research on the determination of the
+coefficient of the tables of atmospheric refraction.
+
+We had also measured the refraction of different gases, which, up to
+that time, had not been attempted.
+
+A determination, more exact than had been previously obtained, of the
+relation of the weight of air to the weight of mercury, had furnished a
+direct value of the coefficient of the barometrical formula which served
+for the calculation of the heights.
+
+I had contributed, in a regular and very assiduous manner, during nearly
+two years, to the observations which were made day and night with the
+transit telescope and with the mural quadrant at the Paris Observatory.
+
+I had undertaken, in conjunction with M. Bouvard, the observations
+relating to the verification of the laws of the moon's libration. All
+the calculations were prepared; it only remained for me to put the
+numbers into the formulae, when I was, by order of the Bureau of
+Longitude, obliged to leave Paris for Spain. I had observed various
+comets, and calculated their orbits. I had, in concert with M. Bouvard,
+calculated, according to Laplace's formula, the table of refraction
+which has been published in the _Recueil des Tables_ of the Bureau of
+Longitude, and in the _Connaissance des Temps_. A research on the
+velocity of light, made with a prism placed before the object end of the
+telescope of the mural circle, had proved that the same tables of
+refraction might serve for the sun and all the stars.
+
+Finally, I had just terminated, under very difficult circumstances, the
+grandest triangulation which had ever been achieved, to prolong the
+meridian line from France as far as the island of Formentera.
+
+M. de Laplace, without denying the importance and utility of these
+labours and these researches, saw in them nothing more than indications
+of promise; M. Lagrange then said to him explicitly:--
+
+"Even you, M. de Laplace, when you entered the Academy, had done nothing
+brilliant; you only gave promise. Your grand discoveries did not come
+till afterwards."
+
+Lagrange was the only man in Europe who could with authority address
+such an observation to him.
+
+M. de Laplace did not reply upon the ground of the personal question,
+but he added,--"I maintain that it is useful to young savans to hold out
+the position of member of the Institute as a future recompense, to
+excite their zeal."
+
+"You resemble," replied M. Halle, "the driver of the hackney coach, who,
+to excite his horses to a gallop, tied a bundle of hay at the end of his
+carriage pole; the poor horses redoubled their efforts, and the bundle
+of hay always flew on before them. After all, his plan made them fall
+off, and soon after brought on their death."
+
+Delambre, Legendre, Biot, insisted on the devotion, and what they termed
+the courage, with which I had combated arduous difficulties, whether in
+carrying on the observations, or in saving the instruments and the
+results already obtained. They drew an animated picture of the dangers I
+had undergone. M. de Laplace ended by yielding when he saw that all the
+most eminent men of the Academy had taken me under their patronage, and
+on the day of the election he gave me his vote. It would be, I must own,
+a subject of regret with me even to this day, after a lapse of forty-two
+years, if I had become member of the Institute without having obtained
+the vote of the author of the _Mecanique Celeste_.
+
+The Members of the Institute were always presented to the Emperor after
+he had confirmed their nominations. On the appointed day, in company
+with the presidents, with the secretaries of the four classes, and with
+the academicians who had special publications to offer to the Chief of
+the State, they assembled in one of the saloons of the Tuileries. When
+the Emperor returned from mass, he held a kind of review of these
+savans, these artists, these literary men, in green uniform.
+
+I must own that the spectacle which I witnessed on the day of my
+presentation did not edify me. I even experienced real displeasure in
+seeing the anxiety evinced by members of the Institute to be noticed.
+
+"You are very young," said Napoleon to me on coming near me; and without
+waiting for a flattering reply, which it would not have been difficult
+to find, he added,--"What is your name?" And my neighbour on the right,
+not leaving me time to answer the simple enough question just addressed
+to me, hastened to say,--
+
+"_His_ name is Arago?"
+
+"What science do you cultivate?"
+
+My neighbour on the left immediately replied,--
+
+"_He_ cultivates astronomy."
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+My neighbour on the right, jealous of my left hand neighbour for having
+encroached on his rights at the second question, now hastened to reply,
+and said,--
+
+"_He_ has just been measuring the line of the meridian in Spain."
+
+The Emperor imagining doubtless that he had before him either a dumb man
+or an imbecile, passed on to another member of the Institute. This one
+was not a novice, but a naturalist well known through his beautiful and
+important discoveries; it was M. Lamarck. The old man presented a book
+to Napoleon.
+
+"What is that?" said the latter, "it is your absurd _meteorology_, in
+which you rival Matthieu Laensberg. It is this 'annuaire' which
+dishonours your old age. Do something in Natural History, and I should
+receive your productions with pleasure. As to this volume, I only take
+it in consideration of your white hair. Here!" And he passed the book to
+an aide-de-camp.
+
+Poor M. Lamarck, who, at the end of each sharp and insulting sentence of
+the Emperor, tried in vain to say, "It is a work on Natural History
+which I present to you," was weak enough to fall into tears.
+
+The Emperor immediately afterwards met with a more energetic antagonist
+in the person of M. Lanjuinais. The latter had advanced, book in hand.
+Napoleon said to him, sneeringly:--
+
+"The entire Senate, then, is to merge in the Institute?" "Sire,"
+replied Lanjuinais, "it is the body of the state to which most time is
+left for occupying itself with literature."
+
+The Emperor, displeased at this answer, at once quitted the civil
+uniforms, and busied himself among the great epaulettes which filled the
+room.
+
+Immediately after my nomination, I was exposed to strange annoyances on
+the part of the military authorities. I had left for Spain, still
+holding the title of pupil of the Polytechnic School. My name could not
+remain on the books more than four years; consequently I had been
+enjoined to return to France to go through the examinations necessary on
+quitting the school. But in the meantime Lalande died, and thus a place
+in the Bureau of Longitude became vacant. I was named assistant
+astronomer. These places were submitted to the nomination of the
+Emperor. M. Lacuee, Director of the Conscription, thought that, through
+this latter circumstance, the law would be satisfied, and I was
+authorized to continue my operations.
+
+M. Matthieu Dumas, who succeeded him, looked at the question from an
+entirely different point of view; he enjoined me either to furnish a
+substitute, or else to set off myself with the contingent of the twelfth
+arrondissement of Paris.
+
+All my remonstrances and those of my friends having been fruitless, I
+announced to the honourable General that I should present myself in the
+Place de l'Estrapade, whence the conscripts had to depart, in the
+costume of a member of the Institute; and that thus I should march on
+foot through the city of Paris. General Matthieu Dumas was alarmed at
+the effect which this scene would produce on the Emperor, himself a
+member of the Institute, and hastened, under fear of my threat, to
+confirm the decision of General Lacuee.
+
+In the year 1809, I was chosen by the "conseil du perfectionnement" of
+the Polytechnic School, to succeed M. Monge, in his chair of Analysis
+applied to Geometry. The circumstances attending that nomination have
+remained a secret; I seize the first opportunity which offers itself to
+me to make them known.
+
+M. Monge took the trouble to come to me one day, at the Observatory, to
+ask me to succeed him. I declined this honour, because of a proposed
+journey which I was going to make into Central Asia with M. de Humboldt.
+"You will certainly not set off for some months to come," said the
+illustrious geometer; "you could, therefore, take my place temporarily."
+"Your proposal," I replied, "flatters me infinitely; but I do not know
+whether I ought to accept it. I have never read your great work on
+partial differential equations; I do not, therefore, feel certain that I
+should be competent to give lessons to the pupils of the Polytechnic
+School on such a difficult theory." "Try," said he, "and you will find
+that that theory is clearer than it is generally supposed to be."
+Accordingly, I did try; and M. Monge's opinion appeared to me to be well
+founded.
+
+The public could not comprehend, at that time, how it was that the
+benevolent M. Monge obstinately refused to confide the delivery of his
+course to M. Binet, (a private teacher under him,) whose zeal was well
+known. It is this motive which I am going to reveal.
+
+There was then in the "Bois de Boulogne" a residence named the _Grey
+House_, where there assembled round M. Coessin, the high-priest of a new
+religion, a number of adepts, such as Lesueur, the musician, Colin,
+private teacher of chemistry at the school, M. Binet, &c. A report from
+the prefect of police had signified to the Emperor that the frequenters
+of the Grey House were connected with the Society of Jesuits. The
+Emperor was uneasy and irritated at this. "Well," said he to M. Monge,
+"there are your dear pupils become disciples of Loyola!" And on Monge's
+denial, "You deny it," answered the Emperor; "well, then, know that the
+private teacher of your course is in that clique." Every one can
+understand that after such a remark, Monge could not consent to being
+succeeded by M. Binet.
+
+Having entered the academy, young, ardent, and impassioned, I took much
+greater part in the nominations than may have been suitable for my
+position and my time of life. Arrived at an epoch of life whence I
+examine retrospectively all my actions with calmness and impartiality, I
+can render this amount of justice to myself, that, excepting in three or
+four instances, my vote and interest were always in favour of the most
+deserving candidate, and more than once I succeeded in preventing the
+Academy from making a deplorable choice. Who could blame me for having
+maintained with energy the election of Malus, considering that his
+competitor, M. Girard, unknown as a physicist, obtained twenty-two votes
+out of fifty-three, and that an addition of five votes would have given
+him the victory over the savant who had just discovered the phenomenon
+of polarization by reflection, over the savant whom Europe would have
+named by acclamation? The same remarks are applicable to the nomination
+of Poisson, who would have failed against this same M. Girard if four
+votes had been otherwise given. Does not this suffice to justify the
+unusual ardour of my conduct? Although in a third trial the majority of
+the Academy was decided in favour of the same engineer, I cannot regret
+that I supported up to the last moment with conviction and warmth the
+election of his competitor, M. Dulong.
+
+I do not suppose that, in the scientific world, any one will he disposed
+to blame me for having preferred M. Liouville to M. de Pontecoulant.
+
+Sometimes it happened that the Government wished to influence the choice
+of the Academy; with a strong sense of my rights I invariably resisted
+all dictation. Once this resistance acted unfortunately on one of my
+friends--the venerable Legendre; as to myself, I had prepared myself
+beforehand for all the persecutions of which I could be made the object.
+Having received from the Minister of the Interior an invitation to vote
+for M. Binet against M. Navier on the occurrence of a vacant place in
+the section of mechanics, Legendre nobly answered that he would vote
+according to his soul and his conscience. He was immediately deprived of
+a pension which his great age and his long services rendered due to him.
+The _protege_ of the authorities failed; and, at the time, this result
+was attributed to the activity with which I enlightened the members of
+the Academy as to the impropriety of the Minister's proceedings.
+
+On another occasion the King wished the Academy to name Dupuytren, the
+eminent surgeon, but whose character at the time lay under grave
+imputations. Dupuytren was nominated, but several blanks protested
+against the interference of the authorities in academic elections.
+
+I said above that I had saved the Academy from some deplorable choices;
+I will only cite a single instance, on which occasion I had the sorrow
+of finding myself in opposition to M. de Laplace. The illustrious
+geometer wished a vacant place in the astronomical section to be granted
+to M. Nicollet,--a man without talent, and, moreover, suspected of
+misdeeds which reflected on his honour in the most serious degree. At
+the close of a contest, which I maintained undisguisedly,
+notwithstanding the danger which might follow from thus braving the
+powerful protectors of M. Nicollet, the Academy proceeded to the ballot;
+the respected M. Damoiseau, whose election I had supported, obtained
+forty-five votes out of forty-eight. Thus M. Nicollet had collected but
+three.
+
+"I see," said M. de Laplace to me, "that it is useless to struggle
+against young people; I acknowledge that the man who is called the
+_great elector_ of the Academy is more powerful than I am."
+
+"No," replied I; "M. Arago can only succeed in counterbalancing the
+opinion justly preponderating for M. de Laplace, when the right is found
+to be without possible contradiction on his side."
+
+A short time afterwards M. Nicollet had run away to America, and the
+Bureau of Longitude had a warrant passed to expel him ignominiously from
+its bosom.
+
+I would warn those savans, who, having early entered the Academy, might
+be tempted to imitate my example, to expect nothing beyond the
+satisfaction of their conscience. I warn them, with a knowledge of the
+case, that gratitude will almost always be found wanting.
+
+The elected academician, whose merits you have sometimes exalted beyond
+measure, pretends that you have done no more than justice to him; that
+you have only fulfilled a duty, and that he therefore owes you no
+thanks.
+
+Delambre died the 19th August, 1822. After the necessary delay, they
+proceeded to fill his place. The situation of Perpetual Secretary is not
+one which can long be left vacant. The Academy named a commission to
+present it with candidates; it was composed of Messrs. de Laplace,
+Arago, Legendre, Rossel, Prony, and Lacroix. The list presented was
+composed of the names of Messrs. Biot, Fourier, and Arago. It is not
+necessary for me to say with what obstinacy I opposed the inscription of
+my name on this list; I was compelled to give way to the will of my
+colleagues, but I seized the first opportunity of declaring publicly
+that I had neither the expectation nor the wish to obtain a single vote;
+that, moreover, I had on my hands already as much work as I could get
+through; that in this respect M. Biot was in the same position; and
+that, in short, I should vote for the nomination of M. Fourier.
+
+It was supposed, but I dare not flatter myself that it was the fact,
+that my declaration exercised a certain influence on the result of the
+ballot. The result was as follows: M. Fourier received thirty-eight
+votes, and M. Biot ten. In a case of this nature each man carefully
+conceals his vote, in order not to run the risk of future disagreement
+with him who may be invested with the authority which the Academy gives
+to the perpetual secretary. I do not know whether I shall be pardoned if
+I recount an incident which amused the Academy at the time.
+
+M. de Laplace, at the moment of voting, took two plain pieces of paper;
+his neighbour was guilty of the indiscretion of looking, and saw
+distinctly that the illustrious geometer wrote the name of Fourier on
+both of them. After quietly folding them up, M. de Laplace put the
+papers into his hat, shook it, and said to this same curious neighbour:
+"You see, I have written two papers; I am going to tear up one, I shall
+put the other into the urn; I shall thus be myself ignorant for which of
+the two candidates I have voted."
+
+All went on as the celebrated academician had said; only that every one
+knew with certainty that his vote had been for Fourier; and "the
+calculation of probabilities" was in no way necessary for arriving at
+this result.
+
+After having fulfilled the duties of secretary with much distinction,
+but not without some feebleness and negligence in consequence of his bad
+health, Fourier died the 16th of May, 1830. I declined several times the
+honour which the Academy appeared willing to do me, in naming me to
+succeed him. I believed, without false modesty, that I had not the
+qualities necessary to fill this important place suitably. When
+thirty-nine out of forty-four voters had appointed me, it was quite time
+that I should give in to an opinion so flattering and so plainly
+expressed. On the 7th of June, 1830, I, therefore, became perpetual
+secretary of the Academy for the Mathematical Sciences; but, conformably
+to the plea of an accumulation of offices, which I had used as an
+argument to support, in November, 1822, the election of M. Fournier, I
+declared that I should give in my resignation of the Professorship in
+the Polytechnic School. Neither the solicitations of Marshal Soult, the
+Minister of War, nor those of the most eminent members of the Academy,
+could avail in persuading me to renounce this resolution.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] With such precocious heroism it is by no means so clear that the
+author might not have had a hand in the revolution, from which he
+endeavours above to exculpate himself.
+
+[2] Mechain, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the Institute, was
+charged in 1792 with the prolongation of the measure of the arc of the
+meridian in Spain as far as Barcelona.
+
+During his operations in the Pyrenees, in 1794, he had known my father,
+who was one of the administrators of the department of the Eastern
+Pyrenees. Later, in 1803, when the question was agitated as to the
+continuation of the measure of the meridian line as far as the Balearic
+Islands, M. Mechain went again to Perpignan, and came to pay my father a
+visit. As I was about setting off to undergo the examination for
+admission at the Polytechnic School, my father ventured to ask him
+whether he could not recommend me to M. Monge. "Willingly," answered he;
+"but, with the frankness which is my characteristic, I ought not to
+leave you unaware that it appears to me improbable that your son, left
+to himself, can have rendered himself completely master of the subjects
+of which the programme consists. If, however, he be admitted, let him be
+destined for the artillery, or for the engineers; the career of the
+sciences, of which you have talked to me, is really too difficult to go
+through, and unless he had a special calling for it, your son would only
+find it deceptive." Anticipating a little the order of dates, let us
+compare this advice with what occurred: I went to Toulouse, underwent
+the examination, and was admitted; one year and a half afterwards I
+filled the situation of secretary at the Observatory, which had become
+vacant by the resignation of M. Mechain's son; one year and a half
+later, that is to say, four years after the Perpignan "horoscope,"
+associated with M. Biot, I filled the place, in Spain, of the celebrated
+academician who had died there, a victim to his labours.
+
+[3] This appears to be an oversight, as in a preceding page M. Arago
+described the fortunate release of Captain Krog from this captivity.
+
+[4] On my return to Paris I hastened to the Jardin des Plantes to pay a
+visit to the lion, but he received me with a very unamiable gnashing of
+the teeth. Think then of the marvellous history of the Florentine lion,
+the subject of so many engravings, which is offered on the stall of
+every printseller to the eyes of the moved and astonished passers-by.
+
+[5] An "_epileur_" is a person who removes superfluous hairs. We have
+been unable to ascertain what office of this kind is performed in
+Mohammedan funerals.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY.
+
+BIOGRAPHY READ AT THE PUBLIC SITTING OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, THE
+26TH OF FEBRUARY, 1844.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+Gentlemen,--The learned man, illustrious in so many ways, whose life I
+am going to relate, was taken from France half a century ago. I hasten
+to make this remark, so as thoroughly to show that I have selected this
+subject without being deterred by complaints which I look upon as unjust
+and inapplicable. The glory of the members of the early Academy of
+Sciences is an inheritance for the present Academy. We must cherish it
+as we would the glory of later days; we must hallow it with the same
+respect, we must devote to it the same worship: the word _prescription_
+would here be synonymous with ingratitude.
+
+If it had happened, Gentlemen, that amongst the academicians who
+preceded us, a man, already illustrious by his labours, and, without
+personal ambition, yet thrown, despite himself, into the midst of a
+terrible revolution, exposed to a thousand unrestrained passions, had
+cruelly disappeared in the political effervescence--oh! then, any
+negligence, any delay in studying the facts would be inexcusable; the
+honourable contemporaries of the victim would soon be no longer there to
+shed the light of their honest and impartial memory on obscure events;
+an existence devoted to the cultivation of reason and of truth would
+come to be appreciated only from documents, on which, for my part, I
+would not blindly draw, until it shall be proved that, in revolutionary
+times, we can trust to the uprightness of parties.
+
+I felt in duty bound, Gentlemen, to give you a sketch of the ideas that
+have led me to present to you a detailed account of the life and labours
+of a member of the early Academy of Sciences. The biographies which will
+soon follow this, will show that the studies I have undertaken
+respecting Carnot, Condorcet, and Bailly, have not prevented me from
+attending seriously to our illustrious contemporaries.
+
+To render them a loyal and truthful homage, is the first duty of the
+secretaries of the Academy, and I will religiously fulfil it; without
+binding myself, however, to observe a strict chronological order, or to
+follow the civil registers step by step.
+
+Eulogies, said an ancient authority, should be deferred until we have
+lost the true measure of the dead. Then we could make giants of them
+without any one opposing us. On the contrary, I am of opinion that
+biographers, especially those of academicians, ought to make all
+possible haste, so that every one may be represented according to his
+true measure, and that well-informed people may have the opportunity of
+rectifying the mistakes which, notwithstanding every care, almost
+inevitably slip into this sort of composition. I regret that our former
+secretaries did not adopt this rule. By deferring from year to year to
+analyze the scientific and political life of Bailly with their scruples,
+and with their usual talents, they allowed time for inconsiderateness,
+prejudice, and passions of every kind, to impregnate our minds with a
+multitude of serious errors, which have added considerably to the
+difficulty of my task. When I was led to form very different opinions
+from those that are found spread through some of the most celebrated
+works, on the events of the great revolution of 1789, in which our
+fellow-academician took an active part, I could not be so conceited as
+to expect to be believed on my own word. To propound my opinions then
+was insufficient; I had also to combat those of the historians with whom
+I differed. This necessity has given to the biography that I am going to
+read an unusual length. I solicit the kind sympathy of the assembly on
+this point. I hope to obtain it, I acknowledge, when I consider that my
+task is to analyze before you the scientific and literary claims of an
+illustrious colleague, to depict the uniformly noble and patriotic
+conduct of the first President of the National Assembly; to follow the
+first Mayor of Paris in all the acts of an administration, the
+difficulties of which appeared to be above human strength; to accompany
+the virtuous magistrate to the very scaffold, to unroll the mournful
+phases of the cruel martyrdom that he was made to undergo; to retrace,
+in a word, some of the greatest, some of the most terrible events of the
+French Revolution.
+
+
+
+
+INFANCY OF BAILLY.--HIS YOUTH.--HIS LITERARY ESSAYS.--HIS MATHEMATICAL
+STUDIES.
+
+John Sylvain Bailly was born at Paris in 1736. His parents were James
+Bailly and Cecilia Guichon.
+
+The father of the future astronomer had charge of the king's pictures.
+This post had continued in the obscure but honest family of Bailly for
+upwards of a century.
+
+Sylvain, while young, never quitted his paternal home. His mother would
+not be separated from him; it was not that she could give him the
+instruction required from masters in childhood, but a tenderness,
+allowed to run to the utmost extreme, entirely blinded her. Bailly then
+formed his own mind, under the eye of his parents. Nothing could be
+better, it seemed, than the boyhood of our brother academician, to
+verify the oft-repeated theory, touching the influence of imitation on
+the development of our faculties. Here, the result, attentively
+examined, would not by a great deal agree with the old hypothesis. I
+know not but, every thing considered, whether it would rather furnish
+powerful weapons to whoever would wish to maintain that, in its early
+habits, childhood rather seeks for contrasts.
+
+James Bailly had an idle and light character; whilst young Sylvain from
+the beginning showed strong reasoning powers, and a passion for study.
+
+The grown man felt in his own element while in noisy gayety.
+
+But the boy loved retirement.
+
+To the father, solitude would have been fatal; for to him life consisted
+in motion, sallies, witty conversations, free and easy parties, the
+little gay suppers of those days.
+
+The son, on the contrary, would remain alone and quite silent for whole
+days. His mind sufficed to itself; he never sought the fellowship of
+companions of his own age. Extreme steadiness was at once his habit and
+his taste.
+
+The warder of the king's pictures drew remarkably well, but did not
+appear to have troubled himself much with the principles of art.
+
+His son Sylvain studied those principles deeply, and to some purpose; he
+became a theoretic artist of the first class, but he never could either
+draw or paint even moderately well.
+
+There are few young people who would not, at some time or other, have
+wished to escape from the scrutinizing eyes of their parents. The
+contrary was the case in Bailly's family, for James used sometimes to
+say to his friends or to his servants, "Do not mention this peccadillo
+to my son. Sylvain is worth more than I am; his morals are very strict.
+Under the most respectful exterior, I should perceive in his manner a
+censure which would grieve me. I wish to avoid his tacit reproaches,
+even when he does not say a word."
+
+The two characters resembled each other only in one point--in their
+taste for poetry, or perhaps we ought to say versification, but even
+here we shall perceive differences.
+
+The father composed songs, little interludes, and farces that were acted
+at the _Italian Comedy_; but the son commenced at the age of sixteen by
+a serious work of time,--a tragedy.
+
+This tragedy was entitled _Clothaire_. The subject, drawn from the early
+centuries of the French History, had led Bailly by a curious and
+touching coincidence to relate the tortures inflicted on a Mayor of
+Paris by a deluded and barbarous multitude. The work was modestly
+submitted to the actor Lanoue, who, although he bestowed flattering
+encouragement on Bailly, dissuaded him frankly from exposing _Clothaire_
+to the risk of a public representation. On the advice of the
+comedian-author, the young poet took _Iphygenia in Tauris_ for the
+subject of his second composition. Such was his ardour, that by the end
+of three months, he had already written the last line of the fifth act
+of his new tragedy, and hastened to Passy, to solicit the opinion of the
+author of _Mahomet II_. This time Lanoue thought he perceived that his
+confiding young friend was not intended by nature for the drama, and he
+declared it to him without disguise. Bailly heard the fatal sentence
+with more resignation than could have been expected from a youth whose
+budding self-esteem received so violent a shock. He even threw his two
+tragedies immediately into the fire. Under similar circumstances,
+Fontenelle showed less docility in his youth. If the tragedy of _Aspar_
+also disappeared in the flames, it was not only in consequence of the
+criticism of a friend; for the author went so far as to call forth the
+noisy judgment of the pit.
+
+Certainly no astronomer will regret that any opinions either off-hand or
+well digested, on the first literary productions of Bailly, contributed
+to throw him into the pursuit of science. Still, for the sake of
+principle, it seems just to protest against the praises given to the
+foresight of Lanoue, to the sureness of his judgment, to the excellence
+of his advice. What was it in fact? A lad of sixteen or seventeen years
+of age, composes two tolerable tragedies, and these essays are made
+irrevocably to decide on his future fate. We have then forgotten that
+Racine had already reached the age of twenty-two, when he first
+appeared, producing _Theagenes and Charicles_, and the _Inimical
+Brothers_; that Crebillon was nearly forty years of age when he composed
+a tragedy on _The Death of the Sons of Brutus_, of which not a single
+verse has been preserved; finally, that the two first comedies of
+Moliere, _The three rival Doctors_ and _The Schoolmaster_, are no longer
+known but by their titles. Let us recall to mind that reflection of
+Voltaire's: "It is very difficult to succeed before the age of thirty in
+a branch of literature that requires a knowledge of the world and of the
+human heart."
+
+A happy chance showed that the sciences might open an honourable and
+glorious path to the discouraged poet. M. de Moncaville offered to teach
+him mathematics, in exchange for drawing-lessons that his son received
+from the warder of the king's pictures. The proposal being accepted, the
+progress of Sylvain Bailly in these studies was rapid and brilliant.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY BECOMES THE PUPIL OF LACAILLE.--HE IS ASSOCIATED WITH HIM IN HIS
+ASTRONOMICAL LABOURS.
+
+The mathematical student soon after had one of those providential
+meetings which decide a young man's future fate. Mademoiselle Lejeuneux
+cultivated painting. It was at the house of this female artist, known
+afterwards as Madame La Chenaye, that Lacaille saw Bailly. The
+attentive, serious, and modest demeanour of the student charmed the
+great astronomer. He showed it in a most unequivocal manner, by
+offering, though so avaricious of his time, to become the guide of the
+future observer, and also to put him in communication with Clairaut.
+
+It is said that from his first intercourse with Lacaille, Bailly showed
+a decided vocation for astronomy. This fact appears to me incontestable.
+At his first appearance in this line, I find him associated in the most
+laborious, difficult, and tiresome investigations of that great
+observer.
+
+These epithets may perhaps appear extraordinary; but they will be so
+only to those who have learnt the science of the stars in ancient poems,
+either in verse or in prose.
+
+The Chaldaeans, luxuriously reclining on the perfumed terraced roofs of
+their houses in Babylon, under a constantly azure sky, followed with
+their eyes the general and majestic movements of the starry sphere; they
+ascertained the respective displacements of the planets, the moon, the
+sun; they noted the date and hour of eclipses; they sought out whether
+simple periods would not enable them to foretell these magnificent
+phenomena a long time beforehand. Thus the Chaldaeans created, if I may
+be allowed the expression, _Contemplative Astronomy_. Their observations
+were neither numerous nor exact; they both made and discussed them
+without labour and without trouble.
+
+Such is not, by a great deal, the position of modern astronomers.
+Science has felt the necessity of the celestial motions being studied in
+their minutest details. Theories must explain these details; it is their
+touchstone; it is by details that theories become confirmed or fall to
+the ground. Besides, in Astronomy, the most important truths, the most
+astonishing results, are based on the measurement of quantities of
+extreme minuteness. Such measures, the present bases of the science,
+require very fatiguing attention, infinite care, to which no learned man
+would bind himself, were he not sustained, and encouraged by the hope of
+attaining some capital determination, through an ardent and decided
+devotion to the subject.
+
+The modern astronomer, really worthy of the name, must renounce the
+distractions of society, and even the refreshment of uninterrupted
+sleep. In our climates during the inclement season, the sky is almost
+constantly overspread by a thick curtain of clouds. Under pain of
+postponing by some centuries the verification of this or that theoretic
+point, we must watch the least clearing off, and avail ourselves of it
+without delay.
+
+A favourable wind arises and dissipates the vapours in the very
+direction where some important phenomenon will manifest itself, and is
+to last only a few seconds. The astronomer, exposed to all the
+transitions of weather, (it is one of the conditions of accuracy,) the
+body painfully bent, directs the telescope of a great graduated circle
+in haste upon the star that he impatiently awaits. His lines for
+measuring are a spider's threads. If in looking he makes a mistake of
+half the thickness of one of these threads, the observation is good for
+nothing; judge what his uneasiness must be; at the critical moment, a
+puff of wind occasioning a vibration in the artificial light adapted to
+his telescope, the threads become almost invisible; the star itself,
+whose rays reach the eye through atmospheric strata of various density,
+temperature, and refrangibility, will appear to oscillate so much as to
+render the true position of it almost unassignable; at the very moment
+when extremely good definition of the object becomes indispensable to
+insure correctness of measures, all becomes confused, either because the
+eye-piece gets steamed with vapour, or that the vicinity of the very
+cold metal occasions an abundant secretion of tears in the eye applied
+to the telescope; the poor observer is then exposed to the alternative
+of abandoning to some other more fortunate person than himself, the
+ascertaining a phenomenon that will not recur during his lifetime, or
+introducing into the science results of problematical correctness.
+Finally, to complete the observation, he must read off the microscopical
+divisions of the graduated circle, and for what opticians call _indolent
+vision_ (the only sort that the ancients ever required) must substitute
+_strained vision_, which in a few years brings on blindness.[6]
+
+When he has scarcely escaped from this physical and moral torture, and
+the astronomer wishes to know what degree of utility is deducible from
+his labours, he is obliged to plunge into numerical calculations of
+repelling length and intricacy. Some observations that have been made in
+less than a minute, require a whole day's work in order to be compared
+with the tables.
+
+Such was the view that Lacaille, without any softening, exhibited to his
+young friend; such was the profession into which the adolescent poet
+plunged with great ardour, and without having been at all prepared for
+the transition.
+
+A useful calculation constituted the first claim of our tyro to the
+attention of the learned world.
+
+The year 1759 had been marked by one of those great events, the memory
+of which is religiously preserved in scientific history. A comet, that
+of 1682, had returned at the epoch foretold by Clairaut, and very nearly
+in the region that mathematical analysis had indicated to him. This
+reappearance raised comets out of the category of sublunary meteors; it
+gave them definitely closed curves as orbits, instead of parabolas, or
+even mere straight lines; attraction confined them within its immense
+domain; in short, these bodies ceased for ever to be liable to
+superstition regarding them as prognostics.
+
+The stringency, the importance of these results, would naturally
+increase in proportion as the resemblance between the announced orbit
+and the real orbit became more evident.
+
+This was the motive that determined so many astronomers to calculate the
+orbit of the comet minutely, from the observations made in 1759,
+throughout Europe. Bailly was one of those zealous calculators. In the
+present day, such a labour would scarcely deserve special mention; but
+we must remark that the methods at the close of the eighteenth century
+were far from being so perfect as those that are now in use, and that
+they greatly depended on the personal ability of the individual who
+undertook them.
+
+Bailly resided in the Louvre. Being determined to make the theory and
+practice of astronomy advance together, he had an observatory
+established from the year 1760, at one of the windows in the upper story
+of the south gallery. Perhaps I may occasion surprise by giving the
+pompous name of _Observatory_ to the space occupied by a window, and the
+small number of instruments that it could contain. I admit this feeling,
+provided it be extended to the Royal Observatory of the epoch, to the
+old imposing and severe mass of stone that attracts the attention of the
+promenaders in the great walk of the Luxembourg. There also, the
+astronomers were obliged to stand in the hollow of the windows; there
+also they said, like Bailly: I cannot verify my quadrants either by the
+horizon or by the zenith, for I can neither see the horizon nor the
+zenith. This ought to be known, even if it should disturb the wild
+reveries of two or three writers, who have no scientific authority:
+France did not possess an observatory worthy of her, nor worthy of the
+science, and capable of rivalling the other observatories of Europe,
+until within these ten or twelve years.
+
+The earliest observations made by Bailly, from one of the windows in the
+upper story of the Louvre gallery that looks out on the Pont des Arts,
+are dated in the beginning of 1760. The pupil of Lacaille was not yet
+twenty-four years old. Those observations relate to an opposition of the
+planet Mars. In the same year he determined the oppositions of Jupiter
+and of Saturn, and compared the results of his own determinations with
+the tables.
+
+The subsequent year I see him associated with Lacaille in observing the
+transit of Venus over the sun's disk. It was an extraordinary piece of
+good fortune, Gentlemen, at the very commencement of his scientific
+life, to witness in succession two of the most interesting astronomical
+events: the first predicted and well established return of a comet; and
+one of those partial eclipses of the sun by Venus, that do not recur
+till after the lapse of a hundred and ten years, and from which science
+has deduced the indirect but exact method, without which we should still
+be ignorant of the fact that the sun's mean distance from our earth is
+thirty-eight millions of leagues.
+
+I shall have completed the enumeration of Bailly's astronomical labours
+performed before he became an academician, when I have added, from
+observations of the comet of 1762, the calculation of its parabolic
+orbit; the discussion of forty-two observations of the moon by La Hire,
+a detailed labour destined to serve as a starting point for any person
+occupying himself with the lunar theory; finally, also the reduction of
+515 zodiacal stars, observed by Lacaille in 1760 and 1761.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] This long list of supposed difficulties in making an exact
+observation is hardly worthy of a zealous astronomer. Our author shows
+no enthusiasm for his subject here, and ends by ascribing the whole
+jeremiad to Lacaille, a man of very great practical perseverance. It is
+to be regretted that Arago never refers to observations of his own, but
+constantly quotes from others, nor does he always select the best.
+--_Translator's Note_.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY A MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.--HIS RESEARCHES ON JUPITER'S
+SATELLITES.
+
+Bailly was named member of the Academy of Sciences the 29th January,
+1763. From that moment his astronomical zeal no longer knew any bounds.
+The laborious life of our fellow-academician might, on occasion, be set
+up against a line, more fanciful than true, by which an ill-natured poet
+stigmatized academical honours. Certainly no one would say of Bailly,
+that after his election,
+
+     "Il s'endormit et ne fit qu'un somme."
+
+     "He fell asleep and made but one nap (or sum)."
+
+On the contrary, we cannot but be surprised at the multitude of literary
+and scientific labours that he accomplished in a few years.
+
+Bailly's earliest researches on Jupiter's satellites began in 1763.
+
+The subject was happily chosen. Studying it in all its generalities, he
+showed himself both an indefatigable computer, a clear-sighted geometer,
+and an industrious and able observer. Bailly's researches on the
+satellites of Jupiter, will always be his first and chief claim to
+scientific glory. Before him, the Maraldis, the Bradleys, the Wargentins
+had discovered empirically some of the principal perturbations that
+those bodies undergo, in their revolving motions around the powerful
+planet that rules them; but they had not been traced up to the
+principles of universal attraction. The initiative honour in this
+respect belongs to Bailly. Nor is this honour decreased by the ulterior
+and considerable improvements that the science has since received; even
+the discoveries of Lagrange and of Laplace have left this honour intact.
+
+The knowledge of the satellitic motions rests almost entirely on the
+observation of the precise moment when each of those bodies disappears,
+by entering into the conical shadow, which the immense opaque globe of
+Jupiter projects on the opposite side from the sun. In the course of
+discussing a multitude of these eclipses, Bailly was not long in
+perceiving that the computers of the Satellitic Tables worked on
+numerical data that were not at all comparable with each other. This
+seemed of little consequence previous to the birth of the theory; but,
+after the analytical discovery of the perturbations, it became desirable
+to estimate the possible errors of observation, and to suggest means for
+remedying them. This was the object of the very considerable work that
+Bailly presented to the Academy in 1771.
+
+In this beautiful memoir, the illustrious astronomer developes the
+series of experiments, by the aid of which each observation may give the
+instant of the real disappearance of a satellite, distinguished from the
+instant of the apparent disappearance, whatever be the power of the
+telescope used, whatever be the altitude of the eclipsed body above the
+horizon, and consequently, whatever be the transparency of the
+atmospheric strata through which the phenomenon is observed, also
+whatever be the distance from that body to the sun, or to the planet;
+finally, whatever be the sensibility of the observer's sight, all which
+circumstances considerably influence the time of apparent disappearance.
+The same series of ingenious and delicate observations led the author,
+very curiously, to the determination of the true diameters of the
+satellites, that is to say, of small luminous points, which, with the
+telescopes then in use, showed no perceptible diameter.
+
+I will rest contented with these general considerations; only remarking,
+in addition, that the diaphragms used by Bailly were not intended only
+to diminish the quantity of light contributing to the formation of the
+images, but that they considerably increase the diameter, and in a
+variable way, at least in the instance of stars.
+
+Under this new aspect, it will be requisite to submit the question to a
+new examination.
+
+Any geometers and astronomers who wish to know all the extent of
+Bailly's labours, must not content themselves with consulting the
+collections in the Academy of Sciences; for he published, at the
+beginning of 1766, a separate work under the modest title of _Essay on
+the Theory of Jupiter's Satellites_.
+
+The author commences with the _Astronomical History of the Satellites_.
+This history contains an almost complete analysis of the discoveries by
+Maraldi, by Bradley, by Wargentin. The labours of Galileo and his
+contemporaries are given with less detail and exactness. I have thought
+that I ought to fill up the lacunae, by availing myself of some very
+precious documents published a few years since, and which were unknown
+to Bailly.
+
+But this I will do in a separate notice, free from all preconceived
+ideas, and free from all party spirit; I will not forget that an honest
+man ought not to calumniate any one, not even the agents of the
+Inquisition.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY'S LITERARY WORKS.--HIS BIOGRAPHIES OF CHARLES V.--OF
+LEIBNITZ--OF PETER CORNEILLE--OF MOLIERE.
+
+When Bailly entered the Academy of Sciences, the perpetual secretary was
+Grandjean de Fouchy. The bad health of this estimable scholar occasioned
+an early vacancy to be foreseen. D'Alembert cast his views on Bailly,
+hinted to him the survivorship to Fouchy, and proposed to him, by way of
+preparing the way, to write some biographies. Bailly followed the advice
+of the illustrious geometer, and chose as the subject of his studies,
+the eloges proposed by several academies, though principally by the
+French Academy.
+
+From the year 1671 to the year 1758, the prize subjects proposed by the
+French Academy related to questions of religion and morality. The
+eloquence of the candidates had therefore had to exercise itself
+successively on the knowledge of salvation; on the merit and dignity of
+martyrdom; on the purity of the soul and of the body; on the danger
+there is in certain paths that appear safe, &c. &c. It had even to
+paraphrase the _Ave Maria_. According to the literal intentions of the
+founder, (Balzac,) each discourse was ended by a short prayer. Duclos
+thought in 1758, that five or six volumes of similar sermons must have
+exhausted the matter, and on his proposal the Academy decided that, in
+future, it would give as the subject of the eloquence prize, the
+eulogiums of the great men of the nation. Marshal Saxe, Duguay Trouin,
+Sully, D'Aguesseau, Descartes, figured first on this list. Later, the
+Academy felt itself authorized to propose the eloge of kings themselves;
+it entered on this new branch at the beginning of 1767, by asking for
+the eloge of Charles V.
+
+Bailly entered the lists, but his essay obtained only an honourable
+mention.
+
+Nothing is more instructive than to search out at what epoch originated
+the principles and opinions of persons who have acted an important part
+on the political scene, and how those opinions developed themselves. By
+a fatality much to be regretted, the elements of these investigations
+are rarely numerous or faithful. We shall not have to express these
+regrets relative to Bailly. Each composition shows us the serene,
+candid, and virtuous mind of the illustrious writer, in a new and true
+point of view. The eloge of Charles V. was the starting point, followed
+by a long series of works, and it ought to arrest our attention for a
+while.
+
+The writings, crowned with the approbation of the French Academy, did
+not reach the public eye till they had been submitted to the severe
+censure of four Doctors in Theology. A special and digested approbation
+by the high dignitaries of the Church, whom the illustrious assembly
+always possessed among her members, was not a sufficient substitute for
+the humbling formality. If we are sure that we possess the eloge of
+Charles V. such as it flowed from the author's pen; if we have not
+reason to fear that the thoughts have undergone some mutilation, we owe
+it to the little favour that the discourse of Bailly enjoyed in the
+sitting of the Academy in 1767. Those thoughts, however, would have
+defied the most squeamish mind, the most shadowy susceptibility. The
+panegyrist unrolls with emotion the frightful misfortunes that assailed
+France during the reign of King John. The temerity, the improvidence of
+that monarch; the disgraceful passions of the King of Navarre; his
+treacheries; the barbarous avidity of the nobility; the seditious
+disposition of the people; the sanguinary depredations of the great
+companies; the ever recurring insolence of England; all this is
+expressed without disguise, yet with extreme moderation. No trait
+reveals, no fact even foreshadows in the author, the future President of
+a reforming National Assembly, still less the Mayor of Paris, during a
+revolutionary effervescence. The author may make Charles V. say that he
+will discard favour, and will call in renown to select his
+representatives; it will appear to him that taxes ought to be laid on
+riches and spared on poverty; he may even exclaim that oppression
+awakens ideas of equality. His temerity will not overleap this boundary.
+Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue, made the Chair resound with bold words
+of another description.
+
+I am far from blaming this scrupulous reserve; when moderation is united
+to firmness, it becomes power. In a word, however, Bailly's patriotism
+might, I was about to say ought to, have shown itself more susceptible,
+more ardent, prouder. When in the elegant prosopopoeia which closes
+the eloge, the King of England has recalled with arrogance the fatal day
+of Poitiers, ought he not instantly to have restrained that pride within
+just limits? ought he not to have cast a hasty glance on the components
+of the Black Prince's army? to examine whether a body of troops,
+starting from Bordeaux, recruiting in Guienne, did not contain more
+Gascons than English? whether France, now bounded by its natural limits,
+in its magnificent unity, would not have a right, every thing being
+examined, to consider that battle almost as an event of civil war? ought
+he not, in short, to have pointed out, in order to corroborate his
+remarks, that the knight to whom King John surrendered himself, Denys de
+Morbecque, was a French officer banished from Artois?
+
+Self-reliance on the field of battle is the first requisite for
+obtaining success; now, would not our self-reliance be shaken, if the
+men most likely to know the facts, and to appreciate them wisely,
+appeared to think that the Frank race were nationally inferior to other
+races who had peopled this or that region, either neighbouring or
+distant? This, let it be well remarked, is not a puerile susceptibility.
+Great events may, on a given day, depend on the opinion that the nation
+has formed of itself. Our neighbours on the other side of the Channel,
+afford examples on this subject that it would be well to imitate.
+
+In 1767, the Academy of Berlin proposed a prize for an eloge of
+Leibnitz. The public was somewhat surprised at it. It was generally
+supposed that Leibnitz had been admirably praised by Fontenelle, and
+that the subject was exhausted. But from the moment that Bailly's essay,
+crowned in Prussia, was published, former impressions were quite
+changed. Every one was anxiously asserting that Bailly's appreciation of
+his subject might be read with pleasure and benefit, even after
+Fontenelle's. The eloge composed by the historian of Astronomy will not,
+certainly, make us forget that written by the first Secretary of the
+Academy of Sciences. The style is, perhaps, too stiff; perhaps it is
+also rather declamatory; but the biography, and the analysis of his
+works, are more complete, especially if we consider the notes; the
+_universal_ Leibnitz is exhibited under more varied points of view.
+
+In 1768, Bailly obtained the award of the prize of eloquence proposed
+by the Academy of Rouen. The subject was the eloge of Peter Corneille.
+In reading this work of our fellow-academician, we may be somewhat
+surprised at the immense distance that the modest, the timid, the
+sensitive Bailly puts between the great Corneille, his special
+favourite, and Racine.
+
+When the French Academy, in 1768, proposed an eloge of Moliere for
+competition, our candidate was vanquished only by Chamfort. And yet, if
+people had not since that time treated of the author of "Tartufe" to
+satiety, perhaps I would venture to maintain, notwithstanding some
+inferiority of style, that Bailly's discourse offered a neater, truer,
+and more philosophic appreciation of the principal pieces of that
+immortal poet.
+
+
+
+
+DEBATES RELATIVE TO THE POST OF PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF THE ACADEMY OF
+SCIENCES.
+
+We have seen D'Alembert, ever since the year 1763, encouraging Bailly to
+exercise himself in a style of literary composition then much liked, the
+style of eloge, and holding out to him in prospect the situation of
+Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. Six years after, the
+illustrious geometer gave the same advice, and perhaps held out the same
+hopes, to the young Marquis de Condorcet. This candidate, docile to the
+voice of his protector, rapidly composed and published the eloges of the
+early founders of the Academy, of Huyghens, of Mariotte, of Roemer, &c.
+
+At the beginning of 1773, the Perpetual Secretary, Grandjean de Fouchy,
+requested that Condorcet should be nominated his successor, provided he
+survived him. D'Alembert strongly supported this candidateship. Buffon
+supported Bailly with equal energy; the Academy presented for some
+weeks the aspect of two hostile camps. There was at last a strongly
+disputed electoral battle; the result was the nomination of Condorcet.
+
+I should regret if we had to judge of the sentiments of Bailly, after
+this defeat, by those of his adherents. Their anger found vent in terms
+of unpardonable asperity. They said that D'Alembert had "basely betrayed
+friendship, honour, and the first principles of probity."
+
+They here alluded to a promise of protection, support, cooeperation,
+dating ten years back. But was his promise absolute? Engaging himself
+personally to Bailly for a situation that might not become vacant for
+ten or fifteen years, had D'Alembert, contrary to his duty as an
+academician, declared beforehand, that any other candidate, whatever
+might be his talents, would be to him as not existing?
+
+This is what ought to have been ascertained, before giving themselves up
+to such violent and odious imputations.
+
+Was it not quite natural that the geometer D'Alembert, having to
+pronounce his opinion between two honourable learned men, gave the
+preference to the candidate who seemed to him most imbued with the
+higher mathematics? The eloges of Condorcet were, besides, by their
+style, much more in harmony with those that the Academy had approved
+during three quarters of a century. Before the declaration of the
+vacancy on the 27th of February, 1773, D'Alembert said to Voltaire,
+relative to the recueil by Condorcet, "Some one asked me the other day
+what I thought of that work. I answered by writing on the frontispiece,
+'Justice, propriety, learning, clearness, precision, taste, elegance,
+and nobleness.'" And Voltaire wrote, on the 1st of March, "I have read,
+while dying, the little book by M. de Condorcet; it is as good in its
+departments as the eloges by Fontenelle. There is a more noble and more
+modest philosophy in it, though bold."
+
+And excitement in words and action could not be legitimately reproached
+in a man who had felt himself supported by a conviction of such distinct
+and powerful influence.
+
+Among the eloges by Bailly, there is one, that of the Abbe de Lacaille,
+which not having been written for a literary academy, shows no longer
+any trace of inflation or declamation, and might, it seems to me,
+compete with some of the best eloges by Condorcet. Yet, it is curious,
+that this excellent biography contributed, perhaps as much as
+D'Alembert's opposition, to make Bailly's claims fail. Vainly did the
+celebrated astronomer flatter himself in his exordium, "that M. de
+Fouchy, who, as Secretary of the Academy, had already paid his tribute
+to Lacaille, would not be displeased at his having followed him in the
+same career ... that he would not be blamed for repeating the praises
+due to an illustrious man."
+
+Bailly, in fact, was not blamed aloud; but when the hour for retreat had
+sounded in M. de Fouchy's ear, without any fuss, without showing himself
+offended in his self-love, remaining apparently modest, this learned
+man, in asking for an assistant, selected one who had not undertaken to
+repeat his eloges; who had not found his biographies insufficient. This
+preference ought not to be, and was not, uninfluential in the result of
+the competition.
+
+Bailly, if Perpetual Secretary of the Academy, would have been obliged
+to reside constantly at Paris. But Bailly, as member of the Astronomical
+Section, might retire to the country, and thus escape those thieves of
+time, as Byron called them, who especially abound in the metropolis.
+Bailly settled at Chaillot. It was at Chaillot that our
+fellow-academician composed his best works, those that will sail down
+the stream of time.
+
+Nature had endowed Bailly with the most happy memory. He did not write
+his discourses till he had completed them in his head. His first copy
+was always a clean copy. Every morning Bailly started early from his
+humble residence at Chaillot; he went to the Bois de Boulogne, and
+there, walking for many hours at a time, his powerful mind elaborated,
+cooerdinated, and robed in all the pomps of language, those high
+conceptions destined to charm successive generations. Biographers inform
+us that Crebillon composed in a similar way. And this was, according to
+several critics, the cause of the incorrectness, of the asperity of
+style, which disfigure several pieces by that tragic poet. The works of
+Bailly, and especially the discourses that complete the _History of
+Astronomy_, invalidate this explanation. I could also appeal to the
+elegant and pure productions of that poet whom France has just lost and
+weeps for. No one indeed can be ignorant of his works; Casimir
+Delavigne, like Bailly, never committed his verses to paper until he had
+worked them up in his mind to that harmonious perfection which procured
+for them the unanimous suffrages of all people of taste. Gentlemen,
+pardon this reminiscence. The heart loves to connect such names as those
+of Bailly and of Delavigne; those rare and glorious symbols, in whom we
+find united talent, virtue, and an invariable patriotism.
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY.--LETTERS ON THE ATLANTIS OF PLATO AND ON THE
+ANCIENT HISTORY OF ASIA.
+
+In 1775, Bailly published a quarto volume, entitled _History of Ancient
+Astronomy, from its Origin up to the Establishment of the Alexandrian
+School_. An analogous work for the lapse of time, comprised between the
+Alexandrian School and 1730, appeared in 1779, in two volumes. An
+additional volume appeared three years later, entitled the _History of
+Modern Astronomy up to the Epoch of 1782_. The fifth part of this
+immense composition, the _History of Indian Astronomy_, was published in
+1787.
+
+When Bailly undertook this general history of Astronomy, the science
+possessed nothing of the sort. Erudition had seized upon some special
+questions, some detailed points, but no commanding view had presided
+over these investigations.
+
+Weidler's book, published in 1741, was a mere simple nomenclature of the
+astronomers of every age, and of every country; the dates of their birth
+and death; the titles of their works. The utility of this precise
+enumeration of dates and titles did not alter the character of the book.
+
+Bailly sketches the plan of his work with a masterly hand in a few
+lines; he says, "It is interesting to transport one's self back to the
+times when Astronomy began; to observe how discoveries were connected
+together, how errors have got mixed up with truth, have delayed the
+knowledge of it, and retarded its progress; and, after having followed
+the various epochs and traversed every climate, finally to contemplate
+the edifice founded on the labours of successive centuries and of
+various nations."
+
+This vast plan essentially led to the minute discussion and comparison
+of a multitude of passages both ancient and modern. If the author had
+mixed up these discussions with the body of the work, he would have
+laboured for astronomers only. If he had suppressed all discussions, the
+book would have interested amateurs only. To avoid this double rock,
+Bailly decided on writing a connected narrative with the quintessence of
+the facts, and to place the proofs and the discussions of the merely
+conjectural parts, under the appellation of explanations in separate
+chapters. Bailly's History, without forfeiting the character of a
+serious and erudite work, became accessible to the public in general,
+and contributed to disseminate accurate notions of Astronomy both among
+literary men and among general society.
+
+When Bailly declared, in the beginning of his book, that he would go
+back to the very commencement of Astronomy, the reader might expect some
+pages of pure imagination. I know not, however, whether any body would
+have expected a chapter of the first volume to be entitled, _Of
+Antediluvian Astronomy_.
+
+The principal conclusion to which Bailly comes, after an attentive
+examination of all the positive ideas that antiquity has bequeathed to
+us is, that we find rather the ruins than the elements of a science in
+the most ancient Astronomy of Chaldaea, of India, and of China.
+
+After treating of certain ideas of Pluche, Bailly says, "The country of
+possibilities is immense, and although truth is contained therein, it is
+not often easy to distinguish it."
+
+Words so reasonable would authorize me to inquire whether the
+calculations of our fellow-labourer, intended to establish the immense
+antiquity of the Indian Tables, are beyond all criticism. But the
+question has been sufficiently discussed in a passage of _The Exposition
+of the System of the World_, on which it would be useless to insist
+here. Whatever came from the pen of M. de Laplace was always marked by
+the stamp of reason and of evidence. In the first lines of his
+magnificent work, after having remarked that "the history of Astronomy
+forms an essential part of the history of the human mind," Bailly
+observes, "that it is perhaps the true measure of man's intelligence,
+and a proof of what he can do with time and genius." I shall allow
+myself to add, that no study offers to reflecting minds more striking or
+more curious relations.
+
+When by measurements, in which the evidence of the method advances
+equally with the precision of the results, the volume of the earth is
+reduced to the millionth part of the volume of the sun; when the sun
+himself, transported to the region of the stars, takes up a very modest
+place among the thousands of millions of those bodies that the telescope
+has revealed to us; when the 38,000,000 of leagues which separate the
+earth from the sun, have become, by reason of their comparative
+smallness, a base totally insufficient for ascertaining the dimensions
+of the visible universe; when even the swiftness of the luminous rays
+(77,000 leagues per second) barely suffices for the common valuations of
+science; when, in short, by a chain of irresistible proofs, certain
+stars have retired to distances that light could not traverse in less
+than a million of years; we feel as if annihilated by such immensities.
+In assigning to man, and to the planet that he inhabits, so small a
+position in the material world, Astronomy seems really to have made
+progress only to humble us.
+
+But if, on the other hand, we regard the subject from the opposite
+point of view, and reflect on the extreme feebleness of the natural
+means by the help of which so many great problems have been attacked and
+solved; if we consider that to obtain and measure the greater part of
+the quantities now forming the basis of astronomical computation, man
+has had greatly to improve the most delicate of his organs, to add
+immensely to the power of his eye; if we remark that it was not less
+requisite for him to discover methods adapted to measuring very long
+intervals of time, up to the precision of tenths of seconds; to combat
+against the most microscopic effects that constant variations of
+temperature produce in metals, and therefore in all instruments; to
+guard against the innumerable illusions that a cold or hot atmosphere,
+dry or humid, tranquil or agitated, impresses on the medium through
+which the observations have inevitably to be made; the feeble being
+resumes all his advantage; by the side of such wonderful labours of the
+mind, what signifies the weakness, the fragility of our body; what
+signify the dimensions of the planet, our residence, the grain of sand
+on which it has happened to us to appear for a few moments!
+
+The thousands of questions on which Astronomy has thrown its dazzling
+light belong to two entirely distinct categories; some offered
+themselves naturally to the mind, and man had only to seek the means for
+solving them; others, according to the beautiful expression of Pliny,
+were enveloped in the majesty of nature! When Bailly lays down in his
+book these two kinds of problems, it is with the firmness, the depth, of
+a consummate astronomer; and when he shows their importance, their
+immensity, it is always with the talent of a writer of the highest
+order; it is sometimes with a bewitching eloquence. If in the beautiful
+work we are alluding to, Astronomy unavoidably assigns to man an
+imperceptible place in the material world, she assigns him, on the other
+hand, a vast share in the intellectual world. The writings which,
+supported by the invincible deductions of science, thus elevate man in
+his own eyes, will find grateful readers in all climes and times.
+
+In 1775, Bailly sent the first volume of his history to Voltaire. In
+thanking him for his present, the illustrious old man addressed to the
+author one of those letters that he alone could write, in which
+flattering and enlivening sentences were combined without effort with
+high reasoning powers. "I have many thanks to return you, (said the
+Patriarch of Ferney,) for having on the same day received a large book
+on medicine and yours, while I was still ill; I have not opened the
+first, I have already read the second almost entirely, and feel better."
+
+Voltaire, indeed, had read Bailly's work pen in hand, and he proposed to
+the illustrious astronomer some queries, which proved both his infinite
+perspicacity, and wonderful variety of knowledge. Bailly then felt the
+necessity of developing some ideas which in his _History of Ancient
+Astronomy_ were only accessories to his principal subject. This was the
+object of the volume that he published in 1776, under the title of
+_Letters on the Origin of the Sciences and of the People of Asia,
+addressed to M. de Voltaire_. The author modestly announced that "to
+lead the reader by the interest of the style to the interest of the
+question discussed," he would place at the head of his work three
+letters from the author of _Merope_, and he protested against the idea
+that he had been induced to play with paradoxes.
+
+According to Bailly, the present nations of Asia are heirs of an
+anterior people, who understood Astronomy perfectly. Those Chinese,
+those Hindoos, so renowned for their learning, would thus have been mere
+depositaries; we should have to deprive them of the title of inventors.
+Certain astronomical facts, found in the annals of those southern
+nations, appear to have belonged to a higher latitude. By these means we
+discover the true site on the globe of the primitive people, proving
+against the received opinion that learning came southward from the
+north.
+
+Bailly also found that the ancient fables, considered physically,
+appeared to belong to the northern regions of the earth.
+
+In 1779, Bailly published a second collection, forming a sequel to the
+former, and entitled _Letters on the Atlantis of Plato, and on the
+Ancient History of Asia_.
+
+Voltaire died before these new letters could be communicated to him.
+Bailly did not think that this circumstance ought to make him change the
+form of the discussion already employed in the former series; it is
+still Voltaire whom he addresses.
+
+The philosopher of Ferney thought it strange that there should be no
+knowledge of this ancient people, who, according to Bailly, had
+instructed the Indians. To answer this difficulty, the celebrated
+astronomer undertakes to prove that some nations have disappeared,
+without their existence being known to us by any thing beyond tradition.
+He cites five of these, and in the first rank the Atlantidae.
+
+Aristotle said that he thought Atlantis was a fiction of Plato's: "He
+who created it also destroyed it, like the walls that Homer built on the
+shores of Troy, and then made them disappear." Bailly does not join in
+this skepticism. According to him, Plato spoke seriously to the
+Athenians of a learned, polished people, but destroyed and forgotten.
+Only, he totally repudiates the idea of the Canaries being the remains
+of the ancient country of the Atlantidae, and now engulfed. Bailly rather
+places that nation at Spitzbergen, Greenland, or Nova Zembla, whose
+climate may have changed. We should also have to seek for the Garden of
+the Hesperides near the Pole; in short, the fable of the Phoenix may
+have arisen in the Gulf of the Obi, in a region where we must suppose
+the sun to have been annually absent during sixty-five days.
+
+It is evident, in many passages, that Bailly is himself surprised at the
+singularity of his own conclusions, and fears that his readers may
+rather regard them as jokes. He therefore exclaims, "My pen would not
+find expressions for thoughts which I did not believe to be true." Let
+us add that no effort is painful to him. Bailly calls successively to
+his aid astronomy, history, supported by vast erudition, philology, the
+systems of Mairan, of Buffon, relatively to the heat appertaining to the
+earth. He does not forget, using his own words, "that in the human
+species, still more sensitive than curious, more anxious for pleasure
+than for instruction, nothing pleases generally, or for a long time,
+unless the style is agreeable; that dry truth is killed by ennui!" Yet
+Bailly makes few proselytes; and a species of instinct determines men of
+science to despise the fruits of so persevering a labour; and D'Alembert
+goes so far as to tax them with poverty, even with hollow ideas, with
+vain and ridiculous efforts; he goes so far as to call Bailly,
+relatively to his letters, the _illuminated brother_. Voltaire is, on
+the contrary, very polite and very academical in his communications with
+our author. The renown of the Brahmins is dear to him; yet this does
+not prevent his discussing closely the proofs, the arguments of the
+ingenious astronomer. We could also now enter into a serious discussion.
+The mysterious veil that in Bailly's time covered the East, is in great
+part raised. We now know the Astronomy of the Chinese and the Hindoos in
+all its detail. We know up to what point the latter had carried their
+mathematical knowledge. The theory of central heat has in a few years
+made an unhoped-for progress; in short, comparative philology,
+prodigiously extended by the invaluable labours of Sacy, Remusat,
+Quatremere, Burnouf, and Stanislaus Julien, have thrown strong lights on
+some historical and geographical questions, where there reigned before a
+profound darkness. Armed with all these new means of investigation, it
+might easily be established that the systems relative to an ancient
+unknown people, first creator of all the sciences, and relative to the
+Atlantidae, rest on foundations devoid of solidity. Yet, if Bailly still
+lived, we should be only just in saying to him, as Voltaire did, merely
+changing the tense of a verb, "Your two books _were_, Sir, treasures of
+the most profound erudition and the most ingenious conjectures, adorned
+with an eloquence of style, which is always suitable to the subject."
+
+
+
+
+FIRST INTERVIEW OF BAILLY WITH FRANKLIN.--HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE FRENCH
+ACADEMY IN 1783.--HIS RECEPTION.--DISCOURSE.--HIS RUPTURE WITH BUFFON.
+
+Bailly became the particular and intimate friend of Franklin at the end
+of 1777. The personal acquaintance of these two distinguished men began
+in the strangest manner.
+
+One of the most illustrious members of the Institute, Volney, on
+returning from the New World, said: "The Anglo-Americans tax the French
+with lightness, with indiscretion, with chattering." (Volney, preface to
+_The Table of the Climate of the United States_.) Such is the
+impression, in my opinion very erroneous, at least by comparison, under
+which the Ambassador Franklin arrived in France. All the world knows
+that he halted at Chaillot. As an inhabitant of the Commune, Bailly
+thought it his duty to visit without delay the illustrious guest thus
+received. He was announced, and Franklin, knowing him by reputation,
+welcomed him very cordially, and exchanged with his visitor the eight or
+ten words usual on such occasions. Bailly seated himself by the American
+philosopher, and discreetly awaited some question to be put to him. Half
+an hour passed, and Franklin had not opened his mouth. Bailly drew out
+his snuff-box, and presented it to his neighbour without a word; the
+traveller signed with his hand that he did not take snuff. The dumb
+interview was then prolonged during a whole hour. Bailly finally rose.
+Then Franklin, as if delighted to have found a Frenchman who could
+remain silent, extended his hand to him, pressed his visitor's
+affectionately, exclaiming: "Very well, Monsr. Bailly, very well!"
+
+After having recounted the anecdote as our academician used amusingly to
+relate it, I really fear being asked how I look upon it. Well,
+Gentlemen, whenever this question may be put to me, I shall answer that
+Bailly and Franklin discussing together some scientific question from
+the moment of their meeting, would have appeared to me much more worthy
+of each other, than the two actors of the scene at Chaillot. I will,
+moreover, grant that we may draw the following inference,--that even men
+of genius are liable to cross humours; but I must at the same time add
+that the example is not dangerous, dumbness not being an efficacious
+method of making one's self valued, or of distinguishing ourselves to
+advantage.
+
+Bailly was nominated member of the French Academy in the place of M. de
+Tressan, in November, 1783. The same day, M. de Choiseul Gouffier
+succeeded to D'Alembert. Thanks to the coincidence of the two
+nominations, Bailly escaped the sarcasms which the expectant
+academicians never fail to pour out, with or without reason, against
+those who have obtained a double crown. This time they vented their
+spleen exclusively on the great man, thus enabling the astronomer to
+take possession of his new dignity without raising the usual storm. Let
+us carefully collect, Gentlemen, from the early years of our
+academician's life, all that may appear an anticipated compensation for
+the cruel trials that we shall have to relate in the sequel.
+
+The admission of the eloquent author of the _History of Astronomy_ into
+the Academy, was more difficult than could be supposed by those who have
+remarked to what slight works certain early and recent writers have owed
+the same favour. Bailly failed three times. Fontenelle had before him
+unsuccessfully presented himself once oftener; but Fontenelle underwent
+these successive checks without ill-humour, and without being
+discouraged. Bailly, on the contrary, with or without reason, seeing in
+these unfavourable results of the elections the immediate effect of
+D'Alembert's enmity, showed himself much more hurt at it, perhaps, than
+was suitable for a philosopher. In these somewhat envenomed contests,
+Buffon always gave Bailly a cordial and able support.
+
+Bailly pronounced his reception-discourse in February, 1784. The merits
+of M. de Tressan were therein celebrated with grace and delicacy. The
+panegyrist identified himself with his subject. A select public loaded
+with praises various passages wherein just and profound ideas were
+clothed in all the richness of a forcible and harmonious style.
+
+Did any one ever speak with more eloquence of the scientific power
+revealed by a contemporary discovery! Listen, Gentlemen, and judge.
+
+"That which the sciences can add to the privileges of the human race has
+never been more marked than at the present moment. They have acquired
+new domains for man. The air seems to become as accessible to him as the
+waters, and the boldness of his enterprises equals almost the boldness
+of his thoughts. The name of Montgolfier, the names of those hardy
+navigators of the new element, will live through time; but who among us,
+on seeing these superb experiments, has not felt his soul elevated, his
+ideas expanded, his mind enlarged?"
+
+I know not whether, all things considered, the satisfaction of self-love
+which may be attached to academical titles, to his success in public and
+important meetings, ever completely rewarded Bailly for the heartaches
+he experienced in his literary career.
+
+A kind and tender intimacy had grown up between the great naturalist
+Buffon and the celebrated astronomer. An academical nomination broke it
+up. You know it, Gentlemen; amongst us a nomination is the apple of
+discord; notwithstanding the most opposite views, every one then thinks
+that he is acting for the true interest of science or of letters; every
+one thinks that he is proceeding in the line of strict justice; every
+one endeavours earnestly to make proselytes. So far all is legitimate.
+But what is much less so, is forgetting that a vote is a decision, and
+that in this sense the academician, like the magistrate, may say to the
+suitor, whether an academician or not, "I give decrees, and not
+services."
+
+Unfortunately, considerations of this sort, notwithstanding their
+justice, would make but little impression on the haughty and positive
+mind of Buffon. That great naturalist wished to have the Abbe Maury
+nominated; his associate Bailly thought he ought to vote for Sedaine.
+Let us place ourselves in the ordinary course of things, and it will
+appear difficult to see in this discordancy a sufficient cause for a
+rupture between two superior men. _The Unforeseen Wager_ and _The
+Unconscious Philosopher_, considerably balanced the, then very light,
+weight of Maury. The comic poet had already reached his sixty-sixth
+year; the Abbe was young. The high character, the irreproachable conduct
+of Sedaine, might, without disparagement, be put in comparison with what
+the public knew of the character of the official and the private life of
+the future cardinal. Whence then had the illustrious naturalist derived
+such a great affection for Maury, such violent antipathies against
+Sedaine? It may be surmised that they arose from aristocratic prejudices
+of rank. Nor is it impossible but that M. le Comte de Buffon
+instinctively foresaw, with some repugnance, his approaching
+confraternity with a man formerly a lapidary; but was not Maury the son
+of a shoemaker? This very small incident of our literary history seemed
+doomed to remain in obscurity; chance has, I believe, given me the key
+to it.
+
+You remember, Gentlemen, that aphorism continually quoted by Buffon, and
+of which he seemed very proud,--
+
+     "Style makes the man."
+
+I have discovered that Sedaine made a counterpart of it. The author of
+_Richard Coeur de Lion_ and of _The Deserter_ said,--
+
+     "Style is nothing, or next to it!"
+
+Place this heresy, in imagination, under the eyes of the immortal
+writer, whose days and nights were passed in polishing his style, and if
+you then ask me why he detested Sedaine, I shall have a right to answer:
+You do not know the human heart.
+
+Bailly firmly resisted the imperious solicitations of his former patron,
+and refused even to absent himself from the Academy on the day of the
+nomination. He did not hesitate to sacrifice the attractions and
+advantages of an illustrious friendship to the performance of a duty; he
+answered to him who wanted to be master, "I will be free." Honour be to
+him!
+
+The example of Bailly warns timid men never to listen to mere
+entreaties, whatever may be their source; not to yield but to good
+arguments. Those who have thought so little of their own tranquillity as
+to do any more in academical elections than to give a silent and secret
+vote, will see on their part, in the noble and painful resistance of an
+honest man, how culpable they become in trying to substitute authority
+for persuasion, in wishing to subject conscience to gratitude.
+
+On the occurrence of a similar discord, the astronomer Lemonnier, of the
+Academy of Sciences, said one day to Lalande, his fellow-academician and
+former pupil, "I enjoin you not to put your foot again within my door
+during the semi-revolution of the lunar orbital nodes." Calculation
+shows this to be nine years. Lalande submitted to the punishment with a
+truly astronomical punctuality; but the public, despite the scientific
+form of the sentence, thought it excessively severe. What then will be
+said of that which was pronounced by Buffon?--"We will never see each
+other more, Sir!" These words will appear at once both harsh and solemn,
+for they were occasioned by a difference of opinion on the comparative
+merits of Sedaine and the Abbe Maury. Our friend resigned himself to
+this separation, nor ever allowed his just resentment to be perceived. I
+may even remark, that after this brutal disruption he showed himself
+more attentive than ever to seize opportunities of paying a legitimate
+homage to the talents and eloquence of the French Pliny.
+
+
+
+
+REPORT ON ANIMAL MAGNETISM.
+
+We are now going to see the astronomer, the savant, the man of letters,
+struggling against passions of every kind, excited by the famous
+question of animal magnetism.
+
+At the beginning of the year 1778, a German doctor established himself
+at Paris. This physician could not fail of succeeding in what was then
+styled high society. He was a stranger. His government had expelled him;
+acts of the greatest effrontery and unexampled charlatanism were imputed
+to him.
+
+His success, however, exceeded all expectations. The Gluckists and the
+Piccinists themselves forgot their differences, to occupy themselves
+exclusively with the new comer.
+
+Mesmer, since we must call him by his name, pretended to have discovered
+an agent till then totally unknown both in the arts and in physics; an
+universally distributed fluid, and serving thus as a means of
+communication and of influence among the celestial globes;--a fluid
+capable of flux and reflux, which introduced itself more or less
+abundantly into the substance of the nerves, and acted on them in a
+useful manner,--thence the name of animal magnetism given to this fluid.
+
+Mesmer said: "Animal magnetism may be accumulated, concentrated,
+transported, without the aid of any intermediate body. It is reflected
+like light; musical sounds propagate and augment it."
+
+Properties so distinct, so precise, seemed as if they must be capable of
+experimental verification. It was requisite, then, to be prepared for
+some instance of want of success, and Mesmer took good care not to
+neglect it. The following was his declaration: "Although the fluid be
+universal, all animated bodies do not equally assimilate it into
+themselves; there are some even, though very few in number, that by
+their very presence destroy the effects of this fluid in the surrounding
+bodies."
+
+So soon as this was admitted, as soon it was allowed to explain
+instances of non-success by the presence of neutralizing bodies, Mesmer
+no longer ran any risk of being embarrassed. Nothing prevented his
+announcing, in full security, "that animal magnetism could immediately
+cure diseases of the nerves, and mediately other diseases; that it
+afforded to doctors the means of judging with certainty of the origin,
+the nature, and the progress of the most complicated maladies; that
+nature, in short, offered in magnetism a universal means of curing and
+preserving mankind."
+
+Before quitting Vienna, Mesmer had communicated his systematic notions
+to the principal learned societies of Europe. The Academy of Sciences at
+Paris, and the Royal Society of London, did not think proper to answer.
+The Academy of Berlin examined the work, and wrote to Mesmer that he was
+in error.
+
+Some time after his arrival in Paris, Mesmer tried again to get into
+communication with the Academy of Sciences. This society even acceded to
+a rendezvous. But, instead of the empty words that were offered them,
+the academicians required experiments. Mesmer stated--I quote his
+words--that _it was child's play_; and the conference had no other
+result.
+
+The Royal Society of Medicine, being called upon to judge of the
+pretended cures performed by the Austrian doctor, thought that their
+agents could not give a well-founded opinion "without having first duly
+examined the patients to ascertain their state." Mesmer rejected this
+natural and reasonable proposal. He wished that the agents should be
+content with the word of honour and attestations of the patients. In
+this respect, also, the severe letters of the worthy Vicq-d'Azyr put an
+end to communications which must have ended unsatisfactorily.
+
+The faculty of medicine showed, we think, less wisdom. It refused to
+examine any thing; it even proceeded in legal form against one of its
+regent doctors who had associated himself, they said, with the
+charlatanism of Mesmer.
+
+These barren debates evidently proved that Mesmer himself was not
+thoroughly sure of his theory, nor of the efficacy of the means of cure
+that he employed. Still the public showed itself blind. The infatuation
+became extreme. French society appeared at one moment divided into
+magnetizers and magnetized. From one end of the kingdom to the other
+agents of Mesmer were seen, who, with receipt in hand, put the weak in
+intellect under contribution.
+
+The magnetizers had had the address to intimate that the mesmeric crises
+manifested themselves only in persons endowed with a certain
+sensitiveness. From that moment, in order not to be ranged among the
+insensible, both men and women, when near the _rod_, assumed the
+appearance of epileptics.
+
+Was not Father Hervier really in one of those paroxysms of the disease
+when he wrote, "If Mesmer had lived contemporary with Descartes and
+Newton, he would have saved them much labour: those great men suspected
+the existence of the universal fluid; Mesmer has discovered the laws of
+its action"?
+
+Count de Gebelin showed himself stranger still. The new doctrine would
+naturally seduce him by its connection with some of the mysterious
+practices of ancient times; but the author of _The Primitive World_ did
+not content himself with writing in favour of Mesmerism with the
+enthusiasm of an apostle. Frightful pain, violent griefs, rendered life
+insupportable to him; Gebelin saw death approaching with satisfaction,
+so from that moment he begged earnestly that he might not be carried to
+Mesmer's, where assuredly "he could not die." We must just mention,
+however, that his request was not attended to; he was carried to
+Mesmer's, and died while he was being magnetized.
+
+Painting, sculpture, and engraving were constantly repeating the
+features of this Thaumaturgus. Poets wrote verses to be inscribed on the
+pedestals of the busts, or below the portraits. Those by Palisot deserve
+to be quoted, as one of the most curious examples of poetic licences:--
+
+     "Behold that man--the glory of his age!
+     Whose art can all Pandora's ills assuage.
+     In skill and tact no rival pow'r is known--
+     E'en Greece, in him, would Esculapius own."[7]
+
+Enthusiasm having thus gone to the last limits in verse, enthusiasm had
+but one way left to become remarkable in prose: that is, violence. Is it
+not thus that we must characterize the words of Bergasse?--"The
+adversaries of animal magnetism are men who must one day be doomed to
+the execration of all time, and to the punishment of the avenging
+contempt of posterity."
+
+It is rare for violent words not to be followed by violent acts. Here
+every thing proceeded according to the natural course of human events.
+We know, indeed, that some furious admirers of Mesmer attempted to
+suffocate Berthollet in the corner of one of the rooms of the Palais
+Royal, for having honestly said that the scenes he had witnessed did not
+appear to him demonstrative. We have this anecdote from Berthollet
+himself.
+
+The pretensions of the German doctor increased with the number of his
+adherents. To induce him to permit only three learned men to attend his
+meetings, M. de Maurepas offered him, in the name of the king, 20,000
+francs a year for life, and 10,000 annually for house-rent. Yet Mesmer
+did not accept this offer, but demanded, as a national recompense, one
+of the most beautiful chateaux in the environs of Paris, together with
+all its territorial dependencies.
+
+Irritated at finding his claims repulsed, Mesmer quitted France,
+angrily vowing her to the deluge of maladies from which it would have
+been in his power to save her. In a letter written to Marie Antoinette,
+the Thaumaturgus declared that he had refused the government offers
+through austerity.
+
+Through austerity!!! Are we then to believe that, as it was then
+pretended, Mesmer was entirely ignorant of the French language; that in
+this respect his meditations had been exclusively centered on the
+celebrated verse--
+
+     "Fools are here below for our amusement?"[8]
+
+However this may be, the austerity of Mesmer did not prevent his being
+most violently angry when he learnt at Spa that Deslon continued the
+magnetical treatments at Paris. He returned in all haste. His partisans
+received him with enthusiasm, and set on foot a subscription of 100
+louis per head, which produced immediately near 400,000 francs,
+(16,000_l._) We now feel some surprise to see, among the names of the
+subscribers, those of Messrs. de Lafayette, de Segur, d'Epremesnil.
+
+Mesmer quitted France a second time about the end of 1781, in quest of a
+more enlightened government, who could appreciate superior minds. He
+left behind him a great number of tenacious and ardent adepts, whose
+importunate conduct at last determined the government to submit the
+pretended magnetic discoveries to be examined by four Doctors of the
+Faculty of Paris. These distinguished physicians solicited to have added
+to them some members of the Academy of Sciences. M. de Breteuil then
+recommended Messrs. Le Roy, Bory, Lavoisier, Franklin, and Bailly, to
+form part of the mixed commission. Bailly was finally named reporter.
+
+The work of our brother-academician appeared in August, 1784. Never was
+a complex question reduced to its characteristic traits with more
+penetration and tact; never did more moderation preside at an
+examination, though personal passions seemed to render it impossible;
+never was a scientific subject treated in a more dignified and lucid
+style.
+
+Nothing equals the credulity of men in whatever touches their health.
+This aphorism is an eternal truth. It explains how a portion of the
+public has returned to mesmeric practices; how I shall still perform an
+interesting task by giving a detailed analysis of the magnificent
+labours published by our fellow-academician sixty years ago. This
+analysis will show, besides, how daring those men were, who recently, in
+the bosom of another academy, constituted themselves passionate
+defenders of some old women's tales, which one would have supposed had
+been permanently buried in oblivion.
+
+The commissioners go in the first place to the treatment by M. Deslon,
+examine the famous rod, describe it carefully, relate the means adopted
+to excite and direct magnetism. Bailly then draws out a varied and truly
+extraordinary table of the state of the sick people. His attention is
+principally attracted by the convulsions that they designated by the
+name of _crisis_. He remarked that in the number of persons in the
+crisis state, there were always a great many women, and very few men; he
+does not imagine any deceit, however; holds the phenomena as
+established, and passes on to search out their causes.
+
+According to Mesmer and his partisans, the cause of the crisis and of
+the less characteristic effects, resided in a particular fluid. It was
+to search out proofs of the existence of this fluid, that the
+commissioners had first to devote their efforts. Indeed, Bailly said,
+"Animal magnetism may exist without being useful, but it cannot be
+useful if it does not exist."
+
+The animal magnetic fluid is not luminous and visible, like electricity;
+it does not produce marked and manifest effects on inert matter, as the
+fluid of the ordinary magnet does; finally, it has no taste. Some
+magnetizers asserted that it had a smell; but repeated experiments
+proved that they were in error. The existence, then, of the pretended
+fluid, could be established only by its effects on animated beings.
+
+Curative effects would have thrown the commission into an inextricable
+daedalus, because nature alone, without any treatment, cures many
+maladies. In this system of observations, they could not have hoped to
+learn the exact part performed by magnetism, until after a great number
+of cures, and after trials oftentimes repeated.
+
+The commissioners, therefore, had to limit themselves to instantaneous
+effects of the fluid on the animal organism.
+
+They then submitted themselves to the experiments, but using an
+important precaution. "There is no individual," says Bailly, "in the
+best state of health, who, if he closely attended to himself, would not
+feel within him an infinity of movements and variations, either of
+exceedingly slight pain, or of heat, in the various parts of his
+body.... These variations, which are continually taking place, are
+independent of magnetism.... The first care required of the
+commissioners was, not to be too attentive to what was passing within
+them. If magnetism is a real and powerful cause, we have no need to
+think about it to make it act and manifest itself; it must, so to say,
+force the attention, and make itself perceived by even a purposely
+distracted mind."
+
+The commissioners, magnetized by Deslon, felt no effect. After the
+healthy people, some ailing ones followed, taken of all ages, and from
+various classes of society. Among these sick people, who amounted to
+fourteen, five felt some effects. On the remaining nine, magnetism had
+no effect whatever.
+
+Notwithstanding the pompous announcements, magnetism already could no
+longer be considered as a certain indicator of diseases.
+
+Here the reporter made a capital remark: magnetism appeared to have no
+effect on incredulous persons who had submitted to the trials, nor on
+children. Was it not allowable to think, that the effects obtained in
+the others proceeded from a previous persuasion as to the efficacy of
+the means, and that they might be attributed to the influence of
+imagination? Thence arose another system of experiments. It was
+desirable to confirm or to destroy this suspicion; "it became therefore
+requisite to ascertain to what degree imagination influences our
+sensations, and to establish whether it could have been in part or
+entirely the cause of the effects attributed to magnetism."
+
+There could be nothing neater or more demonstrative than this portion of
+the work of the commissioners. They go first to Dr. Jumelin, who, let it
+be observed, obtains the same effects, the same crises as Deslon and
+Mesmer, by magnetizing according to an entirely different method, and
+not restricting himself to any distinction of poles; they select persons
+who seem to feel the magnetic action most forcibly, and put their
+imagination at fault by now and then bandaging their eyes.
+
+What happens then?
+
+When the patients see, the seat of the sensations is exactly the part
+that is magnetized; when their eyes are bandaged, they locate these same
+sensations by chance, sometimes in parts very far away from those to
+which the magnetizer is directing his attention. The patient, whose eyes
+are covered, often feels marked effects at a time when they are not
+magnetizing him, and remains, on the contrary, quite passive while they
+are magnetizing him, without his being aware of it.
+
+Persons of all classes offer similar anomalies. An instructed physician,
+subjected to these experiments, "feels effects whilst nothing is being
+done, and often does not feel effects while he is being acted upon. On
+one occasion, thinking that they had been magnetizing him for ten
+minutes, this same doctor fancied that he felt a heat in his lumbi,
+which he compared to that of a stove."
+
+Sensations thus felt, when no magnetizing was exerted, must evidently
+have been the effect of imagination.
+
+The commissioners were too strict logicians to confine themselves with
+these experiments. They had established that imagination, in some
+individuals, can occasion pain, and heat--even a considerable degree of
+heat--in all parts of the body; but practical female Mesmerizers did
+more; they agitated certain people to that pitch, that they fell into
+convulsions. Could the effect of imagination go so far?
+
+Some new experiments entirely did away with these doubts.
+
+A young man was taken to Franklin's garden at Passy, and when it was
+announced to him that Deslon, who had taken him there, had magnetized a
+tree, this young man ran about the garden, and fell down in convulsions,
+but it was not under the magnetized tree: the crisis seized him while
+he was embracing another tree, very far from the former.
+
+Deslon selected, in the treatment of poor people, two women who had
+rendered themselves remarkable by their sensitiveness around the famous
+rod, and took them to Passy. These women fell into convulsions whenever
+they thought themselves mesmerized, although they were not. At
+Lavoisier's, the celebrated experiment of the cup gave analogous
+results. Some plain water engendered convulsions occasionally, when
+magnetized water did not.
+
+We must really renounce the use of our reason, not to perceive a proof
+in this collection of experiments, so well arranged that imagination
+alone can produce all the phenomena observed around the mesmeric rod,
+and that mesmeric proceedings, cleared from the delusions of
+imagination, are absolutely without effect. The commissioners, however,
+recommence the examination on these last grounds, multiply the trials,
+adopt all possible precautions, and give to their conclusions the
+evidence of mathematical demonstrations. They establish, finally and
+experimentally, that the action of the imagination can both occasion the
+crises to cease, and can engender their occurrence.
+
+Foreseeing that people with an inert or idle mind would be astonished at
+the important part assigned to the imagination by the commissioners'
+experiments in the production of mesmeric phenomena, Bailly instanced:
+sudden affection disturbing the digestive organs; grief giving the
+jaundice; the fear of fire restoring the use of their legs to paralytic
+patients; earnest attention stopping the hiccough; fright blanching
+people's hair in an instant, &c.
+
+The touching or stroking practised in mesmeric treatments, as
+auxiliaries of magnetism, properly so called, required no direct
+experiments, since the principal agent,--since magnetism itself, had
+disappeared. Bailly, therefore, confined himself, in this respect, to
+anatomical and physiological considerations, remarkable for their
+clearness and precision. We read, also, with a lively interest, in his
+report, some ingenious reflections on the effects of imitation in those
+assemblages of magnetized people. Bailly compares them to those of
+theatrical representations. He says: "Observe how much stronger the
+impressions are when there are a great many spectators, and especially
+in places where there is the liberty of applauding. This sign of
+particular emotions produces a general emotion, participated in by
+everybody according to their respective susceptibility. This is also
+observed in armies on the day of battle, when the enthusiasm of courage,
+as well as panic-terrors, propagate themselves with so much rapidity.
+The sound of the drum and of military music, the noise of the cannon, of
+the musquetry, the cries, the disorder, stagger the organs, impart the
+same movement to men's minds, and raise their imaginations to a similar
+degree. In this unity of intoxication, an impression once manifested
+becomes universal; it encourages men to charge, or determines men to
+fly." Some very curious examples of imitation close this portion of
+Bailly's report.
+
+The commissioners finally examined whether these convulsions, occasioned
+by the imagination or by magnetism, could be useful in curing or easing
+the suffering persons. The reporter said: "Undoubtedly, the imagination
+of sick people often influences the cure of their maladies very much....
+There are cases in which every thing must first be disordered, to
+enable us to restore order ... but the shock must be unique ... whereas
+in the public treatment by magnetism ... the habit of the crises cannot
+but be injurious."
+
+This thought related to the most delicate considerations. It was
+developed in a report addressed to the king personally. This report was
+to have remained secret, but it was published some years since. It
+should not be regretted; the magnetic treatment, regarded in a certain
+point of view, pleased sick people much; they are now aware of all its
+dangers.
+
+In conclusion, Bailly's report completely upsets an accredited error.
+This was an important service, nor was it the only one. In searching for
+the imaginary cause of animal magnetism, they ascertained the real power
+that man can exert over man, without the immediate and demonstrable
+intervention of any physical agent; they established that "the most
+simple actions and signs sometimes produce most powerful effects; that
+man's action on the imagination may be reduced to an art ... at least in
+regard to persons who have faith." This work finally showed how our
+faculties should be experimentally studied; in what way psychology may
+one day come to be placed among the exact sciences.
+
+I have always regretted that the commissioners did not judge it
+expedient to add a historical chapter to their excellent work. The
+immense erudition of Bailly would have given it an inestimable value. I
+figure to myself, also, that in seeing the Mesmeric practices that have
+now been in use during upwards of two thousand years, the public would
+have asked itself whether so long an interval of time had ever been
+required to push a good and useful thing forward into estimation. By
+circumscribing himself to this point of view, a few traits would have
+sufficed.
+
+Plutarch, for example, would have come to the aid of the reporter. He
+would have showed him Pyrrhus curing complaints of the spleen, by means
+of frictions made with the great toe of his right foot. Without giving
+one's self up to a wild spirit of interpretation, we might be permitted
+to see in that fact the germ of animal magnetism. I admit that one
+circumstance would have rather unsettled the savant: this was the white
+cock that the King of Macedon sacrificed to the gods before beginning
+these frictions.
+
+Vespasian, in his turn, might have figured among the predecessors of
+Mesmer, in consequence of the extraordinary cures that he effected in
+Egypt by the action of his foot. It is true that the pretended cure of
+an old blindness, only by the aid of a little of that emperor's saliva,
+would have thrown some doubt on the veracity of Suetonius.
+
+Homer and Achilles are not too far back but we might have invoked their
+names. Joachim Camerarius, indeed, asserted having seen, on a very
+ancient copy of the Iliad, some verses that the copyists sacrificed
+because they did not understand them, and in which the poet alluded, not
+to the heel of Achilles (its celebrity has been well established these
+three thousand years,) but to the medical properties possessed by the
+great toe of that same hero's right foot.
+
+What I regret most is, the chapter in which Bailly might have related
+how certain adepts of Mesmer's had the hardihood to magnetize the moon,
+so as, on a given day, to make all the astronomers devoted to observing
+that body fall into a syncope; a perturbation, by the way, that no
+geometer, from Newton to Laplace, had thought of.
+
+The work of Bailly gave rise to trouble, spite, and anger, among the
+Mesmerists. It was for many months the target for their combined
+attacks. All the provinces of France saw refutations of the celebrated
+report arise: sometimes under the form of calm discussions, decent and
+moderate; but generally with all the characteristics of violence, and
+the acrimony of a pamphlet.
+
+It would be labour thrown away now to go to the dusty shelves of some
+special library, to hunt up hundreds of pamphlets, even the titles of
+which are now completely forgotten. The impartial analysis of that
+ardent controversy does not call for such labour; I believe at least
+that I shall attain my aim, by concentrating my attention on two or
+three writings which, by the strength of the arguments, the merit of the
+style, or the reputation of their authors, have left some trace in men's
+minds.
+
+In the first rank of this category of works we must place the elegant
+pamphlet published by Servan, under the title of _Doubts of a
+Provincial, proposed to the Gentlemen Medical Commissioners commanded by
+the King to examine into Animal Magnetism_.
+
+The appearance of this little work of Servan's was saluted in the camp
+of the Mesmerists with cries of triumph and joy. Undecided minds fell
+back into doubt and perplexity. Grimm wrote in Nov. 1784: "No cause is
+desperate. That of magnetism seemed as if it must fall under the
+reiterated attacks of medicine, of philosophy, of experience and of good
+sense.... Well, M. Servan, formerly the Attorney-General at Grenoble,
+has been proving that with talent we may recover from any thing, even
+from ridicule."
+
+Servan's pamphlet seemed at the time the anchor of salvation for the
+Mesmerists. The adepts still borrow from it their principal arguments.
+Let us see, then, whether it has really shaken Bailly's report.
+
+From the very commencing lines, the celebrated Attorney-General puts the
+question in terms deficient in exactness. If we believe him, the
+commissioners were called to establish a parallel between magnetism and
+medicine; "they were to weigh on both sides the errors and the dangers;
+to indicate with wise discernment what it would be desirable to
+preserve, and what to retrench, in the two sciences." Thus, according to
+Servan, the sanative art altogether would have been questioned, and the
+impartiality of the physicians might appear suspicious. The clever
+magistrate took care not to forget, on such an occasion, the eternal
+maxim, no one can be both judge and client. Physicians, then, ought to
+have been excepted.
+
+There then follows a legitimate homage to the non-graduated
+academicians, members of the commission: "Before Franklin and Bailly,"
+says the author, "every knee must bend. The one has invented much, the
+other has discovered much; Franklin belongs to the two worlds, and all
+ages seem to belong to Bailly." But arming himself afterwards with more
+cleverness than uprightness, with these words of the reporter, "The
+commissioners, especially the doctors, made an infinity of experiments,"
+he insinuates under every form that the commissioners accepted of a very
+passive line of conduct. Thus, putting aside the most positive
+declarations, pretending even to forget the name, the titles of the
+reporter, Servan no longer sees before him but one class of adversaries,
+regent doctors of the Faculty of Paris, and then he gives full scope to
+his satirical vein. He holds it even as an honour that they do not
+regard him as impartial. "The doctors have killed me; what it has
+pleased them to leave me of life is not worth, in truth, my seeking a
+milder term.... For these twenty years I have always been worse through
+the remedies administered to me than through my maladies.... Even were
+animal magnetism a chimera, it should be tolerated; it would still be
+useful to mankind, by saving many individuals among them from the
+incontestable dangers of vulgar medicine.... I wish that medicine, so
+long accustomed to deceive itself, should still deceive itself now, and
+that the famous report be nothing but a great error...." Amidst these
+singular declarations, there are hundreds of epigrams still more
+remarkable by their ingenious and lively turn than by their novelty. If
+it were true, Gentlemen, that the medical corps had ever tried,
+knowingly, to impose on the vulgar, to hide the uncertainty of their
+knowledge, the weakness of their theories, the vagueness of their
+conceptions, under an obscure and pedantic jargon, the immortal and
+laughable sarcasms of Moliere would not have been more than an act of
+strict justice. In all cases every thing has its day; now, towards the
+end of the eighteenth century, the most delicate, the most thorny points
+of doctrine were discussed with an entire good faith, with perfect
+lucidity, and in a style that placed many members of the faculty in the
+rank Of our best speakers. Servan, however, goes beyond the limits of a
+scientific discussion, when, without any sort of excuse, he accuses his
+adversaries of being anti-mesmerists through esprit de corps, and, what
+is worse, through cupidity.
+
+Servan is more in his element when he points out that the present best
+established medical theories occasioned at their birth prolonged
+debates; when he reminds us that several medicines have been alternately
+proscribed and recommended with vehemence: the author might even have
+more deeply undermined this side of his subject. Instead of some
+unmeaning jokes, why did he not show us, for example, in a neighbouring
+country, two celebrated physicians, Mead and Woodward, deciding, sword
+in hand, the quarrel that had arisen between them as to the purgative
+treatment of a patient? We should then have heard Woodward, pierced
+through and through, rolling on the ground, and drenched in blood, say
+to his adversary with an exhausted voice: "The blow was harsh, but yet I
+prefer it to your medicine!"
+
+It is not truth alone that has the privilege of rendering men
+passionate. Such was the legitimate result of these retrospective views.
+I now ask myself whether, by labouring to put the truth of this aphorism
+in full light, the passionate advocate of Mesmerism showed proof of
+ability!
+
+Gentlemen, let us put all these personal attacks aside, all these
+recriminations against science and its agents, who unfortunately had not
+succeeded in restoring the health of the morose magistrate. What remains
+then of his pamphlet? Two chapters, only two chapters, in which Bailly's
+report is treated seriously. The medical commissioners and the members
+of the Academy had not seen, in the real effects of Mesmerism anything
+more than was occasioned by imagination. The celebrated magistrate
+exclaims on this subject, "Any one hearing this proposition spoken of
+would suppose, before reading the report, that the commissioners had
+treated and cured, or considerably relieved by the force of imagination,
+large tumours, inveterate obstructions, gutta serenas, and strong
+paralyses." Servan admitted, in short, that magnetism had effected most
+wonderful cures. But there lay all the question. The cures being
+admitted, the rest followed as a matter of course.
+
+However incredible these cures might be, they must be admitted, they
+said, when numerous witnesses certified their truth. Was it owing to
+chance that attestations were wanting for the miracles at the Cemetery
+of St. Medard? Did not the counsellor to the parliament, Montgeron,
+state, in three large quarto volumes, the names of a great multitude of
+individuals who protested on their honour as illuminati, that the tomb
+of the Deacon, Paris, had restored sight to the blind, hearing to the
+deaf, strength to the paralytic; that in a twinkling it cured ailing
+people of gouty rheumatism, of dropsy, of epilepsy, of phthisis, of
+abscesses, of ulcers, &c.? Did these attestations, although many
+emanated from persons of distinction, from the Chevalier Folard, for
+example, prevent the convulsionists from becoming the laughingstock of
+Europe? Did they not see the Duchess of Maine herself laugh at their
+prowess in the following witty couplet?--
+
+     "A scavenger at the palace-gate
+       Who, his left heel being lame,
+     Obtained as a most special grace,
+       That his right should ail the same."[9]
+
+Was not government, urged to the utmost, at last obliged to interfere,
+when the multitude, carrying folly to the extremest bounds, was going to
+try to resuscitate the dead? In short, do we not remember the amusing
+distich, affixed at the time to the gate of the Cemetery of St.
+Medard?--
+
+     "By royal decree, we prohibit the gods
+     To work any miracles near to these sods."[10]
+
+Servan must have known better than any one that in regard to testimony,
+and in questions of complex facts, quality always carries the day over
+mere numbers; let us add, that quality does not result either from
+titles of nobility, or from riches, nor from the social position, nor
+even from a certain sort of celebrity. What we must seek for in a
+witness is a calmness of mind and of feeling, a store of knowledge, and
+a very rare thing, notwithstanding the name it bears, common sense; on
+the other hand, what we must most avoid is the innate taste of some
+persons for the extraordinary, the wonderful, the paradoxical. Servan
+did not at all recollect these precepts in the criticism he wrote on
+Bailly's work.
+
+We have already remarked that the Commissioners of the Academy and of
+the Faculty did not assert that the Mesmeric meetings were always
+ineffectual. They only saw in the crises the mere results of
+imagination; nor did any sort of magnetic fluid reveal itself to their
+eyes. I will also prove, that imagination alone generated the refutation
+that Servan gave to Bailly's theory. "You deny," exclaims the
+attorney-general, "you deny, gentlemen commissioners, the existence of
+the fluid which Mesmer has made to act such an important part! I
+maintain, on the contrary, not only that this fluid exists, but also
+that it is the medium by the aid of which all the vital functions are
+excited; I assert that imagination is one of the phenomena engendered by
+this agent; that its greater or less abundance in this or that among our
+organs, may totally change the normal intellectual state of
+individuals."
+
+Everybody agrees that too great a flow of blood towards the brain
+produces a stupefaction of the mind. Analogous or inverse effects might
+evidently be produced by a subtle, invisible, imponderable fluid, by a
+sort of nervous fluid, or magnetic fluid (if this term be preferred),
+circulating through our organs. And the commissioners took good care not
+to speak on this subject of impossibility. Their thesis was more modest;
+they contented themselves with saying that nothing demonstrated the
+existence of such a fluid. Imagination, therefore, had no share in their
+report; but in Servan's refutation, on the contrary, imagination was the
+chief actor.
+
+One thing that was still less proved, if possible, than any of those
+that we have been speaking of, is the influence that the magnetic fluid
+of the magnetizer might exert on the magnetized person.
+
+In magnetism, properly so called, in that which physicists have studied
+with so much care and success, the phenomena are constant. They are
+reproduced exactly under the same conditions of form, of duration, and
+of quantity, when certain bodies, being present to each other, find
+themselves exactly in the same relative positions. That is the essential
+and necessary character of all purely material and mechanical action.
+Was it thus in the pretended phenomena of animal magnetism? In no way.
+To-day the crises would occur in the space of some seconds; to-morrow
+they may require several entire hours; and finally, on another day,
+other circumstances remaining the same, the effect would be positively
+null. A certain magnetizer exercised a brisk action on a certain
+patient, and was absolutely powerless on another who, on the contrary,
+entered into a crisis under the earliest efforts of a second magnetizer.
+Instead of one or two universal fluids, there must, then, to explain the
+phenomena, be as many distinct fluids, and constantly acting, as there
+exist animated or inanimate beings in the world.
+
+The necessity of such a hypothesis evidently upset Mesmerism from its
+very foundations; yet the illuminati did not judge thus. All bodies
+became a focus of special emanations, more or less subtle, more or less
+abundant, and more or less dissimilar. So far the hypothesis found very
+few contradictors, even among rigorous minds; but soon these individual
+corporeal emanations were endowed, relatively towards those, (without
+the least appearance of proof,) either with a great power of
+assimilation, or with a decided antagonism, or with a complete
+neutrality; but they pretended to see in these occult qualities the
+material causes of the most mysterious affections of the soul. Oh! then
+doubt had a legitimate right to take possession of all those minds that
+had been taught by the strict proceedings of science not to rest
+satisfied with vain words. In the singular system that I have been
+explaining, when Corneille says,--
+
+     "There are some secret knots, some sympathies,
+     By whose relations sweet assorted souls
+     Attach themselves the one to the other...."[11]
+
+and when the celebrated Spanish Jesuit Balthazar Gracian spoke of the
+natural relationship of minds and hearts, both the one and the other
+alluded, assuredly without suspecting it, to the mixture, penetration,
+and easy crossing of two atmospheres.
+
+"I love thee not, Sabidus," wrote Martial, "and I know not why; all that
+I can tell thee is, that I love thee not." Mesmerists would soon have
+relieved the poet from his doubts. If Martial loved not Sabidus, it was
+because their atmospheres could not intermingle without occasioning a
+kind of storm.
+
+Plutarch informs us that the conqueror of Arminius fainted at the sight
+of a cock. Antiquity was astonished at this phenomenon. What could be
+more simple, however? the corporeal emanations of Germanicus and of the
+cock exercised a repulsive action the one on the other.
+
+The illustrious biographer of Cheronea declares, it is true, that the
+presence of the cock was not requisite, that its crowing produced
+exactly the same effect on the adopted son of Tiberius. Now, the crowing
+may be heard a long way off; the crowing, then, would seem to possess
+the power of transporting the corporeal emanations of the king of the
+lower court with great rapidity through space. The thing may appear
+difficult to believe. As for myself, I think it would be puerile to stop
+at such a difficulty; have we not leaped high over other difficulties
+far more embarrassing?
+
+The Marechal d'Albret was still worse off than Germanicus: the
+atmosphere that made him fall into a syncope exhaled from the head of a
+wild boar. A live, complete, whole wild boar produced no effect; but on
+perceiving the head of the animal detached from the body, the Marechal
+was struck as if with lightning. You see, gentlemen, to what sad trials
+military men would be exposed, if the Mesmerian theory of atmospheric
+conflicts were to regain favour. We ought to be carefully on our guard
+against a ruse de guerre, of which no one till then had ever
+thought,--that is, against cocks, wild boars, &c.,--for through them an
+army might suddenly be deprived of its commander-in-chief. "It would
+also be requisite not to entrust command," Montaigne says, "to men who
+would fly from apples more than from arquebusades."
+
+It is not only amongst the corpuscular emanations of living animals that
+the Mesmerists asserted conflicts to occur. They unhesitatingly extended
+their speculations to dead bodies. Some ancients dreamt that a catgut
+cord made of a wolf's intestines would never strike in unison with one
+made from a lamb's intestine; a discord of atmospheres renders the
+phenomenon possible. It is still a conflict of corporeal emanations that
+explains the other aphorism of an ancient philosopher: "The sound of a
+drum made with a wolf's skin takes away all sonorousness from a drum
+made with a lamb's skin."
+
+Here I pause, Gentlemen. Montesquieu said: "When God created the brains
+of human beings, he did not intend to guarantee them."
+
+To conclude: Servan's witty, piquant, agreeably written pamphlet was
+worthy under this triple claim of the reception with which the public
+honoured it; but it did not shake, in any one part, the lucid, majestic,
+elegant report by Bailly. The magistrate of Grenoble has said, that in
+his long experience he had met men accustomed to reflect without
+laughing, and other men who only wished to laugh without reflecting.
+Bailly thought of the first class when he wrote his memorable report.
+_The Doubts of the Provincial man_ were destined only for the other
+class.
+
+It was also to these light and laughing souls that Servan exclusively
+addressed himself some time after, if it be true that the _Queries of
+the young Doctor Rhubarbini de Purgandis_ were written by him.
+
+Rhubarbini de Purgandis sets to work manfully. In his opinion the report
+by Franklin, by Lavoisier, by Bailly, is, in the scientific life of
+those learned men, what the _Monades_ were for Leibnitz, the
+_Whirlwinds_ for Descartes, the _Commentary on the Apocalypse_ for
+Newton. These examples may enable us to judge of the rest, and render
+all farther refutation unnecessary.
+
+Bailly's report destroyed root and branch the ideas, the systems, the
+practices of Mesmer and of his adepts. Let us add sincerely that we have
+no right to appeal to him in regard to modern somnambulism. The greater
+portion of the phenomena now grouped around that name were neither known
+nor announced in 1783. A magnetizer certainly says the most improbable
+thing in the world, when he affirms that a given individual in the state
+of somnambulism can see every thing in the most profound darkness, that
+he can read through a wall, and even without the help of his eyes. But
+the improbability of these announcements does not result from the
+celebrated report, for Bailly does not mention such marvels, neither in
+praise nor dispraise; he does not say one word about them. The
+physicist, the doctor, the merely curious man who gives himself up to
+experiments in somnambulism, who thinks he must examine whether, in
+certain states of nervous excitement, some individuals are really
+endowed with extraordinary faculties; with the faculty, for example, of
+reading with their stomach, or with their heel; people who wish to know
+exactly up to what point the phenomena so boldly asserted by the
+magnetizers of our epoch may be within the domain of rogues and sharks;
+all such people, we say, do not at all deny the authority of the subject
+in question, nor do they put themselves really in opposition to the
+Lavoisiers, the Franklins, or the Baillys; they dive into an entirely
+new world, of which those illustrious learned men did not even suspect
+the existence.
+
+I cannot approve of the mystery adopted by some grave learned men, who,
+in the present day, attend experiments on somnambulism. Doubt is a proof
+of diffidence, and has rarely been inimical to the progress of science.
+We could not say the same of incredulity. He who, except in pure
+mathematics, pronounces the word _impossible_, is deficient in prudence.
+Reserve is especially requisite when we treat of animal organization.
+
+Our senses, notwithstanding twenty-four centuries of study,
+observations, and researches, are far from being an exhausted subject.
+Take, for example, the ear. A celebrated natural philosopher, Wollaston,
+occupied himself with it; and immediately we learn, that with an equal
+sensibility as regards the low notes a certain individual can hear the
+highest tones, whilst another cannot hear them at all; and it becomes
+proved that certain men, with perfectly sound organs, never heard the
+cricket in the chimney-corner, yet did not doubt but that bats
+occasionally utter a piercing cry; and attention being once awakened to
+these singular results, observers have found the most extraordinary
+differences of sensibility between their right ear and their left ear,
+&c.
+
+Our vision offers phenomena not less curious, and an infinitely vaster
+field of research. Experience has proved, for example, that some people
+are absolutely blind to certain colours, as red, and enjoy perfect
+vision relatively to yellow, to green, and to blue. If the Newtonian
+theory of emission be true, we must irrevocably admit that a ray ceases
+to be light as soon as we diminish its velocity by one ten thousandth
+part. Thence flow those natural conjectures, which are well worthy of
+experimental examination: all men do not see by the same rays; decided
+differences may exist in this respect in the same individual during
+various nervous states; it is possible that the calorific rays, the dark
+rays of one person, may be the luminous rays of another person, and
+reciprocally; the calorific rays traverse some substances freely, which
+are therefore called diathermal, these substances, thus far, had been
+called opaque, because they transmit no ray commonly called luminous;
+now the words opaque and diathermal have no absolute meaning. The
+diathermals allow those rays to pass through which constitute the light
+of one man; and they stop those which constitute the light of another
+man. Perhaps in this way the key of many phenomena might be found, that
+till now have remained without any plausible explanation.
+
+Nothing, in the marvels of somnambulism, raised more doubts than an
+oft-repeated assertion, relative to the power which certain persons are
+said to possess in a state of crisis, of deciphering a letter at a
+distance with the foot, the nape of the neck, or the stomach. The word
+_impossible_ in this instance seemed quite legitimate. Still, I do not
+doubt but some rigid minds would withhold it after having reflected on
+the ingenious experiments by which Moser produces, also at a distance,
+very distinct images of all sorts of objects, on all sorts of bodies,
+and in the most complete darkness.
+
+When we call to mind in what immense proportion electric or magnetic
+actions increase by motion, we shall be less inclined to deride the
+rapid actions of magnetizers.
+
+In here recording these developed reflections, I wished to show that
+somnambulism must not be rejected _a priori_, especially by those who
+have kept well up with the recent progress of the physical sciences. I
+have indicated some facts, some resemblances, by which magnetizers might
+defend themselves against those who would think it superfluous to
+attempt new experiments, or even to see them performed. For my part, I
+hesitate not to acknowledge it, although, notwithstanding the
+possibilities that I have pointed out, I do not admit the reality of the
+readings, neither through a wall, nor through any other opaque body, nor
+by the mere intromission of the elbow, or the occiput,--still, I should
+not fulfil the duties of an academician if I refused to attend the
+meetings where such phenomena were promised me, provided they granted me
+sufficient influence as regards the proofs, for me to feel assured that
+I was not become the victim of mere jugglery.
+
+Nor did Franklin, Lavoisier, or Bailly believe in Mesmeric magnetism
+before they became members of the Government Commission, and yet we may
+have remarked with what minute and scrupulous care they varied the
+experiments. True philosophers ought to have constantly before their
+eyes those two beautiful lines:--
+
+     "To suppose that every thing has been discovered is a profound error:
+     It is mistaking the horizon for the limits of the world."[12]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7]
+
+     "Le voila, ce mortel, dont le siecle s'honore,
+     Par qui sont replonges au sejour infernal
+     Tous les fleaux vengeurs que dechaina Pandore;
+     Dans son art bienfaisant il n'a pas de rival,
+     Et la Grece l'eut pris pour le dieu d'Epidaure."
+
+[8]
+
+     "Les sots sont ici-bas pour nos menus plaisirs."
+
+[9]
+
+     "Un decrotteur a la royale,
+     Du talon gauche estropie,
+     Obtint pour grace speciale
+     D'etre boiteux de l'autre pie."
+
+[10]
+
+     "De par le Roi, defense a Dieu
+     D'operer miracle en ce lieu!"
+
+[11]
+
+     "Il est des noeuds secrets, il est des sympathies,
+     Dont par les doux rapports les ames assorties
+     S'attachent l'une a l'autre."
+
+[12]
+
+     "Croire tout decouvert est un erreur profonde:
+     C'est prendre l'horizon pour les bornes du monde."
+
+
+
+
+ELECTION OF BAILLY INTO THE ACADEMY OF INSCRIPTIONS.
+
+In speaking of the pretended identity of the Atlantis, or of the kingdom
+of Ophir under Solomon with America, Bailly says, in his fourteenth
+letter to Voltaire: "Those ideas belonged to the age of learned men, but
+not to the philosophic age." And elsewhere (in the twenty-first letter)
+we read these words: "Do not fear that I shall fatigue you by heavy
+erudition." To have supposed that erudition could be heavy and be
+deficient in philosophy, was for certain people of a secondary order an
+unpardonable crime. And thus we saw men, excited by a sentiment of hate,
+arm themselves with a critical microscope, and painfully seek out
+imperfections in the innumerable quotations with which Bailly had
+strengthened himself. The harvest was not abundant; yet, these eager
+ferrets succeeded in discovering some weak points, some interpretations
+that might be contested. Their joy then knew no bounds. Bailly was
+treated with haughty disdain: "His literary erudition was very
+superficial; he had not the key of the sanctuary of antiquity; he was
+everywhere deficient in languages."
+
+That it might not be supposed that these reproaches had any reference to
+Oriental literature, Bailly's adversaries added: "that he had not the
+least tincture of the ancient languages; that he did not know Latin."
+
+He did not know Latin? And do you not see, you stupid enemies of the
+great Astronomer, that if it had been possible to compose such learned
+works as _The History of Astronomy_, and _The Letters on the Atlantis_,
+without referring to the original texts, by using translations only, you
+would no longer have preserved any importance in the literary world.
+How is it that you did not remark, that by despoiling Bailly (and very
+arbitrarily) of the knowledge of Latin, you showed the inutility of
+studying that language to become both one of your best writers, and one
+of the most illustrious philosophers of the age?
+
+The Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, far from participating
+in these puerile rancours, in the blind prejudices of some lost children
+of erudition, called Bailly to its bosom in 1785. Till then, Fontenelle
+alone had had the honour of belonging to the three great Academies of
+France. Bailly always showed himself very proud of a distinction which
+associated his name in an unusual manner with that of the illustrious
+writer, whose eulogies contributed so powerfully to make science and
+scientific men known and respected.
+
+Independently of this special consideration, Bailly, as member of the
+French Academy, could all the better appreciate the suffrages of the
+Academy of Inscriptions, since there existed at that time between those
+two illustrious Societies a strong and inexplicable feeling of rivalry.
+This had even proceeded so far, that by a most solemn deliberation of
+the Academy of Inscriptions, any of its members would have ceased to
+belong to it, would have been irrevocably expelled, if they had even
+only endeavoured to be received into the French Academy; and the king
+having annulled this deliberation, fifteen academicians bound themselves
+by oath to observe all its stipulations notwithstanding; furthermore, in
+1783, Choiseul Gouffier, who was accused of having adhered to the
+principles of the fifteen confederates, and then of having allowed
+himself to be nominated by the rival Academy, was summoned by Anquetil
+to appear before the Tribunal of the Marshals of France for having
+broken his word of honour.
+
+But, I may be allowed here to remark, superior men have always had the
+privilege of upsetting, by the mere influence of their name, the
+obstacles that routine, prejudices, and jealousy wished to oppose to the
+progress and the union of souls.
+
+
+
+
+REPORT ON THE HOSPITALS.
+
+Scientific tribunals, which should pronounce in the first instance while
+awaiting the definitive judgment of the public, were one of the
+requisites of our epoch; and thus, without any formal prescription of
+its successive regulations, the Academy of Sciences has been gradually
+led on to appoint committees to examine all the papers that have been
+presented to it, and to pronounce on their novelty, merit, and
+importance. This labour is generally an ungrateful one, and without
+glory, but talent has immense privileges; entrust Bailly with those
+simple Academical Reports, and their publication becomes an event.
+
+M. Poyet, architect and comptroller of buildings in Paris, presented to
+Government in the course of the year 1785, a paper wherein he strove to
+establish the necessity of removing the Hotel Dieu, and building a new
+hospital in another locality. This document, submitted by order of the
+king to the judgment of the Academy, gave rise, directly or indirectly,
+to three deliberations. The Academic Commissioners were, Lassone, Tenou,
+Tillet, Darcet, Daubenton, Bailly, Coulomb, Laplace, and Lavoisier. It
+was Bailly, however, who constantly held the pen. His reports have been
+honoured with a great and just celebrity. The progress of science would
+now perhaps allow of some modification being made in the ideas of the
+illustrious commissioners. Their views on warming-rooms, on their size,
+on ventilation, on general health, might, for example, receive some real
+ameliorations; but nothing could add to the sentiments of respect
+inspired by Bailly's work. What clearness of exposition! What neatness,
+what simplicity of style! Never did a writer put himself more completely
+out of view; never did a man more sincerely seek to make the sacred
+cause of humanity triumph. The interest that Bailly takes in the poor is
+deep, but always exempt from parade; his words are moderate, full of
+gentleness, even where hasty feelings of anger and indignation would
+have been legitimate. Of anger and of indignation! Yes, Gentlemen;
+listen, and decide!
+
+I have cited the names of the commissioners. At no time, and in no
+country, could more virtue and learning have been united. These select
+men, regulating themselves in this respect according to the most common
+logic, felt that the task of pronouncing on a reform of the Hotel Dieu
+imposed on them the necessity of examining that establishment. "We have
+asked," said their interpreter, "we have asked the Board of
+Administration to permit us to see the hospital in detail, and
+accompanied by some one who could guide and instruct us ... we required
+to know several particulars; we asked for them, but we obtained
+nothing."
+
+We have obtained nothing! These are the sad, the incredible words, that
+men so worthy of respect are obliged to insert in the first line of
+their report!
+
+What then was the authority that allowed itself to be so deficient in
+the most usual respect towards commissioners invested with the
+confidence of the King, the Academy, and the Public? This authority
+consisted of several administrators (the type of them, it is said, is
+not quite lost), who looked upon the poor as their patrimony, who
+devoted to them a disinterested but unproductive activity; who were
+impatient at any amelioration, the germ of which had not developed
+itself either in their own heads, or in those of certain men,
+philanthropic by nature, or by the privilege of their station. Ah! if by
+enlightened and constant care that vast asylum, opened to poverty and
+sickness, near Notre-Dame, had been then conducted, now sixty years ago,
+only in a tolerable way, we should have understood how, in taking human
+nature into consideration, the promoters of this great benefit would
+have repelled an examination that seemed to throw a doubt on their zeal
+and on their good sense. But alas! let us take from Bailly's work a few
+traits of the moderate and faithful picture that he drew of the Hotel
+Dieu, and you shall decide, Gentlemen, whether the susceptibility of the
+administrators was authorized; whether, on the contrary, they ought not
+themselves to have anticipated the unhoped-for help from the king's
+power, united to science, which was now offered to them; whether by
+retarding certain ameliorations by a single day, they did not commit the
+crime of lese-humanity.
+
+In 1786, infirmities of all sorts were treated at the Hotel Dieu:
+surgical maladies, chronic maladies, contagious maladies, female
+diseases, infantine diseases, &c. Every thing was admitted, but all
+presented an inevitable confusion.
+
+A patient on arriving was often laid in the bed and in the sheets of a
+man who had had the itch, and had just died.
+
+The department reserved for madmen being very confined, two were put to
+sleep together. Two madmen in the same sheets! Nature revolts at the
+very thought of it.
+
+In the ward of St. Francis, reserved exclusively for men having the
+smallpox, there were sometimes, for want of other space, as many as six
+adults or eight children in a bed not a metre and a half wide.
+
+The women attacked with this frightful disease were mixed in the ward of
+St. Monique with others who had only a simple fever, and the latter fell
+an inevitable prey to the hideous contagion, in the very place where,
+full of confidence, they had hoped to recover their health.
+
+Women with child, women in their confinement, were equally crowded,
+pell-mell, on narrow and infected truckle-beds.
+
+Nor let it be supposed that I have borrowed from Bailly's Report some
+purely exceptional cases, belonging to those cruel times, when whole
+populations, suffering under some epidemic, were tried beyond all human
+anticipation. In their usual state, the beds of the Hotel Dieu, which
+were not a metre and a half wide, contained four, and often six
+patients; they were placed alternately head and feet, the feet of one
+touching the shoulders of the next; each had only for his share of space
+25 centimetres (9 inches); now, a man of medium size, lying with his
+arms close to his body, is 48 centimetres (16 inches) broad at the
+shoulders. The poor patients then could not keep within the bed but by
+lying on their side perfectly immovable; no one could turn without
+pushing, without waking his neighbour; they therefore used to agree, as
+far as their illness would allow, for some of them to remain up part of
+the night in the space between the beds, whilst the others slept; and
+when the approaches of death nailed these unfortunate people to their
+place, did they not energetically curse that help, which in such a
+situation could only prolong their painful agony.
+
+But it was not only that beds thus placed were a source of discomfort,
+of disgust; that they prevented rest and sleep; that an insupportable
+heat occasioned and propagated diseases of the skin and frightful
+vermin; that the fever patient bedewed his neighbours with his profuse
+perspirations; and that in the critical moment he might be chilled by
+contact with those whose hot fit would occur later, &c. Still more
+serious effects resulted from the presence of many sick in the same bed;
+the food, the medicines, intended for one person, often found their way
+to another. In short, Gentlemen, in those beds of multiple population,
+the dead often lay for hours, and sometimes whole nights, intermingled
+with the living. The principal charitable establishment in Paris thus
+offered those dreadful coincidences, that the poets of Rome, that
+ancient historians have represented under King Mezentius, as the utmost
+extreme of barbarism.
+
+Such was, Gentlemen, the normal state of the old Hotel Dieu. One word,
+one word only, will suffice to tell what was the exceptional state: they
+placed some patients on the tops or testers of those same beds, where we
+have found so much suffering, so many authorized maledictions.
+
+Now, Gentlemen, let us, together with our fellow academician, cast a
+glance on the ward of surgical operations.
+
+This ward was full of patients. The operations were performed in their
+presence. Bailly says, "We see there the preparations for the torment;
+there are heard the cries of the tormented. He who has to suffer the
+next day has before him a picture of his own future sufferings; he who
+has passed through this terrible trial, must be deeply moved at those
+cries so similar to his own, and must feel his agonies repeated; and
+these terrors, these emotions, he experiences in the midst of the
+progress of inflammation or suppuration, retarding his recovery, and at
+the hazard of his life."... "To what purpose," Bailly justly exclaims,
+"would you make an unfortunate man suffer, if there is not a probability
+of saving him, and unless we increase that probability by all possible
+precautions?"
+
+The heart aches, the mind becomes confused, at the sight of so much
+misery; and yet this hospital, so little in harmony with its intended
+purpose, still existed sixty years ago. It is in a capital, the centre
+of the arts, of knowledge, of polished manners; it is in an age renowned
+for the development of public wealth, for the progress of luxury, for
+the ruinous creation of a crowd of establishments devoted to amusements,
+to worldly and futile pleasures; it is by the side of the palace of an
+opulent archbishop; it is at the gate of a sumptuous cathedral, that the
+unfortunate, under the deceitful mask of charity, underwent such
+dreadful tortures. To whom should we impute the long duration of this
+vicious and inhuman organization?
+
+To the professors of the art? No, no, Gentlemen! By an inconceivable
+anomaly the physicians, the surgeons, never obtained more than a
+secondary, a subordinate influence over the administration of the
+hospitals. No, no, the sentiments of the medical body for the poor could
+not be doubted, at an epoch and in a country where Dr. Anthony Petit
+thus answered the irritated queen, Marie Antoinette: "Madam, if I came
+not yesterday to Versailles, it was because I was attending the lying-in
+of a peasant, who was in the greatest danger. Your Majesty errs,
+however, in supposing that I neglect the Dauphin for the poor; I have
+hitherto treated the young child with as much attention and care as if
+he had been the son of one of your grooms."
+
+Preference was granted to the most suffering, to those in most danger,
+disregarding rank and fortune; such was, you see, Gentlemen, the sublime
+rule of the French Medical Corps; and such is still its gospel. I want
+no other proof of it than those admirable words addressed by our fellow
+labourer Larrey, to his friend Tanchou, when wounded at the Battle of
+Montmirail: "Your wound is slight, sir; we have only room and straw in
+this ambulance for serious wounds. They will take you into that stable."
+
+The medical corps could not, therefore, with any reason be accused or
+suspected in regard to the old Hotel Dieu of Paris.
+
+If economy be invoked, I find an answer quite a-propos in Bailly: the
+daily allowance for the patients at the Hotel Dieu was notably higher
+than in other establishments in the capital more charitably organized.
+
+Would any one go so far as to assert that the sick condemned to seek
+refuge in the hospitals, having their sensibilities blunted by labour,
+by misery, by their daily sufferings, would but faintly feel the effects
+of the horrible arrangements that the old Hotel Dieu revealed to all
+clear-sighted people? I will quote from the report of our colleague;
+"The maladies continue nearly double the time at the Hotel Dieu,
+compared with those at the Charite: the mortality there is also nearly
+double!... All the trepanned die in that hospital; whilst this
+operation is tolerably successful in Paris, and still more so at
+Versailles."
+
+The maladies continue double the time! The mortality there is double!
+All those who are trepanned die! The lying-in women die in a frightful
+proportion, &c. These are the sinister words that strike the eye
+periodically in the statements of the Hotel Dieu; and yet, let us repeat
+it, years passed away, and nothing was altered in the organization of
+the great hospital! Why persist in remaining in a condition that so
+openly wounds humanity? Must we, together with Cabanis, who also abused
+the old Hotel Dieu severely, "must we exclaim, that abuses known by all
+the world, against which every voice is raised, have secret supporters
+who know how to defend them, in a manner to tire out well-meaning
+people? Must we speak of false characters, perverse hearts, that seemed
+to regard errors and abuses as their patrimony?" Let us dare to
+acknowledge it, Gentlemen, evil is generally perpetrated in a less
+wicked manner: it is done without the intervention of any strong
+passion; by vulgar, yet all-powerful routine, and ignorance. I observe
+the same thought, though couched in the calm and cleverly circumspect
+language of Bailly: "The Hotel Dieu has existed perhaps since the
+seventh century, and if this hospital is the most imperfect of all, it
+is because it is the oldest. From the earliest date of this
+establishment, good has been sought, the desire has been to adhere to
+it, and constancy has appeared a duty. From this cause, all useful
+novelties have with difficulty found admission; any reform is difficult;
+there is a numerous administration to convince; there is an immense mass
+to move."
+
+The immensity of the mass, however, did not discourage the old
+Commissioners of the Academy. Let this conduct serve as an example to
+learned men, to administrators, who might be called upon to cast an
+investigating eye on the whole of our beneficent and humane
+establishments. Undoubtedly, the abuses, if any yet exist, have not
+individually any thing to be compared to those to which Bailly's report
+did justice; but would it be impossible for them to have sprung up
+afresh in the course of half a century, and that in proportion to their
+multiplicity, they should still make enormous and deplorable breaches in
+the patrimony of the poor?
+
+I shall modify very slightly, Gentlemen, the concluding words of our
+illustrious colleague's report, and I shall not in the least alter their
+innate meaning, if I say, in finishing this long analysis: "Each poor
+man is now laid alone in a bed, and he owes it principally to the
+gifted, persevering, and courageous efforts of the Academy of Sciences.
+The poor man ought to know it, and the poor man will not forget it."
+Happy, Gentlemen, happy the academy that can adorn itself with such
+reminiscences!
+
+
+
+
+REPORT ON THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSES.
+
+An attentive glance at the past has been, in all ages and in all
+countries, the infallible means of rightly appreciating the present.
+When we direct this glance to the sanitary state of Paris, the name of
+Bailly will again present itself in the first line amongst the promoters
+of a capital amelioration, which I shall point out in a few words.
+
+Notwithstanding the numerous acts of parliament,--notwithstanding the
+positive police regulations, which dated back to Charles IX., to Henry
+III., to Henry IV., slaughter-houses still existed in the interior of
+the capital in 1788; for instance, at l'Apport-Paris, La Croix-Rouge, in
+the streets of the Butcheries, Mont-Martre, Saint-Martin, Traversine,
+&c. &c. The oxen were, consequently, driven in droves through frequented
+parts of the town; enraged by the noise of the carriages, by the
+excitements of the children, by the attacks or barking of the wandering
+dogs, they often sought to escape,--entered houses or alleys, spread
+alarm everywhere, gored people, and committed great damage. Fetid gases
+exhaled from buildings too small and badly ventilated; the offal that
+had to be carried away gave out an insupportable smell; the blood flowed
+through the gutters of the neighbourhood, with other remains of the
+animals, and putrefied there. The melting of tallow, an inevitable
+annexation of all slaughter-houses, spread around disgusting emanations,
+and occasioned a constant danger of fire.
+
+So inconvenient, so repulsive a state of things, awakened the solicitude
+of individuals and of the public administration; the problem was
+submitted to our predecessors, and Bailly, as usual, became the reporter
+of the Academical Committee. The other members were Messrs. Tillet,
+Darcet, Daubenton, Coulomb, Lavoisier, and Laplace.
+
+When Napoleon, wishing to liberate Paris from the dangerous and
+insalubrious results of internal slaughter-houses, decreed the
+construction of the fine slaughter-houses known by everybody, he found
+the subject already well examined, exhibited in all its points of view,
+in Bailly's excellent work. "We ask," said the reporter of the
+Academical Commission in 1788, "we ask that the shambles be removed to a
+distance from the interior of Paris;" and these interior shambles have
+disappeared accordingly. Does it create surprise that it required more
+than fifteen years to obtain the grant of this most reasonable demand?
+I will further remark that, unfortunately, there was nothing exceptional
+in this; he who sows a thought in a field rank with prejudices, with
+private interests, and with routine, must never expect an early harvest.
+
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHIES OF COOK AND OF GRESSET.
+
+The publication of the five quarto volumes of which _the History of
+Astronomy_ consists, together with the two powerful _reports_ that I
+have just described, had worn out Bailly. To relax and amuse his mind,
+he resumed the style of composition that had enchanted him in his youth;
+he wrote some biographies, amongst others, that of Captain Cook,
+proposed as a prize-subject by the Academy of Marseilles, and the Life
+of Gresset.
+
+The biography of Gresset first appeared anonymously. This circumstance
+gave rise to a singular scene, which the author used to relate with a
+smile. I will here myself repeat the principal traits of it, if it be
+only to deter writers, whoever they may be, from launching their works
+into the world without affixing their names to them.
+
+The Marchioness of Crequi was a lady in the high circles of society, to
+whom a copy of the eulogium of the author of _Vert-Vert_ was presented
+as an offering. Some days after Bailly went to pay her a visit; did he
+hope to hear her speak favourably of the new work? I know not. At all
+events, our predecessor would have been ill rewarded for his curiosity.
+
+"Do you know," said the great lady as soon as she saw him, "a Eulogy of
+Gresset recently published? The author has sent me a copy of it, without
+naming himself. He will probably come to see me; he may, perhaps, have
+come already. What could I say to him? I do not think any one ever wrote
+worse. He mistakes obscurity for profundity; it is the darkness before
+the creation."
+
+Notwithstanding all Bailly's efforts to change the subject of the
+conversation, perhaps on account of those very efforts, the Marchioness
+rose, goes in search of the pamphlet, puts it into the author's hands,
+and begs of him to read aloud, if it be but the first page--quite
+enough, she said, to enable one to judge of the rest.
+
+Bailly used to read remarkably well. I leave it to be guessed whether,
+on this occasion, he was able to exercise this talent. Superfluous
+trouble! Madame de Crequi interrupted him at each sentence by the most
+disagreeable commentaries, by exclamations such as the following:
+"Detestable style!" "Confusion worse confounded!" and other similar
+amenities. Bailly did not succeed in extorting any indulgences from
+Madame de Crequi, when, fortunately, the arrival of another visitor put
+an end to this insupportable torture.
+
+Two years after this, Bailly having become the first personage in the
+city, some booksellers collected all his opuscula and published them.
+This time, the Marchioness, who had lost all recollection of the scene
+that I have been describing, overpowered the Mayor of Paris with
+compliments and felicitations on account of this same eulogy, which she
+had before treated with such inhuman rigour.
+
+Such a contrast excited the mirth of the author. Still, might I dare to
+say so, Madame de Crequi was, perhaps, sincere on both occasions; had
+the exaggerations of praise and of criticism been put aside, it would
+not have been impossible to defend both opinions. The early pages of
+the pamphlet might appear embarrassed and obscure, whilst in the rest
+there might be found great refinement, elegance, and appreciations full
+of taste.
+
+
+
+
+ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES.--BAILLY IS NAMED FIRST DEPUTY OF PARIS; AND
+SOON AFTER DEAN OR SENIOR OF THE DEPUTIES OF THE COMMUNES.
+
+The Assembly of the Notables had no other effect than to show in a
+stronger light the disorder of the finances, and the other wounds that
+were galling France. It was then that the Parliament of Paris asked for
+the convocation of the States General. This demand was unfavourably
+received by Cardinal de Brienne. Soon afterwards the convocation became
+a necessity, and Necker, now in the ministry, announced, in the month of
+November, 1788, that it was decreed in Council, and that the king had
+even granted to the third estate a double representation, which had been
+so imprudently disputed by the courtiers.
+
+The districts were formed, on the king's convocation, the 21st of April,
+1789. That day was the first day of Bailly's political life. It was on
+the 21st of April that the Citizen of Chaillot, entering the Hall of the
+_Feuillants_, imagined, he said, that "he breathed a new atmosphere,"
+and regarded "as a phenomenon that he should have become something in
+the body-politic, merely from his being a citizen."
+
+The elections were to be made in two gradations. Bailly was named first
+elector of his district. A few days after, at the general meeting, the
+Assembly called him to the Board in quality of secretary. Thus it was
+our fellow-academician who, in the beginning, drew up the celebrated
+_proces-verbal_ of the meetings of the electors of Paris, so often
+quoted by the historians of the revolution.
+
+Bailly also took an active part in drawing up the records of his
+district, and the records of the body of electors. The part he acted in
+these two capacities could not be doubtful, if we judge of it by the
+three following short quotations extracted from his memoirs: "The nation
+must remember that she is sovereign and mistress to order every
+thing.... It is not when reason awakes, that we should allege ancient
+privileges and absurd prejudices.... I shall praise the electors of
+Paris who were the first to conceive the idea of prefacing the French
+Constitution with a declaration of the Rights of Man."
+
+Bailly had always been so extremely reserved in his conduct and in his
+writings, that it was difficult to surmise under what point of view he
+would consider the national agitation of '89. Hence, at the very
+beginning, the Abbe Maury, of the French Academy, proposed to unite
+himself to Bailly, and that they should reside at Versailles, and have
+an apartment in common between them. It is difficult to avoid a smile
+when one compares the conduct of the eloquent and impetuous Abbe with
+the categorical declarations, so distinct and so progressive, of the
+learned astronomer.
+
+On Tuesday, the 12th of May, the general assembly of the electors
+proceeded to ballot for the nomination of the first deputy of Paris.
+Bailly was chosen.
+
+This nomination is often quoted as a proof of the high intelligence, and
+of the wisdom of our fathers, two qualities which, since that epoch,
+must have been constantly on the decline, if we are to believe the blind
+Pessimists. Such an accusation imposed on me the duty of carrying the
+appreciation of this wisdom, of this intelligence that is held up
+against us, even to numerical correctness. The following is the result:
+the majority of the votes was 159; Bailly obtained 173; this was
+fourteen more than he required. If fourteen votes had changed sides the
+result would have been different. Was this an incident, I ask, to
+exclaim so much against?
+
+Bailly showed himself deeply affected by this mark of the confidence
+with which he was regarded. His sensibility, his gratitude, did not
+prevent him, however, from recording in his memoirs the following
+_naive_ observation: "I observed in the Assembly of the Electors a great
+dislike for literary men, and for the academicians."
+
+I recommend this remark to all studious men who, by circumstances or by
+a sense of duty, may be thrown into the whirlpool of politics. Perhaps I
+may yield to the temptation of developing it, when I shall have to
+characterize Bailly's connection with his co-laborers in the first
+municipality of Paris.
+
+The great question on the verification of the powers was already
+strongly agitated, the day that Bailly and the other Deputies of Paris
+for the first time were able to go to Versailles; our academician had
+only spoken once in that majestic assembly, viz: to induce the adoption
+of the method of voting by members being _seated_ or _standing_,--when,
+on the 3d of June, he was named Senior of the Deputies of the Communes
+(or Commons). Formerly, the right of presiding in the third house of the
+kingdom belonged to the provost of the merchants. Bailly in his
+diffidence thought that the assembly, in assigning the chair to him, had
+wished to compensate the capital for the loss of an old privilege. This
+consideration induced him to accept of a duty that he thought above his
+powers,--he who always depicted himself as timid to an extreme, and not
+possessing a facility of speaking.
+
+Men's minds were more animated, more ardent in 1789 than those would
+admit who always see in the present a faithful image of the past. But
+calumny, that murderous arm of political party, already respected no
+position. Knowledge, loyalty, virtue, did not suffice to shelter any one
+from its poisoned darts. Bailly experienced it on the very day after his
+nomination to such an eminent post as President of the Communes.
+
+On the 29th of May, the Communes had voted an address to the king on the
+constantly recurring difficulties that the nobility opposed to the union
+of the States General in one assembly. In order to carry out this most
+solemn deliberation, Bailly solicited an audience, in which the moderate
+and respectful expression of the anxiety of six hundred loyal deputies
+was to be presented to the monarch. In the midst of these strifes the
+Dauphin died. Without taking the trouble to consult dates, the court
+party immediately represented Bailly as a stranger to the commonest
+proprieties, and totally deficient in feeling; he ought, they said, to
+have respected the most allowable of griefs; his importunities had been
+barbarous.
+
+I had imagined that such ridiculous accusations were no longer thought
+of; the categorical explanations that Bailly himself gave on this topic,
+seemed to me as if they would have sufficed to convince the most
+prejudiced. I was deceived, Gentlemen; the reproach of violence, of
+brutal insensibility, has just been repeated by the pen of a clever and
+a conscientious man. I will give his recital: "Scarcely two hours had
+elapsed since the royal child had breathed his last sigh, when Bailly,
+President of the Third Estate, insisted on admission to the king, who
+had prohibited any one being allowed to intrude upon him. But so
+positive was the demand, that they were obliged to yield, and Louis XVI.
+exclaimed, 'There are then no fathers in that chamber of the Third
+Estate.' The chamber very much applauded this trait of brutal
+insensibility in Bailly, which they termed a trait of Spartan stoicism."
+
+As many errors as words. The following is the truth. The illness of the
+Dauphin had not prevented the two privileged orders from being received
+by the king. This preference offended the Communes. They ordered the
+President to solicit an audience. He discharged his duty with great
+caution. All his proceedings were concerted with two ministers, Necker
+and M. de Barentin. The king answered, "It is impossible for me to see
+M. Bailly in the situation in which I am to-night, nor to-morrow
+morning, nor to fix a day for receiving the deputation of the Third
+Estate." The note ends with these words: "Show my note to M. Bailly for
+his vindication."
+
+Thus, on the day of these events the Dauphin was not dead; thus the king
+was not obliged to yield, he did not receive Bailly; thus the chamber
+had no act of insensibility to applaud; thus Louis XVI. perceived so
+clearly that the President of the Communes was fulfilling the duties of
+his office, that he felt it requisite to give him an exoneration.
+
+The death of the Dauphin happened on the 4th of June. As soon as the
+assembly of the Third Estate were informed of it, they charged the
+President, I quote the very words, "to report to their majesties the
+deep grief with which this news had penetrated the Communes."
+
+A deputation of twenty members, having Bailly at their head, was
+received on the 6th. The President thus expressed himself: "Your
+faithful Communes are deeply moved by the circumstance in which your
+majesty has the goodness to receive their deputation, and they take the
+liberty to address to you the expression of all their regrets, and of
+their respectful sensibility."
+
+Such language can, I think, be delivered without uneasiness to the
+appreciation of all good men.
+
+Let us be correct; the Communes did not obtain at once the audience that
+they demanded on account of the difficulties of the ceremonial. They
+would have wished to make the Third Estate speak kneeling. "This
+custom," said M. de Barentin, "has existed from time immemorial, and if
+the king wished...." "And if twenty-five millions of men do not wish
+it," exclaimed Bailly, interrupting the minister, "where are the means
+to force them?" "The two privileged orders," replied the Guard of the
+Seals, somewhat stunned by the apostrophe, "no longer require the Third
+Estate to bend the knee; but, after having formerly possessed immense
+privileges in the ceremonial, they limit themselves now to asking some
+difference. This difference I cannot find." "Do not take the trouble to
+seek for it," replied the President hastily: "however slight the
+difference might be, the Communes will not suffer it."
+
+This digression was required through a grave and recent error. The
+memory of Bailly will not suffer by it, since it has afforded me the
+opportunity of establishing, beyond any reply, that in our fellow
+academician a noble firmness was on occasions allied to urbanity,
+mildness, and politeness. But what will be said of the puerilities which
+I have been obliged to recall, of the mean pretensions of the courtiers
+on the eve of an immense revolution? When the Greeks of the Lower
+Empire, instead of going on the ramparts valiantly to repel the attacks
+of the Turks, remained night and day collected around some sophists in
+their lyceums and academies, their sterile debates at least related to
+some intellectual questions; but at Versailles, there was nothing in
+action, on the part of two out of three orders, but the most miserable
+vanity.
+
+By an express arrangement, decreed from the beginning, among the Members
+of the Communes, the Dean or President had to be renewed every week.
+Notwithstanding the incessant representations of Bailly, this
+legislative article was long neglected, so fortunate did the Assembly
+feel in having at their head this eminent man, who to undeniable
+knowledge, united sincerity, moderation, and a degree of patriotism not
+less appreciated.
+
+He thus presided over the Third Estate on the memorable days that
+determined the march of our great revolution.
+
+On the 17th of June, for instance, when the Deputies of the Communes,
+worn out with the tergiversations of the other two orders, showed that
+in case of need they would act without their concurrence, and resolutely
+adopted the title of National Assembly,--they provided against presumed
+projects of dissolution, by stamping as illegal all levies of
+contribution which were not granted by the Assembly.
+
+Again, on the 20th of June, when the Members of the National Assembly,
+affronted at the Hall having been closed and their meetings suspended
+without an official notification, with only the simple form of placards
+and public criers, as if a mere theatre was in question, they assembled
+at a tennis-court, and "took an oath never to separate, but to assemble
+wherever circumstances might render it requisite, until the Constitution
+of the Kingdom should be established and confirmed on solid
+foundations."
+
+Once more, Bailly was still at the head of his colleagues on the 23d of
+June, when, by an inexcusable inconsistency, and which perhaps was not
+without some influence on the events of that day, the Deputies of the
+Third Estate were detained a long time at the servants' door of the Hall
+of Meeting, and in the rain; while the deputies of the other two orders,
+to whom a more convenient and more suitable entrance had been assigned,
+were already in their places.
+
+The account that Bailly gave of the celebrated royal meeting on the 23d
+of June, does not exactly agree with that of most historians.
+
+The king finished his speech with the following imprudent words: "I
+order you, Gentlemen, to separate immediately."
+
+The whole of the nobility and a portion of the clergy retired; while the
+Deputies of the Communes remained quietly in their places. The Grand
+Master of the Ceremonies having remarked it, approaching Bailly said to
+him, "You heard the king's order, Sir?" The illustrious President
+answered, "I cannot adjourn the Assembly until it has deliberated on
+it." "Is that indeed your answer, and am I to communicate it to the
+king?" "Yes, Sir," replied Bailly, and immediately addressing the
+Deputies who surrounded him, he said, "It appears to me that the
+assembled nation cannot receive an order."
+
+It was after this debate, at once both firm and moderate, that Mirabeau
+addressed from his place the well-known apostrophe to M. de Breze. The
+President disapproved both of the basis and the form of it; he felt that
+there was no sufficient motive; for, said he, the Grand Master of the
+Ceremonies made use of no menace; he had not in any way insinuated that
+there was an intention to resort to force; he had not, above all, spoken
+of bayonets. At all events, there is an essential difference between the
+words of Mirabeau as related in almost all the Histories of the
+Revolution, and those reported by Bailly. According to our illustrious
+colleague the impetuous tribune exclaimed, "Go tell those who sent you,
+that the force of bayonets can do nothing against the will of the
+nation." This is, to my mind, much more energetic than the common
+version. The expression, "We will only retire by the force of bayonets!"
+had always appeared to me, notwithstanding the admiration conceded to
+it, to imply only a resistance which would cease on the arrival of a
+corporal and half-a-dozen soldiers.
+
+Bailly quitted the chair of President of the National Assembly on the 2d
+of July. His scientific celebrity, his virtue, his conciliating spirit,
+had not been superfluous in habituating certain men to see a member of
+the Communes preside over an assembly in which there was a prince of the
+blood, a prince of the church, the greatest lords of the kingdom, and
+all the high dignitaries of the clergy. The first person named to
+succeed to Bailly was the Duke d'Orleans. After his refusal, the
+Assembly chose the Archbishop of Vienne (Pompignan).
+
+Bailly recalls to mind with sensibility, in his memoirs, the testimonies
+of esteem that he obtained through his difficult and laborious
+presidency. The 3d of July, on the proposition of the Duke de la
+Rochefoucauld and of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the National Assembly
+sent a deputation to their illustrious ex-president, to thank him (these
+are the precise words) "for his noble, wise, and firm conduct." The
+electoral body of Bordeaux had been beforehand with these homages. The
+Chamber of Commerce of that town, at the same time, decided that the
+portrait of the great citizen should decorate their hall of meeting. The
+Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, did
+not remain insensible to the glory that one of their members had
+acquired in the career of politics, and testified it by numerous
+deputations. Finally, Marmontel, in the name of the French Academy,
+expressed to Bailly "how proud that assembly was to count, among its
+members an Aristides that no one was tired of calling the Just."
+
+I shall not excite surprise, I hope, by adding, after such brilliant
+testimonies of sympathy, that the inhabitants of Chaillot celebrated the
+return of Bailly amongst them by fetes, and fireworks, and that even the
+curate of the parish and the churchwardens, unwilling to be surpassed by
+their fellow-citizens, nominated the historian of antediluvian astronomy
+honorary churchwarden. I will, at all events, repress the smile that
+might arise from such private reminiscences, by reminding the reader
+that a man's moral character is better appreciated by his neighbours, to
+whom he shows himself daily without disguise, than that of more
+considerable persons, who are only seen on state occasions, and in
+official costume.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY BECOMES MAYOR OF PARIS.--SCARCITY.--MARAT DECLARES HIMSELF
+INIMICAL TO THE MAYOR.--EVENTS OF THE 6TH OF OCTOBER.
+
+The Bastille had been taken on the 14th of July. That event, on which,
+during upwards of half a century, there have been endless discussions,
+on opposite sides, was characterized in the following way, in the
+address to the National Assembly, drawn up by M. Moreau de Saint Mery,
+in the name of the City Committee:--
+
+"Yesterday will be for ever memorable by the taking of a citadel,
+consequent on the Governor's perfidy. The bravery of the people was
+irritated by the breaking of the word of honour. This act (the strongest
+proof that the nation who knows best how to obey, is jealous of its just
+liberties,) has been followed by incidents that from the public
+misfortunes might have been foreseen."
+
+Lally Tollendal said to the Parisians, on the 15th of July: "In the
+disastrous circumstances that have just occurred, we did not cease to
+participate in your griefs; and we have also participated in your anger;
+it was just."
+
+The National Assembly solicited and obtained permission from the king on
+the 15th of July, to send a deputation to Paris, which they flattered
+themselves would restore order and peace in that great city, then in a
+convulsed state. Madame Bailly, always influenced by fear, endeavoured,
+though vainly, to dissuade her husband from joining the appointed
+deputies. The learned academician naively replied, "After a presidency
+that has been applauded, I am not sorry to show myself to my
+fellow-citizens." You see, Gentlemen, that Bailly always admits the
+future reader of his Posthumous Memoirs confidentially into his most
+secret feelings.
+
+The deputation completed its mandate at the Town Hall, to the entire
+satisfaction of the Parisian populace; the Archbishop of Paris, its
+President, had already proposed to go in procession to the Cathedral to
+sing _Te Deum_; they were preparing to depart, when the Assembly, giving
+way to a spontaneous enthusiasm, with an unanimous voice, proclaimed
+Bailly Mayor of Paris, and Lafayette Commander-in-Chief of the National
+Guard, the creation of which had just been authorized.
+
+The official minutes of the Municipality state, that on being thus
+unexpectedly named, Bailly bent forward to the Assembly, his eyes bathed
+in tears, and that amidst his sobs he could only utter a few unconnected
+words to express his gratitude. The Mayor's own recital differs very
+little from this official relation. Still I shall quote it as a model of
+sincerity and of modesty.
+
+"I know not whether I wept, I know not what I said; but I remember well
+that I was never so surprised, so confused, and so beneath myself.
+Surprise adding to my usual timidity before a large assembly, I rose, I
+stammered out a few words that were not heard, and that I did not hear
+myself, but which my agitation, much more than my mouth, rendered
+expressive. Another effect of my sudden stupidity was, that I accepted
+without knowing what a burden I was taking on myself."
+
+Bailly having become Mayor, and being tacitly accepted by the National
+Assembly, even from the 16th of July, availed himself of his intimacy
+with Vicq-d'Azyr, the Queen's physician, to persuade Louis XVI. to show
+himself to the Parisians. This advice was listened to. On the 17th the
+new magistrate addressed the king near the barriere de la Conference, in
+a discourse that began thus:--
+
+"I bring to your Majesty the keys of your good city of Paris. They are
+the same that were presented to Henry IV. He had reconquered his people,
+here the people have reconquered their king."
+
+The antithesis: "he had reconquered his people, here the people have
+reconquered their king," was universally applauded. But since then, it
+has been criticized with bitterness and violence. The enemies of the
+Revolution have striven to discover in it an intention of committing an
+outrage, to which the character of Bailly, and still more so the first
+glance at an examination of the rest of his discourse, give a flat
+contradiction. I will acknowledge, Gentlemen, I think that I have even a
+right to decline the epithet of "unfortunate," which one of our most
+respectable colleagues in the French Academy has pronounced relative to
+this celebrated phrase, while doing justice at the same time to the
+sentiments of the author. The poison contained in the few words that I
+have quoted, was very inoffensive, since more than a year passed without
+any courtier, though furnished like a microscope with, all the
+monarchical susceptibilities, beginning to suspect its existence.
+
+The Mayor of Paris was at the Hotel de Ville in the midst of those same
+Parisian citizens who inspired him, a few months before, with the
+mortifying reflection already quoted: "I remarked in the Assembly of
+Electors a dislike to literary people and Academicians." The feeling did
+not appear to be changed.
+
+The political movement in 1789, had been preceded by two very serious
+physical perturbations which had great influence on the march of events.
+Every one is aware, that the excessively rigorous winter of 1788-89 was
+the cause of severe sufferings to the people. But it may not be so
+generally known, that on the 13th of July, 1788, a fall of hail of
+unprecedented size and quantity, in a few hours completely ravaged the
+two parallel zones lying between the department of the Charente and the
+frontiers of the Pays-Bas, and that in consequence of this frightful
+hail, the wheat partly failed, both in the north and in the west of
+France, until after the harvest of 1789.
+
+The scarcity was already severely felt, when Bailly on the 15th of July
+accepted the appointment of Mayor of Paris. That day, it had been
+ascertained, from an examination of the quantity of corn at the Market
+Hall and of the private stocks of the bakers, that the supply of grain
+and flour would be entirely exhausted in three days. The next day, the
+16th of July, all the overseers in the victualling administration had
+disappeared. This flight, the natural consequence of the terrible
+intimidation that hovered over those who were in any way connected with
+the furnishing of provisions, interrupted the operations which had been
+commenced, and exposed the city of Paris to famine.
+
+Bailly, a magistrate of only one day's standing, considered that the
+multitude understands nothing, hears nothing when bread fails; that a
+scarcity, either real or supposed, is the great promoter of riots; that
+all classes of the population grant their sympathy to whoever cries, _I
+am hungry_; that this lamentable cry soon unites individuals of all
+ages, of both sexes, of every condition, in one common sentiment of
+blind fury; that no human power could maintain order and tranquillity in
+the bosom of a population that dreads the want of food; he therefore
+resolved to devote his days and his nights to provisioning the capital;
+to deserve, as he himself said, the title of the _Father nourisher of
+the Parisians_,--that title of which he showed himself always so proud,
+after having painfully gained it.
+
+Bailly day by day recorded in his Memoirs a statement of his actions, of
+his anxieties, and of his fears. It may be good for the instruction of
+the more fortunate administrators of the present epoch, to insert here a
+few lines from the journal of our colleague.
+
+"18th August. Our provisions are very much reduced. Those of the morrow
+depend strictly on the arrangements made on the previous evening; and
+now amidst this distress, we learn that our flour-wagons have been
+stopped at Bourg-la-Reine; that some banditti are pillaging the markets
+in the direction of Rouen, that they have seized twenty wagons of flour
+that were destined for us; ... that the unfortunate Sauvage was
+massacred at Saint Germain-en-Laye; ... that Thomassin escaped with
+difficulty from the fury of the populace at Choisy."
+
+By repeating either these literal words, or something equivalent to
+them, for every day of distress throughout the year 1789, an exact idea
+may be formed of the anxieties that Bailly experienced from the morning
+after his installation as mayor. I deceive myself; to complete the
+picture we ought also to record the unreflecting and inconsiderate
+actions of a multitude of people whose destiny appeared to be, to meddle
+with every thing and to spoil every thing. I will not resist the wish to
+show one of these self-important men, starving (or very nearly so) the
+city of Paris.
+
+"21st August. The store of victuals, Bailly says, was so scanty, that
+the lives of the inhabitants of Paris depended on the somewhat
+mathematical precision of our arrangements. Having learnt that a barge
+with eighteen hundred sacks of flour had arrived at Poissy, I
+immediately despatched a hundred wagons from Paris to fetch them. And
+behold, in the evening, an officer without powers and without orders,
+related before me, that having met some wagons on the Poissy road, he
+made them go back, because he did not think that there was a wharf for
+any loaded barge on the Seine. It would be difficult for me to describe
+the despair and the anger into which this recital threw me. We were
+obliged to put sentinels at the bakers' doors!"
+
+The despair and the anger of Bailly were very natural. Even now, after
+more than half a century, no one thinks without a shudder of that
+obscure individual who, from not believing that a loaded barge could get
+up to Poissy, was going, on the 21st August, 1789, to plunge the capital
+into bloody disorders.
+
+By means of perseverance, devotedness, and courage, Bailly succeeded in
+overcoming all the difficulties that the real scarcity, and the
+fictitious one, which was still more redoubtable, caused daily to arise.
+He succeeded, but his health from that epoch was deeply injured; his
+mind had undergone several of those severe shocks that we can never
+entirely recover from. Our colleague said, "when I used to pass the
+bakers' shops during the scarcity, and saw them besieged by a crowd, my
+heart sunk within me; and even now that abundance has been restored to
+us, the sight of one of those shops strikes me with a deep emotion."
+
+The administrative conflicts, the source of which lay in the very bosom
+of the Council of the Commune, daily drew from Bailly the following
+exclamation, a faithful image of his mind: _I have ceased to be happy_.
+The embarrassments that proceeded from external sources touched him
+much less, and yet they were far from contemptible. Let us surmount our
+repugnance, although a reasonable one; let us cast a firm look on the
+sink where the unworthy calumnies were manufactured, of which Bailly was
+for some time the object.
+
+Several years before our first revolution, a native of Neufchatel
+quitted his mountains, traversed the Jura, and lighted upon Paris.
+Without means, without any recognized talent, without eminence of any
+sort, repulsive in appearance, of a more than negligent deportment, it
+seemed unlikely that he should hope, or even dream, of success; but the
+young traveller had been told to have full confidence, although a
+celebrated academician had not yet given that singular definition of our
+country, "France is the home of foreigners." At all events, the
+definition was not erroneous in this instance, for soon after his
+arrival, the Neufchatelois was appointed physician to the household of
+one of the princes of the royal family, and formed strict intimacies
+with the greater part of the powerful people about the court.
+
+This stranger thirsted for literary glory. Amongst his early
+productions, a medico-philosophical work figured in three volumes,
+relative to the reciprocal influences of the mind and the body. The
+author thought he had produced a _chef d'oeuvre_; even Voltaire was
+not thought to be above analyzing it suitably; let us hasten to say that
+the illustrious old man, yielding to the pressing solicitations of the
+Duke de Praslin, one of the most active patrons of the Swiss doctor,
+promised to study the work and give his opinion of it.
+
+The author was at the acme of his wishes. After having pompously
+announced that the seat of the soul is in the _meninges_ (cerebral
+membrane), could there be any thing to fear from the liberal thinker of
+Ferney? He had only forgotten that the patriarch was above all a man of
+good taste, and that the book on the body and soul offended all the
+proprieties of life. Voltaire's article appeared. He began with this
+severe and just lesson--"We should not be prodigal of contempt towards
+others, and of esteem for ourselves, to such a degree as will be
+revolting to our readers." The end was still more overwhelming. "We see
+harlequin everywhere cutting capers to amuse the pit."
+
+Harlequin had received a sufficient dose. Not having succeeded in
+literature, he threw himself upon the sciences.
+
+On betaking himself to this new career, the doctor of Neufchatel
+attacked Newton. But unluckily his criticisms were directed precisely to
+those points wherein optics may vie in evidence with geometry itself.
+This time the patron was M. de Maillebois, and the tribunal the Academy
+of Sciences.
+
+The Academy pronounced its judgment gravely, without inflicting a word
+of ridicule; for example, it did not speak of harlequin; but it did not
+therefore remain the less established that the pretended experiments,
+intended, it was said, to upset Newton's, on the unequal refrangibility
+of variously coloured rays, and the explanation of the rainbow, &c., had
+absolutely no scientific value.
+
+Still the author would not allow himself to have been beaten. He even
+conceived the possibility of retaliation; and, availing himself of his
+intimacy with the Duke de Villeroy, governor of the second city in the
+kingdom, he got the Academy of Lyons to propose for competition all the
+questions in optics, which for several years past had been the subjects
+of its disquisitions; he even furnished the amount of the prize out of
+his own pocket, under an assumed name.
+
+The prize so longed for, and so singularly proposed, was not obtained,
+however, by the Duke de Villeroy's candidate, but by the astronomer
+Flaugergues. From that instant, the pseudo-physicist became the bitter
+enemy of the scientific bodies of the whole universe, of whoever bore
+the title of an academician. Putting aside all shame, he no longer made
+himself known in the field of natural philosophy, merely by imaginary
+experiments, or by juggleries; he had recourse to contemptible
+practices, with the object of throwing doubt upon the clearest and best
+proved principles of science; for example, the metallic needles
+discovered by the academician Charles, and which the foreign doctor had
+adroitly concealed in a cake of resin, in order to contradict the common
+opinion of the electric non-conductibility of that substance.
+
+These details were necessary. I could not avoid characterizing the
+journalist who by his daily calumnies contributed most to undermine the
+popularity of Bailly. It was requisite besides, once for all, to strip
+him in this circle of the epithet of philosopher, with which men of the
+world, and even some historians, inconsiderately gratified him. When a
+man reveals himself by some brilliant and intelligent works, the public
+is pleased to find them united with good qualities of the heart. Nor
+should its joy be less hearty on discovering the absence of all
+intellectual merit in a man who had before shown himself despicable by
+his passions, or his vices, or even only by serious blemishes of
+character.
+
+If I have not yet named the enemy of our colleague, if I have contented
+myself with recounting his actions, it is in order to avoid as much as I
+can the painful feeling that his name must raise here. Judge,
+Gentlemen, weigh, my scruples: the furious persecutor of Bailly, of whom
+I have been talking to you for some minutes, was Marat.
+
+The revolution of '89 just occurred in time to relieve the abortive
+author, physiologist, and physicist from the intolerable position into
+which he had been thrown by his inability and his quackery.
+
+As soon as the revolution had assumed a decided movement, great surprise
+was occasioned by the sudden transformations excited in the inferior
+walks of the political world. Marat was one of the most striking
+examples of these hasty changes of principles. The Neufchatel physician
+had shown himself a violent adversary to those opinions that occasioned
+the convocation of the assembly of Notables, and the national commotion
+in '89. At that time democratical institutions had not a more bitter or
+more violent censor. Marat liked it to be believed that in quitting
+France for England, he fled especially from the spectacle of social
+renovation which was odious to him. Yet a month after the taking of the
+Bastille, he returned to Paris, established a journal, and from its very
+beginning left far behind him, even those who, in the hope of making
+themselves remarkable, thought they must push exaggeration to its very
+farthest limits. The former connection of Marat with M. de Calonne was
+perfectly well known; they remembered these words of Pitt's: "The French
+must go through liberty, and then be brought back to their old
+government by licence;" the avowed adversaries of revolution testified
+by their conduct, by their votes, and even by their imprudent words,
+that according to them, _the worst_ was the only means of returning to
+what they call _the good_; and yet these instructive comparisons struck
+only eight or ten members of our great assemblies, so small a share has
+suspicion in the national character, so painful is distrust to French
+sincerity. The historians of our troubles themselves have but skimmed
+the question that I have just raised--assuredly a very important and
+very curious one. In such matters, the part of a prophet is tolerably
+hazardous; yet I do not hesitate to predict, that a minute study of the
+conduct and of the discourses of Marat, would lead the mind more and
+more to those chapters in a treatise on the chase, wherein we see
+depicted bad species of falcons and hawks, at first only pursuing the
+game by a sign from the master, and for his advantage; but by degrees
+taking pleasure in these bloody struggles, and entering on the sport at
+last with passion and for their own profit.
+
+Marat took good care not to forget that during a revolution, men,
+naturally suspicious, act in their more immediate affairs so as to
+render those persons suspected whose duty it is to watch over them. The
+Mayor of Paris, the General Commandant of the National Guard, were the
+first objects, therefore, at which the pamphleteer aimed. As an
+academician, Bailly had an extra claim to his hate.
+
+Among men of Marat's disposition, the wounds of self-love never heal.
+Without the hateful passions derived from this source, who would believe
+that an individual, whose time was divided between the superintendence
+of a daily journal, the drawing up of innumerable placards with which he
+covered the walls of Paris, together with the struggles of the
+Convention, the disputes not less fierce of the clubs; that an
+individual who, besides, had given himself the task of imposing an
+Agrarian law on the country, could find time to write the very long
+letters against the old official adversaries of his bad experiments, his
+absurd theories, his lucubrations devoid both of erudition and of
+talent; letters in which the Monges, the Laplaces, the Lavoisiers are
+treated with such an entire neglect of justice and of truth, and with
+such a cynical spirit, that my respect for this assembly prevents my
+quoting a single expression.
+
+It was not then only the Mayor of Paris whom the pretended friend of the
+people persecuted; it was also the Academician Bailly. But the
+illustrious philosopher, the virtuous magistrate, gave no hold for
+positive and decided criminations. The hideous pamphleteer understood
+this well; and therefore he adopted vague insinuations, that allowed of
+no possible refutation, a method which, we may remark by the way, has
+not been without imitators. Marat exclaimed every day: "Let Bailly send
+in his accounts!" and the most powerful figure of rhetoric, as Napoleon
+said, repetition, finally inspires doubts in a stupid portion of the
+public, in some feeble, ignorant, and credulous minds in the Council of
+the Commune; and the scrupulous magistrate wished, in fact, to send in
+his accounts. Here they are in two lines: Bailly never had the handling
+of any public funds. He left the Hotel de Ville, after having spent
+there two thirds of his patrimony. If his functions had been long
+protracted, he would have retired completely ruined. Before the Commune
+assigned him any salary, the expenses of our colleague in charities
+already exceeded 30,000 livres.
+
+That was, Gentlemen, the final result. The details would be more
+striking, and the name of Bailly would ennoble them. I could show our
+colleague entering only once with his wife, to regulate the furnishing
+of the apartments that the Commune assigned him; rejecting all that had
+the appearance of luxury or even of elegance; to replace sets of china
+by sets of earthenware, new carpets by the half-used ones of M. de
+Crosnes, writing tables of mahogany by writing tables of walnut, &c. But
+all this would appear an indirect criticism, which is far from my
+thoughts. From the same motives, I will not say, that inimical to all
+sinecures, of all plurality of appointments, when the functions are not
+fulfilled, the Mayor of Paris, since he no longer regularly attended the
+meetings of the National Assembly, no longer fingered the pay of a
+deputy, and that this was proved, to the great confusion of the idiots,
+whose minds had been disturbed by Marat's clamours. Yet I will record
+that Bailly refused all that in the incomes of his predecessors had
+proceeded from an impure source; as, for example, the allowances from
+the lotteries, the amount of which was by his orders constantly paid
+into the coffers of the Commune.
+
+You see, Gentlemen, that no trouble was required to show that the
+disinterestedness of Bailly was great, enlightened, dictated by virtue,
+and that it was at least equal to his other eminent qualities. In the
+series of accusations that I have extracted from the pamphlets of that
+epoch, there is one, however, as to which, all things considered, I will
+not attempt to defend Bailly. He accepted a livery from the city; on
+this point no blame was attached to him; but the colours of the livery
+were very gaudy. Perhaps the inventors of these bright shades had
+imagined, that the insignia of the first magistrate of the metropolis,
+in a ceremony, in a crowd, should, like the light from a Pharos, strike
+even inattentive eyes. But these explanations regard those who would
+make of Bailly a perfectly rational being, a man absolutely faultless;
+I, although his admirer, I resign myself to admit that in a laborious
+life, strewed with so many rocks, he committed the horrible crime,
+unpardonable let it be called, of having accepted from the Commune a
+livery of gaudy colours.
+
+Bailly figured in the events of the month of October 1789, only by the
+unsuccessful efforts he made at Paris, to arrange with Lafayette how to
+prevent a great crowd of women from going to Versailles. When this
+crowd, considerably increased, returned on the 6th October very
+tumultuously escorting the carriages of the royal family, Bailly
+harangued the king at the Barriere de la Conference. Three days after,
+he also complimented the Queen at the Tuileries in the name of the
+Municipal Council.
+
+On retiring from the National Assembly, which he then called a Cavern of
+Anthropophagi, Lally Tollendal published a letter in which he found
+bitter fault with Bailly on account of these discourses. Lally was
+angry, recollecting that the day when the king reentered his capital as
+a prisoner, surrounded by a very disrespectful crowd, and preceded by
+the heads of his body-guards, had appeared to Bailly a fine day!
+
+If the two heads had been in the procession, Bailly becomes inexcusable;
+but the two epochs, or rather hours (to speak more correctly), have been
+confounded; the wretched men, who after a conflict with the body-guard,
+brought their barbarous trophies to Paris, left Versailles in the
+morning; they were arrested and imprisoned, by order of the
+municipality, as soon as they had entered the barriers of the capital.
+Thus the hideous circumstance reported by Lally was the dream of a wild
+imagination.
+
+
+
+
+A GLANCE AT THE POSTHUMOUS MEMOIR OF BAILLY.
+
+Bailly's Memoirs have thus far served me as a guide and check; now that
+this resource fails me, let us refer to his posthumous work.
+
+I could only consult those Memoirs as far as they related to the public
+or private life of our colleague. Historians may consult them in a more
+general point of view. They will find some valuable facts in them,
+related without prejudice; ample matter for new and fruitful reflections
+on the way in which revolutions are generated, increase, and lead to
+catastrophes. Bailly is less positive, less absolute, less slashing,
+than the generality of his contemporaries, even respecting those events
+in which circumstances assigned to him the principal part to be acted;
+hence when he points out some low intrigue, in distinct and categorical
+terms, he inspires full confidence.
+
+When the occasion will allow of it, Bailly praises with enthusiasm; a
+noble action fills him with joy; he puts it together and relates it with
+relish. This disposition of mind is sufficiently rare to deserve
+mention.
+
+The day, still far off, when we shall finally recognize that our great
+revolution presented, even in the interior, even during the most cruel
+epochs, something besides anarchical and sanguinary scenes: the day
+when, like the intrepid fishermen in the Gulf of Persia and on the
+coasts of Ceylon, a zealous and impartial writer will consent to plunge
+head-foremost into the ocean of facts of all sorts, of which our fathers
+were witnesses, and exclusively seize the pearls, disdainfully rejecting
+the mud,--Bailly's Memoirs will furnish a glorious contingent to this
+national work. Two or three quotations will explain my ideas, and will
+show, besides, how scrupulously Bailly registered all that could shed
+honour on our country.
+
+I will take the first fact from the military annals; a grenadier of the
+French Guard saves his commanding officer's life, although the people
+thought that they had great reason of complaint against him. "Grenadier,
+what is your name?" exclaimed the Duke de Chatelet, full of gratitude.
+The soldier replied, "Colonel, my name is that of all my comrades."
+
+I will borrow the second fact from the civil annals: Stephen de
+Lariviere, one of the electors of Paris, had gone on the 20th of July,
+to fetch Berthier de Sauvigny, who had been fatally arrested at
+Compiegne, on the false report that the Assembly of the Town Hall wished
+to prosecute him as intendant of the army, by which a few days before
+the capital had been surrounded. The journey was performed in an open
+cabriolet, amidst the insults of a misled population, who imputed to the
+prisoner the scarcity and bad quality of the bread. Twenty times, guns,
+pistols, sabres, would have put an end to Berthier's life, if, twenty
+times, the member of the Commune of Paris had not voluntarily covered
+him with his body. When they reached the streets of the capital, the
+cabriolet had to penetrate through an immense and compact crowd, whose
+exasperation bordered on delirium, and who evidently wished to
+perpetrate the utmost extremities; not knowing which of the two
+travellers was the Intendant of Paris, they betook themselves to crying
+out, "let the prisoner take off his hat!" Berthier obeyed, but Lariviere
+uncovered his head also at the same instant.
+
+All parties would gain by the production of a work, that I desire to see
+most earnestly. For my part, I acknowledge, I should be sorry not to
+see in it the answer made to Francis II. by one of the numerous officers
+who committed the fault, so honestly acknowledged afterwards,--a fault
+that no one would commit now,--that of joining foreigners in arms. The
+Austrian prince, after his coronation, attempted, at a review, to induce
+our countrymen to admire the good bearing of his troops, and finally
+exclaimed, "There are materials wherewith to crush the Sans-culottes."
+"That remains to be seen!" instantly answered the emigre officer.
+
+May these quotations lead some able writer to erect a monument still
+wanting to the glory of our country! There is in this subject, it seems
+to me, enough to inspire legitimate ambition. Did not Plutarch
+immortalize himself by preserving noble actions and fine sentiments from
+oblivion?
+
+
+
+
+EXAMINATION OF BAILLY'S ADMINISTRATION AS MAYOR.
+
+The illustrious Mayor of Paris had not the leisure to continue writing
+his reminiscences beyond the date of the 2d of October, 1789. The
+analysis and appreciation of the events subsequent to that epoch will
+remain deprived of that influential sanction, pure as virtue, concise
+and precise as truth, which I found in the handwriting of our colleague.
+Xenocrates, historians say, who was celebrated among the Greeks for his
+honesty, being called to bear witness before a tribunal, the judges with
+common consent stopped him as he was advancing towards the altar
+according to the usual custom, and said, "These formalities are not
+required from you; an oath would add nothing to the authority of your
+words." Such, Bailly presents himself to the reader of his Posthumous
+Memoirs. None of his assertions leave any room for indecision or doubt.
+He needs not high-flown expressions or protestations in order to
+convince; nor would an oath add authority to his words. He may be
+deceived, but he is never the deceiver.
+
+I will spare no effort to give to the description of the latter part of
+Bailly's life, all the correctness which can result from a sincere and
+conscientious comparison of the writings published as well by the
+partisans as by the enemies of our great revolution. Such, however, is
+my desire to prevent two phases, though very distinct, being confounded
+together, that I shall here pause, in order to cast a scrupulous glance
+on the actions and on the various publications of our colleague. I shall
+moreover thus have an easy opportunity of filling up some important
+lacunae.
+
+I read in a biographical article, otherwise very friendly, that Bailly
+was nominated the very day of, and immediately after, the assassination
+of M. de Flesselles; and in this identity the wish was to insinuate that
+the first Mayor of Paris received this high dignity from the bloody
+hands of a set of wretches. The learned biographer, notwithstanding his
+good will, has ill repelled the calumny. With a little more attention he
+would have succeeded better. A simple comparison of dates would have
+sufficed. The death of M. de Flesselles occurred on the 14th of July;
+Bailly was nominated two days after.
+
+I will address the same remark to the authors of a Biographical
+Dictionary still more recent, in which they speak of the ineffectual
+efforts that Bailly made to prevent the multitude from murdering the
+governor of the Bastille (de Launay). But Bailly had no opportunity of
+making an effort, for he was then at Versailles; no duty called him to
+Paris, nor did he become Mayor till two days after the taking of the
+fortress. It is really inexcusable not to have compared the two dates,
+by which these errors would have been avoided.
+
+Many persons very little acquainted with contemporaneous history, fancy
+that during the whole duration of Bailly's administration, Paris was
+quite a cut-throat place. That is a romance; the following is the
+truth:--
+
+Bailly was Mayor during two years and four months. In that time there
+occurred four political assassinations; those of Foulon and of Berthier
+de Sauvigny, his son-in-law, at the Hotel de Ville; that of M. Durocher,
+a respectable officer of the gendarmerie, killed at Chaillot, by a
+musket-shot, in August, 1789; and that of a baker massacred in a riot in
+the month of October of the same year. I do not speak of the
+assassination of two unfortunate men on the Champ de Mars in July, 1791,
+as that deplorable fact must be considered separately.
+
+The individuals guilty of the assassination of the baker were seized,
+condemned to death, and executed. The family of the unfortunate victim
+became the object of the anxious care of all the authorities, and
+obtained a pension.
+
+The death of M. Durocher was attributed to some Swiss soldiers who had
+revolted.
+
+The horrible and ever to be deplored assassinations of Foulon and of
+Berthier, are among those misfortunes which, under certain given
+circumstances, no human power could prevent.
+
+In times of scarcity, a slight word, either true or unfounded, suffices
+to create a terrible commotion.
+
+Reveillon is made to say, that a workman can live upon fifteen sous per
+diem, and behold his manufactory destroyed from top to bottom.
+
+They ascribe to Foulon the barbarous vaunt; "I will force the people to
+eat hay;" and without any order from the constituted authorities, some
+peasants, neighbours of the old minister, arrest him, take him to Paris,
+his son-in-law experiences the same fate, and the famished populace
+immolates both of them.
+
+In proportion as the multitude appear to me unjust and culpable, in
+attacking certain men respecting a scarcity of provisions, when it is
+the manifest consequence of the severity of the seasons, I should be
+disposed to excuse their rage against the authors of factitious
+scarcities. Well, Gentlemen, at the time that Foulon was assassinated,
+the people, deceived by some impassioned orators of the Assembly, might,
+or let us rather say, ought to believe, that they were wilfully
+famished. Foulon perished the 22d of July, 1789; on the 15th, that is to
+say, seven days before, Mirabeau had addressed the following incendiary
+words to the inhabitants of the capital, from the National Tribune:--
+
+"Henry IV. allowed provisions to be taken into besieged and rebellious
+Paris; but now, some perverse ministers intercept convoys of provisions
+destined for famished and obedient Paris."
+
+Yet people have been so inconsiderate as to be astonished at the
+assassinations of Foulon and of Berthier. Going back in thought to the
+month of July, 1789, I perceive in the imprudent apostrophe of the
+eloquent tribune, more sanguinary disorders than the contemporary
+history has had to record.
+
+One of the most honourable, one of the most respectable and the most
+respected members of the institute, having been led, in a recent work,
+to relate the assassination of Foulon, has thrown on the conduct of
+Bailly, under those cruel circumstances, an aspersion that I read with
+surprise and grief. Foulon was detained in the Hotel de Ville. Bailly
+went down into the square, and succeeded for a moment in calming the
+multitude. "I did not imagine," said the Mayor in his memoirs, "that
+they could have forced the Hotel de Ville, a well-guarded post, and an
+object of respect to all the citizens. I therefore thought the prisoner
+in perfect safety; I did not doubt but the waves of this storm would
+finally subside, and I departed."
+
+The honourable author of the _History of the Reign of Louis XVI._
+opposes to this passage the following words taken from the official
+minutes of the Hotel de Ville: "The electors (those who had accompanied
+Bailly out to the square) reported in the Hall the certainty that the
+calm would not last long." The new historian adds: "How could the Mayor
+alone labour under this delusion? It is too evident, that on such a day,
+the public tranquillity was much too uncertain, to allow of the chief
+magistrate of the town absenting himself without deserving the reproach
+of weakness." The remainder of the passage shows too evidently, that in
+the author's estimation, weakness here was synonymous with cowardice.
+
+It is against this, Gentlemen, that I protest with heartfelt
+earnestness. Bailly absented himself because he did not think that the
+Hotel de Ville could be forced. The electors in the passage quoted do
+not enunciate a different opinion: where then is the contradiction?
+
+Bailly deceived himself in this expectation, for the multitude burst
+into the Hotel de Ville. We will grant that there was an error of
+judgment in this; but nothing in the world authorizes us to call in
+question the courage of the Mayor.
+
+To decide after the blow, with so little hesitation or consideration,
+that Bailly ought not to have absented himself from the House of the
+Commune, we must forget that, under such circumstances, the obligations
+of the first magistrate of the city were quite imperious and very
+numerous; it is requisite, above all, not to remember that each day, the
+provision of flour required for the nourishment of seven or eight
+hundred thousand inhabitants, depended on the measures adopted on the
+previous evening. M. de Crosne, who on quitting the post of Lieutenant
+of Police, had not ceased to be a citizen, was during some days a very
+enlightened and zealous councillor for Bailly; but on the day that
+Foulon was arrested, this dismissed magistrate thought himself lost. He
+and his family made an appeal to the gratitude and humanity of our
+colleague. It was to procure a refuge for them, that Bailly employed the
+few hours of absence with which he was so much reproached: those hours
+during which that catastrophe happened which the Mayor could not have
+prevented, since even the superhuman efforts of General Lafayette,
+commanding an armed force, proved futile. I will add, that to spare M.
+de Crosne an arbitrary arrest, the imminent danger of which alas! was
+too evident in the death of Berthier, Bailly absented himself again from
+the Hotel de Ville on the night of the 22d to the 23d of July, to
+accompany the former Lieutenant of Police to a great distance from
+Paris.
+
+There is not a more distressing spectacle than that of one honest man
+wrongfully attacking another honest man. Gentlemen, let us never
+willingly leave the satisfaction and the advantage of it to the wicked.
+
+To appreciate the actions of our predecessors with impartiality and
+justice, it would be indispensable to keep constantly before our eyes
+the list of unheard-of difficulties that the revolution had to surmount,
+and to remember the very restricted means of repression placed at the
+disposal of the authorities in the beginning.
+
+The scarcity of food gave rise to many embarrassments, to many a crisis;
+but causes of quite another nature had not less influence on the march
+of events.
+
+In his memoirs, Bailly speaks of the manoeuvres of a redoubtable
+faction labouring for ... under the name of the.... The names are blank.
+A certain editor of the work filled up the lacunae. I have not the same
+hardihood, I only wished to remark that Bailly had to combat at once
+both the spontaneous effervescence of the multitude, and the intrigues
+of a crowd of secret agents, who distributed money with a liberal hand.
+
+Some day, said our colleague, the infernal genius who directed those
+intrigues and _le bailleur de fonds_ will be known. Although the proper
+names are wanting, it is certain that some persons inimical to the
+revolution urged it to deplorable excesses.
+
+These enemies had collected in the capital thirty or forty thousand
+vagabonds. What could be opposed to them? The Tribunals? They had no
+moral power, and were declared enemies to the revolution. The National
+Guard? It was only just formed; the officers scarcely knew each other,
+and moreover scarcely knew the men who were to obey them. Was it at
+least permitted to depend on the regular armed force? It consisted of
+six battalions of French Guards without officers; of six thousand
+soldiers who, from every part of France, had flocked singly to Paris, on
+reading in the newspapers the following expressions from General
+Lafayette: "They talk of deserters! The real deserters are those men who
+have not abandoned their standards." There were finally six hundred
+Swiss Guards in Paris, deserters from their regiments; for, let us speak
+freely, the celebrated monument of Lucerne will not prevent the Swiss
+themselves from being recognized by impartial and intelligent
+historians, as having experienced the revolutionary fever.
+
+Those who, with such poor means of repression, flattered themselves that
+they could entirely prevent any disorder, in a town of seven or eight
+hundred thousand inhabitants in exasperation, must have been very blind.
+Those, on the other hand, who attempt to throw the responsibility of the
+disorders on Bailly, would prove by this alone, that good people should
+always keep aloof from public affairs during a revolution.
+
+The administrator, a being of modern creation, now declares, with the
+most ludicrous self-sufficiency, that Bailly was not equal to the
+functions of a Mayor of Paris. It is, he says, by undeserved favour that
+his statue has been placed on the facade of the Hotel de Ville. During
+his magistracy, Bailly did not create any large square in the capital,
+he did not open out any large streets, he elevated no splendid monument;
+Bailly would therefore have done better had he remained an astronomer or
+erudite scholar.
+
+The enumeration of all the public erections that Bailly did not execute
+is correct. It might also have been added, that far from devoting the
+municipal funds to building, he had the vast and threatening castle of
+the Bastille demolished down to its very foundation's; but this would
+not deprive Bailly of the honour of having been one of the most
+enlightened magistrates that the city of Paris could boast.
+
+Bailly did not enlarge any street, did not erect any palace during the
+twenty-eight months of his administration! No, undoubtedly! for, first
+it was necessary to give bread to the inhabitants of Paris; now the
+revenues of the town, added to the daily sums furnished by Necker,
+scarcely sufficed for those principal wants. Some years before, the
+Parisians had been very much displeased at the establishment of import
+dues on all alimentary substances. The writers of that epoch preserved
+the burlesque Alexandrine, which was placarded all over the town, on the
+erection of the Octroi circumvallation:
+
+     "Le mur murant Paris, rend Paris murmurant."[13]
+
+The multitude was not content with murmuring; the moment that a
+favourable opportunity occurred, it went to the barriers and broke them
+down. These were reestablished by the administration with great trouble,
+and the smugglers often took them down by main force. The _Octroi_
+revenue from the imports, which used to amount to 70,000 francs, now
+fell to less than 30,000. Those persons who have considered the figures
+of the present revenue, will assuredly not compare such very dissimilar
+epochs.
+
+But it is said that ameliorations in the moral world may often be
+effected without expense. What were those for which the public was
+indebted to the direct exertions of Bailly? The question is simple, but
+repentance will follow the having asked it. My answer is this: One of
+the most honourable victories gained by mathematics over the avaricious
+prejudices of the administrations of certain towns has been, in our own
+times, the radical suppression of gambling-houses. I will hasten to
+prove that such a suppression had already engaged Bailly's attention,
+that he had partly effected it, and that no one ever spoke of those
+odious dens with more eloquence and firmness.
+
+"I declare," wrote the Mayor of Paris on the 5th of May, 1790, "that the
+gambling-houses are in my opinion a public scourge. I think that these
+meetings not only should not be tolerated, but that they ought to be
+sought out and prosecuted, as much as the liberty of the citizens, and
+the respect due to their homes, will admit.
+
+"I regard the tax that has been levied from such houses as a disgraceful
+tribute. I do not think that it is allowable to employ a revenue derived
+from vice and disorder, even to do good. In consequence of these
+principles, I have never granted any permit to gambling-houses; I have
+constantly refused them. I have constantly announced that not only they
+would not be tolerated, but that they would be sought out and
+prosecuted."
+
+If I add that Bailly suppressed all spectacles of animal-fighting, at
+which the multitude cannot fail to acquire ferocious and sanguinary
+habits, I shall have a right to ask of every superficial writer, how he
+would justify the epithet of sterile, applied with such assurance to the
+administration of our virtuous colleague.
+
+Anxious to carry out in practice that which had been largely recognized
+theoretically in the declaration of rights--the complete separation of
+religion from civil law,--Bailly presented himself before the National
+Assembly on the 14th of May, 1791, and demanded, in the name of the city
+of Paris, the abolition of an order of things which, in the then state
+of men's minds, gave rise to great abuses. If declarations of births, of
+marriages, and of deaths are now received by civil officers in a form
+agreeing with all religious opinions, the country is chiefly indebted
+for it to the intelligent firmness of Bailly.
+
+The unfortunate beings for whom all public men should feel most
+solicitous, are those prisoners who are awaiting in prison the decrees
+of the courts of justice. Bailly took care not to neglect such a duty.
+At the end of 1790, the old tribunals had no moral power; they could no
+longer act; the new ones were not yet created. This state of affairs
+distracted the mind of our colleague. On the 18th of November, he
+expressed his grief to the National Assembly, in terms full of
+sensibility and kindness. I should be culpable if I left them in
+oblivion.
+
+"Gentlemen, the prisons are full. The innocent are awaiting their
+justification, and the criminals an end to their remorse. All breathe an
+unwholesome air, and disease will pronounce terrible decrees. Despair
+dwells there: Despair says, either give me death, or judge me. When we
+visit those prisons, that is what the fathers of the poor and the
+unfortunate hear; this is what it is their duty to repeat to the fathers
+of their country. We must tell them that in those asylums of crime, of
+misery, and of every grief, time is infinite in its duration; a month is
+a century, a month is an abyss the sight of which is frightful.... We
+ask of the tribunals to empty the prisons by the justification of the
+innocent, or by examples of justice."
+
+Does it not appear to you, Gentlemen, that calm times may occasionally
+derive excellent lessons, and, moreover, lessons expressed in very good
+language, from our revolutionary epoch?
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[13] "The wall walling Paris, renders Paris wailing."
+
+
+
+
+THE KING'S FLIGHT.--EVENTS ON THE CHAMP DE MARS.
+
+In the month of April, 1791, Bailly perceived that his influence over
+the Parisian population was decreasing. The king had announced that he
+should depart on the 18th, and would remain some days at St. Cloud. The
+state of his health was the ostensible cause of his departure. Some
+religious scruples were probably the real cause; the holy week was
+approaching, and the king would have no communications with the
+ecclesiastics sworn in for his parish. Bailly was not discomposed at
+this projected journey; he regarded it even with satisfaction. Foreign
+courts, said our colleague, looked upon him as a prisoner. The sanction
+he gives to various decrees, appears to them extorted by violence; the
+visit of Louis XVI. to Saint Cloud will dissipate all these false
+reports. Bailly therefore concerted measures with La Fayette for the
+departure of the royal family; but the inhabitants of Paris, less
+confiding than their mayor, already saw the king escaping from St.
+Cloud, and seeking refuge amidst foreign armies. They therefore rushed
+to the Tuileries, and notwithstanding all the efforts of Bailly and his
+colleague, the court carriages could not advance a step. The king and
+queen therefore, after waiting for an hour and a half in their carriage,
+reascended into the palace.
+
+To remain in power after such a check, was giving to the country the
+most admirable proof of devotion.
+
+In the night of the 20th to the 21st of June, 1791, the king quitted the
+Tuileries. This flight, so fatal to the monarchy, irretrievably
+destroyed the ascendency that Bailly had exercised over the capital. The
+populace usually judges from the event. The king, they said, with the
+queen and their two children, were freely allowed to go out of the
+palace. The Mayor of Paris was their accomplice, for he has the means of
+knowing every thing; otherwise he might be accused of carelessness, or
+of the most culpable negligence.
+
+These attacks were not only echoed in the shops, in the streets, but
+also in the strongly organized clubs. The Mayor answered in a peremptory
+manner, but without entirely effacing the first impression. During
+several days after the king's flight, both Bailly and La Fayette were in
+personal danger. The National Assembly had often to look to their
+safety.
+
+I have now reached a painful portion of my task, a frightful event, that
+led finally to Bailly's cruel death; a bloody catastrophe, the relation
+of which will perhaps oblige me to allow a little blame to hover over
+some actions of this virtuous citizen, whom thus far it has been my
+delight to praise without any restriction.
+
+The flight of the king had an immense influence on the progress of our
+first revolution. It threw into the republican party some considerable
+political characters who, till then, had hoped to realize the union of a
+monarchy with democratical principles.
+
+Mirabeau, a short time before his death, having heard this projected
+flight spoken of, said to Cabanis: "I have defended monarchy to the
+last; I defend it still, although I think it lost.... But, if the king
+departs, I will mount the tribune, have the throne declared vacant, and
+proclaim a Republic."
+
+After the return from Varennes, the project of substituting a republican
+government for a monarchical government was very seriously discussed by
+the most moderate members of the National Assembly, and we now know
+that the Duke de La Rochefoucauld and Dupont (de Nemours) for example,
+were decidedly in favour of a republic. But it was chiefly in the clubs
+that the idea of such a radical change had struck root. When the
+Commission of the National Assembly had expressed itself, through M.
+Muguet, at the sitting of the 13th of July, 1791, against the forfeiture
+of Louis XVI., there was a great fermentation in Paris. Some agents of
+the Cordeliers (Shoemakers') Club were the first to ask for signatures
+to a petition on the 14th of July, against the proposed decision. The
+Assembly refused to read and even to receive it. On the motion of
+Laclos, the club of the Jacobins got up another. This, after undergoing
+some important modifications, was to be signed on the 17th on the Champ
+de Mars, on the altar of their country. These projects were discussed
+openly, in full daylight. The National Assembly deemed them anarchical.
+On the 16th of July it called to its bar the municipality of Paris,
+enjoining it to have recourse to force, if requisite, to repress any
+culpable movements.
+
+The Council of the Commune on the morning of the 17th placarded a
+proclamation that it had prepared according to the orders of the
+National Assembly. Some municipal officers went about preceded by a
+trumpeter, to read it in various public squares. Around the Hotel de
+Ville, the military arrangements, commanded by La Fayette, led to the
+expectation of a sanguinary conflict. All at once, on the opening of the
+sitting of the National Assembly, a report was circulated that two good
+citizens having dared to tell the people collected around their
+country's altar, that they must obey the law, had been put to death, and
+that their heads, stuck upon pikes, were carried through the streets.
+The news of this attack excited the indignation of all the deputies, and
+under this impression, Alexander Lameth, then President of the Assembly,
+of his own accord transmitted to Bailly very severe new orders, a
+circumstance which, though only said _en passant_, has been but recently
+known.
+
+The municipal body, as soon as it was informed, about eleven o'clock, of
+the two assassinations, deputed three of its members, furnished with
+full powers, to reestablish order. Strong detachments accompanied the
+municipal officers. About two o'clock it was reported that stones had
+been thrown at the National Guard. The Municipal Council instantly had
+martial law proclaimed on the Place de Greve, and the red flag suspended
+from the principal window of the Hotel de Ville. At half-past five
+o'clock, just when the municipal body was about to start for the Champ
+de Mars, the three councillors, who had been sent in the morning to the
+scene of disorder, returned, accompanied by a deputation of twelve
+persons, taken from among the petitioners. The explanations given on
+various sides occasioned a new deliberation of the Council. The first
+decision was maintained, and at six o'clock the municipality began its
+march with the red flag, three pieces of cannon, and numerous
+detachments of the National Guard.
+
+Bailly, as chief of the municipality, found himself at this time in one
+of those solemn and perilous situations, in which a man becomes
+responsible in the eyes of a whole nation, in the eyes of posterity, for
+the inconsiderate or even culpable actions of the passionate multitude
+that surrounds him, but which he scarcely knows, and over which he has
+little or no influence.
+
+The National Guard, in that early epoch of the revolution, was very
+troublesome to lead and to rule. Insubordination appeared to be the rule
+in its ranks; and hierarchical obedience a very rare exception. My
+remark may perhaps appear severe: well, Gentlemen, read the contemporary
+writings, Grimm's Correspondence, for example, and you will see, under
+date of November 1790, a dismissed captain replying to the regrets of
+his company in the following style: "Console yourselves, my companions,
+I shall not quit you; only, henceforward I shall be a simple fusilier;
+if you see me resolved to be no longer your chief, it is because I am
+content to command in my turn."
+
+It is allowable besides to suppose that the National Guard of 1791 was
+deficient, in the presence of such crowds, of that patience, that
+clemency, of which the French troops of the line have often given such
+perfect examples. It was not aware that, in a large city, crowds are
+chiefly composed of the unemployed and the idly curious.
+
+It was half-past seven o'clock when the municipal body arrived at the
+Champ de Mars. Immediately some individuals placed on the glacis
+exclaimed: "Down with the red flag! down with the bayonettes!" and threw
+some stones. There was even a gun fired. A volley was fired in the air
+to frighten them; but the cries soon recommenced; again some stones were
+thrown; then only the fatal fusillade of the National Guard began!
+
+These, Gentlemen, are the deplorable events of the Champ de Mars,
+faithfully analyzed from the relation that Bailly himself gave of the
+18th July to the Constituent Assembly. This recital, the truth of which
+no one assuredly will question any more than myself, labours under some
+involuntary but very serious omissions. I will indicate them, when the
+march of events leads us, in following our unfortunate colleague, to the
+revolutionary tribunal.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY QUITS THE MAYORALTY THE 12TH OF NOVEMBER, 1791.--THE
+ESCHEVINS.--EXAMINATION OF THE REPROACHES THAT MIGHT BE ADDRESSED TO THE
+MAYOR.
+
+I resume the biography of Bailly at the time when he quitted the Hotel
+de Ville after a magistracy of about two years.
+
+On the 12th November, 1791, Bailly convoked the Council of the Commune,
+rendered an account of his administration, solemnly entreated those who
+thought themselves entitled to complain of him, to say so without
+reserve; so resolved was he to bow to any legitimate complaints;
+installed his successor Petion, and retired. This separation did not
+lead to any of those heartfelt demonstrations from the co-labourers of
+the late Mayor, which are the true and the sweetest recompense to a good
+man.
+
+I have sought for the hidden cause of such a constant and undisguised
+hostility towards the first Mayor of Paris. I asked myself first,
+whether the magistrate's manners had possibly excited the
+susceptibilities of the Eschevins.[14] The answer is decidedly in the
+negative. Bailly showed in all the relations of life a degree of
+patience, a suavity, a deference to the opinions of others, that would
+have soothed the most irascible self-love.
+
+Must we suspect jealousy to have been at work? No, no; the persons who
+constituted the town-council were too obscure, unless they were mad, to
+attempt to vie in public consideration and glory with the illustrious
+author of _the History of Astronomy_, with the philosopher, the writer,
+the erudite scholar who belonged to our three principal academies, an
+honour that Fontenelle alone had enjoyed before him.
+
+Let us say it aloud, for such is our conviction, nothing personal
+excited the evil proceedings, the acts of insubordination with which
+Bailly had daily to reproach his numerous assistants. It is even
+presumable, that in his position, any one else would have had to
+register more numerous and more serious complaints. Let us be truthful:
+when the _aristocracy of the ground-floor_, according to the expression
+of one of the most illustrious members of the French Academy, was called
+by the revolutionary movements to replace the _aristocracy of the
+first-floor_, it became giddy. Have I not, it said, conducted the
+business of the warehouse, the workshop, the counting-house, &c., with
+probity and success; why then should I not equally succeed in the
+management of public affairs? And this swarm of new statesmen were in a
+hurry to commence work; hence all control was irksome to them, and each
+wished to be able to say on returning home, "I have framed such or such
+an act that will tie the hands of faction for ever; I have repressed
+this or that riot; I have, in short, saved the country by proposing such
+or such a measure for the public good, and by having it adopted." The
+pronoun _I_ so agreeably tickles the ear of a man lately risen from
+obscurity.
+
+What the thorough-bred Eschevin, whether new or old, dreads above every
+thing else, is specialties. He has an insurmountable antipathy towards
+men, who have in the face of the world gained the honourable titles of
+historian, geometer, mechanician, astronomer, physician, chemist, or
+geologist, &c.... His desire, his will, is to speak on every thing. He
+requires, therefore, colleagues who cannot contradict him.
+
+If the town constructs an edifice, the Eschevin, losing sight of the
+question, talks away on the aspect of the facades. He declares with the
+imperturbable assurance inspired by a fact that he had heard speak of
+whilst on the knees of his nurse, that on a particular side of the
+future building, the moon, an active agent of destruction, will
+incessantly corrode the stones of the frontage, the shafts of the
+columns, and that it will efface in a few years all the projecting
+ornaments; and hence the fear of the moon's voracity will lead to the
+upsetting of all the views, the studies, and the well-digested plans of
+several architects. Place a meteorologist on the council, and, despite
+the authority of the nurses, a whole scaffolding of gratuitous
+suppositions will be crumbled to dust by these few categorical and
+strict words of science; the moon does not exert the action that is
+attributed to it.
+
+At another time, the Eschevin hurls his anathema at the system of
+warming by steam. According to him, this diabolical invention is an
+incessant cause of damp to the wood-work, the furniture, the papers, and
+the books. The Eschevin fancies, in short, that in this way of warming,
+torrents of watery vapour enter into the atmosphere of the apartments.
+Can he love a colleague, I ask, who after having had the cunning
+patience to let him come to the conclusion of his discourse, informs him
+that, although vapour, the vehicle of an enormous quantity of latent
+heat, rapidly conveys this caloric to every floor of the largest
+edifice, it has never occasion therefore to escape from those
+impermeable tubes through which the circulation is effected!
+
+Amidst the various labours that are required by every large town, the
+Eschevin thinks, some one day, that he has discovered an infallible way
+of revenging himself of specialties. Guided by the light of modern
+geology, it has been proposed to go with an immense sounding line in
+hand, to seek in the bowels of the earth the incalculable quantities of
+water, that from all eternity circulate there without benefiting human
+nature, to make them spout up to the surface, to distribute them in
+various directions, in large cities, until then parched, to take
+advantage of their high temperature, to warm economically the
+magnificent conservatories of the public gardens, the halls of refuge,
+the wards of the sick in hospitals, the cells of madmen. But according
+to the old geology of the Eschevin, promulgated perhaps by his nurse,
+there is no circulation in subterranean water; at all events,
+subterranean water cannot be submitted to an ascending force and rise to
+the surface; its temperature would not differ from that of common
+well-water. The Eschevin, however, agrees to the expensive works
+proposed. Those works, he says, will afford no material result; but once
+for all, such fantastic projects will receive a solemn and rough
+contradiction, and we shall then be liberated for ever from the odious
+yoke under which science wants to enslave us.
+
+However, the subterranean water appears. It is true that a clever
+engineer had to bore down 548 metres (or 600 yards) to find it; but
+thence it comes transparent as crystal, pure as if the product of
+distillation, warmed as physical laws had shown that it would be, more
+abundant indeed than they had dared to foresee, it shot up thirty-three
+metres above the ground.
+
+Do not suppose, Gentlemen, that putting aside wretched views of
+self-love, the Eschevin would applaud such a result. He shows himself,
+on the contrary, deeply humiliated. And he will not fail in future to
+oppose every undertaking that might turn out to the honour of science.
+Crowds of such incidents occur to the mind. Are we to infer thence, that
+we ought to be afraid of seeing the administration of a town given up to
+the stationary, and exclusive spirit of the old Eschevinage--to people
+who have learnt nothing and studied nothing? Such is not the result of
+these long reflections. I wished to enable people to foresee the
+struggle, not the defeat. I even hasten to add, that by the side of the
+surly, harsh, rude, positive Eschevin, the type of whom, to say the
+truth, is fortunately becoming rare, an honourable class of citizens
+exists, who, content with a moderate fortune laboriously acquired, live
+retired, charm their leisure with study, and magnanimously place
+themselves, without any interested views, at the service of the
+community. Everywhere similar auxiliaries fight courageously for truth
+as soon as they perceive it. Bailly constantly obtained their
+concurrence; as is proved by some touching testimonies of gratitude and
+sympathy. As to the counsellors who so often occasioned trouble,
+confusion, and anarchy in the Hotel de Ville in the years '89 and '90, I
+am inclined to blame the virtuous magistrate for having so patiently, so
+diffidently endured their ridiculous pretensions, their unbearable
+assumption of power.
+
+From the earliest steps in the important study of nature, it becomes
+evident that facts unveiled to us in the lapse of centuries, are but a
+very small fraction, if we compare them with those that still remain to
+be discovered. Placing ourselves in that point of view, deficiency in
+diffidence would just be the same as deficiency in judgment. But, by the
+side of positive diffidence, if I may be allowed the expression,
+relative diffidence comes in. This is often a delusion; it deceives no
+one, yet occasions a thousand difficulties. Bailly often confounded
+them. We may regret, I think, that in many instances, the learned
+academician disdained to throw in the face of his vain fellow-labourers
+these words of an ancient philosopher: "When I examine myself, I find I
+am but a pigmy; when I compare myself, I think I am a giant."
+
+If I were to cover with a veil that which appeared to me susceptible of
+criticism in the character of Bailly, I should voluntarily weaken the
+praises that I have bestowed on several acts of his administration. I
+will not commit this fault, no more than I have done already in alluding
+to the communications of the mayor with the presuming Eschevins.
+
+I will therefore acknowledge that on several occasions, Bailly, in my
+opinion, showed himself influenced by a petty susceptibility, if not
+about his personal prerogatives, yet about those of his station.
+
+I think also that Bailly might be accused of an occasional want of
+foresight.
+
+Imaginative and sensitive, the philosopher allowed his thoughts to
+centre too exclusively on the difficulties of the moment. He persuaded
+himself, from an excess of good-will, that no new storm would follow the
+one that he had just overcome. After every success, whether great or
+small, against the intrigues of the court, or prejudices, or anarchy,
+whether President of the National Assembly or Mayor of Paris, our
+colleague thought the country saved. Then his joy overflowed; he would
+have wished to spread it over all the world. It was thus that on the day
+of the definite reunion of the nobility with the other two orders, the
+27th of June, 1789, Bailly going from Versailles to Chaillot, after the
+close of the session, leaned half his body out of his carriage door, and
+announced the happy tidings with loud exclamations to all whom he met on
+the road. At Sevres, it is from himself that I borrow the anecdote, he
+did not see without painful surprise that his communication was received
+with the most complete indifference by a group of soldiers assembled
+before the barrack door; Bailly laughed much on afterwards learning that
+this was a party of Swiss soldiers, who did not understand a word he
+said.
+
+Happy the actors in a great revolution, in whose conduct we find nothing
+to reprehend until after having entered into so minute an analysis of
+their public and private conduct.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[14] _Eschevin_ was a sort of town-councilman, peculiar to
+Paris and to Rotterdam, acting under a mayor.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY'S JOURNEY FROM PARIS TO NANTES, AND THEN FROM NANTES TO
+MELUN.--HIS ARREST IN THE LAST TOWN.--HE IS TRANSFERRED TO PARIS.
+
+After having quitted the Mayorality of Paris, Bailly retired to
+Chaillot, where he hoped again to find happiness in study; but upwards
+of two years passed amidst the storms of public life had deeply injured
+his health; it was therefore requisite to obey the advice of physicians,
+and undertake a journey. About the middle of June, 1792, Bailly quitted
+the capital, made some excursions in the neighbouring departments, went
+to Niort to visit his old colleague and friend, M. de Lapparent, and
+soon after went on far as Nantes, where the due influence of another
+friend, M. Gelee de Premion, seemed to promise him protection and
+tranquillity. Determined to establish himself in this last town, Bailly
+and his wife took a small lodging in the house of some distinguished
+people, who could understand and appreciate them. They hoped to live
+there in peace; but news from Paris soon dissipated this illusion. The
+Council of the Commune decreed, that the house previously occupied, in
+consequence of a formal decision, by the Mayor of Paris, and by the
+public offices of the town, ought to have paid a tax of 6,000 livres,
+and strange enough, that Bailly was responsible for it. The pretended
+debt was claimed with harshness. They demanded the payment of it without
+delay. To free himself Bailly was obliged to sell his library, to
+abandon to the chances of an auction that multitude of valuable books,
+from which he had sought out, in the silence of his study, and with such
+remarkable perseverance, the most recondite secrets of the firmament.
+
+This painful separation was followed by two acts that did not afflict
+him less.
+
+The central government (then directed, it must be allowed, by the
+Gironde party) placed Bailly under surveillance. Every eight days the
+venerable academician was obliged to present himself at the house of the
+Syndic Procurator of the Departmental Administration of the Lower-Loire,
+like a vile malefactor, whose every footstep it would be to the interest
+of society to watch. What was the true motive for such a strange
+measure? This secret has been buried in a tomb where I shall not allow
+myself to dig for it.
+
+Though painful to me to say so, the odious assimilation of Bailly to a
+dangerous criminal had not exhausted the rancour of his enemies. A
+letter from Roland, the Minister of the Interior, announced very dryly
+to the unfortunate proscribed man, that the apartments in the Louvre,
+which his family had occupied for upwards of half a century, had been
+withdrawn from him. They had even proceeded so far as to furnish a
+tipstaff with the order to clear the rooms.
+
+A short time before this epoch, Bailly had found himself obliged to sell
+his house at Chaillot. The old Mayor of Paris then had no longer a
+hearth or a home in the great city which had been the late scene of his
+devotion, his solicitude, and his sacrifices. When this reflection
+occurred to his mind, his eyes filled with tears.
+
+But the grief that Bailly experienced on seeing himself the daily object
+of odious persecutions, left his patriotic convictions intact. Vainly
+did they endeavour several times to transform a legitimate hatred
+towards individuals into an antipathy towards principles. They still
+remember in Brittany the debate raised, by one of these attempts,
+between our colleague and a Vendean physician, Dr. Blin. Never, in the
+season of his greatest popularity, did the president of the National
+Assembly express himself with more vivacity; never had he defended our
+first revolution with more eloquence. Not long since, in the same place,
+I pointed out to public attention another of our colleagues (Condorcet),
+who already under the blow of a capital condemnation, devoted his last
+moments to restore to the light of day the principles of eternal
+justice, which the fashions and the follies of men had but too much
+obscured. At a time of weak or interested convictions, and disgraceful
+capitulations of conscience, those two examples of unchangeable
+convictions deserved to be remarked. I am happy in having found them in
+the bosom of the Academy of Sciences.
+
+Tranquillity of mind is not less requisite than vigour of intellect, to
+those who undertake great works. Thus during his residence at Nantes,
+Bailly did not even try to add to his numerous scientific or literary
+productions. This celebrated astronomer passed his time in reading
+novels. He sometimes said with a bitter smile: "My day has been well
+occupied; since I got up, I have put myself in a position to give an
+analysis of the two, or of the three first volumes of the new novel that
+the reading-room has just received." From time to time these
+abstractions were of a more elevated tone; he owed them to two young
+persons, who having reached an advanced age may now be listening to my
+words. Bailly discoursed with them of Homer, of Plato, of Aristotle, of
+the principal works in our literature, of the rapid progress of the
+sciences, and chiefly of those of astronomy. What our colleague chiefly
+appreciated in these two young friends, was a true sensibility, and
+great warmth of feeling. I know that years have not effaced or weakened
+these rare qualities in the bosoms of those two Bretons. M. Pariset, our
+colleague, and M. Villenave, will therefore think it natural in me to
+thank them here, in the name of science and literature, in the name of
+humanity, for the few moments of sweet peace and happiness that they
+afforded to our learned colleague, at a time when the inconstancy and
+ingratitude of men were lacerating his heart.
+
+Louis XVI. had perished; dark clouds hung over the horizon; some acts of
+odious brutality showed our proscribed philosopher how little he must
+thenceforward depend on public sympathy; how much times had changed
+since the memorable meeting (of the 7th of October, 1791), at which the
+National Assembly decided that the bust of Bailly should be placed in
+the hall of their meetings! The storm appeared near and very menacing;
+even persons usually of little foresight were meditating where to find
+shelter.
+
+During these transactions, Charles Marquis de Casaux, known by various
+productions on literature and on economical politics, went and requested
+our colleague, together with his wife, to take a passage on board a ship
+that he had freighted for himself and his family. "We will first go to
+England," said M. Casaux; "we will then, if you prefer it, pass our
+exile in America. Have no anxiety, I have property; I can, without
+inconvenience to myself, undertake all the expenses. Pythagoras said:
+'In solitude the wise man worships echo;' but this no longer suffices in
+France; the wise man must fly from a land that threatens to devour its
+children."
+
+These warm solicitations, and the prayers of his weeping companion,
+could not shake the firm resolution of Bailly. "From the day that I
+became a public character," he said, "my fate has become irrevocably
+united with that of France; never will I quit my post in the moment of
+danger. Under any circumstances my country may depend on my devotion.
+Whatever may happen, I shall remain."
+
+By regulating his conduct on such fine generous maxims, a citizen does
+himself honour, but he exposes himself to fall under the blows of
+faction.
+
+Bailly was still at Nantes on the 30th of June, 1793, when eighty
+thousand Vendeans, commanded by Cathelineau and Charette, went to
+besiege that city.
+
+Let us imagine to ourselves the position of the President of the sitting
+of the "Jeu de Paume," of the first Mayor of Paris, in a city besieged
+by the Vendeans! We cannot presume that the unfavourable opinion of the
+Convention under which he was labouring, and the rigorous surveillance
+to which he was subjected, would have saved him from harsh treatment if
+the town had been taken. No one can therefore be surprised that after
+the victory of Nanteans, our colleague hastened to follow out his
+project, formed a short time before, of withdrawing from the insurgent
+provinces.
+
+Up to the beginning of July 1793, Melun had enjoyed perfect
+tranquillity. Bailly knew it through M. de Laplace, who, living retired
+in that chief town of the department, was there composing the immortal
+work in which the wonders of the heavens are studied with so much depth
+and genius. He also knew that the great geometer, hoping to be still
+more retired in a cottage on the banks of the Seine, and out of the
+town, was going to dispose of his house in Melun. It is easy to guess
+that Bailly would be charmed with the prospect of residing far away from
+political agitation, and near to his illustrious friend!
+
+The arrangements were promptly made, and on the 6th of July, M. and
+Madame Bailly quitted Nantes in company with M. and Madame Villenave,
+who were going to Rennes.
+
+At this same time, a division of the revolutionary army was marching to
+Melun. As soon as the terrible news was known, Madame Laplace wrote to
+Bailly, persuading him, under covert expressions, to give up the
+intended project. The house, she said, is at the water's edge: there is
+extreme dampness in the rooms: Madame Bailly would die there. A letter
+so different from those that had preceded it, could not fail of its
+effect; such at least was the hope with which M. and Madame Laplace
+flattered themselves, when about the end of July they perceived, with
+inexpressible alarm, Bailly crossing the garden path. "Great God, you
+did not then understand our last letter!" exclaimed at the same instant
+our colleague's two friends. "I understood perfectly," Bailly replied
+with the greatest calm; "but on the one hand, the two servants who
+followed me to Nantes, having heard that I was going to be imprisoned,
+quitted me; on the other hand, if I am to be arrested, I wish it to be
+in a house that I have occupied some time. I will not be described in
+any act as an individual without a domicile!" Can it be said, after
+this, that great men are not subject to strange weaknesses?
+
+These minute details will be my only answer to some culpable expressions
+that I have met with in a work very widely spread: "M. Laplace," says
+the anonymous writer "knew all the secrets of geometry; but he had not
+the least notion of the state France was in, he therefore imprudently
+advised Bailly to go and join him."
+
+What is to be here deplored as regards imprudence, is, that a writer,
+without exactly knowing the facts, should authoritatively pronounce such
+severe sentences against one of the most illustrious ornaments of our
+country.
+
+Bailly did not even enjoy the puerile satisfaction of taking rank among
+the domiciled citizens of Melun. For two days after his arrival in that
+town, a soldier of the revolutionary army having recognized him,
+brutally ordered him to accompany him to the municipality: "I am going
+there," coolly replied Bailly; "you may follow me there."
+
+The municipal body of Melun had at that time an honest and very
+courageous man at its head, M. Tarbe des Sablons. This virtuous
+magistrate endeavoured to prove to the multitude, (with which the Hotel
+de Ville was immediately filled by the news, rapidly propagated, of the
+arrest of the old Mayor of Paris,) that the passports granted at Nantes,
+countersigned at Rennes, showed nothing irregular; that according to the
+terms of the law, he could not but set Bailly at liberty, under pain of
+forfeiture. Vain efforts! To avoid a bloody catastrophe, it was
+necessary to promise that reference would be made to Paris, and that in
+the mean time he should be guarded--_a vue_--in his own house.
+
+The surveillance, perhaps purposely, was not at all strict; to escape
+would have been very easy. Bailly utterly discarded the notion. He would
+not at any price have compromised M. Tarbe, nor even his guard.
+
+An order from the Committee of Public Safety enjoined the authorities of
+Melun to transfer Bailly to one of the prisons of the capital. On the
+day of departure, Madame Laplace paid a visit to our unfortunate
+colleague. She represented to him again the possibility of escape. The
+first scruples no longer existed; the escort was already waiting in the
+street. But Bailly was inflexible. He felt perfectly safe. Madame
+Laplace held her son in her arms; Bailly took the opportunity of turning
+the conversation to the education of children. He treated the subject,
+to which he might well have been thought a stranger, with a remarkable
+superiority, and ended even with several amusing anecdotes that would
+deserve a place in the witty and comic gallery of "les Enfants
+terribles."
+
+On arriving at Paris, Bailly was imprisoned at the Madelonnettes, and
+some days after at La Force. They there granted him a room, where his
+wife and his nephews were permitted to visit him.
+
+Bailly had undergone only one examination of little importance, when he
+was summoned as a witness in the trial of the queen.
+
+
+
+
+BAILLY IS CALLED AS A WITNESS IN THE TRIAL OF THE QUEEN.--HIS OWN TRIAL
+BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL.--HIS CONDEMNATION TO DEATH.--HIS
+EXECUTION.--IMAGINARY DETAILS ADDED BY ILL-INFORMED HISTORIANS TO WHAT
+THAT ODIOUS AND FRIGHTFUL EVENT ALREADY PRESENTED.
+
+Bailly, under the weight of a capital accusation, and precisely on
+account of a portion of the acts imputed to Marie Antoinette, was heard
+as a witness in the trial of that princess. The annals of tribunals,
+either ancient or modern, never offered any thing like this. What did
+they hope for? To lead our colleague to make inexact declarations, or to
+concealments from a feeling of imminent personal danger? To suggest the
+thought to him to save his own head at the expense of that of an unhappy
+woman? To make virtue finally stagger? At all events, this infernal
+combination failed; with a man like Bailly it could not succeed.
+
+"Do you know the accused?" said the President to Bailly. "Oh! yes, I do
+know her!" answered the witness, in a tone of emotion, and bowing
+respectfully to Marie Antoinette. Bailly then protested with horror
+against the odious imputations that the act of accusation had put into
+the mouth of the young dauphin. From that moment Bailly was treated with
+great harshness. He seemed to have lost in the eyes of the tribunal the
+character of a witness, and to have become the accused. The turn that
+the debates took would really authorize us to call the sitting in which
+the queen was condemned, (in which she figured ostensibly as the only
+one accused,) the trial of Marie Antoinette and of Bailly. What
+signified, after all, this or that qualification of this monstrous
+trial? in the judgment of any man of feeling, never did Bailly prove
+himself more noble, more courageous, more worthy, than in this difficult
+situation.
+
+Bailly appeared again before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and this time
+as the accused, the 10th of November 1793. The accusation bore chiefly
+on the pretended participation of the Mayor of Paris in the escape of
+Louis XVI. and his family, and in the catastrophe that occurred in the
+Champ de Mars.
+
+If any thing in the world appeared evident, even in 1793, even before
+the detailed revelations of the persons who took a more or less direct
+part in the event, it is, that Bailly did not facilitate the departure
+of the royal family; it is that, in proportion to the suspicions that
+reached him, he did all that was in his power to prevent their
+departure; it is, that the President of the sitting of the Jeu de Paume
+had not, and could never have had in any case, an intention of going to
+join the fugitive family in a strange country; it is that, finally, any
+act emanating from a public authority in which such expressions as the
+following could be found: "The deep wickedness of Bailly.... Bailly
+thirsted for the people's blood!" must have excited the disgust and
+indignation of good men, whatever might be their political opinions.
+
+The accusation, as far as it regarded the murderous fusillade on the
+Champ de Mars, had more weight; this event had as counterpoises, the
+10th of August and the 31st of May; La Fayette says in his memoirs, that
+those two days were a retaliation. It is at least certain that the
+terrible scenes of the 17th of July cost Bailly his life; they left deep
+impressions in people's minds, which were still perceptible after the
+revolution of 1830, and which, on more than one occasion, rendered the
+position of La Fayette one of great delicacy. I have therefore studied
+them most attentively, with a very sincere and lively desire to
+dissipate, once for all, the clouds that seemed to have obscured this
+point, this sole point, in the life of Bailly. I have succeeded,
+Gentlemen, without ever having had a wish or occasion to veil the truth.
+I do no Frenchman the injustice to suppose that I need define to him an
+event of the national history that has been so influential on the
+progress of our revolution, but perhaps, there may be some foreigners
+present at this sitting. It will be therefore for them only that I shall
+here relate some details. We must bring to mind some deplorable
+circumstances of the evening of the 17th July, when the multitude had
+assembled on the Champ de Mars or Champ de la Federation, around the
+altar of their country, the remains of the wooden edifice that had been
+raised to celebrate the anniversary of the 14th of July. Part of this
+crowd signed a petition tending to ask the forfeiture of the throne by
+Louis XVI., then lately reconducted from Varennes, and on whose fate the
+Constituent Assembly had been enacting regulations. On that occasion
+martial law was proclaimed. The National Guard, with Bailly and La
+Fayette at their head, went to the Champ de Mars; they were assailed by
+clamours, by stones, and by the firing of a pistol; the Guard fired;
+many victims fell, without its being possible to say exactly how many,
+for the estimates, according to the effect that the reporters wished to
+produce, varied from eighty to two thousand!
+
+The Revolutionary Tribunal heard several witnesses relative to the
+events on the Champ de Mars: amongst them I find Chaumette, Procurator
+of the Commune of Paris; Lullier, the Syndic Procurator General of the
+Department; Coffinhal, Judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal; Dufourny,
+manufacturer of gunpowder; Momoro, a printer.
+
+All these witnesses strongly blamed the old Mayor of Paris; but who is
+there that does not know how much arbitrariness and cruelty these
+individuals, whom I have mentioned above, showed during our misfortunes?
+Their declarations, therefore, must be received with great suspicion.
+
+The sincere admirers of Bailly would be relieved of a great weight, if
+the event of the Champ de la Federation had been darkened only by the
+testimonies of Chaumettes and Coffinhals. Unfortunately, the public
+accuser produced some very grave documents during the debates, which the
+impartial historian cannot overlook. Let us say, however, just to
+correct one error out of a thousand, that on the day of Bailly's trial,
+the public accuser was Naulin, and not Fouquier Tinville,
+notwithstanding all that has been written on this subject by persons
+calling themselves well-informed, and even some of the accused's
+intimate friends.
+
+The catastrophe of the Champ de Mars, when impartially examined in its
+essential phases, presents some very simple problems:
+
+Was a petition to the Constituent Assembly illegal that was got up on
+the 17th of July, 1791, against a decree issued on the 15th?
+
+Had the petitioners, by assembling on the Champ de Mars, violated any
+law?
+
+Could the two murders committed in the morning be imputed to these men?
+
+Had projects of disorder and rebellion been manifested with sufficient
+evidence to justify the proclamation of martial law, and especially the
+putting it into practice?
+
+I say it, Gentlemen, with deep grief, these problems will be answered in
+the negative by whoever takes the trouble to analyze without passion,
+and without preconceived opinions, some authentic documents, which
+people in general seem to have made it a point to leave in oblivion. But
+I hasten to add, that considering the question as to intention, Bailly
+will continue to appear, after this examination, quite as humane, quite
+as honourable, quite as pure as we have found him to be in the other
+phases of a public and private life, which might serve as a model.
+
+In the best epochs of the National Assembly, no one who belonged to it
+would have dared to maintain, that to draw up and sign a petition,
+whatever might be the object of it, were rebellious acts. Never, at that
+time, would the President of that great Assembly have called down hate,
+public vengeance, or a sanguinary repression upon those who attempted,
+said Charles Lameth, in the sitting of the 16th of July, "to oppose
+their individual will to the law, which is an expression of the national
+will." The right of petition seemed as if it ought to be absolute, even
+if contrary to sanctioned and promulgated laws in full action, and even
+more so against legislative arrangements still under discussion, or
+scarcely voted.
+
+The petitioners of the Champ de Mars asked the Constituent Assembly to
+revise a decree that they had issued two days before. We have no
+occasion to examine whether the act was reasonable, opportune, dictated
+by an enlightened view of the public good. The question is simple; in
+soliciting the Assembly to revise a decree, they violated no law.
+Perhaps it will be thought that the petitioners at least committed an
+unusual act, contrary to all custom. Even this would be unfounded. In
+ten various instances, the National Assembly modified or annulled its
+own decrees; in twenty others, it had been entreated to revise them,
+without any cry of anarchy being raised.
+
+It is well ascertained, that the crowd on the Champ de Mars availed
+itself of a right that the constitution recognized, that of getting up
+and signing a petition against a decree which, right or wrong, it
+thought was opposed to the true interests of the country. Still, the
+exercise of the right of petitioning was always wisely subjected to
+certain forms. Had these forms been violated? Was the meeting illegal?
+
+In 1791, according to the decrees, every meeting that wished to exercise
+the right of petition must consist of unarmed citizens, and be announced
+to the competent authorities twenty-four hours beforehand.
+
+Well, on the 16th of July, twelve persons had gone as a deputation to
+the municipality, in order to declare, according to law, that the next
+day, the 17th, numerous citizens would meet, without arms, on the Champ
+de Mars, where they wished to sign a petition. The deputation obtained
+an acknowledgment of its declaration from the hand of the syndic
+procurator Desmousseaux, who addressed them besides with these solemn
+words: "The law shields you with its inviolability."
+
+The acknowledgment was presented to Bailly on the day of his
+condemnation.
+
+Had they committed some assassinations? Yes, undoubtedly; they had
+committed two; but in the morning, very early; but at the Gros Caillou,
+and not on the Champ de Mars. Those horrid murders could not
+legitimately be imputed to the petitioners who, eight or ten hours
+after, surrounded the altar of their country; to the crowd who fell by
+the fusillade of the National Guard. By changing the date of these
+crimes, and displacing also the localities where these crimes were
+committed, some historians of our revolution, and amongst others the
+best known of all, have given, without intending it, to the meeting in
+the afternoon, a character that cannot be honestly concurred in.
+
+It is requisite we should know at what hour, in what place, and how,
+these misfortunes happened, before we hazard an opinion on the
+sanguinary acts of that day, the 17th of July.
+
+A young man had gone that day very early to the altar of his country.
+This young man wished to copy several inscriptions. All at once he heard
+a singular noise, and very soon after the worm of a wimble shot up from
+the planked floor on which he was standing. The youth went and sought
+the guard, who raised the plank, and found beneath the altar two
+ill-looking individuals, lying down, and furnished with provisions. One
+of these men was an invalid with a wooden leg. The guard seized them,
+and took them to the Gros Caillou, to the section, to the Commissary of
+Police. On the way, the barrel of water with which these unfortunate men
+had provided themselves under the altar of their country, was
+transformed, according to the ordinary course of things, into a barrel
+of gunpowder. The inhabitants of that quarter of the town collected
+together; it was on a Sunday. The women especially showed themselves
+very much irritated when the purpose of the auger-holes was told them,
+as declared by the invalid. When the two prisoners came out of the hall
+to be conducted to the Hotel de Ville, the crowd tore them from the
+guard, massacred them, and paraded their heads on pikes!
+
+It cannot be too often repeated, that these hideous assassinations,
+this execution of two old vagabonds by the barbarous and blinded
+population of the Gros Caillou, evidently had no relation to, no
+connection with, the events which, in the evening, carried mourning into
+the Champ de la Federation.
+
+On the evening of the 17th of July, from five to seven o'clock, had the
+crowd which was collected around the altar of their country an aspect of
+turbulence, giving reason to fear a riot, sedition, violence, or any
+anarchical enterprise?
+
+Relative to this point, we have the written declaration of three
+councillors, whom the municipality had sent in the morning to the Gros
+Caillou, on the first intimation of the two assassinations of which I
+have just spoken. This declaration was presented to Bailly on the day of
+his condemnation. We read therein, "that the assembled citizens on the
+Champ de Mars had in no way acted contrary to law; that they only asked
+for time to sign their petition before they retired; that the crowd had
+shown all possible respect to the commissaries, and given proofs of
+submission to the law and its agents." The Municipal Councillors, on
+their return to the Hotel de Ville, accompanied by a deputation of
+twelve of the petitioners, protested strongly against the proclamation
+of martial law; they declared that if the red flag was unfurled, they
+would be regarded, and with some appearance of reason, as traitors and
+faithless men.
+
+Vain efforts; the anger of the councillors, confined since the morning
+at the Hotel de Ville, carried the day over the enlightened opinion of
+those who had been sent scrupulously to study the state of affairs, who
+had mixed in the crowd, who returned after having reassured it by
+promises.
+
+I might invoke the testimony of one of my honourable colleagues. Led by
+the fine weather, and somewhat also by curiosity, towards the Champ de
+Mars, he was enabled to observe all; and he has assured me that there
+never was a meeting which showed less turbulence or seditious spirit;
+that especially the women and children were very numerous. Is it not,
+besides, perfectly proved now, that on the morning of the 17th July, the
+Jacobin club, by means of printed placards, disavowed any intention of
+petitioning; and that the influential men of the Jacobins and of the
+Cordeliers,--those men whose presence might have given to this concourse
+the dangerous character of a riot,--not only did not appear there, but
+had started in the night for the country?
+
+By thus connecting together all the circumstances whence it is proved
+that martial law was proclaimed and put in practice on the 17th of July
+without legitimate motives, a most terrible responsibility seems at
+first sight to be cast on the memory of Bailly. But reassure yourselves,
+Gentlemen; the events which are now grouped together, and are exhibited
+to our eyes with complete evidence, were not known on that inauspicious
+day at the Hotel de Ville, until they had been distorted by the spirit
+of party.
+
+In the month of July, 1791, after the king had returned from Varennes,
+the monarchy and the republic began for the first time to be dangerously
+opposed to each other; in an instant passion took the place of cool
+reason in the minds of the respective partisans of the two different
+forms of government. The terrible formula: _We must make an end of it!_
+was in everybody's mouth.
+
+Bailly was surrounded by those passionate politicians who, without the
+least scruple as to the honesty or legality of the means, are
+determined to make an end of the adversaries who annoy them, as soon as
+circumstances seem to promise them victory.
+
+Bailly had still near him some Eschevins long accustomed to regard him
+as a magistrate for show.
+
+The former gave the Mayor false, or highly coloured intelligence. The
+others, by long habit, did not conceive themselves obliged to
+communicate any thing to him.
+
+On the bloody day of July, 1791, of all the inhabitants of Paris,
+perhaps Bailly was the man who knew with least detail or correctness the
+events of the morning and of the evening.
+
+Bailly, with his deep horror for falsehood, would have thought that he
+was most cruelly insulting the magistrates, if he had not attributed to
+them similar sentiments to his own. His uprightness prevented his being
+sufficiently on the watch against the machinations of parties. It was
+evidently by false reports that he was induced to unfurl the red flag on
+the 17th of July: "It was from the reports that followed each other," he
+said to the Revolutionary Tribunal, on being questioned by the
+President, "and became more and more alarming every hour, that the
+council adopted the measure of marching with the armed force to the
+Champ de Mars."
+
+In all his answers Bailly insisted on the repeated orders he had
+received from the President of the National Assembly; on the reproaches
+addressed to him for not sufficiently watching the agents of foreign
+powers; it was against these pretended agents and their creatures, that
+the Mayor of Paris thought he was marching when he put himself at the
+head of a column of National Guards.
+
+Bailly did not even know the cause of the meeting; he had not been
+informed that the crowd wished to sign a petition; and that the
+previous evening, according to the decree of the law, there had been a
+declaration made to this effect before the competent authority. His
+answers to the Revolutionary Tribunal leave not the least doubt on this
+point!
+
+Oh Eschevins, Eschevins! when your vain pretensions only were treated
+of, the public could forgive you; but the 17th of July, you took
+advantage of Bailly's confidence; you induced him to take sanguinary
+measures of repression, after having fascinated him with false reports;
+you committed a real crime. If it was the duty of the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, of deplorable memory, to demand in 1793 from any one an
+explanation of the massacres of the Champ de Mars, it was not Bailly
+assuredly who ought to have been accused in the first place.
+
+The political party whose blood flowed on the 17th of July, pretended to
+have been the victim of a plot concocted by its adversaries. When
+interrogated by the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Bailly
+answered: "I had no knowledge of it, but experience has since given me
+reason to think that such a plot did exist at that time."
+
+Nothing more serious has ever been written against the promoters of the
+sanguinary violences on the 17th of July.
+
+The blame that has been thrown on the events of the Champ de Mars has
+not been confined solely to the fact of proclaiming martial law; the
+repressive measures that followed that proclamation have been criticized
+with equal bitterness.
+
+The municipal administration was especially reproached for having
+hoisted a red flag much too small; a flag that was called in the
+Tribunal _a pocket flag_; for not having placed this flag at the head
+of the column, as the law commands, but in such a position, that the
+public on whom the column was advancing could not see it; for having
+made the armed force enter the Champ de Mars, by all the gates on the
+side towards the town, a manoeuvre that seemed rather intended to
+surround the multitude, than to disperse it; for having ordered the
+National Guard to load their arms, even on the Place de Greve; for
+having made the guard fire before the three required summonses were
+made, and fire upon the people around the altar, whilst the stones and
+the pistol shot, which were assigned as the motive for the sanguinary
+order, came from the steps and benches; for allowing some people who
+were endeavouring to escape on the side towards l'Ecole Militaire, and
+others who had actually jumped into the Seine, to be pursued, shot, and
+bayonetted.
+
+It results clearly from one of Bailly's publications, from his answers
+to the questions put to him by the President of the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, from the writings of the day:
+
+That the Mayor of Paris gave no order for the troops to be collected on
+the 17th of July; that he had had no conference on that day with the
+military authority; that if any arrangements, culpable and contrary to
+law were adopted, as to the situation of the cavalry, of the red flag,
+and of the Municipal Body, in the column marching on the Champ de Mars,
+they could not without injustice be imputed to him; that Bailly was not
+aware of the National Guard having loaded their muskets with ball before
+quitting the square of the Hotel de Ville; that he was not aware even of
+the existence of the red flag, with whose small dimensions he had been
+so severely reproached; that the National Guard fired without his
+order; that he made every effort to stop the firing, to stop the
+pursuit, and make the soldiers resume their ranks; that he congratulated
+the troops of the line, who under the command of Hulin, entered by the
+gate of l'Ecole Militaire, and not only did not fire, but tore many of
+the unfortunate people from the hands of the National Guard, whose
+exasperation amounted to delirium. In short, it might he asked, relative
+to any want of exactness attributable to Bailly in that unfortunate
+affair, whether it was just to impute it to him who, in his letters to
+Voltaire on the origin of the sciences, wrote as follows in 1776:
+
+"I am unfortunately short-sighted. I am often humiliated in the open
+country. Whilst I with difficulty can distinguish a house at the
+distance of a hundred paces, my friends relate to me what they see at
+the distance of five or six hundred. I open my eyes, I fatigue myself
+without seeing any thing, and I am sometimes inclined to think that they
+amuse themselves at my expense."
+
+You begin to see, Gentlemen, the advantage that a firm and able lawyer
+might have drawn from the authentic facts that I have just been
+relating. But Bailly knew the pretended jury before whom he had to
+appear. This jury was not a collection of drunken cobblers, whatever
+some passionate writers may have asserted; it was worse than that,
+Gentlemen, notwithstanding the deservedly celebrated names that were
+occasionally interspersed among them: it was--let us cut the subject
+short--an odious, commission.
+
+The very circumscribed list from which chance in 1793 and 1794 drew the
+juries of the Revolutionary Tribunals, did not embrace, as the sacred
+word _jury_ seems to imply, all one class of citizens. The authorities
+formed it, after a prefatory and very minute inquiry, of their
+adherents only. The unfortunate defendants were thus judged not by
+impartial persons free from any preconceived system, but by political
+enemies, which is as much as to say, by that which is the most cruel and
+remorseless in the world.
+
+Bailly would not be defended. After his appearance as a witness in the
+trial of Marie Antoinette, the ex-Mayor only wrote and had printed for
+circulation, a paper entitled _Bailly to his fellow-citizens_. It closes
+with these affecting words:
+
+"I have only gained by the Revolution that which my fellow-citizens have
+gained: liberty and equality. I have lost by it some useful situations,
+and my fortune is nearly destroyed. I could be happy with what remains
+of it to me and a clear conscience; but to be happy in the repose of my
+retreat, I require, my dear fellow-citizens, your esteem: I know well
+that, sooner or later, you will do me justice; but I require it while I
+live, and while I am yet amongst you."
+
+Our colleague was unanimously condemned. We should despair of the
+future, unless such a unanimity struck all friends of justice and
+humanity with stupor, if it did not increase the number of decided
+adversaries to all political tribunals.
+
+When the President of the Tribunal interrogated the accused, already
+declared guilty, as to whether he had any reclamations to make relative
+to the execution of the sentence, Bailly answered:
+
+"I have always carried out the law; I shall know how to submit myself to
+it, since you are its organ."
+
+The illustrious convict was led back to his cell.
+
+Bailly had said in his eloge on M. de Tressan: "French gaiety produces
+the same effect as stoicism." These words occurred to my memory at the
+time when I was gathering from various sources the proof that on
+reentering the Conciergerie after his condemnation, Bailly showed
+himself at once both gay and stoical.
+
+He desired his nephew, M. Batbeda, to play a game at piquet with him as
+usual. He thought of all the circumstances connected with the frightful
+morrow with such coolness, that he even said with a smile to M. Batbeda
+during the game: "Let us rest awhile, my friend, and take a pinch of
+snuff; to-morrow I shall be deprived of this pleasure, for I shall have
+my hands tied behind my back."
+
+I will quote some words which, while testifying to a similar degree
+Bailly's serenity of mind, are more in harmony with his grave character,
+and more worthy of being preserved in history.
+
+One of the companions of the illustrious academician's captivity, on the
+evening of the 11th of November, with tears in his eyes and moved by a
+tender veneration, exclaimed: "Why did you let us fancy there was a
+possibility of acquittal? You deceived us then?"--Bailly answered: "No,
+I was teaching you never to despair of the laws of your country."
+
+In the paroxysms of wild despair, some of the prisoners reviewing the
+past, went so far as to regret that they had never infringed the laws of
+the strictest honesty.
+
+Bailly brought back these minds, erring for the moment from the path of
+duty, by repeating to them maxims which both in form and substance would
+not disparage the collections of the most celebrated moralists:
+
+"It is false, very false, that a crime can ever be useful. The trade of
+an honest man is the safest, even in times of revolution. Enlightened
+egotism suffices to put any intelligent individual into the path of
+justice and truth. Whenever innocence can be sacrificed with impunity,
+crime is not sure of succeeding. There is so great a difference between
+the death of a good man and that of a wicked man, that the multitude is
+incapable of estimating it."
+
+Cannibals devouring their vanquished enemies seem to me less hideous,
+less contrary to nature, than those wretches, the refuse of the
+population of large towns, who, too often alas! have carried their
+ferocity so far, as to disturb by their clamorous and infamous raillery
+the last moments of the unhappy victims about to be struck by the sword
+of the law. The more humiliating this picture of the degradation of the
+human species may be, the more we should beware of overcharging the
+colouring. With few exceptions, the historians of Bailly's last agony
+appear to me to have forgotten this duty. Was the truth, the strict
+truth, not sufficiently distressing? Was it requisite, without any sort
+of proof, to impute to the mass of the people the infernal cynicism of
+cannibals? Should they lightly make just sentiments of disgust and
+indignation rest upon an immense class of citizens? I think not,
+Gentlemen, and I will therefore avoid the cruelty and poignancy of
+chaining the thoughts for a long time on such scenes; I will prove that
+by rendering the drama a little less atrocious, I have only sacrificed
+imaginary details, which are the envenomed fruits of the spirit of the
+party.
+
+I will not shut my ears to the questions that already hum around me.
+People will say to me, What are your claims for daring to modify a page
+of our revolutionary history, on which every one seemed agreed? What
+right have you to weaken contemporary testimonies, you, who at the time
+of Bailly's death, were scarcely born; you, who lived in an obscure
+valley of the Pyrenees, two hundred and twenty leagues from the capital?
+
+These questions do not embarrass me at all. In short, I do not ask that
+the relation of what seems to me to be the expression of the truth,
+should be adopted upon my word. I enumerate my proofs, I express my
+doubts. Within these limits there is no one but has claims to bring
+forward; the discussion is open to all the world, the public will
+pronounce its definitive judgment.
+
+As a general thesis, I will add that by concentrating our researches on
+one circumscribed and special object, we have a better chance of seeing
+it correctly and knowing it well, all other things being equal, than by
+scattering our attention in all directions.
+
+As to the merit of contemporaneous narratives, it seems to me very
+dubious. Political passions do not allow us to see objects in their real
+dimensions, nor in their true forms, nor in their natural colours.
+Moreover, have not unpublished and very valuable documents come to shed
+bright colours, just where the spirit of party had spread a thick veil?
+
+The account that Riouffe gave of the death of Bailly has almost blindly
+led all the historians of our revolution. What does it consist of "at
+bottom." The prisoner of la Conciergerie said it himself; of tales
+related by executioners' valets, repeated by turnkeys.
+
+I would willingly allow this account to be set against me,
+notwithstanding the horrid sewer from which Riouffe had been obliged to
+draw, if it were not evident that this clever writer saw all the
+revolutionary events through the just anger that an ardent and active
+young man must feel after an iniquitous imprisonment; if this current of
+sentiments and ideas had not led him into some manifest errors.
+
+Who has not, for example, read with tears in their eyes, in the
+_Memoires sur les Prisons_, what the author relates of the fourteen
+girls of Verdun? "Of those girls," he said, "of unparalleled fairness,
+and who appeared like young virgins dressed for a public fete. They
+disappeared," added Riouffe, "all at once, and were mowed down in the
+spring of life. The court occupied by the women the day after their
+death, had the appearance of a garden that had been despoiled of its
+flowers by a storm. I have never seen amongst us a despair equal to that
+excited by this barbarity."
+
+Far be from me the intention to weaken the painful feelings which the
+catastrophe related by Riouffe must naturally inspire; but every one has
+remarked that the report of this writer is very circumstantial; the
+author appears to have seen all with his own eyes. Yet he has been
+guilty of the gravest inaccuracy.
+
+Out of the fourteen unfortunate women who were sentenced after Verdun
+was retaken from the Prussians, two girls of seventeen years of age were
+not condemned to death on account of their youth.
+
+This first circumstance was well worth recording. Let us go farther. A
+historian having lately consulted the official journals of that epoch,
+and the bulletin of the Revolutionary Tribunal, discovered with some
+surprise that among the twelve _young girls_ who were condemned, there
+were seven either married or widows, whose ages varied from forty-one to
+sixty-nine!
+
+Contemporary accounts then, even those of Riouffe, may be submitted
+without irreverence to earnest discussion. When a tenth part of the
+funds annually devoted to researches in and examination of old
+chronicles, is applied to making extracts from the registers relative to
+the French Revolution, we shall certainly see many other hideous
+circumstances that revolt the soul, disappear from our contemporary
+history. Look at the massacres of September! The historians most in
+vogue report the number of victims that fell in that butchery to have
+been from six to twelve thousand; whilst a writer who has lately taken
+the trouble to analyze the prison registers in the gaoler's books,
+cannot make the whole amount to one thousand. Even this number is very
+large; but, for my part, I thank the author of this recent publication
+for having reduced the number of assassinations in September to less
+than a tenth part of what had been generally admitted.
+
+When the discussion which I have here undertaken becomes known to the
+public, it will be seen how many and how important are the retrenchments
+to be made from that lugubrious page of our history. Another important
+circumstance may be appreciated, which appears to me to arise from all
+these facts. After having weighed my proofs, every one I hope will join
+me in seeing that the wretches around the scaffold of Bailly were but
+the refuse of the population, fulfilling for pay the part that had been
+assigned them by three or four wealthy cannibals.
+
+The sentence pronounced against Bailly by the Revolutionary Tribunal was
+to be executed on the 12th of November, 1793. The reminiscences recently
+published by a fellow-prisoner of our colleague, the reminiscences of M.
+Beugnot, will enable us to penetrate into the Conciergerie, on the
+morning of that inauspicious day.
+
+Bailly had risen early, after having slept as usual, the sleep of the
+just. He took some chocolate, and conversed a long time with his
+nephew. The young man was a prey to despair, but the illustrious
+prisoner preserved all his serenity. The previous evening in returning
+from the Tribunal, he remarked, with admirable coolness, though
+springing from a certain disquietude, "that the spectators of his trial
+had been strongly excited against him. I fear," he added, "that the mere
+execution of the sentence will no longer satisfy them, which might be
+dangerous in its consequences. Perhaps the police will provide against
+it." These reflections having recurred to Bailly's mind on the 12th, he
+asked for, and drank hastily, two cups of coffee without milk. These
+precautions were a sinister omen. To his friends who surrounded him at
+this awful moment, and were sobbing aloud, he said, "Be calm; I have
+rather a difficult journey to perform, and I distrust my constitution.
+Coffee excites and reanimates; I hope, however, to reach the end
+properly."
+
+Noon had just struck. Bailly addressed a last and tender adieu to his
+companions in captivity, wished them a better fate, followed the
+executioner without weakness as well as without bravado, mounted the
+fatal cart, his hands tied behind his back. Our colleague was accustomed
+to say: "We must entertain a bad opinion of those who, in their dying
+moments, have not a look to cast behind them." Bailly's last look was
+towards his wife. A gendarme of the escort feelingly listened to his
+last words, and faithfully repeated them to his widow. The procession
+reached the entrance to the Champ de Mars, on the side towards the
+river, at a quarter past one o'clock. This was the place where,
+according to the words of the sentence, the scaffold had been raised.
+The blinded crowd collected there, furiously exclaimed that the sacred
+ground of the Champ de la Federation should not be soiled by the
+presence and by the blood of him whom they called a great criminal. Upon
+their demand (I had almost said their orders), the scaffold was taken
+down again, and carried piecemeal into one of the fosses, where it was
+put up afresh. Bailly remained the stern witness of these frightful
+preparations, and of these infernal clamours. Not one complaint escaped
+from his lips. Rain had been falling all the morning; it was cold; it
+drenched the body, and especially the bare head, of the venerable man. A
+wretch saw that he was shivering, and cried out to him, _"Thou
+tremblest, Bailly."_--"_I am cold, my friend_," mildly answered the
+victim. These were his last words.
+
+Bailly descended into the moat, where the executioner burnt before him
+the red flag of the 17th July; he then with a firm step mounted the
+scaffold. Let us have the courage to say it, when the head of our
+venerable colleague fell, the paid witnesses whom this horrid execution
+had assembled on the Champ de Mars burst into infamous acclamations.
+
+I had announced a faithful recital of the martyrdom of Bailly; I have
+kept my word. I said that I should banish many circumstances without
+reality, and that the drama would thus become less atrocious. If I am to
+trust your aspect, I have not accomplished the second part of my
+promise. The imagination perhaps cannot reach beyond the cruel facts on
+which I have been obliged to dilate. You ask what I can have retrenched
+from former relations, whilst what remains is so deplorable.
+
+The order for execution addressed by Fouquier Tinville to the
+executioner has been seen by several persons now living. They all
+declare that if it differs from the numerous orders of a similar nature
+that the wretch sent off daily, it was only by the substitution of the
+following words: "Esplanade du Champ de Mars," for the usual designation
+of "Place de la Revolution." Now, the Revolutionary Tribunal has
+deserved many anathemas, but I never remarked its being reproached with
+not having known how to enforce obedience.
+
+I felt myself relieved from an immense weight, Gentlemen, when I could
+dispel from my thoughts the image of a melancholy march on foot of two
+hours, because with it there disappeared two hours of corporeal
+ill-usage, which, according to those same accounts, our virtuous
+colleague must have endured from the Conciergerie to the Champ de Mars.
+
+An illustrious writer asserts that they conducted Bailly to the Place de
+la Revolution, that the scaffold there was taken to pieces on the
+multitude demanding it, and that the victim was then led to the Champ de
+Mars. This relation is not correct. The sentence expressed in positive
+terms, that, as an exception, the Square of the Revolution was not to be
+the scene of Bailly's execution. The procession went direct to the place
+designated.
+
+The historian already quoted affirms that the scaffold on being put up
+again on the bank of the Seine was erected on a heap of rubbish; that
+this operation lasted some hours, and that Bailly meanwhile was drawn
+round the Champ de Mars several times.
+
+These promenades are imaginary. Those men who on the arrival of the
+lugubrious procession vociferated that the presence of the old Mayor of
+Paris would soil the Champ de la Federation, could not the next minute
+force him to make the circuit of it. In fact, the illustrious victim
+remained in the road. The cruel idea, so knowingly attributed to the
+actors of those hideous scenes, to raise the fatal instrument on a heap
+of rubbish on the river bank, so that Bailly might in his last moments
+see the house at Chaillot where he had composed his works, was so far
+from occurring to the mind of the multitude, that the sentence was
+executed in the moat between two walls.
+
+I have not thought it my duty, Gentlemen, to represent the condemned man
+forced to carry some parts of the scaffold himself, because he had his
+hands tied behind his back. In my recital nobody waves the burning red
+flag over Bailly's head, because this barbarity is not mentioned in the
+narratives, otherwise so shocking, drawn up by some friends of our
+colleague shortly after the event; nor have I consented, with the author
+of _The History of the French Revolution_, to represent one of the
+soldiers forming the escort asking the question that led the victim to
+make, we must say so, the theatrical answer: "Yes, I tremble, but it is
+with cold;" but the more touching answer, so characteristic of Bailly;
+"Yes, my friend, I am cold."
+
+Far be it from me, Gentlemen, to suppose that no soldier in the world
+would be capable of a despicable and culpable act. I do not ask,
+assuredly, the suppression of all courts-martial; but to be induced to
+attribute to a man dressed in a military uniform, a personal part in
+this frightful drama, proofs or contemporary testimonies would be
+required, of which I have found no trace.
+
+If the fact had occurred, its results would certainly have become known
+to the public. I take to witness an event which is found related in
+Bailly's Memoirs.
+
+On the 22d of July, 1789, on the square of the Hotel de Ville, a dragoon
+with his sabre mutilated the corpse of Berthier. His comrades, feeling
+outraged by this barbarity, all showed themselves instantly resolved to
+fight him in succession, and so wash out in his blood the disgrace he
+had thrown on the whole corps. The dragoon fought that same evening and
+was killed.
+
+In his _History of Prisons_, Riouffe says that "Bailly exhausted the
+ferocity of the populace, of whom he had been the idol, and was basely
+abandoned by the people, though they had never ceased to esteem him."
+
+Nearly the same idea is found expressed in _The History of the
+Revolution_, and in several other works.
+
+What is called the populace rarely read and did not write. To attack it
+and calumniate it therefore was a convenient thing, since no refutation
+need to be feared. I am far from supposing that the historians whose
+works I have quoted, ever gave way to such considerations; but I affirm,
+with entire certainty, that they have deceived themselves. In the
+sanguinary drama that has been unrolled before your eyes, the atrocities
+had a quite different source from the sentiments common to the
+barbarians that were swarming in the dregs of society and always ready
+to soil it with every crime; in plainer words, it is not to the
+unfortunate people who have neither property, nor capital, living by the
+work of their hands, to the _proletaires_, that we are to impute the
+deplorable incidents which marked Bailly's last moments. To put forward
+an opinion so remote from received opinions, is imposing on one's self
+the duty of proving its truth.
+
+After his condemnation, our colleague exclaimed, says La Fayette: "I die
+for the sitting of the Jeu de Paume, and not for the fatal day at the
+Champ de Mars." I do not here intend to expound these mysterious words
+in the glimpses they give us by a half-light; but, whatever meaning we
+may attribute to them, it is evident that the sentiments and passions of
+the lower class have no share in them; it is a point beyond discussion.
+
+On reentering the Conciergerie, the evening before his death, Bailly
+spoke of the efforts that must have been made to excite the passions of
+the auditors, who followed the various phases of his trial. Factitious
+excitement is always the produce of corruption. The working classes are
+without money;, they then cannot have been the corruptors or direct
+promoters of the distressing scenes of which Bailly complained.
+
+The implacable enemies of the former President of the National Assembly
+had procured for pay some auxiliaries among the turnkeys of the
+Conciergerie. M. Beugnot informs us that when the venerable magistrate
+was consigned to the gendarmes who were to conduct him to the Tribunal,
+"these wretches pushed him violently, sending him from one to the other
+like a drunken man, calling out: _Hold there, Bailly! Catch, Bailly,
+there!_ and that they laughed and shouted at the grave demeanour the
+philosopher maintained amidst the insults of those cannibals."
+
+To confirm my statement that these violences (in comparison with which,
+in truth, those of the Champ de Mars lose their virulence,) were
+fomented by pay, I have more than the formal declaration of our
+colleague's fellow prisoner. For in fact I find that no other prisoner
+or convict underwent such treatment; not even the man called the
+Admiral, when he was taken to the Conciergerie for having attempted to
+assassinate Collot-d'Herbois.
+
+Besides, it is not only on indirect considerations that my decided
+opinion is founded relative to the intervention of rich and influential
+people in those scenes of indescribable barbarity on the Champ de Mars.
+Merard St. Just, the intimate friend of Bailly, has alluded by his
+initials to a wretch who, the very day of our colleague's death,
+publicly boasted of having electrified the few acolytes who, together
+with him, insisted on the removal of the scaffold; the day after the
+execution, the meeting of the Jacobins reechoed with the name of another
+individual of the Gros Caillou, who also claimed his share of influence
+in the crime.
+
+I have progressively unrolled before you the series of events in our
+revolution, in which Bailly took an active part; I have scrupulously
+searched out the smallest circumstances of the deplorable affair on the
+Champ de Mars; I have followed our colleague in his proscription to the
+Revolutionary Tribunal, and to the foot of the scaffold. We had seen him
+before, surrounded by esteem, by respect, and by glory, in the bosom of
+our principal academies. Yet the work is not complete; several essential
+traits are still wanting.
+
+I will therefore claim a few more minutes of your kind attention. The
+moral life of Bailly is like those masterpieces of ancient sculpture,
+that deserve to be studied in every point of view, and in which new
+beauties are continually discovered, in proportion as the contemplation
+is prolonged.
+
+
+
+
+PORTRAIT OF BAILLY.--HIS WIFE.
+
+Nature did not endow Bailly generously with those exterior advantages
+that please us at first sight. He was tall and thin. His visage
+compressed, his eyes small and sunk, his nose regular, but of unusual
+length, and a very brown complexion, constituted an imposing whole,
+severe and almost glacial. Fortunately, it was easy to perceive through
+this rough bark, the inexhaustible benevolence of the good man; the
+kindness that always accompanies a serene mind, and even some rudiments
+of gayety.
+
+Bailly early endeavoured to model his conduct on that of the Abbe de
+Lacaille, who directed his first steps in the career of astronomy. And
+therefore it will be found that in transcribing five or six lines of the
+very feeling eulogy that the pupil dedicated to the memory of his
+revered master, I shall have made known at the same time many of the
+characteristic traits of the panegyrist:
+
+"He was cold and reserved towards those of whom he knew little; but
+gentle, simple, equable, and familiar in the intercourse of friendship.
+It is there that, throwing off the grave exterior which he wore in
+public, he gave himself up to a peaceful and amiable gayety."
+
+The resemblance between Bailly and Lacaille goes no farther. Bailly
+informs us that the great astronomer proclaimed truth on all occasions,
+without disquieting himself as to whom it might wound. He would not
+consent to put vice at its ease, saying:
+
+"If good men thus showed their indignation, bad men being known, and
+vice unmasked, could no longer do harm, and virtue would be more
+respected." This Spartan morality could not accord with Bailly's
+character; he admired but did not adopt it.
+
+Tacitus took as a motto: "To say nothing false, to omit nothing true."
+Our colleague contented himself in society with the first half of the
+precept. Never did mockery, bitterness, or severity issue from his lips.
+His manners were a medium between those of Lacaille and the manners of
+another academician who had succeeded in not making a single enemy, by
+adopting the two axioms: "Every thing is possible, and everybody is in
+the right."
+
+Crebillon obtained permission from the French Academy to make his
+reception discourse in verse. At the moment when that poet, then almost
+sixty years of age, said, speaking of himself,
+
+     "No gall has ever poisoned my pen,"
+
+the hall reechoed with approbation.
+
+I was going to apply this line by the author of _Rhadamistus_ to our
+colleague, when accident offered to my sight a passage in which Lalande
+reproaches Bailly for having swerved from his usual character, in 1773,
+in a discussion that they had together on a point in the theory of
+Jupiter's Satellites. I set about the search for this discussion; I
+found the article by Bailly in a journal of that epoch, and I affirm
+that this dispute does not contain a word but what is in harmony with
+all our colleague's published writings. I return therefore to my former
+idea, and say of Bailly, with perfect confidence,
+
+     "No gall had ever poisoned his pen."
+
+Diffidence is usually the trait that the biographers of studious men
+endeavour most to put in high relief. I dare assert, that in the common
+acceptation, this is pure flattery. To merit the epithet of diffident,
+must we think ourselves beneath the competitors of whom we are at least
+the equals? Must we, in examining ourselves, fail in the tact, in the
+intelligence, in the judgment, that nature has awarded us, and of which
+we make so good a use in appreciating the works of others? Oh! then, few
+learned men can be said to be diffident. Look at Newton: his diffidence
+is almost as celebrated as his genius. Well, I will extract from two of
+his letters, scarcely known, two paragraphs which, put side by side,
+will excite some surprise; the first confirms the general opinion; the
+second seems with equal force to contradict it. Here are the two
+passages:
+
+"We are diffident in the presence of Nature."
+
+"We may nobly feel our own strength in the face of man's works."
+
+In my opinion, the opposition in these two passages is only apparent; it
+will he explained by means of a distinction which I have already
+slightly indicated.
+
+Bailly's diffidence required the same distinction. When people praised
+him to his face on the diversity of his knowledge, our colleague did not
+immediately repel the compliment; but soon after, he would stop his
+panegyrist, and whisper in his ear with an air of mystery: "I will
+confide a secret to you, pray do not take advantage of it: I am only a
+very little less ignorant than another man."
+
+Never did a man act more in harmony with his principles. Bailly was led
+to reprimand severely a man belonging to the humblest and poorest class
+of society. Anger does not make him forget that he speaks to a citizen,
+to a man. "I ask pardon," says the first magistrate of the capital,
+addressing himself to a rag-gatherer; "I ask your pardon, if I am angry;
+but your conduct is so reprehensible, that I cannot speak to you
+otherwise."
+
+Bailly's friends were wont to say that he devoted too much of his
+patrimony to pleasure. This word was calumniously interpreted. Merard
+Saint Just has given the true sense of it: "Bailly's pleasure was
+beneficence."
+
+So eminent a mind could not fail to be tolerant. Such in fact Bailly
+constantly showed himself in politics, and what is almost equally rare,
+in regard to religion. In the month of June, 1791, he checked in severe
+terms the fury with which the multitude appeared to be excited, at the
+report that at the Theatines some persons had taken the Communion two
+or three times in one day. "The accusation is undoubtedly false," said
+the Mayor of Paris; "but if it were true, the public would not have a
+right to inquire into it. Every one should have the free choice of his
+religion and his creed." Nothing would have been wanting in the picture,
+if Bailly had taken the trouble to remark how strange it was, that these
+violent scruples against repeated Communions emanated from persons who
+probably never took the Sacrament at all.
+
+The reports on animal magnetism, on the hospitals, on the
+slaughter-houses, had carried Bailly's name into regions, whence the
+courtiers knew very cleverly how to discard true merit. _Madame_ then
+wished to attach the illustrious academician to her person as a cabinet
+secretary. Bailly accepted. It was an entirely honorary title. The
+secretary saw the princess only once, that was on the day of his
+presentation.
+
+Were more important functions reserved for him? We must suppose so; for
+some influential persons offered to procure Bailly a title of nobility
+and a decoration. This time the philosopher flatly refused, saying, in
+answer to the earnest negotiators: "I thank you, but he who has the
+honour of belonging to the three principal academies of France is
+sufficiently decorated, sufficiently noble in the eyes of rational men;
+a cordon, or a title, could add nothing to him."
+
+The first secretary of the Academy of Sciences had, some years before,
+acted as Bailly did. Only he gave his refusal in such strong terms, that
+I could not easily believe them to have been written by the timid pen of
+Fontenelle, if I did not find them in a perfectly authentic document, in
+which he says: "Of all the titles in this world, I have never had any
+but of one sort, the titles of Academician, and they have not been
+profaned by an admixture of any others, more worldly and more
+ostentatious."
+
+Bailly married, in November, 1787, an intimate friend of his mother's,
+already a widow, only two years younger than himself. Madame Bailly, a
+distant relation of the author of the _Marseillaise_, had an attachment
+for her husband that bordered on adoration. She lavished on him the most
+tender and affectionate attention. The success that Madame Bailly might
+have had in the fashionable world by her beauty, her grace, by her
+ineffable goodness, did not tempt her. She lived in almost absolute
+retirement, even when the learned academician was most in society. The
+Mayor's wife appeared only at one public ceremony: the day of the
+benediction of the colours of the sixty battalions of the National Guard
+by the Archbishop of Paris, she accompanied Madame de Lafayette to the
+Cathedral. She said: "My husband's duty is to show himself in public
+wherever there is any good to be done, or sound advice to be given; mine
+is to remain at home." This rare retiring and respectable conduct did
+not disarm some hideous pamphleteers. Their impudent sarcasms were
+continually attacking the modest wife on her domestic hearth, and
+troubling her peace of mind. In their logic of the tavern they fancied
+that an elegant and handsome woman, who avoided society, could not fail
+to be ignorant and stupid. Thence arose a thousand imaginary stories,
+ridiculous both as to their matter and form, thrown out daily to the
+public, more, indeed, to offend and disgust the upright magistrate than
+to humble his companion.
+
+The axe that ended our colleague's life, with the same stroke, and
+almost as completely, crushed in Madame Bailly, after so many poignant
+agitations and unexampled misfortunes, all that was left of strength of
+mind and power of intellect. A strange incident also aggravated the
+sadness of Madame Bailly's situation. On a day of trouble, during her
+husband's lifetime, she had placed the assignats resulting from the sale
+of their house at Chaillot, amounting to about thirty thousand francs,
+in the wadding of a dress. The enfeebled memory of the unfortunate widow
+did not recall to her the existence of this treasure, even in the time
+of her greatest distress. When the age of the material which had
+secreted them began to reveal them to daylight, they were no longer of
+any value.
+
+The widow of the author of one of the best works of the age, of the
+learned member of our three great academies, of the first President of
+the National Assembly, of the first Mayor of Paris, found herself thus
+reduced, by an unheard-of turn of fortune, to implore help from public
+pity. It was the geometer Cousin, member of this academy, who by his
+incessant solicitations got Madame Bailly's name inserted at the Board
+of Charity in his arrondissement. The support was distributed in kind.
+Cousin used to receive the articles at the Hotel de Ville, where he was
+a Municipal Councillor, and carried them himself to the street de la
+Sourdiere. It was, in short, in the street de la Sourdiere that Madame
+Bailly had obtained two rooms gratis, in the house of a compassionate
+person, whose name I very much regret not having learnt. Does it not
+appear to you, Gentlemen, that the academician Cousin, who crossed the
+whole of Paris, with the bread under his arm and the meat and the
+candle, intended for the unfortunate widow of an illustrious colleague,
+did himself more honour than if he had come to one of the sittings
+bringing in his portfolio the results of some fine scientific research?
+Such noble actions are certainly worth good "Papers."
+
+Affairs proceeded thus up to the revolution of the 18th Brumaire. On the
+21st, the public criers were announcing everywhere, even in the street
+de la Sourdiere, that General Bonaparte was Consul, and M. de Laplace
+Minister of the Interior. This name, so well known by the respectable
+widow, reached even the room that she inhabited, and caused her some
+emotion. That same evening, the new minister (this was a noble
+beginning, Gentlemen) asked for a pension of 2000 francs for Madame
+Bailly. The Consul granted the demand, adding to it this express
+condition, that the first half year should be paid in advance, and
+immediately. Early on the 22d, a carriage stopped in the street de la
+Sourdiere; Madame de Laplace descends from it, carrying in her hand a
+purse filled with gold. She rushed to the staircase, runs to the humble
+abode, that had now for several years witnessed irremediable sorrow and
+severe misery; Madame Bailly was at the window: "My dear friend, what
+are you doing there so early?" exclaimed the wife of the minister.
+"Madam," replied the widow, "I heard the public crier yesterday, and I
+was expecting you!"
+
+If after having, from a sense of duty, expatiated upon anarchical,
+odious, and sanguinary scenes, the historian of our civil discords has
+the good fortune to meet on his progress with an incident that gratifies
+the mind, raises the soul, and fills the heart with pleasing emotions,
+he stops there, Gentlemen, as the African traveller halts in an oasis!
+
+
+
+
+HERSCHEL.
+
+
+William Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers that ever lived in any
+age or country, was born at Hanover, on the 15th of November, 1738. The
+name of Herschel has become too illustrious for people to neglect
+searching back, up the stream of time, to learn the social position of
+the families that have borne it. Yet the just curiosity of the learned
+world on this subject has not been entirely satisfied. We only know that
+Abraham Herschel, great-grandfather of the astronomer, resided at
+Maehren, whence he was expelled on account of his strong attachment to
+the Protestant faith; that Abraham's son Isaac was a farmer in the
+vicinity of Leipzig; that Isaac's eldest son, Jacob Herschel, resisted
+his father's earnest desire to see him devote himself to agriculture,
+that he determined on being a musician, and settled at Hanover.
+
+Jacob Herschel, father of William, the astronomer, was an eminent
+musician; nor was he less remarkable for the good qualities of his heart
+and of his mind. His very limited means did not enable him to bestow a
+complete education on his family, consisting of six boys and four girls.
+But at least, by his care, his ten children all became excellent
+musicians. The eldest, Jacob, even acquired a rare degree of ability,
+which procured for him the appointment of Master of the Band in a
+Hanoverian regiment, which he accompanied to England. The third son,
+William, remained under his father's roof. Without neglecting the fine
+arts, he took lessons in the French language, and devoted himself to the
+study of metaphysics, for which he retained a taste to his latest day.
+
+In 1759, William Herschel, then about twenty-one years old, went over to
+England, not with his father, as has been erroneously published, but
+with his brother Jacob, whose connections in that country seemed likely
+to favour the young man's opening prospects in life. Still, neither
+London nor the country towns afforded him any resource in the beginning,
+and the first two or three years after his expatriation were marked by
+some cruel privations, which, however, were nobly endured. A fortunate
+chance finally raised the poor Hanoverian to a better position; Lord
+Durham engaged him as Master of the Band in an English regiment which
+was quartered on the borders of Scotland. From this moment the musician
+Herschel acquired a reputation that spread gradually, and in the year
+1765 he was appointed organist at Halifax (Yorkshire). The emoluments of
+this situation, together with giving private lessons both in the town
+and the country around, procured a degree of comfort for the young
+William. He availed himself of it to remedy, or rather to complete, his
+early education. It was then that he learnt Latin and Italian, though
+without any other help than a grammar and a dictionary. It was then also
+that he taught himself something of Greek. So great was the desire for
+knowledge with which he was inspired while residing at Halifax, that
+Herschel found means to continue his hard philological exercises, and at
+the same time to study deeply the learned but very obscure mathematical
+work on the theory of music by R. Smith. This treatise, either
+explicitly or implicitly, supposed the reader to possess some knowledge
+of algebra and of geometry, which Herschel did not possess, but of which
+he made himself master in a very short time.
+
+In 1766, Herschel obtained the appointment of organist to the Octagon
+Chapel at Bath. This was a more lucrative post than that of Halifax, but
+new obligations also devolved on the able pianist. He had to play
+incessantly either at the Oratorios, or in the rooms at the baths, at
+the theatre, and in the public concerts. Then, being immersed in the
+most fashionable circle in England, Herschel could no longer refuse the
+numerous pupils who wished to be instructed in his school. It is
+difficult to imagine how, among so many duties, so many distractions of
+various kinds, Herschel could continue so many studies, which already at
+Halifax had required in him so much resolution, so much perseverance,
+and a very uncommon degree of talent. We have already seen that it was
+by music that Herschel was led to mathematics; mathematics in their turn
+led him to optics, the principal and fertile source of his illustrious
+career. The hour finally struck, when his theoretic knowledge was to
+guide the young musician into a laborious application of principles
+quite foreign to his habits; and the brilliant success of which, as well
+as their excessive hardihood, will excite reasonable astonishment.
+
+A telescope, a simple telescope, only two English feet in length, falls
+into the hands of Herschel during his residence at Bath. This
+instrument, however imperfect, shows him a multitude of stars in the sky
+that the naked eye cannot discern; shows him also some of the known
+objects, but now under their true dimensions; reveals forms to him that
+the richest imaginations of antiquity had never suspected. Herschel is
+transported with enthusiasm. He will, without delay, have a similar
+instrument but of larger dimensions. The answer from London is delayed
+for some days: these few days appear as many centuries to him. When the
+answer arrives, the price that the optician demands proves to be much
+beyond the pecuniary resources of a mere organist. To any other man this
+would have been a clap of thunder. This unexpected difficulty on the
+contrary, inspired Herschel with fresh energy; he cannot buy a
+telescope, then he will construct one with his own hands. The musician
+of the Octagon Chapel rushes immediately into a multitude of
+experiments, on metallic alloys that reflect light with the greatest
+intensity, on the means of giving the parabolic figure to the mirrors,
+on the causes that in the operation of polishing affect the regularity
+of the figure, &c. So rare a degree of perseverance at last receives its
+reward. In 1774 Herschel has the happiness of being able to examine the
+heavens with a Newtonian telescope of five English feet focus, entirely
+made by himself. This success tempts him to undertake still more
+difficult enterprises. Other telescopes of seven, of eight, of ten, and
+even of twenty feet focal distance, crown his efforts. As if to answer
+in advance those critics who would have accused him of a superfluity of
+apparatus, of unnecessary luxury, in the large size of the new
+instruments, and his extreme minutiae in their execution, Nature granted
+to the astronomical musician, on the 13th of March 1781, the unheard-of
+honour of commencing his career of observation with the discovery of a
+new planet, situated on the confines of our solar system. Dating from
+that moment, Herschel's reputation, no longer in his character of
+musician, but as a constructor of telescopes and as an astronomer,
+spread throughout the world. The King, George III., a great lover of
+science, and much inclined besides to protect and patronize both men and
+things of Hanoverian origin, had Herschel presented to him; he was
+charmed with the simple yet lucid and modest account that he gave of his
+repeated endeavours; he caught a glimpse of the glory that so
+penetrating an observer might reflect on his reign, ensured to him a
+pension of 300 guineas a year, and moreover a residence near Windsor
+Castle, first at Clay Hall and then at Slough. The visions of George
+III. were completely realized. We may confidently assert, relative to
+the little house and garden of Slough, that it is the spot of all the
+world where the greatest number of discoveries have been made. The name
+of that village will never perish; science will transmit it religiously
+to our latest posterity.
+
+I will avail myself of this opportunity to rectify a mistake, of which
+ignorance and idleness wish to make a triumphant handle, or, at all
+events, to wield in their cause as an irresistible justification. It has
+been repeated to satiety, that at the time when Herschel entered on his
+astronomical career he knew nothing of mathematics. But I have already
+said, that during his residence at Bath, the organist of the Octagon
+Chapel had familiarized himself with the principles of geometry and
+algebra; and a still more positive proof of this is, that a difficult
+question on the vibration of strings loaded with small weights had been
+proposed for discussion in 1779: Herschel undertook to solve it, and his
+dissertation was inserted in several scientific collections of the year
+1780.
+
+The anecdotic life of Herschel, however, is now closed. The great
+astronomer will not quit his observatory any more, except to go and
+submit the sublime results of his laborious vigils to the Royal Society
+of London. These results are contained in his memoirs; they constitute
+one of the principal riches of the celebrated collection known under the
+title of _Philosophical Transactions_.
+
+Herschel belonged to the principal Academies of Europe, and about 1816
+he was named Knight of the Guelphic order of Hanover. According to the
+English habit, from the time of that nomination the title of Sir William
+took the place, in all this illustrious astronomer's memoirs, already
+honoured with so much celebrity, of the former appellation of Doctor
+William. Herschel had been named a Doctor (of laws) in the University of
+Oxford in 1786. This dignity, by special favour, was conferred on him
+without any of the obligatory formalities of examination, disputation,
+or pecuniary contribution, usual in that learned corporation.
+
+I should wound the elevated sentiments that Herschel professed all his
+life, if I were not here to mention two indefatigable assistants that
+this fortunate astronomer found in his own family. The one was Alexander
+Herschel, endowed with a remarkable talent for mechanism, always at his
+brother's orders, and who enabled him to realize without delay any ideas
+that he had conceived;[15] the other was Miss Caroline Herschel, who
+deserves a still more particular and detailed mention.
+
+Miss Caroline Lucretia Herschel went to England as soon as her brother
+became special astronomer to the king. She received the appellation
+there of Assistant Astronomer, with a moderate salary. From that moment
+she unreservedly devoted herself to the service of her brother, happy
+in contributing night and day to his rapidly increasing scientific
+reputation. Miss Caroline shared in all the night-watches of her
+brother, with her eye constantly on the clock, and the pencil in her
+hand; she made all the calculations without exception; she made three or
+four copies of all the observations in separate registers; cooerdinated,
+classed, and analyzed them. If the scientific world saw with
+astonishment how Herschel's works succeeded each other with unexampled
+rapidity during so many years, they were specially indebted for it to
+the ardour of Miss Caroline. Astronomy, moreover, has been directly
+enriched by several comets through this excellent and respectable lady.
+After the death of her illustrious brother, Miss Caroline retired to
+Hanover, to the house of Jahn Dietrich Herschel, a musician of high
+reputation, and the only surviving brother of the astronomer.
+
+William Herschel died without pain on the 23d of August 1822, aged
+eighty-three. Good fortune and glory never altered in him the fund of
+infantine candour, inexhaustible benevolence, and sweetness of
+character, with which nature had endowed him. He preserved to the last
+both his brightness of mind and vigour of intellect. For some years
+Herschel enjoyed with delight the distinguished success of his only
+son,[16] Sir John Herschel. At his last hour he sunk to rest with the
+pleasing conviction that his beloved son, heir of a great name, would
+not allow it to fall into oblivion, but adorn it with fresh lustre, and
+that great discoveries would honour his career also. No prediction of
+the illustrious astronomer has been more completely verified.
+
+The English journals gave an account of the means adopted by the family
+of William Herschel, for preserving the remains of the great telescope
+of thirty-nine English feet (twelve metres) constructed by that
+celebrated astronomer.
+
+The metal tube of the instrument carrying at one end the recently
+cleaned mirror of four feet ten inches in diameter, has been placed
+horizontally in the meridian line, on solid piers of masonry, in the
+midst of the circle, where formerly stood the mechanism requisite for
+manoeuvring the telescope. The first of January 1840, Sir John
+Herschel, his wife, their children, seven in number, and some old family
+servants, assembled at Slough. Exactly at noon, the party walked several
+times in procession round the instrument; they then entered the tube of
+the telescope, seated themselves on benches that had been prepared for
+the purpose, and sung a requiem, with English words composed by Sir John
+Herschel himself. After their exit, the illustrious family ranged
+themselves around the great tube, the opening of which was then
+hermetically sealed. The day concluded with a party of intimate friends.
+
+I know not whether those persons who will only appreciate things from
+the peculiar point of view from which they have been accustomed to look,
+may think there was something strange in several of the details of the
+ceremony that I have just described. I affirm at least that the whole
+world will applaud the pious feeling which actuated Sir John Herschel;
+and that all the friends of science will thank him for having
+consecrated the humble garden where his father achieved such immortal
+labours, by a monument more expressive in its simplicity than pyramids
+or statues.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] When age and infirmities obliged Alexander Herschel to
+give up his profession as a musician, he quitted Bath, and
+returned to Hanover, very generously provided by Sir William
+with a comfortable independence for life.
+
+[16] Sir W. Herschel had married Mary, the widow of John Pitt,
+Esq., possessed of a considerable jointure, and the union
+proved a remarkable accession of domestic happiness. This lady
+survived Sir William by several years. They had but this
+son.--_Translator's Note_.
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
+
+OF THE MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM HERSCHEL.[17]
+
+
+     1780. _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. lxx.--Astronomical
+     Observations on the Periodical Star in the Neck of the
+     Whale.--Astronomical Observations relative to the Lunar Mountains.
+
+     1781. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxi.--Astronomical Observations on the
+     Rotation of the Planets on their Axes, made with a View to decide
+     whether the Daily Rotation of the Earth be always the same.--On the
+     Comet of 1781, afterwards called the _Georgium Sidus_.
+
+     1782. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxii.--On the Parallax of the Fixed
+     Stars.--Catalogue of Double Stars.--Description of a Lamp
+     Micrometer, and the Method of using it.--Answers to the Doubts that
+     might be raised to the high magnifying Powers used by Herschel.
+
+     1783. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxiii.--Letter to Sir Joseph Banks on
+     the Name to be given to the new Planet.--On the Diameter of the
+     Georgium Sidus, followed by the Description of a Micrometer with
+     luminous or dark Disks.--On the proper Motion of the Solar System,
+     and the various Changes that have occurred among the Fixed Stars
+     since the Time of Flamsteed.
+
+     1784. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxiv.--On some remarkable Appearances
+     in the Polar Regions of Mars, the Inclination of its Axis, the
+     Position of its Poles, and its Spheroidal Form.--Some Details on
+     the real Diameter of Mars, and on its Atmosphere.--Analysis of some
+     Observations on the Constitution of the Heavens.
+
+     1785. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxv.--Catalogue of Double Stars.--On
+     the Constitution of the Heavens.
+
+     1786. _Phil Trans._, vol., lxxvi.--Catalogue of a Thousand Nebulae
+     and Clusters of Stars.--Researches on the Cause of a Defect of
+     Definition in Vision, which has been attributed to the Smallness of
+     the Optic Pencils.
+
+     1787. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxvii.--Remarks on the new
+     Comet.--Discovery of Two Satellites revolving round George's
+     Planet.--On Three Volcanoes in the Moon.
+
+     1788. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxviii.--On George's Planet (Uranus)
+     and its Satellites.
+
+     1789. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxix.--Observations on a Comet.
+     Catalogue of a Second Thousand new Nebulae and Clusters of
+     Stars.--Some Preliminary Remarks on the Constitution of the
+     Heavens.
+
+     1790. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxx.--Discovery of Saturn's Sixth and
+     Seventh Satellites; with Remarks on the Constitution of the Ring,
+     on the Planet's Rotation round an Axis, on its Spheroidal Form, and
+     on its Atmosphere.--On Saturn's Satellites, and the Rotation of the
+     Ring round an Axis.
+
+     1791. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxi.--On the Nebulous Stars and the
+     Suitableness of this Epithet.
+
+     1792. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxii.--On Saturn's Ring, and the
+     Rotation of the Planet's Fifth Satellite round an Axis.--Mixed
+     Observations.
+
+     1793. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxiii.--Observations on the Planet
+     Venus.
+
+     1794. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxiv.--Observations on a Quintuple
+     Band in Saturn.--On some Peculiarities observed during the last
+     Solar Eclipse.--On Saturn's Rotation round an Axis.
+
+     1795. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxv.--On the Nature and Physical
+     Constitution of the Sun and Stars.--Description of a Reflecting
+     Telescope forty feet in length.
+
+     1796. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxvi.--Method of observing the Changes
+     that happen to the Fixed Stars; Remarks on the Stability of our
+     Sun's Light.--Catalogue of Comparative Brightness, to determine the
+     Permanency of the Lustre of Stars.--On the Periodical Star _a_
+     Herculis, with Remarks tending to establish the Rotatory Motion of
+     the Stars on their Axes; to which is added a second Catalogue of
+     the Brightness of the Stars.
+
+     1797. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxvii.--A Third Catalogue of the
+     comparative Brightness of the Stars; with an Introductory Account
+     of an Index to Mr. Flamsteed's Observations of the Fixed Stars,
+     contained in the Second Volume of the Historia Coelestis to which
+     are added several useful Results derived from that
+     Index.--Observations of the changeable Brightness of the Satellites
+     of Jupiter, and of the Variation in their apparent Magnitudes; with
+     a Determination of the Time of their rotary Motions on their Axes,
+     to which is added a Measure of the Diameter of the Second
+     Satellite, and an Estimate of the comparative Size of the Fourth.
+
+     1798. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxviii.--On the Discovery of Four
+     additional Satellites of the Georgium Sidus. The retrograde Motion
+     of its old Satellites announced; and the Cause of their
+     Disappearance at certain Distances from the Planet explained.
+
+     1799. _Phil. Trans._, vol. lxxxix.--A Fourth Catalogue of the
+     comparative Brightness of the Stars.
+
+     1800. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xc.--On the Power of penetrating into
+     Space by Telescopes, with a comparative Determination of the Extent
+     of that Power in Natural Vision, and in Telescopes of various Sizes
+     and Constructions; illustrated by select
+     Observations.--Investigation of the Powers of the Prismatic Colours
+     to heat and illuminate Objects; with Remarks that prove the
+     different Refrangibility of radiant Heat; to which is added an
+     Inquiry into the Method of viewing the Sun advantageously with
+     Telescopes of large Apertures and high magnifying
+     Powers.--Experiments on the Refrangibility of the Invisible Rays of
+     the Sun.--Experiments on the Solar and on the Terrestrial Rays that
+     occasion Heat; with a comparative View of the Laws to which Light
+     and Heat, or rather the Rays which occasion them, are subject, in
+     order to determine whether they are the same or different.
+
+     1801. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xci.--Observations tending to
+     investigate the Nature of the Sun, in order to find the Causes or
+     Symptoms of its variable Emission of Light and Heat; with Remarks
+     on the Use that may possibly be drawn from Solar
+     Observations.--Additional Observations tending to investigate the
+     Symptoms of the variable Emission of the Light and Heat of the Sun;
+     with Trials to set aside darkening Glasses, by transmitting the
+     Solar Rays through Liquids, and a few Remarks to remove Objections
+     that might be made against some of the Arguments contained in the
+     former paper.
+
+     1802. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcii.--Observations on the two lately
+     discovered celestial Bodies (Ceres and Pallas).--Catalogue of 500
+     new Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, with Remarks on the Construction
+     of the Heavens.
+
+     1803. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xciii.--Observations of the Transit of
+     Mercury over the Disk of the Sun; to which is added an
+     Investigation of the Causes which often prevent the proper Action
+     of Mirrors.--Account of the Changes that have happened during the
+     last Twenty-five Years in the relative Situation of Double Stars;
+     with an Investigation of the Cause to which they are owing.
+
+     1804. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xciv.--Continuation of an Account of the
+     Changes that have happened in the relative Situation of Double
+     Stars.
+
+     1805. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcv.--Experiments for ascertaining how
+     far Telescopes will enable us to determine very small Angles, and
+     to distinguish the real from the spurious Diameters of Celestial
+     and Terrestrial Objects: with an Application of the Result of these
+     Experiments to a Series of Observations on the Nature and Magnitude
+     of Mr. Harding's lately discovered Star.--On the Direction and
+     Velocity of the Motion of the Sun and Solar System.--Observation on
+     the singular Figure of the Planet Saturn.
+
+     1806. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcvi.--On the Quantity and Velocity of
+     the Solar Motion.--Observations on the Figure, the Climate, and the
+     Atmosphere of Saturn and its Ring.
+
+     1807. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcvii.--Experiments for investigating
+     the Cause of the Coloured Concentric Rings, discovered by Sir Isaac
+     Newton between two Object-glasses laid one upon
+     another.--Observations on the Nature of the new celestial Body
+     discovered by Dr. Olbers, and of the Comet which was expected to
+     appear last January in its Return from the Sun.
+
+     1808. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcviii.--Observations of a Comet, made
+     with a view to investigate its Magnitude, and the Nature of its
+     Illumination. To which is added, an Account of a new Irregularity
+     lately perceived in the Apparent Figure of the Planet Saturn.
+
+     1809. _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcix.--Continuation of Experiments for
+     investigating the Cause of Coloured Concentric Rings, and other
+     Appearances of a similar Nature.
+
+     1810. _Phil. Trans._, vol. c.--Supplement to the First and Second
+     Part of the Paper of Experiments for investigating the Cause of
+     Coloured Concentric Rings between Object-glasses, and other
+     Appearances of a similar Nature.
+
+     1811. _Phil. Trans._, vol. ci.--Astronomical Observations relating
+     to the Construction of the Heavens, arranged for the Purpose of a
+     critical Examination, the Result of which appears to throw some new
+     Light upon the Organization of the Celestial Bodies.
+
+     1812. _Phil. Trans._, vol. cii.--Observations of a Comet, with
+     Remarks on the Construction of its different Parts.--Observations
+     of a Second Comet, with Remarks on its Construction.
+
+     1814. _Phil. Trans._, vol. civ.--Astronomical Observations relating
+     to the Sidereal Part of the Heavens, and its Connection with the
+     Nebulous Part; arranged for the Purpose of a critical Examination.
+
+     1815. _Phil. Trans._, vol. cv.--A Series of Observations of the
+     Satellites of the Georgian Planet, including a Passage through the
+     Node of their Orbits; with an Introductory Account of the
+     Telescopic Apparatus that has been used on this Occasion, and a
+     final Exposition of some calculated Particulars deduced from the
+     Observations.
+
+     1817. _Phil. Trans._, vol. cvii.--Astronomical Observations and
+     Experiments tending to investigate the Local Arrangement of the
+     Celestial Bodies in Space, and to determine the Extent and
+     Condition of the Milky Way.
+
+     1818. _Phil. Trans._, vol. cviii.--Astronomical Observations and
+     Experiments selected for the Purpose of ascertaining the relative
+     Distances of Clusters of Stars, and of investigating how far the
+     Power of Telescopes may be expected to reach into Space, when
+     directed to ambiguous Celestial Objects.
+
+     1822. _Memoirs of the Astronomical Society of London._--On the
+     Positions of 145 new Double Stars.
+
+
+The chronological and detailed analysis of so many labours would throw
+us into numerous repetitions. A systematic order will be preferable; it
+will more distinctly fix the eminent place that Herschel will never
+cease to occupy in the small group of our contemporary men of genius,
+whilst his name will reecho to the most distant posterity. The variety
+and splendour of Herschel's labours vie with their extent. The more we
+study them, the more we must admire them. It is with great men, as it is
+with great movements in the arts, we cannot understand them without
+studying them under various points of view.
+
+Let us here again make a general reflection. The memoirs of Herschel
+are, for the greater part, pure and simple extracts from his
+inexhaustible journals of observations at Slough, accompanied by a few
+remarks. Such a table would not suit historical details. In these
+respects the author has left almost every thing to his biographers to do
+for him. And they must impose on themselves the task of assigning to the
+great astronomer's predecessors the portion that legitimately belongs to
+them, out of the mass of discoveries, which the public (we must say) has
+got into an erroneous habit of referring too exclusively to Herschel.
+
+At one time I thought of adding a note to the analysis of each of the
+illustrious observer's memoirs, containing a detailed indication of the
+improvements or corrections that the progressive march of science has
+brought on. But in order to avoid an exorbitant length in this
+biography, I have been obliged to give up my project. In general I shall
+content myself with pointing out what belongs to Herschel, referring to
+my _Treatise on Popular Astronomy_ for the historical details. The life
+of Herschel had the rare advantage of forming an epoch in an extensive
+branch of astronomy; it would require us almost to write a special
+treatise on astronomy, to show thoroughly the importance of all the
+researches that are due to him.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[17] These titles are copied direct from the Philosophical
+Transactions, instead of being retranslated.--_Translator's
+Note_.
+
+
+
+
+IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS OF OBSERVATION.
+
+The improvements that Herschel made in the construction and management
+of telescopes have contributed so directly to the discoveries with which
+that observer enriched astronomy, that we cannot hesitate to bring them
+forward at once.
+
+I read the following passage in a Memoir by Lalande, printed in 1783,
+and forming part of the preface to vol. viii. of the _Ephemerides of the
+Celestial Motions_.
+
+"Each time that Herschel undertakes to polish a mirror (of a telescope),
+he condemns himself to ten, or twelve, or even fourteen hours' constant
+work. He does not quit his workshop for a minute, not even to eat, but
+receives from the hands of his sister that nourishment without which one
+could not undergo such prolonged fatigue. Nothing in the world would
+induce Herschel to abandon his work; for, according to him, it would be
+to spoil it."
+
+The advantages that Herschel found in 1783, 1784, and 1785, in
+employing telescopes of twenty feet and with large apertures, made him
+wish to construct much larger still. The expense would be considerable;
+King George III. provided for it. The work, begun about the close of
+1785, was finished in August, 1789. This instrument had an iron
+cylindrical tube, thirty-nine feet four inches English in length, and
+four feet ten inches in diameter. Such dimensions are enormous compared
+with those of telescopes made till then. They will appear but small,
+however, to persons who have heard the report of a pretended ball given
+in the Slough telescope. The propagators of this popular rumour had
+confounded the astronomer Herschel with the brewer Meux, and a cylinder
+in which a man of the smallest stature could scarcely stand upright,
+with certain wooden vats, as large as a house, in which beer is made and
+kept in London.
+
+Herschel's telescope, forty English feet[18] in length, allowed of the
+realization of an idea, the advantages of which would not be
+sufficiently appreciated if I did not here recall to mind some facts.
+
+In any telescope, whether refracting or reflecting, there are two
+principal parts: the part that forms the aerial images of the distant
+objects, and the small lens by the aid of which these images are
+enlarged just as if they consisted of radiating matter. When the image
+is produced by means of a lenticular glass, the place it occupies will
+be found in the prolongation of the line that extends from the object to
+the centre of the lens. The astronomer, furnished with an eye-piece, and
+wishing to examine that image, must necessarily place himself _beyond_
+the point where the rays that form it have crossed each other; _beyond_,
+let us carefully remark, means _farther off_ from the object-glass. The
+observer's head, his body, cannot then injure the formation or the
+brightness of the image, however small may be the distance from which we
+have to study it. But it is no longer thus with the image formed by
+means of reflection. For the image is now placed between the object and
+the reflecting mirror; and when the astronomer approaches in order to
+examine it, he inevitably intercepts, if not the totality, at least a
+very considerable portion of the luminous rays, which would otherwise
+have contributed to give it great splendour. It will now be understood,
+why in optical instruments where the images of distant objects are
+formed by the reflection of light, it has been necessary to carry the
+images, by the aid of a second reflection, out of the tube that contains
+and sustains the principal mirror. When the small mirror, on the surface
+of which the second reflection is effected, is plane, and inclined at an
+angle of 45 deg. to the axis of the telescope; when the image is reflected
+laterally, through an opening made near the edge of the tube and
+furnished with an eye-piece; when, in a word, the astronomer looks
+definitively in a direction perpendicular to the line described by the
+luminous rays coming from the object and falling on the centre of the
+great mirror, then the telescope is called _Newtonian_. But in the
+_Gregorian_ telescope, the image formed by the principal mirror falls on
+a second mirror, which is very small, slightly curved, and parallel to
+the first. The small mirror reflects the first image and throws it
+beyond the large mirror, through an opening made in the middle of that
+principal mirror.
+
+Both in the one and in the other of these two telescopes, the small
+mirror interposed between the object and the great mirror forms relative
+to the latter a sort of screen which prevents its entire surface from
+contributing towards forming the image. The small mirror, also, in
+regard to intensity, gives some trouble.
+
+Let us suppose, in order to clear up our ideas, that the material of
+which the two mirrors are made, reflects only half of the incident
+light. In the course of the first reflection, the immense quantity of
+rays that the aperture of the telescope had received, may be considered
+as reduced to half. Nor is the diminution less on the small mirror. Now,
+half of half is a quarter. Therefore the instrument will send to the eye
+of the observer only a quarter of the incident light that its aperture
+had received. These two causes of diminished light not existing in a
+refracting telescope, it would give, under parity of dimensions, four
+times more[19] light than a Newtonian or Gregorian telescope gives.
+
+Herschel did away with the small mirror in his large telescope. The
+large mirror is not mathematically centred in the large tube that
+contains it, but is placed rather obliquely in it. This slight obliquity
+causes the images to be formed not in the axis of the tube, but very
+near its circumference, or outer mouth, we may call it. The observer may
+therefore look at them there direct, merely by means of an eye-piece. A
+small portion of the astronomer's head, it is true, then encroaches on
+the tube; it forms a screen, and interrupts some incident rays. Still,
+in a large telescope, the loss does not amount to half by a great deal;
+which it would inevitably do if the small mirror were there.
+
+Those telescopes, in which the observer, placed at the anterior
+extremity of the tube, looks direct into the tube and turns his back to
+the objects, were called by Herschel _front view telescopes_. In vol.
+lxxvi. of the _Philosophical Transactions_ he says, that the idea of
+this construction occurred to him in 1776, and that he then applied it
+unsuccessfully to a ten-foot telescope; that during the year 1784, he
+again made a fruitless trial of it in a twenty-foot telescope. Yet I
+find that on the 7th of September 1784, he recurred to a _front view_ in
+observing some nebulae and groups of stars. However discordant these
+dates may be, we cannot without injustice neglect to remark, that a
+front view telescope was already described in 1732, in volume vi. of the
+collection entitled _Machines and Inventions approved by the Academy of
+Sciences_. The author of this innovation is Jaques Lemaire, who has been
+unduly confounded with the English Jesuit, Christopher Maire, assistant
+to Boscovitch, in measuring the meridian comprised between Rome and
+Rimini. Jaques Lemaire having only telescopes of moderate dimensions in
+view, was obliged, in order not to sacrifice any of the light, to place
+the great mirror so obliquely, that the image formed by its surface
+should fall entirely outside the tube of the instrument. So great a
+degree of inclination would certainly deform the objects. The _front
+view_ construction is admissible only in very large telescopes.
+
+I find in the _Transactions_ for 1803, that in solar observations,
+Herschel sometimes employed telescopes, the great mirror of which was
+made of glass. It was a telescope of this sort that he used for
+observing the transit of Mercury on the 9th of November, 1802. It was
+seven English feet long, and six inches and three tenths in diameter.
+
+Practical astronomers know how much the mounting of a telescope
+contributes to produce correct observations. The difficulty of a solid
+yet very movable mounting, increases rapidly with the dimensions and
+weight of an instrument. We may then conceive that Herschel had to
+surmount many obstacles, to mount a telescope suitably, of which the
+mirror alone weighed upwards of 1000 kilogrammes (_a ton_). But he
+solved this problem to his entire satisfaction by the aid of a
+combination of spars, of pulleys, and of ropes, of all which a correct
+idea may be formed by referring to the woodcut we have given in our
+_Treatise on Popular Astronomy_ (vol. i.). This great apparatus, and the
+entirely different stands that Herschel imagined for telescopes of
+smaller dimensions, assign to that illustrious observer a distinguished
+place amongst the most ingenious mechanics of our age.
+
+Persons in general, I may even say the greater part of astronomers, know
+not what was the effect that the great forty-foot telescope had in the
+labours and discoveries of Herschel. Still, we are not less mistaken
+when we fancy that the observer of Slough always used this telescope,
+than in maintaining with Baron von Zach (see _Monatliche Correspondenz_,
+January, 1802), that the colossal instrument was of no use at all, that
+it did not contribute to any one discovery, that it must be considered
+as a mere object of curiosity. These assertions are distinctly
+contradicted by Herschel's own words. In the volume of _Philosophical
+Transactions_ for the year 1795 (p. 350), I read for example: "On the
+28th of August 1789, having directed my telescope (of forty feet) to the
+heavens, I discovered the sixth satellite of Saturn, and I perceived the
+spots on that planet, better than I had been able to do before." (See
+also, relative to this sixth satellite, the _Philosophical
+Transactions_ for 1790, p. 10.) In that same volume of 1790, p. 11, I
+find: "The great light of my forty-foot telescope was then so useful,
+that on the 17th of September 1789, I remarked the seventh satellite,
+then situated at its greatest western elongation."
+
+The 10th of October, 1791, Herschel saw the ring of Saturn and the
+fourth satellite, looking in at the mirror of his forty-foot telescope,
+with his naked eye, without any sort of eye-piece.
+
+Let us acknowledge the true motives that prevented Herschel from oftener
+using his telescope of forty feet. Notwithstanding the excellence of the
+mechanism, the manoeuvring of that instrument required the constant
+aid of two labourers, and that of another person charged with noting the
+time at the clock. During some nights when the variation of temperature
+was considerable, this telescope, on account of its great mass, was
+always behindhand with the atmosphere in thermometric changes, which was
+very injurious to the distinctness of the images.
+
+Herschel found that in England, there are not above a hundred hours in a
+year during which the heavens can be advantageously observed with a
+telescope of forty feet, furnished with a magnifying power of a
+thousand. This remark led the celebrated astronomer to the conclusion,
+that, to take a complete survey of the heavens with his large
+instrument, though each successive field should remain only for an
+instant under inspection, would not require less than eight hundred
+years.
+
+Herschel explains in a very natural way the rare occurrence of the
+circumstances in which it is possible to make good use of a telescope of
+forty feet, and of very large aperture.
+
+A telescope does not magnify real objects only, but magnifies also the
+apparent irregularities arising from atmospheric refractions; now, all
+other things being equal, these irregularities of refraction must be so
+much the stronger, so much the more frequent, as the stratum of air is
+thicker through which the rays have passed to go and form the image.
+
+Astronomers experienced extreme surprise, when in 1782, they learned
+that Herschel had applied linear magnifying powers of a thousand, of
+twelve hundred, of two thousand two hundred, of two thousand six
+hundred, and even of six thousand times, to a reflecting telescope of
+seven feet in length. The Royal Society of London experienced this
+surprise, and officially requested Herschel to give publicity to the
+means he had adopted for ascertaining such amounts of magnifying power
+in his telescopes. Such was the object of a memoir that he inserted in
+vol. lxxii. of the _Philosophical Transactions_; and it dissipated all
+doubts. No one will be surprised that magnifying powers, which it would
+seem ought to have shown the Lunar mountains, as the chain of Mont Blanc
+is seen from Macon, from Lyons, and even from Geneva, were not easily
+believed in. They did not know that Herschel had never used magnifying
+powers of three thousand, and six thousand times, except in observing
+brilliant stars; they had not remembered that light reflected by
+planetary bodies, is too feeble to continue distinct under the same
+degree of magnifying power as the actual light of the fixed stars does.
+
+Opticians had given up, more from theory than from careful experiments,
+attempting high magnifying powers, even for reflecting telescopes. They
+thought that the image of a small circle cannot be distinct, cannot be
+sharp at the edges, unless the pencil of rays coming from the object in
+nearly parallel lines, and which enters the eye after having passed
+through the eye-piece, be sufficiently broad. This being once granted,
+the inference followed, that an image ceases to be well defined, when it
+does not strike at least two of the nervous filaments of the retina with
+which that organ is supposed to be overspread. These gratuitous
+circumstances, grafted on each other, vanished in presence of Herschel's
+observations. After having put himself on his guard against the effects
+of diffraction, that is to say, against the scattering that light
+undergoes when it passes the terminal angles of bodies, the illustrious
+astronomer proved, in 1786, that objects can be seen well defined by
+means of pencils of light whose diameter does not equal five tenths of a
+millimetre.
+
+Herschel looked on the almost unanimous opinion of the double lens
+eye-piece being preferable to the single lens eye-piece, as a very
+injurious prejudice in science. For experience proved to him,
+notwithstanding all theoretic deductions, that with equal magnifying
+powers, in reflecting telescopes at least (and this restriction is of
+some consequence), the images were brighter and better defined with
+single than with double eye-pieces. On one occasion, this latter
+eye-piece would not show him the bands of Saturn, whilst by the aid of a
+single lens they were perfectly visible. Herschel said: "The double
+eye-piece must be left to amateurs and to those who, for some particular
+object, require a large field of vision." (_Philosophical Transactions,
+1782, pages 94 and 95._)
+
+It is not only relative to the comparative merit of single or double
+eye-pieces that Herschel differs from the general opinions of opticians;
+he thinks, moreover, that he has proved by decisive experiments, that
+concave eye-pieces (like that used by Galileo) surpass the convex
+eye-piece by a great deal, both as regards clearness and definition.
+
+Herschel assigns the date of 1776 to the experiments which he made to
+decide this question. (_Philosophical Transactions_, year 1815, p. 297.)
+Plano-concave and double concave lenses produced similar effects. In
+what did these lenses differ from the double convex lenses? In one
+particular only: the latter received the rays reflected by the large
+mirror of the telescope, after their union at the focus, whereas the
+concave lenses received the same rays before that union. When the
+observer made use of a convex lens, the rays that went to the back of
+the eye to form an image on the retina, had crossed each other before in
+the air; but no crossing of this kind took place when the observer used
+a concave lens. Holding the double advantage of this latter sort of lens
+over the other, as quite proved, one would be inclined, like Herschel,
+to admit, "that a certain mechanical effect, injurious to clearness and
+definition, would accompany the focal crossing of the rays of
+light."[20]
+
+This idea of the crossing of the rays suggested an experiment to the
+ingenious astronomer, the result of which deserves to be recorded.
+
+A telescope of ten English feet was directed towards an advertisement
+covered with very small printing, and placed at a sufficient distance.
+The convex lens of the eye-piece was carried not by a tube properly so
+called, but by four rigid fine wires placed at right angles. This
+arrangement left the focus open in almost every direction. A concave
+mirror was then placed so that it threw a very condensed image of the
+sun laterally on the very spot where the image of the advertisement was
+formed. The solar rays, after having crossed each other, finding nothing
+on their route, went on and lost themselves in space. A screen, however,
+allowed the rays to be intercepted at will before they united.
+
+This done, having applied the eye to the eye-piece and directed all his
+attention to the telescopic image of the advertisement, Herschel did not
+perceive that the taking away and then replacing the screen made the
+least change in the brightness or definition of the letters. It was
+therefore of no consequence, in the one instance as well as in the
+other, whether the immense quantity of solar rays crossed each other at
+the very place where, _in another direction_, the rays united that
+formed the image of the letters. I have marked in Italics the words that
+especially show in what this curious experiment differs from the
+previous experiments, and yet does not entirely contradict them. In this
+instance the rays of various origin, those coming from the advertisement
+and from the sun, crossed each other respectively in almost rectangular
+directions; during the comparative examination of the stars with convex
+and with concave eye-pieces, the rays that seemed to have a mutual
+influence, had a common origin and crossed each other at very acute
+angles. There seems to be nothing, then, in the difference of the
+results at which we need to be much surprised.
+
+Herschel increased the catalogue, already so extensive, of the mysteries
+of vision, when he explained in what manner we must endeavour to
+distinguish separately the two members of certain double stars very
+close to each other. He said if you wish to assure yourself that _e_
+Coronae is a double star, first direct your telescope to _a_ Geminorum,
+to _z_ Aquarii, to _m_ Draconis, to _r_ Herculis, to _a_ Piscium, to _e_
+Lyrae. Look at those stars for a long time, so as to acquire the habit of
+observing such objects. Then pass on to _x_ Ursae majoris, where the
+closeness of the two members is still greater. In a third essay select
+_i_ Bootis (marked 44 by Flamsteed and _i_ in Harris's maps)[21], the
+star that precedes _a_ Orionis, _n_ of the same constellation, and you
+will then be prepared for the more difficult observation of _e_ Coronae.
+Indeed _e_ Coronae is a sort of miniature of _i_ Bootis, which may itself
+be considered as a miniature of _a_ Gem. (_Philosophical Transactions_,
+1782, p. 100.)
+
+As soon as Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding had discovered three of the
+numerous telescopic planets now known, Herschel proposed to himself to
+determine their real magnitudes; but telescopes not having then been
+applied to the measurement of excessively small angles, it became
+requisite, in order to avoid any illusion, to try some experiments
+adapted to giving a scale of the powers of those instruments. Such was
+the labour of that indefatigable astronomer, of which I am going to give
+a compressed abridgment.
+
+The author relates first, that in 1774, he endeavoured to ascertain
+experimentally, with the naked eye and at the distance of distinct
+vision, what angle a circle must subtend to be distinguished by its form
+from a square of similar dimensions. The angle was never smaller than 2'
+17"; therefore at its maximum it was about one fourteenth of the angle
+subtended by the diameter of the moon.
+
+Herschel did not say, either of what nature the circles and squares of
+paper were that he used, nor on what background they were projected. It
+is a lacuna to be regretted, for in those phenomena the intensity of
+light must be an important feature. However it may have been, the
+scrupulous observer not daring to extend to telescopic vision what he
+had discovered relative to vision with the naked eye, he undertook to do
+away with all doubt, by direct observations.
+
+On examining some pins' heads placed at a distance in the open air, with
+a three-foot telescope, Herschel could easily discern that those bodies
+were round, when the subtended angles became, after their enlargement,
+2' 19". This is almost exactly the result obtained with the naked eye.
+
+When the globules were darker; when, instead of pins' heads, small
+globules of sealing-wax were used, their spherical form did not begin to
+be distinctly visible till the moment when the subtended magnified
+angles, that is, the moment when the natural angle multiplied by the
+magnifying power, amounted to five minutes.
+
+In a subsequent series of experiments, some globules of silver placed
+very far from the observer, allowed their globular form to be perceived,
+even when the magnified angle remained below two minutes.
+
+Under equality of subtended angle, then, the telescopic vision with
+strong magnifying powers showed itself superior to the naked eye vision.
+This result is not unimportant.
+
+If we take notice of the magnifying powers used by Herschel in these
+laborious researches, powers that often exceeded five hundred times, it
+will appear to be established that the telescopes possessed by modern
+astronomers, may serve to verify the round form of distant objects, the
+form of celestial bodies even when the diameters of those bodies do not
+subtend naturally (to the naked eye), angles of above three tenths of a
+second: and 500, multiplied by three tenths of a second, give 2' 30".
+
+Refracting telescopes were still ill understood instruments, the result
+of chance, devoid of certain theory, when they already served to reveal
+brilliant astronomical phenomena. Their theory, in as far as it depended
+on geometry and optics, made rapid progress. These two early phases of
+the problem leave but little more to be wished for; it is not so with a
+third phase, hitherto a good deal neglected, connected with physiology,
+and with the action of light on the nervous system. Therefore, we should
+search in vain in old treatises on optics and on astronomy, for a strict
+and complete discussion on the comparative effect that the size and
+intensity of the images, that the magnifying power and the aperture of a
+telescope may have, by night and by day, on the visibility of the
+faintest stars. This lacuna Herschel tried to fill up in 1799; such was
+the aim of the memoir entitled, _On the space-penetrating Power of
+Telescopes_.
+
+This memoir contains excellent things; still, it is far from exhausting
+the subject. The author, for instance, entirely overlooks the
+observations made by day. I also find, that the hypothetical part of
+the discussion is not perhaps so distinctly separated from the rigorous
+part as it might be; that disputable numbers, though given with a degree
+of precision down to the smallest decimals, do not look well as terms of
+comparison with some results which; on the contrary, rest on
+observations bearing mathematical evidence.
+
+Whatever may be thought of these remarks, the astronomer or the
+physicist who would like again to undertake the question of visibility
+with telescopes, will find some important facts in Herschel's memoir,
+and some ingenious observations, well adapted to serve them as guides.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] Conforming to general usage, and to Sir W. Herschel himself, we
+shall allude to this instrument as the _forty-foot_ telescope, though M.
+Arago adheres to thirty-nine feet and drops the inches, probably because
+the Parisian foot is rather longer than the English.--_Translator's
+Note_.
+
+[19] It would be more correct to say four times _as much_
+light.--_Translator_.
+
+[20] On comparing the Cassegrain telescopes with a small convex mirror,
+to the Gregorian telescopes with a small concave mirror, Captain Kater
+found that the former, in which the luminous rays do not cross each
+other before falling on the small mirror, possess, as to intensity, a
+marked advantage over the latter, in which this crossing takes place.
+
+[21] In the selection of _i_ Bootis as a test, Arago has taken the
+precaution of giving its corresponding denomination in other catalogues,
+and Bailey appends the following note, No. 2062, to 44 Bootis. "In the
+British Catalogue this star is not denoted by any letter: but Bayer
+calls it _i_, and on referring to the earliest MS. Catalogue in MSS.
+vol. xxv., I find it is there so designated; I have therefore restored
+the letter." (See Bailey's Edition of Flamsteed's British Catalogue of
+Stars, 1835.) The distance between the two members of this double star
+is 3".7 and position 23 deg..5. See "Bedford Cycle."--_Translator_.
+
+
+
+
+LABOURS IN SIDEREAL ASTRONOMY.
+
+The curious phenomenon of a periodical change of intensity in certain
+stars, very early excited a keen attention in Herschel. The first memoir
+by that illustrious observer presented to the Royal Society of London
+and inserted in the _Philosophical Transactions_ treats precisely of the
+changes of intensity of the star _o_ in the neck of the Whale.
+
+This memoir was still dated from Bath, May, 1780. Eleven years after, in
+the month of December, 1791, Herschel communicated a second time to that
+celebrated English Society the remarks that he had made by sometimes
+directing his telescopes to the mysterious star. At both those epochs
+the observer's attention was chiefly applied to the absolute values of
+the _maxima_ and _minima_ of intensity.
+
+The changeable star in the Whale was not the only periodical star with
+which Herschel occupied himself. His observations of 1795 and of 1796
+proved that _a_ Herculis also belongs to the category of variable stars,
+and that the time requisite for the accomplishment of all the changes
+of intensity, and for the star's return to any given state, was sixty
+days and a quarter. When Herschel obtained this result, about ten
+changeable stars were already known; but they were all either of very
+long or very short periods. The illustrious astronomer considered that,
+by introducing between two groups that exhibited very short and very
+long periods, a star of somewhat intermediate conditions,--for instance,
+one requiring sixty days to accomplish all its variations of
+intensity,--he had advanced the theory of these phenomena by an
+essential step; the theory at least that attributes every thing to a
+movement of rotation round their centres which the stars may undergo.
+
+Sir William Herschel's catalogues of double stars offer a considerable
+number to which he ascribes a decided green or blue tint. In binary
+combinations, when the small star appears very blue or very green, the
+large one is usually yellow or red. It does not appear that the great
+astronomer took sufficient interest in this circumstance. I do not find,
+indeed, that the almost constant association of two complementary
+colours (of yellow and blue, or of red and green), ever led him to
+suspect that one of those colours might not have any thing real in it,
+that it often might be a mere illusion, a mere result of contrast. It
+was only in 1825, that I showed that there are stars whose contrast
+really explains their apparent colour; but I have proved besides, that
+blue is incontestably the colour of certain insulated stars, or stars
+that have only white ones, or other blue ones in their vicinity. Red is
+the only colour that the ancients ever distinguished from white in their
+catalogues.
+
+Herschel also endeavoured to introduce numbers in the classification of
+stars as to magnitude; he has endeavoured, by means of numbers, to show
+the comparative intensity of a star of first magnitude, with one of
+second, or one of third magnitude, &c.
+
+In one of the earliest of Herschel's memoirs, we find, that the apparent
+sidereal diameters are proved to be for the greater part factitious,
+even when the best made telescopes are used. Diameters estimated by
+seconds, that is to say, reduced according to the magnifying power,
+diminish as the magnifying power is increased. These results are of the
+greatest importance.
+
+In the course of his investigation of sidereal parallax, though without
+finding it, Herschel made an important discovery; that of the proper
+motion of our system. To show distinctly the direction of the motion of
+the solar system, not only was a displacement of the sidereal
+perspective required, but profound mathematical knowledge, and a
+peculiar tact. This peculiar tact Herschel possessed in an eminent
+degree. Moreover, the result deduced from the very small number of
+proper motions known at the beginning of 1783, has been found almost to
+agree with that found recently by clever astronomers, by the application
+of subtile analytical formulae, to a considerable number of exact
+observations.
+
+The proper motions of the stars have been known and proved for more than
+a century, and already Fontenelle used to say in 1738, that the sun
+probably also moved in a similar way. The idea of partly attributing the
+displacement of the stars to a motion of the sun, had suggested itself
+to Bradley and to Mayer. And Lambert especially had been very explicit
+on the subject. Until then, however, there were only conjectures and
+mere probabilities. Herschel passed those limits. He himself proved
+that the sun positively moves; and that, in this respect also, that
+immense and dazzling body must be ranged among the stars; that the
+apparently inextricable irregularities of numerous sidereal proper
+motions arise in great measure from the displacement of the solar
+system; that, in short, the point of space towards which we are annually
+advancing, is situated in the constellation of Hercules.
+
+These are magnificent results. The discovery of the proper motion of our
+system will always be accounted among Herschel's highest claims to
+glory, even after the mention that my duty as historian has obliged me
+to make of the anterior conjectures by Fontenelle, by Bradley, by Mayer,
+and by Lambert.
+
+By the side of this great discovery we should place another, that seems
+likely to expand in future. The results which it allows us to hope for
+will be of extreme importance. The discovery here alluded to was
+announced to the learned world in 1803; it is that of the reciprocal
+dependence of several stars, connected the one with the other, as the
+several planets and their satellites of our system are with the sun.
+
+Let us to these immortal labours add the ingenious ideas that we owe to
+Herschel on the nebulae, on the constitution of the Milky-way, on the
+universe as a whole; ideas which almost by themselves constitute the
+actual history of the formation of the worlds, and we cannot but have a
+deep reverence for that powerful genius that has scarcely ever erred,
+notwithstanding an ardent imagination.
+
+
+
+
+LABOURS RELATIVE TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM.
+
+Herschel occupied himself very much with the sun, but only relative to
+its physical constitution. The observations that the illustrious
+astronomer made on this subject, the consequences that he deduced from
+them, equal the most ingenious discoveries for which the sciences are
+indebted to him.
+
+In his important memoir in 1795, the great astronomer declares himself
+convinced that the substance by the intermediation of which the sun
+shines, cannot be either a liquid, or an elastic fluid. It must be
+analogous to our clouds, and float in the transparent atmosphere of that
+body. The sun has, according to him, two atmospheres, endowed with
+motions quite independent of each other. An elastic fluid of an unknown
+nature is being constantly formed on the dark surface of the sun, and
+rising up on account of its specific lightness, it forms the _pores_ in
+the stratum of reflecting clouds; then, combining with other gases, it
+produces the wrinkles in the region of luminous clouds. When the
+ascending currents are powerful, they give rise to the _nuclei_, to the
+_penumbrae_, to the _faculae_. If this explanation of the formation of
+solar spots is well founded, we must expect to find that the sun does
+not constantly emit similar quantities of light and heat. Recent
+observations have verified this conclusion. But large nuclei, large
+penumbrae, wrinkles, faculae, do they indicate an abundant luminous and
+calorific emission, as Herschel thought; that would be the result of his
+hypothesis on the existence of very active ascending currents, but
+direct experience seems to contradict it.
+
+The following is the way in which a learned man, Sir David Brewster,
+appreciates this view of Herschel's: "It is not conceivable that
+luminous clouds, ceding to the lightest impulses and in a state of
+constant change, can be the source of the sun's devouring flame and of
+the dazzling light which it emits; nor can we admit besides, that the
+feeble barrier formed by planetary clouds would shelter the objects that
+it might cover, from the destructive effects of the superior elements."
+
+Sir D. Brewster imagines that the non-luminous rays of caloric, which
+form a constituent part of the solar light, are emitted by the dark
+nucleus of the sun; whilst the visible coloured rays proceed from the
+luminous matter by which the nucleus is surrounded. "From thence," he
+says, "proceeds the reason of light and heat always appearing in a state
+of combination: the one emanation cannot be obtained without the other.
+With this hypothesis we should explain naturally why it is hottest when
+there are most spots, because the heat of the nucleus would then reach
+us without having been weakened by the atmosphere that it usually has to
+traverse." But it is far from being an ascertained fact, that we
+experience increased heat during the apparition of solar spots; the
+inverse phenomenon is more probably true.
+
+Herschel occupied himself also with the physical constitution of the
+moon. In 1780, he sought to measure the height of our satellite's
+mountains. The conclusion that he drew from his observations was, that
+few of the lunar mountains exceed 800 metres (or 2600 feet). More recent
+selenographic studies differ from this conclusion. There is reason to
+observe on this occasion how much the result surmised by Herschel
+differs from any tendency to the extraordinary or the gigantic, that
+has been so unjustly assigned as the characteristic of the illustrious
+astronomer.
+
+At the close of 1787, Herschel presented a memoir to the Royal Society,
+the title of which must have made a strong impression on people's
+imaginations. The author therein relates that on the 19th of April,
+1787, he had observed in the non-illuminated part of the moon, that is,
+in the then dark portion, three volcanoes in a state of ignition. Two of
+these volcanoes appeared to be on the decline, the other appeared to be
+active. Such was then Herschel's conviction of the reality of the
+phenomenon, that the next morning he wrote thus of his first
+observation: "The volcano burns with more violence than last night." The
+real diameter of the volcanic light was 5000 metres (16,400 English
+feet). Its intensity appeared very superior to that of the nucleus of a
+comet then in apparition. The observer added: "The objects situated near
+the crater are feebly illuminated by the light that emanates from it."
+Herschel concludes thus: "In short, this eruption very much resembles
+the one I witnessed on the 4th of May, 1783."
+
+How happens it, after such exact observations, that few astronomers now
+admit the existence of active volcanoes in the moon? I will explain this
+singularity in a few words.
+
+The various parts of our satellite are not all equally reflecting. Here,
+it may depend on the form, elsewhere, on the nature of the materials.
+Those persons who have examined the moon with telescopes, know how very
+considerable the difference arising from these two causes may be, how
+much brighter one point of the moon sometimes is than those around it.
+Now, it is quite evident that the relations of intensity between the
+faint parts and the brilliant parts must continue to exist, whatever be
+the origin of the illuminating light. In the portion of the lunar globe
+that is illuminated by the sun, there are, everybody knows, some points,
+the brightness of which is extraordinary compared to those around them;
+those same points, when they are seen in that portion of the moon that
+is only lighted by the earth, or in the ash-coloured part, will still
+predominate over the neighbouring regions by their comparative
+intensity. Thus we may explain the observations of the Slough
+astronomer, without recurring to volcanoes. Whilst the great observer
+was studying in the non-illuminated portion of the moon, the supposed
+volcano of the 20th of April, 1787, his nine-foot telescope showed him
+in truth, by the aid of the secondary rays proceeding from the earth,
+even the darkest spots.
+
+Herschel did not recur to the discussion of the supposed actually
+burning lunar volcanoes, until 1791. In the volume of the _Philosophical
+Transactions_ for 1792, he relates that, in directing a twenty-foot
+telescope, magnifying 360 times, to the entirely eclipsed moon on the
+22d of October, 1790, there were visible, over the whole face of the
+satellite, about a hundred and fifty very luminous red points. The
+author declares that he will observe the greatest reserve relative to
+the similarity of all these points, their great brightness, and their
+remarkable colour.
+
+Yet is not red the usual colour of the moon when eclipsed, and when it
+has not entirely disappeared? Could the solar rays reaching our
+satellite by the effect of refraction, and after an absorption
+experienced in the lowest strata of the terrestrial atmosphere, receive
+another tint? Are there not in the moon, when freely illuminated, and
+opposite to the sun, from one to two hundred little points, remarkable
+by the brightness of their light? Would it be possible for those little
+points not to be also distinguishable in the moon, when it receives only
+the portion of solar light which is refracted and coloured by our
+atmosphere?
+
+Herschel was more successful in his remarks on the absence of a lunar
+atmosphere. During the solar eclipse of the 5th September, 1793, the
+illustrious astronomer particularly directed his attention to the shape
+of the acute horn resulting from the intersection of the limbs of the
+moon and of the sun. He deduced from his observation that if towards the
+point of the horn there had been a deviation of only one second,
+occasioned by the refraction of the solar light in the lunar atmosphere,
+it would not have escaped him.
+
+Herschel made the planets the object of numerous researches. Mercury was
+the one with which he least occupied himself; he found its disk
+perfectly round on observing it during its projection, that is to say,
+in astronomical language, during its transit over the sun on the 9th of
+November, 1802. He sought to determine the time of the rotation of Venus
+since the year 1777. He published two memoirs relative to Mars, the one
+in 1781, the other in 1784, and the discovery of its being flattened at
+the poles we owe to him. After the discovery of the small planets,
+Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, by Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding, Herschel
+applied himself to measuring their angular diameter. He concluded from
+his researches that those four new bodies did not deserve the name of
+planets, and he proposed to call them asteroids. This epithet was
+subsequently adopted; though bitterly criticized by a historian of the
+Royal Society of London, Dr. Thomson, who went so far as to suppose
+that the learned astronomer "had wished to deprive the first observers
+of those bodies, of all idea of rating themselves as high as him
+(Herschel) in the scale of astronomical discoverers." I should require
+nothing farther to annihilate such an imputation, than to put it by the
+side of the following passage, extracted from a memoir by this
+celebrated astronomer, published in the _Philosophical Transactions_,
+for the year 1805: "The specific difference existing between planets and
+asteroids appears now, by the addition of a third individual of the
+latter species, to be more completely established, and that
+circumstance, in my opinion, has added more to the _ornament_ of our
+system than the discovery of a new planet could have done."
+
+Although much has not resulted from Herschel's having occupied himself
+with the physical constitution of Jupiter, astronomy is indebted to him
+for several important results relative to the duration of that planet's
+rotation. He also made numerous observations on the intensities and
+comparative magnitudes of its satellites.
+
+The compression of Saturn, the duration of its rotation, the physical
+constitution of this planet and that of its ring, were, on the part of
+Herschel, the object of numerous researches which have much contributed
+to the progress of planetary astronomy. But on this subject two
+important discoveries especially added new glory to the great
+astronomer.
+
+Of the five known satellites of Saturn at the close of the 17th century,
+Huygens had discovered the fourth; Cassini the others.
+
+The subject seemed to be exhausted, when news from Slough showed what a
+mistake this was.
+
+On the 28th of August, 1789, the great forty-foot telescope revealed to
+Herschel a satellite still nearer to the ring than the other five
+already observed. According to the principles of the nomenclature
+previously adopted, the small body of the 28th August ought to have been
+called the first satellite of Saturn, the numbers indicating the places
+of the other five would then have been each increased by a unity. But
+the fear of introducing confusion into science by these continual
+changes of denomination, induced a preference for calling the new
+satellite the sixth.
+
+Thanks to the prodigious powers of the forty-foot telescope, a last
+satellite, the seventh, showed itself on the 17th of September, 1789,
+between the sixth and the ring.
+
+This seventh satellite is extremely faint. Herschel, however, succeeding
+in seeing it whenever circumstances were very favourable, even by the
+aid of the twenty-foot telescope.
+
+The discovery of the planet Uranus, the detection of its satellites,
+will always occupy one of the highest places among those by which modern
+astronomy is honoured.
+
+On the 13th of March, 1781, between ten and eleven o'clock at night,
+Herschel was examining the small stars near H Geminorum with a
+seven-foot telescope, bearing a magnifying power of 227 times. One of
+these stars seemed to him to have an unusual diameter. The celebrated
+astronomer, therefore, thought it was a comet. It was under this
+denomination that it was then discussed at the Royal Society of London.
+But the researches of Herschel and of Laplace showed later that the
+orbit of the new body was nearly circular, and Uranus was elevated to
+the rank of a planet.
+
+The immense distance of Uranus, its small angular diameter, the
+feebleness of its light, did not allow the hope, that if that body had
+satellites, the magnitudes of which were, relatively to its own size,
+what the satellites of Jupiter, of Saturn are, compared to those two
+large planets, any observer could perceive them, from the earth.
+Herschel was not a man to be deterred by such discouraging conjectures.
+Therefore, since powerful telescopes of the ordinary construction, that
+is to say, with two mirrors conjugated, had not enabled him to discover
+any thing, he substituted, in the beginning of January, 1787, _front
+view_ telescopes, that is, telescopes throwing much more light on the
+objects, the small mirror being then suppressed, and with it one of the
+causes of loss of light is got rid of.
+
+By patient labour, by observations requiring a rare perseverance,
+Herschel attained (from the 11th of January, 1787, to the 28th of
+February, 1794,) to the discovery of the six satellites of his planet,
+and thus to complete the _world_ of a system that belongs entirely to
+himself.
+
+There are several of Herschel's memoirs on comets. In analyzing them, we
+shall see that this great observer could not touch any thing without
+making further discoveries in the subject.
+
+Herschel applied some of his fine instruments to the study of the
+physical constitution of a comet discovered by Mr. Pigott, on the 28th
+September, 1807.
+
+The nucleus was round and well determined. Some measures taken on the
+day when the nucleus subtended only an angle of a single second, gave as
+its real angle 6/100 of the diameter of the earth.
+
+Herschel saw no phase at an epoch when only 7/10 of the nucleus could
+be illuminated by the sun. The nucleus then must shine by its own light.
+
+This is a legitimate inference in the opinion of every one who will
+allow, on one hand, that the nucleus is a solid body, and on the other,
+that it would have been possible to observe a phase of 8/10 on a disk
+whose apparent total diameter did not exceed one or two seconds of a
+degree.
+
+Very small stars seemed to grow much paler when they were seen through
+the coma or through the tail of the comet.
+
+This faintness may have only been apparent, and might arise from the
+circumstance of the stars being then projected on a luminous background.
+Such is, indeed, the explanation adopted by Herschel. A gaseous medium,
+capable of reflecting sufficient solar light to efface that of some
+stars, would appear to him to possess in each stratum a sensible
+quantity of matter, and to be, for that reason, a cause of real
+diminution of the light transmitted, though nothing reveals the
+existence of such a cause.
+
+This argument, offered by Herschel in favour of the system which
+transforms comets into self-luminous bodies, has not, as we may
+perceive, much force. I might venture to say as much of many other
+remarks by this great observer. He tells us that the comet was very
+visible in the telescope on the 21st of February, 1808; now, on that
+day, its distance from the sun amounted to 2.7 times the mean radius of
+the terrestrial orbit; its distance from the observer was 2.9: "What
+probability would there be that rays going to such distances, from the
+sun to the comet, could, after their reflection, be seen by an eye
+nearly three times more distant from the comet than from the sun?"
+
+It is only numerical determinations that could give value to such an
+argument. By satisfying himself with vague reasoning, Herschel did not
+even perceive that he was committing a great mistake by making the
+comet's distance from the observer appear to be an element of
+visibility. If the comet be self-luminous, its intrinsic splendour (its
+brightness for unity of surface) will remain constant at any distance,
+as long as the subtended angle remains sensible. If the body shines by
+borrowed light, its brightness will vary only according to its change of
+distance from the sun; nor will the distance of the observer occasion
+any change in the visibility; always, let it be understood, with the
+restriction that the apparent diameter shall not be diminished below
+certain limits.
+
+Herschel finished his observations of a comet that was visible in
+January, 1807, with the following remark:--
+
+"Of the sixteen telescopic comets that I have examined, fourteen had no
+solid body visible at their centre; the other two exhibited a central
+light, very ill defined, that might be termed a nucleus, but a light
+that certainly could not deserve the name of a disk."
+
+The beautiful comet of 1811 became the object of that celebrated
+astronomer's conscientious labour. Large telescopes showed him, in the
+midst of the gazeous head, a rather reddish body of planetary
+appearance, which bore strong magnifying powers, and showed no sign of
+phase. Hence Herschel concluded that it was self-luminous. Yet if we
+reflect that the planetary body under consideration was not a second in
+diameter, the absence of a phase does not appear a demonstrative
+argument.
+
+The light of the head had a blueish-green tint. Was this a real tint, or
+did the central reddish body, only through contrast, make the
+surrounding vapour appear to be coloured? Herschel did not examine the
+question in this point of view.
+
+The head of the comet appeared to be enveloped at a certain distance, on
+the side towards the sun, by a brilliant narrow zone, embracing about a
+semicircle, and of a yellowish colour. From the two extremities of the
+semicircle there arose, towards the region away from the sun, two long
+luminous streaks which limited the tail. Between the brilliant circular
+semi-ring and the head, the cometary substance seemed dark, very rare,
+and very diaphanous.
+
+The luminous semi-ring always presented similar appearances in all the
+positions of the comet; it was not then possible to attribute to it
+really the annular form, the shape of Saturn's ring, for example.
+Herschel sought whether a spherical demi-envelop of luminous matter, and
+yet diaphanous, would not lead to a natural explanation of the
+phenomenon. In this hypothesis, the visual rays, which on the 6th of
+October, 1811, made a section of the envelop, or bore almost
+tangentially, traversed a thickness of matter of about 399,000
+kilometres, (248,000 English miles,) whilst the visual rays near the
+head of the comet did not meet above 80,000 kilometres (50,000 miles) of
+it. As the brightness must be proportional to the quantity of matter
+traversed, there could not fail to be an appearance around the comet, of
+a semi-ring five times more luminous than the central regions. This
+semi-ring, then, was an effect of projection, and it has revealed a
+circumstance to us truly remarkable in the physical constitution of
+comets.
+
+The two luminous streaks that outlined the tail at its two limits, may
+be explained in a similar manner; the tail was not flat as it appeared
+to be; it had the form of a conoid, with its sides of a certain
+thickness. The visual lines which traversed those sides almost
+tangentially, evidently met much more matter than the visual lines
+passing across. This maximum of matter could not fail of being
+represented by a maximum of light.
+
+The luminous semi-ring floated; it appeared one day to be suspended in
+the diaphanous atmosphere by which the head of the comet was surrounded,
+at a distance of 518,000 kilometres (322,000 English miles) from the
+nucleus.
+
+This distance was not constant. The matter of the semi-annular envelop
+seemed even to be precipitated by slow degrees through the diaphanous
+atmosphere; finally it reached the nucleus; the earlier appearances
+vanished; the comet was reduced to a globular nebula.
+
+During its period of dissolution, the ring appeared sometimes to have
+several branches.
+
+The luminous shreds of the tail seemed to undergo rapid, frequent, and
+considerable variations of length. Herschel discerned symptoms of a
+movement of rotation both in the comet and in its tail. This rotatory
+motion carried unequal shreds from the centre towards the border, and
+reciprocally. On looking from time to time at the same region of the
+tail, at the border, for example, sensible changes of length must have
+been perceptible, which however had no reality in them. Herschel
+thought, as I have already said, that the beautiful comet of 1811, and
+that of 1807, were self-luminous. The second comet of 1811 appeared to
+him to shine only by borrowed light. It must be acknowledged that these
+conjectures did not rest on any thing demonstrative.
+
+In attentively comparing the comet of 1807 with the beautiful comet of
+1811, relative to the changes of distance from the sun, and the
+modifications resulting thence, Herschel put it beyond doubt that these
+modifications have something individual in them, something relative to a
+special state of the nebulous matter. On one celestial body the changes
+of distance produce an enormous effect, on another the modifications are
+insignificant.
+
+
+
+
+OPTICAL LABOURS.
+
+I shall say very little on the discoveries that Herschel made in
+physics. In short, everybody knows them. They have been inserted into
+special treatises, into elementary works, into verbal instruction; they
+must be considered as the starting-point of a multitude of important
+labours with which the sciences have been enriched during several years.
+
+The chief of these is that of the dark radiating heat which is found
+mixed with light.
+
+In studying the phenomena, no longer with the eye, like Newton, but with
+a thermometer, Herschel discovered that the solar spectrum is prolonged
+on the red side far beyond the visible limits. The thermometer sometimes
+rose higher in that dark region, than in the midst of brilliant zones.
+The light of the sun then, contains, besides the coloured rays so well
+characterized by Newton, some invisible rays, still less refrangible
+than the red, and whose warming power is very considerable. A world of
+discoveries has arisen from this fundamental fact.
+
+The dark heat emanating from terrestrial objects more or less heated,
+became also subjects of Herschel's investigations. His work contained
+the germs of a good number of beautiful experiments since erected upon
+it in our own day.
+
+By successively placing the same objects in all parts of the solar
+spectrum Herschel determined the illuminating powers of the various
+prismatic rays. The general result of these experiments may be thus
+enunciated:
+
+The illuminating power of the red rays is not very great; that of the
+orange rays surpasses it, and is in its turn surpassed by the power of
+the yellow rays. The maximum power of illumination is found between the
+brightest yellow and the palest green. The yellow and the green possess
+this power equally. A like assimilation may be laid down between the
+blue and the red. Finally, the power of illumination in the indigo rays,
+and above all in the violet, is very weak.
+
+Yet the memoirs of Herschel on Newton's coloured rings, though
+containing a multitude of exact experiments, have not much contributed
+to advance the theory of those curious phenomena. I have learnt from
+good authority, that the great astronomer held the same opinion on this
+topic. He said that it was the only occasion on which he had reason to
+regret having, according to his constant method, published his labours
+immediately, as fast as they were performed.
+
+
+
+
+LAPLACE.
+
+
+Having been appointed to draw up the report of a committee of the
+Chamber of Deputies which was nominated in 1842, for the purpose of
+taking into consideration the expediency of a proposal submitted to the
+Chamber by the Minister of Public Instruction, relative to the
+publication of a new edition of the works of Laplace at the public
+expense, I deemed it to be my duty to embody in the report a concise
+analysis of the works of our illustrious countryman. Several persons,
+influenced, perhaps, by too indulgent a feeling towards me, having
+expressed a wish that this analysis should not remain buried amid a heap
+of legislative documents, but that it should be published in the
+_Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes_, I took advantage of this
+circumstance to develop it more fully so as to render it less unworthy
+of public attention. The scientific part of the report presented to the
+Chamber of Deputies will be found here entire. It has been considered
+desirable to suppress the remainder. I shall merely retain a few
+sentences containing an explanation of the object of the proposed law,
+and an announcement of the resolutions which were adopted by the three
+powers of the State.
+
+"Laplace has endowed France, Europe, the scientific world, with three
+magnificent compositions: the _Traite de Mecanique Celeste_, the
+_Exposition du Systeme du Monde_, and the _Theorie Analytique des
+Probabilites_. In the present day (1842) there is no longer to be found
+a single copy of this last work at any bookseller's establishment in
+Paris. The edition of the _Mecanique Celeste_ itself will soon be
+exhausted. It was painful then to reflect that the time was close at
+hand when persons engaged in the study of the higher mathematics would
+be compelled, for want of the original work, to inquire at Philadelphia,
+at New York, or at Boston for the English translation of the _chef
+d'oeuvre_ of our countryman by the excellent geometer Bowditch. These
+fears, let us hasten to state, were not well founded. To republish the
+_Mecanique Celeste_ was, on the part of the family of the illustrious
+geometer, to perform a pious duty. Accordingly, Madame de Laplace, who
+is so justly, so profoundly attentive to every circumstance calculated
+to enhance the renown of the name which she bears, did not hesitate
+about pecuniary considerations. A small property near Pont l'Eveque was
+about to change hands, and the proceeds were to have been applied so
+that Frenchmen should not be deprived of the satisfaction of exploring
+the treasures of the _Mecanique Celeste_ through the medium of the
+vernacular tongue.
+
+"The republication of the complete works of Laplace rested upon an
+equally sure guarantee. Yielding at once to filial affection, to a noble
+feeling of patriotism, and to the enthusiasm for brilliant discoveries
+which a course of severe study inspired, General Laplace had long since
+qualified himself for becoming the editor of the seven volumes which are
+destined to immortalize his father.
+
+"There are glorious achievements of a character too elevated, of a
+lustre too splendid, that they should continue to exist as objects of
+private property. Upon the State devolves the duty of preserving them
+from indifference and oblivion: of continually holding them up to
+attention, of diffusing a knowledge of them through a thousand channels;
+in a word, of rendering them subservient to the public interests.
+
+"Doubtless the Minister of Public Instruction was influenced by these
+considerations, when upon the occasion of a new edition of the works of
+Laplace having become necessary, he demanded of you to substitute the
+great French family for the personal family of the illustrious geometer.
+We give our full and unreserved adhesion to this proposition. It springs
+from a feeling of patriotism which will not be gainsayed by any one in
+this assembly."
+
+In fact, the Chamber of Deputies had only to examine and solve this
+single question: "Are the works of Laplace of such transcendent, such
+exceptional merit, that their republication ought to form the subject of
+deliberation of the great powers of the State?" An opinion prevailed,
+that it was not enough merely to appeal to public notoriety, but that it
+was necessary to give an exact analysis of the brilliant discoveries of
+Laplace in order to exhibit more fully the importance of the resolution
+about to be adopted. Who could hereafter propose on any similar occasion
+that the Chamber should declare itself without discussion, when a desire
+was felt, previous to voting in favour of a resolution so honourable to
+the memory of a great man, to fathom, to measure, to examine minutely
+and from every point of view monuments such as the _Mecanique Celeste_
+and the _Exposition du Systeme du Monde_? It has appeared to me that the
+report drawn up in the name of a committee of one of the three great
+powers of the State might worthily close this series of biographical
+notices of eminent astronomers.[22]
+
+The Marquis de Laplace, peer of France, one of the forty of the French
+Academy, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the _Bureau des
+Longitudes_, an associate of all the great Academies or Scientific
+Societies of Europe, was born at Beaumont-en-Auge of parents belonging
+to the class of small farmers, on the 28th of March, 1749; he died on
+the 5th of March, 1827.
+
+The first and second volumes of the _Mecanique Celeste_ were published
+in 1799; the third volume appeared in 1802, the fourth volume in 1805;
+as regards the fifth volume, Books XI. and XII. were published in 1823,
+Books XIII. XIV. and XV. in 1824, and Book XVI. in 1825. The _Theorie
+des Probabilites_ was published in 1812. We shall now present the reader
+with the history of the principal astronomical discoveries contained hi
+these immortal works.
+
+Astronomy is the science of which the human mind may most justly boast.
+It owes this indisputable preeminence to the elevated nature of its
+object, to the grandeur of its means of investigation, to the certainty,
+the utility, and the unparalleled magnificence of its results.
+
+From the earliest period of the social existence of mankind, the study
+of the movements of the heavenly bodies has attracted the attention of
+governments and peoples. To several great captains, illustrious
+statesmen, philosophers, and eminent orators of Greece and Rome it
+formed a subject of delight. Yet, let us be permitted to state,
+astronomy truly worthy of the name is quite a modern science. It dates
+only from the sixteenth century.
+
+Three great, three brilliant phases, have marked its progress.
+
+In 1543 Copernicus overthrew with a firm and bold hand, the greater part
+of the antique and venerable scaffolding with which the illusions of the
+senses and the pride of successive generations had filled the universe.
+The earth ceased to be the centre, the pivot of the celestial movements;
+it henceforward modestly ranged itself among the planets; its material
+importance, amid the totality of the bodies of which our solar system is
+composed, found itself reduced almost to that of a grain of sand.
+
+Twenty-eight years had elapsed from the day when the Canon of Thorn
+expired while holding in his faltering hands the first copy of the work
+which was to diffuse so bright and pure a flood of glory upon Poland,
+when Wuertemberg witnessed the birth of a man who was destined to achieve
+a revolution in science not less fertile in consequences, and still more
+difficult of execution. This man was Kepler. Endowed with two qualities
+which seemed incompatible with each other, a volcanic imagination, and a
+pertinacity of intellect which the most tedious numerical calculations
+could not daunt, Kepler conjectured that the movements of the celestial
+bodies must be connected together by simple laws, or, to use his own
+expressions, by _harmonic_ laws. These laws he undertook to discover. A
+thousand fruitless attempts, errors of calculation inseparable from a
+colossal undertaking, did not prevent him a single instant from
+advancing resolutely towards the goal of which he imagined he had
+obtained a glimpse. Twenty-two years were employed by him in this
+investigation, and still he was not weary of it! What, in reality, are
+twenty-two years of labour to him who is about to become the legislator
+of worlds; who shall inscribe his name in ineffaceable characters upon
+the frontispiece of an immortal code; who shall be able to exclaim in
+dithyrambic language, and without incurring the reproach of any one,
+"The die is cast; I have written my book; it will be read either in the
+present age or by posterity, it matters not which; it may well await a
+reader, since God has waited six thousand years for an interpreter of
+his works?"[23]
+
+To investigate a physical cause capable of making the planets revolve in
+closed curves; to place the principle of the stability of the universe
+in mechanical forces and not in solid supports such as the spheres of
+crystal which our ancestors had dreamed of; to extend to the revolutions
+of the heavenly bodies the general principles of the mechanics of
+terrestrial bodies,--such were the questions which remained to be solved
+after Kepler had announced his discoveries to the world.
+
+Very distinct traces of these great problems are perceived here and
+there among the ancients as well as the moderns, from Lucretius and
+Plutarch down to Kepler, Bouillaud, and Borelli. It is to Newton,
+however, that we must award the merit of their solution. This great man,
+like several of his predecessors, conceived the celestial bodies to have
+a tendency to approach towards each other in virtue of an attractive
+force, deduced the mathematical characteristics of this force from the
+laws of Kepler, extended it to all the material molecules of the solar
+system, and developed his brilliant discovery in a work which, even in
+the present day, is regarded as the most eminent production of the human
+intellect.
+
+The heart aches when, upon studying the history of the sciences, we
+perceive so magnificent an intellectual movement effected without the
+cooeperation of France. Practical astronomy increased our inferiority.
+The means of investigation were at first inconsiderately entrusted to
+foreigners, to the prejudice of Frenchmen abounding in intelligence and
+zeal. Subsequently, intellects of a superior order struggled with
+courage, but in vain, against the unskilfulness of our artists. During
+this period, Bradley, more fortunate on the other side of the Channel,
+immortalized himself by the discovery of aberration and nutation.
+
+The contribution of France to these admirable revolutions in
+astronomical science, consisted, in 1740, of the experimental
+determination of the spheroidal figure of the earth, and of the
+discovery of the variation of gravity upon the surface of our planet.
+These were two great results; our country, however, had a right to
+demand more: when France is not in the first rank she has lost her
+place.[24]
+
+This rank, which was lost for a moment, was brilliantly regained, an
+achievement for which we are indebted to four geometers.
+
+When Newton, giving to his discoveries a generality which the laws of
+Kepler did not imply, imagined that the different planets were not only
+attracted by the sun, but that they also attract each other, he
+introduced into the heavens a cause of universal disturbance.
+Astronomers could then see at the first glance that in no part of the
+universe whether near or distant would the Keplerian laws suffice for
+the exact representation of the phenomena; that the simple, regular
+movements with which the imaginations of the ancients were pleased to
+endue the heavenly bodies would experience numerous, considerable,
+perpetually changing perturbations.
+
+To discover several of these perturbations, to assign their nature, and
+in a few rare cases their numerical values, such was the object which
+Newton proposed to himself in writing the _Principia Mathematica
+Philosophiae Naturalis_.
+
+Notwithstanding the incomparable sagacity of its author the Principia
+contained merely a rough outline of the planetary perturbations. If this
+sublime sketch did not become a complete portrait we must not attribute
+the circumstance to any want of ardour or perseverance; the efforts of
+the great philosopher were always superhuman, the questions which he did
+not solve were incapable of solution in his time. When the
+mathematicians of the continent entered upon the same career, when they
+wished to establish the Newtonian system upon an incontrovertible basis,
+and to improve the tables of astronomy, they actually found in their way
+difficulties which the genius of Newton had failed to surmount.
+
+Five geometers, Clairaut, Euler, D'Alembert, Lagrange, and Laplace,
+shared between them the world of which Newton had disclosed the
+existence. They explored it in all directions, penetrated into regions
+which had been supposed inaccessible, pointed out there a multitude of
+phenomena which observation had not yet detected; finally, and it is
+this which constitutes their imperishable glory, they reduced under the
+domain of a single principle, a single law, every thing that was most
+refined and mysterious in the celestial movements. Geometry had thus the
+boldness to dispose of the future; the evolutions of ages are
+scrupulously ratifying the decisions of science.
+
+We shall not occupy our attention with the magnificent labours of Euler,
+we shall, on the contrary, present the reader with a rapid analysis of
+the discoveries of his four rivals, our countrymen.[25]
+
+If a celestial body, the moon, for example, gravitated solely towards
+the centre of the earth, it would describe a mathematical ellipse; it
+would strictly obey the laws of Kepler, or, which is the same thing, the
+principles of mechanics expounded by Newton in the first sections of his
+immortal work.
+
+Let us now consider the action of a second force. Let us take into
+account the attraction which the sun exercises upon the moon, in other
+words, instead of two bodies, let us suppose three to operate on each
+other, the Keplerian ellipse will now furnish merely a rough indication
+of the motion of our satellite. In some parts the attraction of the sun
+will tend to enlarge the orbit, and will in reality do so; in other
+parts the effect will be the reverse of this. In a word, by the
+introduction of a third attractive body, the greatest complication will
+succeed to a simple regular movement upon which the mind reposed with
+complacency.
+
+If Newton gave a complete solution of the question of the celestial
+movements in the case wherein two bodies attract each other, he did not
+even attempt an analytical investigation of the infinitely more
+difficult problem of three bodies. The problem of three bodies (this is
+the name by which it has become celebrated), the problem for determining
+the movement of a body subjected to the attractive influence of two
+other bodies, was solved for the first time, by our countryman
+Clairaut.[26] From this solution we may date the important improvements
+of the lunar tables effected in the last century.
+
+The most beautiful astronomical discovery of antiquity, is that of the
+precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus, to whom the honour of it is
+due, gave a complete and precise statement of all the consequences which
+flow from this movement. Two of these have more especially attracted
+attention.
+
+By reason of the precession of the equinoxes, it is not always the same
+groups of stars, the same constellations, which are perceived in the
+heavens at the same season of the year. In the lapse of ages the
+constellations of winter will become those of summer and reciprocally.
+
+By reason of the precession of the equinoxes, the pole does not always
+occupy the same place in the starry vault. The moderately bright star
+which is very justly named in the present day, the pole star, was far
+removed from the pole in the time of Hipparchus; in the course of a few
+centuries it will again appear removed from it. The designation of pole
+star has been, and will be, applied to stars very distant from each
+other.
+
+When the inquirer in attempting to explain natural phenomena has the
+misfortune to enter upon a wrong path, each precise observation throws
+him into new complications. Seven spheres of crystal did not suffice for
+representing the phenomena as soon as the illustrious astronomer of
+Rhodes discovered precession. An eighth sphere was then wanted to
+account for a movement in which all the stars participated at the same
+time.
+
+Copernicus having deprived the earth of its alleged immobility, gave a
+very simple explanation of the most minute circumstances of precession.
+He supposed that the axis of rotation does not remain exactly parallel
+to itself; that in the course of each complete revolution of the earth
+around the sun, the axis deviates from its position by a small quantity;
+in a word, instead of supposing the circumpolar stars to advance in a
+certain way towards the pole, he makes the pole advance towards the
+stars. This hypothesis divested the mechanism of the universe of the
+greatest complication which the love of theorizing had introduced into
+it. A new Alphonse would have then wanted a pretext to address to his
+astronomical synod the profound remark, so erroneously interpreted,
+which history ascribes to the king of Castile.
+
+If the conception of Copernicus improved by Kepler had, as we have just
+seen, introduced a striking improvement into the mechanism of the
+heavens, it still remained to discover the motive force which, by
+altering the position of the terrestrial axis during each successive
+year, would cause it to describe an entire circle of nearly 50 deg. in
+diameter, in a period of about 26,000 years.
+
+Newton conjectured that this force arose from the action of the sun and
+moon upon the redundant matter accumulated in the equatorial regions of
+the earth: thus he made the precession of the equinoxes depend upon the
+spheroidal figure of the earth; he declared that upon a round planet no
+precession would exist.
+
+All this was quite true, but Newton did not succeed in establishing it
+by a mathematical process. Now this great man had introduced into
+philosophy the severe and just rule: Consider as certain only what has
+been demonstrated. The demonstration of the Newtonian conception of the
+precession of the equinoxes was, then, a great discovery, and it is to
+D'Alembert that the glory of it is due.[27] The illustrious geometer
+gave a complete explanation of the general movement, in virtue of which
+the terrestrial axis returns to the same stars in a period of about
+26,000 years. He also connected with the theory of gravitation the
+perturbation of precession discovered by Bradley, that remarkable
+oscillation which the earth's axis experiences continually during its
+movement of progression, and the period of which, amounting to about
+eighteen years, is exactly equal to the time which the intersection of
+the moon's orbit with the ecliptic employs in describing the 360 deg. of the
+entire circumference.
+
+Geometers and astronomers are justly occupied as much with the figure
+and physical constitution which the earth might have had in remote ages
+as with its present figure and constitution.
+
+As soon as our countryman Richer discovered that a body, whatever be its
+nature, weighs less when it is transported nearer the equatorial
+regions, everybody perceived that the earth, if it was originally
+fluid, ought to bulge out at the equator. Huyghens and Newton did more;
+they calculated the difference between the greatest and least axes, the
+excess of the equatorial diameter over the line of the poles.[28]
+
+The calculation of Huyghens was founded upon hypothetic properties of
+the attractive force which were wholly inadmissible; that of Newton upon
+a theorem which he ought to have demonstrated; the theory of the latter
+was characterized by a defect of a still more serious nature: it
+supposed the density of the earth during the original state of fluidity,
+to be homogeneous.[29] When in attempting the solution of great problems
+we have recourse to such simplifications; when, in order to elude
+difficulties of calculation, we depart so widely from natural and
+physical conditions, the results relate to an ideal world, they are in
+reality nothing more than flights of the imagination.
+
+In order to apply mathematical analysis usefully to the determination of
+the figure of the earth it was necessary to abandon all idea of
+homogeneity, all constrained resemblance between the forms of the
+superposed and unequally dense strata; it was necessary also to examine
+the case of a central solid nucleus. This generality increased tenfold
+the difficulties of the problem; neither Clairaut nor D'Alembert was,
+however, arrested by them. Thanks to the efforts of these two eminent
+geometers, thanks to some essential developments due to their immediate
+successors, and especially to the illustrious Legendre, the theoretical
+determination of the figure of the earth has attained all desirable
+perfection. There now reigns the most satisfactory accordance between
+the results of calculation and those of direct measurement. The earth,
+then, was originally fluid: analysis has enabled us to ascend to the
+earliest ages of our planet.[30]
+
+In the time of Alexander comets were supposed by the majority of the
+Greek philosophers to be merely meteors generated in our atmosphere.
+During the middle ages, persons, without giving themselves much concern
+about the nature of those bodies, supposed them to prognosticate
+sinister events. Regiomontanus and Tycho Brahe proved by their
+observations that they are situate beyond the moon; Hevelius, Doerfel,
+&c., made them revolve around the sun; Newton established that they move
+under the immediate influence of the attractive force of that body, that
+they do not describe right lines, that, in fact, they obey the laws of
+Kepler. It was necessary, then, to prove that the orbits of comets are
+curves which return into themselves, or that the same comet has been
+seen on several distinct occasions. This discovery was reserved for
+Halley. By a minute investigation of the circumstances connected with
+the apparitions of all the comets to be met with in the records of
+history, in ancient chronicles, and in astronomical annals, this eminent
+philosopher was enabled to prove that the comets of 1682, of 1607, and
+of 1531, were in reality so many successive apparitions of one and the
+same body.
+
+This identity involved a conclusion before which more than one
+astronomer shrunk. It was necessary to admit that the time of a complete
+revolution of the comet was subject to a great variation, amounting to
+as much as two years in seventy-six.
+
+Were such great discordances due to the disturbing action of the
+planets?
+
+The answer to this question would introduce comets into the category of
+ordinary planets or would exclude them for ever. The calculation was
+difficult: Clairaut discovered the means of effecting it. While success
+was still uncertain, the illustrious geometer gave proof of the greatest
+boldness, for in the course of the year 1758 he undertook to determine
+the time of the following year when the comet of 1682 would reappear. He
+designated the constellations, nay the stars, which it would encounter
+in its progress.
+
+This was not one of those remote predictions which astrologers and
+others formerly combined very skilfully with the tables of mortality, so
+that they might not be falsified during their lifetime: the event was
+close at hand. The question at issue was nothing less than the creation
+of a new era in cometary astronomy, or the casting of a reproach upon
+science, the consequences of which it would long continue to feel.
+
+Clairaut found by a long process of calculation, conducted with great
+skill, that the action of Jupiter and Saturn ought to have retarded the
+movement of the comet; that the time of revolution compared with that
+immediately preceding, would be increased 518 days by the disturbing
+action of Jupiter, and 100 days by the action of Saturn, forming a
+total of 618 days, or more than a year and eight months.
+
+Never did a question of astronomy excite a more intense, a more
+legitimate curiosity. All classes of society awaited with equal interest
+the announced apparition. A Saxon peasant, Palitzch, first perceived the
+comet. Henceforward, from one extremity of Europe to the other, a
+thousand telescopes traced each night the path of the body through the
+constellations. The route was always, within the limits of precision of
+the calculations, that which Clairaut had indicated beforehand. The
+prediction of the illustrious geometer was verified in regard both to
+time and space: astronomy had just achieved a great and important
+triumph, and, as usual, had destroyed at one blow a disgraceful and
+inveterate prejudice. As soon as it was established that the returns of
+comets might be calculated beforehand, those bodies lost for ever their
+ancient prestige. The most timid minds troubled themselves quite as
+little about them as about eclipses of the sun and moon, which are
+equally subject to calculation. In fine, the labours of Clairaut had
+produced a deeper impression on the public mind than the learned,
+ingenious, and acute reasoning of Bayle.
+
+The heavens offer to reflecting minds nothing more curious or more
+strange than the equality which subsists between the movements of
+rotation and revolution of our satellite. By reason of this perfect
+equality the moon always presents the same side to the earth. The
+hemisphere which we see in the present day is precisely that which our
+ancestors saw in the most remote ages; it is exactly the hemisphere
+which future generations will perceive.
+
+The doctrine of final causes which certain philosophers have so
+abundantly made use of in endeavouring to account for a great number of
+natural phenomena was in this particular case totally inapplicable. In
+fact, how could it be pretended that mankind could have any interest in
+perceiving incessantly the same hemisphere of the moon, in never
+obtaining a glimpse of the opposite hemisphere? On the other hand, the
+existence of a perfect, mathematical equality between elements having no
+necessary connection--such as the movements of translation and rotation
+of a given celestial body--was not less repugnant to all ideas of
+probability. There were besides two other numerical coincidences quite
+as extraordinary; an identity of direction, relative to the stars, of
+the equator and orbit of the moon; exactly the same precessional
+movements of these two planes. This group of singular phenomena,
+discovered by J.D. Cassini, constituted the mathematical code of what is
+called the _Libration of the Moon_.
+
+The libration of the moon formed a very imperfect part of physical
+astronomy when Lagrange made it depend on a circumstance connected with
+the figure of our satellite which was not observable from the earth, and
+thereby connected it completely with the principles of universal
+gravitation.
+
+At the time when the moon was converted into a solid body, the action of
+the earth compelled it to assume a less regular figure than if no
+attracting body had been situate in its vicinity. The action of our
+globe rendered elliptical an equator which otherwise would have been
+circular. This disturbing action did not prevent the lunar equator from
+bulging out in every direction, but the prominence of the equatorial
+diameter directed towards the earth became four times greater than that
+of the diameter which we see perpendicularly.
+
+The moon would appear then, to an observer situate in space and
+examining it transversely, to be elongated towards the earth, to be a
+sort of pendulum without a point of suspension. When a pendulum deviates
+from the vertical, the action of gravity brings it back; when the
+principal axis of the moon recedes from its usual direction, the earth
+in like manner compels it to return.
+
+We have here, then, a complete explanation of a singular phenomenon,
+without the necessity of having recourse to the existence of an almost
+miraculous equality between two movements of translation and rotation,
+entirely independent of each other. Mankind will never see but one face
+of the moon. Observation had informed us of this fact; now we know
+further that this is due to a physical cause which may be calculated,
+and which is visible only to the mind's eye,--that it is attributable to
+the elongation which the diameter of the moon experienced when it passed
+from the liquid to the solid state under the attractive influence of the
+earth.
+
+If there had existed originally a slight difference between the
+movements of rotation and revolution of the moon, the attraction of the
+earth would have reduced these movements to a rigorous equality. This
+attraction would have even sufficed to cause the disappearance of a
+slight want of coincidence in the intersections of the equator and orbit
+of the moon with the plane of the ecliptic.
+
+The memoir in which Lagrange has so successfully connected the laws of
+libration with the principles of gravitation, is no less remarkable for
+intrinsic excellence than style of execution. After having perused this
+production, the reader will have no difficulty in admitting that the
+word _elegance_ may be appropriately applied to mathematical researches.
+
+In this analysis we have merely glanced at the astronomical discoveries
+of Clairaut, D'Alembert, and Lagrange. We shall be somewhat less concise
+in noticing the labours of Laplace.
+
+After having enumerated the various forces which must result from the
+mutual action of the planets and satellites of our system, even the
+great Newton did not venture to investigate the general nature of the
+effects produced by them. In the midst of the labyrinth formed by
+increases and diminutions of velocity, variations in the forms of the
+orbits, changes of distances and inclinations, which these forces must
+evidently produce, the most learned geometer would fail to discover a
+trustworthy guide. This extreme complication gave birth to a
+discouraging reflection. Forces so numerous, so variable in position, so
+different in intensity, seemed to be incapable of maintaining a
+condition of equilibrium except by a sort of miracle. Newton even went
+so far as to suppose that the planetary system did not contain within
+itself the elements of indefinite stability; he was of opinion that a
+powerful hand must intervene from time to time, to repair the
+derangements occasioned by the mutual action of the various bodies.
+Euler, although farther advanced than Newton in a knowledge of the
+planetary pertubations, refused also to admit that the solar system was
+constituted so as to endure for ever.
+
+Never did a greater philosophical question offer itself to the inquiries
+of mankind. Laplace attacked it with boldness, perseverance, and
+success. The profound and long-continued researches of the illustrious
+geometer established with complete evidence that the planetary ellipses
+are perpetually variable; that the extremities of their major axes make
+the tour of the heavens; that, independently of an oscillatory motion,
+the planes of their orbits experienced a displacement in virtue of which
+their intersections with the plane of the terrestrial orbit are each
+year directed towards different stars. In the midst of this apparent
+chaos there is one element which remains constant or is merely subject
+to small periodic changes; namely, the major axis of each orbit, and
+consequently the time of revolution of each planet. This is the element
+which ought to have chiefly varied, according to the learned
+speculations of Newton and Euler.
+
+The principle of universal gravitation suffices for preserving the
+stability of the solar system. It maintains the forms and inclinations
+of the orbits in a mean condition which is subject to slight
+oscillations; variety does not entail disorder; the universe offers the
+example of harmonious relations, of a state of perfection which Newton
+himself doubted. This depends on circumstances which calculation
+disclosed to Laplace, and which, upon a superficial view of the subject,
+would not seem to be capable of exercising so great an influence.
+Instead of planets revolving all in the same direction in slightly
+eccentric orbits, and in planes inclined at small angles towards each
+other, substitute different conditions and the stability of the universe
+will again be put in jeopardy, and according to all probability there
+will result a frightful chaos.[31]
+
+Although the invariability of the mean distances of the planetary
+orbits has been more completely demonstrated since the appearance of the
+memoir above referred to, that is to say by pushing the analytical
+approximations to a greater extent, it will, notwithstanding, always
+constitute one of the admirable discoveries of the author of the
+_Mecanique Celeste_. Dates, in the case of such subjects, are no luxury
+of erudition. The memoir in which Laplace communicated his results on
+the invariability of the mean motions or mean distances, is dated
+1773.[32] It was in 1784 only, that he established the stability of the
+other elements of the system from the smallness of the planetary masses,
+the inconsiderable eccentricity of the orbits, and the revolution of the
+planets in one common direction around the sun.
+
+The discovery of which I have just given an account to the reader
+excluded at least from the solar system the idea of the Newtonian
+attraction being a cause of disorder. But might not other forces, by
+combining with attraction, produce gradually increasing perturbations as
+Newton and Euler dreaded? Facts of a positive nature seemed to justify
+these fears.
+
+A comparison of ancient with modern observations revealed the existence
+of a continual acceleration of the mean motions of the moon and the
+planet Jupiter, and an equally striking diminution of the mean motion
+of Saturn. These variations led to conclusions of the most singular
+nature.
+
+In accordance with the presumed cause of these perturbations, to say
+that the velocity of a body increased from century to century was
+equivalent to asserting that the body continually approached the centre
+of motion; on the other hand, when the velocity diminished, the body
+must be receding from the centre.
+
+Thus, by a strange arrangement of nature, our planetary system seemed
+destined to lose Saturn, its most mysterious ornament,--to see the
+planet accompanied by its ring and seven satellites, plunge gradually
+into unknown regions, whither the eye armed with the most powerful
+telescopes has never penetrated. Jupiter, on the other hand, the planet
+compared with which the earth is so insignificant, appeared to be moving
+in the opposite direction, so as to be ultimately absorbed in the
+incandescent matter of the sun. Finally, the moon seemed as if it would
+one day precipitate itself upon the earth.
+
+There was nothing doubtful or speculative in these sinister forebodings.
+The precise dates of the approaching catastrophes were alone uncertain.
+It was known, however, that they were very distant. Accordingly, neither
+the learned dissertations of men of science nor the animated
+descriptions of certain poets produced any impression upon the public
+mind.
+
+It was not so with our scientific societies, the members of which
+regarded with regret the approaching destruction of our planetary
+system. The Academy of Sciences called the attention of geometers of all
+countries to these menacing perturbations. Euler and Lagrange descended
+into the arena. Never did their mathematical genius shine with a
+brighter lustre. Still, the question remained undecided. The inutility
+of such efforts seemed to suggest only a feeling of resignation on the
+subject, when from two disdained corners of the theories of analysis,
+the author of the _Mecanique Celeste_ caused the laws of these great
+phenomena clearly to emerge. The variations of velocity of Jupiter,
+Saturn, and the Moon flowed then from evident physical causes, and
+entered into the category of ordinary periodic perturbations depending
+upon the principle of attraction. The variations in the dimensions of
+the orbits which were so much dreaded resolved themselves into simple
+oscillations included within narrow limits. Finally, by the powerful
+instrumentality of mathematical analysis, the physical universe was
+again established on a firm foundation.
+
+I cannot quit this subject without at least alluding to the
+circumstances in the solar system upon which depend the so long
+unexplained variations of velocity of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn.
+
+The motion of the earth around the sun is mainly effected in an ellipse,
+the form of which is liable to vary from the effects of planetary
+perturbation. These alterations of form are periodic; sometimes the
+curve, without ceasing to be elliptic, approaches the form of a circle,
+while at other times it deviates more and more from that form. From the
+epoch of the earliest recorded observations, the eccentricity of the
+terrestrial orbit has been diminishing from year to year; at some future
+epoch the orbit, on the contrary, will begin to deviate from the form of
+a circle, and the eccentricity will increase to the same extent as it
+previously diminished, and according to the same laws.
+
+Now, Laplace has shown that the mean motion of the moon around the
+earth is connected with the form of the ellipse which the earth
+describes around the sun; that a diminution of the eccentricity of the
+ellipse inevitably induces an increase in the velocity of our satellite,
+and _vice versa_; finally, that this cause suffices to explain the
+numerical value of the acceleration which the mean motion of the moon
+has experienced from the earliest ages down to the present time.[33]
+
+The origin of the inequalities in the mean motions of Jupiter and Saturn
+will be, I hope, as easy to conceive.
+
+Mathematical analysis has not served to represent in finite terms the
+values of the derangements which each planet experiences in its movement
+from the action of all the other planets. In the present state of
+science, this value is exhibited in the form of an indefinite series of
+terms diminishing rapidly in magnitude. In calculation, it is usual to
+neglect such of those terms as correspond in the order of magnitude to
+quantities beneath the errors of observation. But there are cases in
+which the order of the term in the series does not decide whether it be
+small or great. Certain numerical relations between the primitive
+elements of the disturbing and disturbed planets may impart sensible
+values to terms which usually admit of being neglected. This case occurs
+in the perturbations of Saturn produced by Jupiter, and in those of
+Jupiter produced by Saturn. There exists between the mean motions of
+these two great planets a simple relation of commensurability, five
+times the mean motion of Saturn, being, in fact, very nearly equal to
+twice the mean motion of Jupiter. It happens, in consequence, that
+certain terms, which would otherwise be very small, acquire from this
+circumstance considerable values. Hence arise in the movements of these
+two planets, inequalities of long duration which require more than 900
+years for their complete development, and which represent with
+marvellous accuracy all the irregularities disclosed by observation.
+
+Is it not astonishing to find in the commensurability of the mean
+motions of two planets, a cause of perturbation of so influential a
+nature; to discover that the definitive solution of an immense
+difficulty--which baffled the genius of Euler, and which even led
+persons to doubt whether the theory of gravitation was capable of
+accounting for all the phenomena of the heavens--should depend upon the
+fortuitous circumstance of five times the mean motion of Saturn being
+equal to twice the mean motion of Jupiter? The beauty of the conception
+and the ultimate result are here equally worthy of admiration.[34]
+
+We have just explained how Laplace demonstrated that the solar system
+can experience only small periodic oscillations around a certain mean
+state. Let us now see in what way he succeeded in determining the
+absolute dimensions of the orbits.
+
+What is the distance of the sun from the earth? No scientific question
+has occupied in a greater degree the attention of mankind;
+mathematically speaking, nothing is more simple. It suffices, as in
+common operations of surveying, to draw visual lines from the two
+extremities of a known base to an inaccessible object. The remainder is
+a process of elementary calculation. Unfortunately, in the case of the
+sun, the distance is great and the bases which can be measured upon the
+earth are comparatively very small. In such a case the slightest errors
+in the direction of the visual lines exercise an enormous influence upon
+the results.
+
+In the beginning of the last century Halley remarked that certain
+interpositions of Venus between the earth and the sun, or, to use an
+expression applied to such conjunctions, that the _transits_ of the
+planet across the sun's disk, would furnish at each observatory an
+indirect means of fixing the position of the visual ray very superior in
+accuracy to the most perfect direct methods.[35]
+
+Such was the object of the scientific expeditions undertaken in 1761 and
+1769, on which occasions France, not to speak of stations in Europe, was
+represented at the Isle of Rodrigo by Pingre, at the Isle of St. Domingo
+by Fleurin, at California by the Abbe Chappe, at Pondicherry by
+Legentil. At the same epochs England sent Maskelyne to St. Helena, Wales
+to Hudson's Bay, Mason to the Cape of Good Hope, Captain Cooke to
+Otaheite, &c. The observations of the southern hemisphere compared with
+those of Europe, and especially with the observations made by an
+Austrian astronomer Father Hell at Wardhus in Lapland, gave for the
+distance of the sun the result which has since figured in all treatises
+on astronomy and navigation.
+
+No government hesitated in furnishing Academies with the means, however
+expensive they might be, of conveniently establishing their observers in
+the most distant regions. We have already remarked that the
+determination of the contemplated distance appeared to demand
+imperiously an extensive base, for small bases would have been totally
+inadequate to the purpose. Well, Laplace has solved the problem
+numerically without a base of any kind whatever; he has deduced the
+distance of the sun from observations of the moon made in one and the
+same place!
+
+The sun is, with respect to our satellite, the cause of perturbations
+which evidently depend on the distance of the immense luminous globe
+from the earth. Who does not see that these perturbations would diminish
+if the distance increased; that they would increase on the contrary, if
+the distance diminished; that the distance finally determines the
+magnitude of the perturbations?
+
+Observation assigns the numerical value of these perturbations; theory,
+on the other hand, unfolds the general mathematical relation which
+connects them with the solar parallax, and with other known elements.
+The determination of the mean radius of the terrestrial orbit then
+becomes one of the most simple operations of algebra. Such is the happy
+combination by the aid of which Laplace has solved the great, the
+celebrated problem of parallax. It is thus that the illustrious geometer
+found for the mean distance of the sun from the earth, expressed in
+radii of the terrestrial orbit, a value differing only in a slight
+degree from that which was the fruit of so many troublesome and
+expensive voyages. According to the opinion of very competent judges the
+result of the indirect method might not impossibly merit the
+preference.[36]
+
+The movements of the moon proved a fertile mine of research to our
+great geometer. His penetrating intellect discovered in them unknown
+treasures. He disentangled them from every thing which concealed them
+from vulgar eyes with an ability and a perseverance equally worthy of
+admiration. The reader will excuse me for citing another of such
+examples.
+
+The earth governs the movements of the moon. The earth is flattened, in
+other words its figure is spheroidal. A spheroidal body does not attract
+like a sphere. There ought then to exist in the movement, I had almost
+said in the countenance of the moon, a sort of impression of the
+spheroidal figure of the earth. Such was the idea as it originally
+occurred to Laplace.
+
+It still remained to ascertain (and here consisted the chief
+difficulty), whether the effects attributable to the spheroidal figure
+of the earth were sufficiently sensible not to be confounded with the
+errors of observation. It was accordingly necessary to find the general
+formula of perturbations of this nature, in order to be able, as in the
+case of the solar parallax, to eliminate the unknown quantity.
+
+The ardour of Laplace, combined with his power of analytical research,
+surmounted all obstacles. By means of an investigation which demanded
+the most minute attention, the great geometer discovered in the theory
+of the moon's movements, two well-defined perturbations depending on the
+spheroidal figure of the earth. The first affected the resolved element
+of the motion of our satellite which is chiefly measured with the
+instrument known in observatories by the name of the transit instrument;
+the second, which operated in the direction north and south, could only
+be effected by observations with a second instrument termed the mural
+circle. These two inequalities of very different magnitudes connected
+with the cause which produces them by analytical combinations of totally
+different kinds have, however, both conducted to the same value of the
+ellipticity. It must be borne in mind, however, that the ellipticity
+thus deduced from the movements of the moon, is not the ellipticity
+corresponding to such or such a country, the ellipticity observed in
+France, in England, in Italy, in Lapland, in North America, in India, or
+in the region of the Cape of Good Hope, for the earth's materials having
+undergone considerable upheavings at different times and in different
+places, the primitive regularity of its curvature has been sensibly
+disturbed by this cause. The moon, and it is this circumstance which
+renders the result of such inestimable value, ought to assign, and has
+in reality assigned the general ellipticity of the earth; in other
+words, it has indicated a sort of mean value of the various
+determinations obtained at enormous expense, and with infinite labour,
+as the result of long voyages undertaken by astronomers of all the
+countries of Europe.
+
+I shall add a few brief remarks, for which I am mainly indebted to the
+author of the _Mecanique Celeste_. They seem to be eminently adapted for
+illustrating the profound, the unexpected, and almost paradoxical
+character of the methods which I have just attempted to sketch.
+
+What are the elements which it has been found necessary to confront with
+each other in order to arrive at results expressed even to the precision
+of the smallest decimals?
+
+On the one hand, mathematical formulae, deduced from the principle of
+universal attraction; on the other hand, certain irregularities observed
+in the returns of the moon to the meridian.
+
+An observing geometer who, from his infancy, had never quitted his
+chamber of study, and who had never viewed the heavens except through a
+narrow aperture directed north and south, in the vertical plane in which
+the principal astronomical instruments are made to move,--to whom
+nothing had ever been revealed respecting the bodies revolving above his
+head, except that they attract each other according to the Newtonian law
+of gravitation,--would, however, be enabled to ascertain that his narrow
+abode was situated upon the surface of a spheroidal body, the equatorial
+axis of which surpassed the polar axis by a _three hundred and sixth
+part_; he would have also found, in his isolated immovable position, his
+true distance from the sun.
+
+I have stated at the commencement of this Notice, that it is to
+D'Alembert we owe the first satisfactory mathematical explanation of the
+phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes. But our illustrious
+countryman, as well as Euler, whose solution appeared subsequently to
+that of D'Alembert, omitted all consideration of certain physical
+circumstances, which, however, did not seem to be of a nature to be
+neglected without examination. Laplace has supplied this deficiency. He
+has shown that the sea, notwithstanding its fluidity, and that the
+atmosphere, notwithstanding its currents, exercise the same influence on
+the movements of the terrestrial axis as if they formed solid masses
+adhering to the terrestrial spheroid.
+
+Do the extremities of the axis around which the earth performs an entire
+revolution once in every twenty-four hours, correspond always to the
+same material points of the terrestrial spheroid? In other words, do the
+poles of rotation, which from year to year correspond to different
+stars, undergo also a displacement at the surface of the earth?
+
+In the case of the affirmative, the equator is movable as well as the
+poles; the terrestrial latitudes are variable; no country during the
+lapse of ages will enjoy, even on an average, a constant climate;
+regions the most different will, in their turn, become circumpolar.
+Adopt the contrary supposition, and every thing assumes the character of
+an admirable permanence.
+
+The question which I have just suggested, one of the most important in
+Astronomy, cannot be solved by the aid of mere observation on account of
+the uncertainty of the early determinations of terrestrial latitude.
+Laplace has supplied this defect by analysis. The great geometer has
+demonstrated that no circumstance depending on universal gravitation can
+sensibly displace the poles of the earth's axis relatively to the
+surface of the terrestrial spheroid. The sea, far from being an obstacle
+to the invariable rotation of the earth upon its axis, would, on the
+contrary, reduce the axis to a permanent condition in consequence of the
+mobility of the waters and the resistance which their oscillations
+experience.
+
+The remarks which I have just made with respect to the position of the
+terrestrial axis are equally applicable to the time of the earth's
+rotation which is the unit, the true standard of time. The importance of
+this element induced Laplace to examine whether its numerical value
+might not be liable to vary from internal causes such as earthquakes and
+volcanoes. It is hardly necessary for me to state that the result
+obtained was negative.
+
+The admirable memoir of Lagrange upon the libration of the moon seemed
+to have exhausted the subject. This, however, was not the case.
+
+The motion of revolution of our satellite around the earth is subject to
+perturbations, technically termed _secular_, which were either unknown
+to Lagrange or which he neglected. These inequalities eventually place
+the body, not to speak of entire circumferences, at angular distances of
+a semi-circle, a circle and a half, &c., from the position which it
+would otherwise occupy. If the movement of rotation did not participate
+in such perturbations, the moon in the lapse of ages would present in
+succession all the parts of its surface to the earth.
+
+This event will not occur. The hemisphere of the moon which is actually
+invisible, will remain invisible for ever. Laplace, in fact, has shown
+that the attraction of the earth introduces into the rotatory motion of
+the lunar spheroid the secular inequalities which exist in the movement
+of revolution.
+
+Researches of this nature exhibit in full relief the power of
+mathematical analysis. It would have been very difficult to have
+discovered by synthesis truths so profoundly enveloped in the complex
+action of a multitude of forces.
+
+We should be inexcusable if we omitted to notice the high importance of
+the labours of Laplace on the improvement of the lunar tables. The
+immediate object of this improvement was, in effect, the promotion of
+maritime intercourse between distant countries, and, what was indeed far
+superior to all considerations of mercantile interest, the preservation
+of the lives of mariners.
+
+Thanks to a sagacity without parallel, to a perseverance which knew no
+limits, to an ardour always youthful and which communicated itself to
+able coadjutors, Laplace solved the celebrated problem of the longitude
+more completely than could have been hoped for in a scientific point of
+view, with greater precision than the art of navigation in its utmost
+refinement demanded. The ship, the sport of the winds and tempests, has
+no occasion, in the present day, to be afraid of losing itself in the
+immensity of the ocean. An intelligent glance at the starry vault
+indicates to the pilot, in every place and at every time, his distance
+from the meridian of Paris. The extreme perfection of the existing
+tables of the moon entitles Laplace to be ranked among the benefactors
+of humanity.[37]
+
+In the beginning of the year 1611, Galileo supposed that he found in the
+eclipses of Jupiter's satellites a simple and rigorous solution of the
+famous problem of the longitude, and active negotiations were
+immediately commenced with the view of introducing the new method on
+board the numerous vessels of Spain and Holland. These negotiations
+failed. From the discussion it plainly appeared that the accurate
+observation of the eclipses of the satellites would require powerful
+telescopes; but such telescopes could not be employed on board a ship
+tossed about by the waves.
+
+The method of Galileo seemed, at any rate, to retain all its advantages
+when applied on land, and to promise immense improvements to geography.
+These expectations were found to be premature. The movements of the
+satellites of Jupiter are not by any means so simple as the immortal
+inventor of the method of longitudes supposed them to be. It was
+necessary that three generations of astronomers and mathematicians
+should labour with perseverance in unfolding their most considerable
+perturbations. It was necessary, in fine, that the tables of those
+bodies should acquire all desirable and necessary precision, that
+Laplace should introduce into the midst of them the torch of
+mathematical analysis.
+
+In the present day, the nautical ephemerides contain, several years in
+advance, the indication of the times of the eclipses and reappearances
+of Jupiter's satellites. Calculation does not yield in precision to
+direct observation. In this group of satellites, considered as an
+independent system of bodies, Laplace found a series of perturbations
+analogous to those which the planets experience. The rapidity of the
+revolutions unfolds, in a sufficiently short space of time, changes in
+this system which require centuries for their complete development in
+the solar system.
+
+Although the satellites exhibit hardly an appreciable diameter even when
+viewed in the best telescopes, our illustrious countryman was enabled to
+determine their masses. Finally, he discovered certain simple relations
+of an extremely remarkable character between the movements of those
+bodies, which have been called _the laws of Laplace_. Posterity will not
+obliterate this designation; it will acknowledge the propriety of
+inscribing in the heavens the name of so great an astronomer beside that
+of Kepler.
+
+Let us cite two or three of the laws of Laplace:--
+
+If we add to the mean longitude of the first satellite twice that of the
+third, and subtract from the sum three times the mean longitude of the
+second, the result will be exactly equal to 180 deg..
+
+Would it not be very extraordinary if the three satellites had been
+placed originally at the distances from Jupiter, and in the positions,
+with respect to each other, adapted for constantly and rigorously
+maintaining the foregoing relation? Laplace has replied to this question
+by showing that it is not necessary that this relation should have been
+rigorously true at the origin. The mutual action of the satellites would
+necessarily have reduced it to its present mathematical condition, if
+once the distances and the positions satisfied the law approximately.
+
+This first law is equally true when we employ the synodical elements. It
+hence plainly results, that the first three satellites of Jupiter can
+never be all eclipsed at the same time. Bearing this in mind, we shall
+have no difficulty in apprehending the import of a celebrated
+observation of recent times, during which certain astronomers perceived
+the planet for a short time without any of his four satellites. This
+would not by any means authorize us in supposing the satellites to be
+eclipsed. A satellite disappears when it is projected upon the central
+part of the luminous disk of Jupiter, and also when it passes behind the
+opaque body of the planet.
+
+The following is another very simple law to which the mean motions of
+the same satellites of Jupiter are subject:
+
+If we add to the mean motion of the first satellite twice the mean
+motion of the third, the sum is exactly equal to three times the mean
+motion of the second.[38]
+
+This numerical coincidence, which is perfectly accurate, would be one of
+the most mysterious phenomena in the system of the universe if Laplace
+had not proved that the law need only have been approximate at the
+origin, and that the mutual action of the satellites has sufficed to
+render it rigorous.
+
+The illustrious geometer, who always pursued his researches to their
+most remote ramifications, arrived at the following result: The action
+of Jupiter regulates the movements of rotation of the satellites so
+that, without taking into account the secular perturbations, the time of
+rotation of the first satellite plus twice the time of rotation of the
+third, forms a sum which is constantly equal to three times the time of
+rotation of the second.
+
+Influenced by a deference, a modesty, a timidity, without any plausible
+motive, our artists in the last century surrendered to the English the
+exclusive privilege of constructing instruments of astronomy. Thus, let
+us frankly acknowledge the fact, at the time when Herschel was
+prosecuting his beautiful observations on the other side of the Channel,
+there existed in France no instruments adapted for developing them; we
+had not even the means of verifying them. Fortunately for the scientific
+honour of our country, mathematical analysis is also a powerful
+instrument. Laplace gave ample proof of this on a memorable occasion
+when from the retirement of his chamber he predicted, he minutely
+announced, what the excellent astronomer of Windsor would see with the
+largest telescopes which were ever constructed by the hand of man.
+
+When Galileo, in the beginning of the year 1610, directed towards Saturn
+a telescope of very low power which he had just executed with his own
+hands, he perceived that the planet was not an ordinary globe, without
+however being able to ascertain its real form. The expression
+_tri-corporate_, by which the illustrious Florentine designated the
+appearance of the planet, implied even a totally erroneous idea of its
+structure. Our countryman Roberval entertained much sounder views on the
+subject, but from not having instituted a detailed comparison between
+his hypothesis and the results of observation, he abandoned to Huyghens
+the honour of being regarded as the author of the true theory of the
+phenomena presented by the wonderful planet.
+
+Every person knows, in the present day, that Saturn consists of a globe
+about 900 times greater than the earth, and a ring. This ring does not
+touch the ball of the planet, being everywhere removed from it at a
+distance of 20,000 (English) miles. Observation indicates the breadth of
+the ring to be 54,000 miles. The thickness certainly does not exceed 250
+miles. With the exception of a black streak which divides the ring
+throughout its whole contour into two parts of unequal breadth and of
+different brightness, this strange colossal bridge without piles had
+never offered to the most experienced or skilful observers either spot
+or protuberance adapted for deciding whether it was immovable or endued
+with a movement of rotation.
+
+Laplace considered it to be very improbable, if the ring was immovable,
+that its constituent parts should be capable of resisting by their mere
+cohesion the continual attraction of the planet. A movement of rotation
+occurred to his mind as constituting the principle of stability, and he
+hence deduced the necessary velocity. The velocity thus found was
+exactly equal to that which Herschel subsequently deduced from a course
+of extremely delicate observations.
+
+The two parts of the ring being placed at different distances from the
+planet, could not fail to experience from the action of the sun,
+different movements of rotation. It would hence seem that the planes of
+both rings ought to be generally inclined towards each other, whereas
+they appear from observation always to coincide. It was necessary then
+that some physical cause should exist which would be capable of
+neutralizing the action of the sun. In a memoir published in February,
+1789, Laplace found that this cause must reside in the ellipticity of
+Saturn produced by a rapid movement of rotation of the planet, a
+movement the existence of which Herschel announced in November, 1789.
+
+The reader cannot fail to remark how, on certain occasions, the eyes of
+the mind can supply the want of the most powerful telescopes, and lead
+to astronomical discoveries of the highest importance.
+
+Let us descend from the heavens upon the earth. The discoveries of
+Laplace will appear not less important, not less worthy of his genius.
+
+The phenomena of the tides, which an ancient philosopher designated in
+despair as _the tomb of human curiosity_, were connected by Laplace with
+an analytical theory in which the physical conditions of the question
+figure for the first time. Accordingly calculators, to the immense
+advantage of the navigation of our maritime coasts, venture in the
+present day to predict several years in advance the details of the time
+and height of the full tides without more anxiety respecting the result
+than if the question related to the phases of an eclipse.
+
+There exists between the different phenomena of the ebb and flow of the
+tides and the attractive forces which the sun and moon exercise upon the
+fluid sheet which covers three fourths of the globe, an intimate and
+necessary connection from which Laplace, by the aid of a series of
+twenty years of observations executed at Brest, deduced the value of the
+mass of our satellite. Science knows in the present day that
+seventy-five moons would be necessary to form a weight equivalent to
+that of the terrestrial globe, and it is indebted for this result to an
+attentive and minute study of the oscillations of the ocean. We know
+only one means of enhancing the admiration which every thoughtful mind
+will entertain for theories capable of leading to such conclusions. An
+historical statement will supply it. In the year 1631, the illustrious
+Galileo, as appears from his _Dialogues_, was so far from perceiving the
+mathematical relations from which Laplace deduced results so beautiful,
+so unequivocal, and so useful, that he taxed with frivolousness the
+vague idea which Kepler entertained of attributing to the moon's
+attraction a certain share in the production of the diurnal and
+periodical movements of the waters of the ocean.
+
+Laplace did not confine himself to extending so considerably, and
+improving so essentially, the mathematical theory of the tides; he
+considered the phenomenon from an entirely new point of view; it was he
+who first treated of the stability of the ocean. Systems of bodies,
+whether solid or fluid, are subject to two kinds of equilibrium, which
+we must carefully distinguish from each other. In the case of stable
+equilibrium the system, when slightly disturbed, tends always to return
+to its original condition. On the other hand, when the system is in
+unstable equilibrium, a very insignificant derangement might occasion an
+enormous dislocation in the relative positions of its constituent parts.
+
+If the equilibrium of waves is of the latter kind, the waves engendered
+by the action of winds, by earthquakes, and by sudden movements from the
+bottom of the ocean, have perhaps risen in past times and may rise in
+the future to the height of the highest mountains. The geologist will
+have the satisfaction of deducing from these prodigious oscillations a
+rational explanation of a great multitude of phenomena, but the public
+will thereby be exposed to new and terrible catastrophes.
+
+Mankind may rest assured: Laplace has proved that the equilibrium of the
+ocean is stable, but upon the express condition (which, however, has
+been amply verified by established facts), that the mean density of the
+fluid mass is less than the mean density of the earth. Every thing else
+remaining the same, let us substitute an ocean of mercury for the actual
+ocean, and the stability will disappear, and the fluid will frequently
+surpass its boundaries, to ravage continents even to the height of the
+snowy regions which lose themselves in the clouds.
+
+Does not the reader remark how each of the analytical investigations of
+Laplace serves to disclose the harmony and duration of the universe and
+of our globe!
+
+It was impossible that the great geometer, who had succeeded so well in
+the study of the tides of the ocean, should not have occupied his
+attention with the tides of the atmosphere; that he should not have
+submitted to the delicate and definitive tests of a rigorous calculus,
+the generally diffused opinions respecting the influence of the moon
+upon the height of the barometer and other meteorological phenomena.
+
+Laplace, in effect, has devoted a chapter of his splendid work to an
+examination of the oscillations which the attractive force of the moon
+is capable of producing in our atmosphere. It results from these
+researches, that, at Paris, the lunar tide produces no sensible effect
+upon the barometer. The height of the tide, obtained by the discussion
+of a long series of observations, has not exceeded two-hundredths of a
+millimetre, a quantity which, in the present state of meteorological
+science, is less than the probable error of observation.
+
+The calculation to which I have just alluded, may be cited in support
+of considerations to which I had recourse when I wished to establish,
+that if the moon alters more or less the height of the barometer,
+according to its different phases, the effect is not attributable to
+attraction.
+
+No person was more sagacious than Laplace in discovering intimate
+relations between phenomena apparently very dissimilar; no person showed
+himself more skilful in deducing important conclusions from those
+unexpected affinities.
+
+Towards the close of his days, for example, he overthrew with a stroke
+of the pen, by the aid of certain observations of the moon, the
+cosmogonic theories of Buffon and Bailly, which were so long in favour.
+
+According to these theories, the earth was inevitably advancing to a
+state of congelation which was close at hand. Laplace, who never
+contented himself with a vague statement, sought to determine in numbers
+the rapid cooling of our globe which Buffon had so eloquently but so
+gratuitously announced. Nothing could be more simple, better connected,
+or more demonstrative, than the chain of deductions of the celebrated
+geometer.
+
+A body diminishes in volume when it cools. According to the most
+elementary principles of mechanics, a rotating body which contracts in
+dimensions ought inevitably to turn upon its axis with greater and
+greater rapidity. The length of the day has been determined in all ages
+by the time of the earth's rotation; if the earth is cooling, the length
+of the day must be continually shortening. Now there exists a means of
+ascertaining whether the length of the day has undergone any variation;
+this consists in examining, for each century, the arc of the celestial
+sphere described by the moon during the interval of time which the
+astronomers of the existing epoch called a day,--in other words, the
+time required by the earth to effect a complete rotation on its axis,
+the velocity of the moon being in fact independent of the time of the
+earth's rotation.
+
+Let us now, after the example of Laplace, take from the standard tables
+the least considerable values, if you choose, of the expansions or
+contractions which solid bodies experience from changes of temperature;
+search then the annals of Grecian, Arabian, and modern astronomy for the
+purpose of finding in them the angular velocity of the moon, and the
+great geometer will prove, by incontrovertible evidence founded upon
+these data, that during a period of two thousand years the mean
+temperature of the earth has not varied to the extent of the hundredth
+part of a degree of the centigrade thermometer. No eloquent declamation
+is capable of resisting such a process of reasoning, or withstanding the
+force of such numbers. The mathematics have been in all ages the
+implacable adversaries of scientific romances.
+
+The fall of bodies, if it was not a phenomenon of perpetual occurrence,
+would justly excite in the highest degree the astonishment of mankind.
+What, in effect, is more extraordinary than to see an inert mass, that
+is to say, a mass deprived of will, a mass which ought not to have any
+propensity to advance in one direction more than in another, precipitate
+itself towards the earth as soon as it ceased to be supported!
+
+Nature engenders the gravity of bodies by a process so recondite, so
+completely beyond the reach of our senses and the ordinary resources of
+human intelligence, that the philosophers of antiquity, who supposed
+that they could explain every thing mechanically according to the
+simple evolutions of atoms, excepted gravity from their speculations.
+
+Descartes attempted what Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and their
+followers thought to be impossible.
+
+He made the fall of terrestrial bodies depend upon the action of a
+vortex of very subtle matter circulating around the earth. The real
+improvements which the illustrious Huyghens applied to the ingenious
+conception of our countryman were far, however, from imparting to it
+clearness and precision, those characteristic attributes of truth.
+
+Those persons form a very imperfect estimate of the meaning of one of
+the greatest questions which has occupied the attention of modern
+inquirers, who regard Newton as having issued victorious from a struggle
+in which his two immortal predecessors had failed. Newton did not
+discover the cause of gravity any more than Galileo did. Two bodies
+placed in juxtaposition approach each other. Newton does not inquire
+into the nature of the force which produces this effect. The force
+exists, he designates it by the term attraction; but, at the same time,
+he warns the reader that the term as thus used by him does not imply any
+definite idea of the physical process by which gravity is brought into
+existence and operates.
+
+The force of attraction being once admitted as a fact, Newton studies it
+in all terrestrial phenomena, in the revolutions of the moon, the
+planets, satellites, and comets; and, as we have already stated, he
+deduced from this incomparable study the simple, universal, mathematical
+characteristics of the forces which preside over the movements of all
+the bodies of which our solar system is composed.
+
+The applause of the scientific world did not prevent the immortal
+author of the _Principia_ from hearing some persons refer the principle
+of gravitation to the class of occult qualities. This circumstance
+induced Newton and his most devoted followers to abandon the reserve
+which they had hitherto considered it their duty to maintain. Those
+persons were then charged with ignorance who regarded attraction as an
+essential property of matter, as the mysterious indication of a sort of
+charm; who supposed that two bodies may act upon each other without the
+intervention of a third body. This force was then either the result of
+the tendency of an ethereal fluid to move from the free regions of
+space, where its density is a maximum, towards the planetary bodies
+around which there exists a greater degree of rarefaction, or the
+consequence of the impulsive force of some fluid medium.
+
+Newton never expressed a definitive opinion respecting the origin of the
+impulse which occasioned the attractive force of matter, at least in our
+solar system. But we have strong reasons for supposing, in the present
+day, that in using the word _impulse_, the great geometer was thinking
+of the systematic ideas of Varignon and Fatio de Duillier, subsequently
+reinvented and perfected by Lesage: these ideas, in effect, had been
+communicated to him before they were published to the world.
+
+According to Lesage, there are, in the regions of space, bodies moving
+in every possible direction, and with excessive rapidity. The author
+applied to these the name of ultra-mundane corpuscles. Their totality
+constituted the gravitative fluid, if indeed, the designation of a fluid
+be applicable to an assemblage of particles having no mutual connexion.
+
+A single body placed in the midst of such an ocean of movable
+particles, would remain at rest although it were impelled equally in
+every direction. On the other hand, two bodies ought to advance towards
+each other, since they would serve the purpose of mutual screens, since
+the surfaces facing each other would no longer be hit in the direction
+of their line of junction by the ultra-mundane particles, since there
+would then exist currents, the effect of which would no longer be
+neutralized by opposite currents. It will be easily seen, besides, that
+two bodies plunged into the gravitative fluid, would tend to approach
+each other with an intensity which would vary in the inverse proportion
+of the square of the distance.
+
+If attraction is the result of the impulse of a fluid, its action ought
+to employ a finite time in traversing the immense spaces which separate
+the celestial bodies. If the sun, then, were suddenly extinguished, the
+earth after the catastrophe would, mathematically speaking, still
+continue for some time to experience its attractive influence. The
+contrary would happen on the occasion of the sudden birth of a planet; a
+certain time would elapse before the attractive force of the new body
+would make itself felt on the earth.
+
+Several geometers of the last century were of opinion that the force of
+attraction is not transmitted instantaneously from one body to another;
+they even assigned to it a comparatively inconsiderable velocity of
+propagation. Daniel Bernoulli, for example, in attempting to explain how
+the spring tide arrives upon our coasts a day and a half after the
+sizygees, that is to say, a day and a half after the epochs when the sun
+and moon are most favourably situated for the production of this
+magnificent phenomenon, assumed that the disturbing force required all
+this time (a day and a half) for its propagation from the moon to the
+ocean. So feeble a velocity was inconsistent with the mechanical
+explanation of attraction of which we have just spoken. The explanation,
+in effect, necessarily supposes that the proper motions of the celestial
+bodies are insensible compared with the motion of the gravitative fluid.
+
+After having discovered that the diminution of the eccentricity of the
+terrestrial orbit is the real cause of the observed acceleration of the
+motion of the moon, Laplace, on his part, endeavoured to ascertain
+whether this mysterious acceleration did not depend on the gradual
+propagation of attraction.
+
+The result of calculation was at first favourable to the plausibility of
+the hypothesis. It showed that the gradual propagation of the attractive
+force would introduce into the movement of our satellite a perturbation
+proportional to the square of the time which elapsed from the
+commencement of any epoch; that in order to represent numerically the
+results of astronomical observations it would not be necessary to assign
+a feeble velocity to attraction; that a propagation eight millions of
+times more rapid than that of light would satisfy all the phenomena.
+
+Although the true cause of the acceleration of the moon is now well
+known, the ingenious calculation of which I have just spoken does not
+the less on that account maintain its place in science. In a
+mathematical point of view, the perturbation depending on the gradual
+propagation of the attractive force which this calculation indicates has
+a certain existence. The connexion between the velocity of perturbation
+and the resulting inequality is such that one of the two quantities
+leads to a knowledge of the numerical value of the other. Now, upon
+assigning to the inequality the greatest value which is consistent with
+the observations after they have been corrected for the effect due to
+the variation of the eccentricity of the terrestrial orbit, we find the
+velocity of the attractive force to be fifty millions of times the
+velocity of light!
+
+If it be borne in mind, that this number is an inferior limit, and that
+the velocity of the rays of light amounts to 77,000 leagues (192,000
+English miles) per second, the philosophers who profess to explain the
+force of attraction by the impulsive energy of a fluid, will see what
+prodigious velocities they must satisfy.
+
+The reader cannot fail again to remark the sagacity with which Laplace
+singled out the phenomena which were best adapted for throwing light
+upon the most obscure points of celestial physics; nor the success with
+which he explored their various parts, and deduced from them numerical
+conclusions in presence of which the mind remains confounded.
+
+The author of the _Mecanique Celeste_ supposed, like Newton, that light
+consists of material molecules of excessive tenuity and endued in empty
+space with a velocity of 77,000 leagues in a second. However, it is
+right to warn those who would be inclined to avail themselves of this
+imposing authority, that the principal argument of Laplace, in favour of
+the system of emission, consisted in the advantage which it afforded of
+submitting every question to a process of simple and rigorous
+calculation; whereas, on the other hand, the theory of undulations has
+always offered immense difficulties to analysts. It was natural that a
+geometer who had so elegantly connected the laws of simple refraction
+which light undergoes in its passage through the atmosphere, and the
+laws of double refraction which it is subject to in the course of its
+passage through certain crystals, with the action of attractive and
+repulsive forces, should not have abandoned this route, before he
+recognized the impossibility of arriving by the same path, at plausible
+explanations of the phenomena of diffraction and polarization. In other
+respects, the care which Laplace always employed, in pursuing his
+researches, as far as possible, to their numerical results, will enable
+those who are disposed to institute a complete comparison between the
+two rival theories of light, to derive from the _Mecanique Celeste_ the
+materials of several interesting relations.
+
+Is light an emanation from the sun? Does this body launch out
+incessantly in every direction a part of its own substance? Is it
+gradually diminishing in volume and mass? The attraction exercised by
+the sun upon the earth will, in that case, gradually become less and
+less considerable. The radius of the terrestrial orbit, on the other
+hand, cannot fail to increase, and a corresponding effect will be
+produced on the length of the year.
+
+This is the conclusion which suggests itself to every person upon a
+first glance at the subject. By applying analysis to the question, and
+then proceeding to numerical computations, founded upon the most
+trustworthy results of observation relative to the length of the year in
+different ages, Laplace has proved that an incessant emission of light,
+going on for a period of two thousand years, has not diminished the mass
+of the sun by the two-millionth part of its original value.
+
+Our illustrious countryman never proposed to himself any thing vague or
+indefinite. His constant object was the explanation of the great
+phenomena of nature, according to the inflexible principles of
+mathematical analysis. No philosopher, no mathematician, could have
+maintained himself more cautiously on his guard against a propensity to
+hasty speculation. No person dreaded more the scientific errors which
+the imagination gives birth to, when it ceases to remain within the
+limits of facts, of calculation, and of analogy. Once, and once only,
+did Laplace launch forward, like Kepler, like Descartes, like Leibnitz,
+like Buffon, into the region of conjectures. His conception was not then
+less than a cosmogony.
+
+All the planets revolve around the sun, from west to east, and in planes
+which include angles of inconsiderable magnitude.
+
+The satellites revolve around their respective primaries in the same
+direction as that in which the planets revolve around the sun, that is
+to say, from west to east.
+
+The planets and satellites which have been found to have a rotatory
+motion, turn also upon their axes from west to east. Finally, the
+rotation of the sun is directed from west to east. We have here then an
+assemblage of forty-three movements, all operating in the same
+direction. By the calculus of probabilities, the odds are four thousand
+millions to one, that this coincidence in the direction of so many
+movements is not the effect of accident.
+
+It was Buffon, I think, who first attempted to explain this singular
+feature of our solar system. Having wished, in the explanation of
+phenomena, to avoid all recourse to causes which were not warranted by
+nature, the celebrated academician investigated a physical origin of the
+system in what was common to the movements of so many bodies differing
+in magnitude, in form, and in distance from the principal centre of
+attraction. He imagined that he discovered such an origin by making
+this triple supposition: a comet fell obliquely upon the sun; it pushed
+before it a torrent of fluid matter; this substance transported to a
+greater or less distance from the sun according to its mass formed by
+concentration all the known planets.
+
+The bold hypothesis of Buffon is liable to insurmountable difficulties.
+I proceed to indicate, in a few words, the cosmogonic system which
+Laplace substituted for that of the illustrious author of the _Histoire
+Naturelle_.
+
+According to Laplace, the sun was at a remote epoch the central nucleus
+of an immense nebula, which possessed a very high temperature, and
+extended far beyond the region in which Uranus revolves in the present
+day. No planet was then in existence.
+
+The solar nebula was endued with a general movement of revolution
+directed from west to east. As it cooled it could not fail to experience
+a gradual condensation, and, in consequence, to rotate with greater and
+greater rapidity. If the nebulous matter extended originally in the
+plane of the equator as far as the limit at which the centrifugal force
+exactly counterbalanced the attraction of the nucleus, the molecules
+situate at this limit ought, during the process of condensation, to
+separate from the rest of the atmospheric matter and form an equatorial
+zone, a ring revolving separately and with its primitive velocity. We
+may conceive that analogous separations were effected in the higher
+strata of the nebula at different epochs, that is to say, at different
+distances from the nucleus, and that they give rise to a succession of
+distinct rings, included almost in the same plane and endued with
+different velocities.
+
+This being once admitted, it is easy to see that the indefinite
+stability of the rings would have required a regularity of structure
+throughout their whole contour, which is very improbable. Each of them
+accordingly broke in its turn into several masses, which were plainly
+endued with a movement of rotation, coinciding in direction with the
+common movement of revolution, and which in consequence of their
+fluidity assumed spheroidal forms.
+
+In order, then, that one of those spheroids might absorb all the others
+belonging to the same ring, it will be sufficient to assign to it a mass
+greater than that of any other spheroid.
+
+Each of the planets, while in the vaporous condition to which we have
+just alluded, would manifestly have a central nucleus gradually
+increasing in magnitude and mass, and an atmosphere offering, at its
+successive limits, phenomena entirely similar to those which the solar
+atmosphere, properly so called, had exhibited. We here witness the birth
+of satellites, and that of the ring of Saturn.
+
+The system, of which I have just given an imperfect sketch, has for its
+object to show how a nebula endued with a general movement of rotation
+must eventually transform itself into a very luminous central nucleus (a
+sun) and into a series of distinct spheroidal planets, situate at
+considerable distances from each other, revolving all around the central
+sun in the direction of the original movement of the nebula; how these
+planets ought also to have movements of rotation operating in similar
+directions; how, finally, the satellites, when any of such are formed,
+cannot fail to revolve upon their axes and around their respective
+primaries, in the direction of rotation of the planets and of their
+movement of revolution around the sun.
+
+We have just found, conformably to the principles of mechanics, the
+forces with which the particles of the nebula were originally endued, in
+the movements of rotation and revolution of the compact and distinct
+masses which these particles have brought into existence by their
+condensation. But we have thereby achieved only a single step. The
+primitive movement of rotation of the nebula is not connected with the
+simple attraction of the particles. This movement seems to imply the
+action of a primordial impulsive force.
+
+Laplace is far from adopting, in this respect, the almost universal
+opinion of philosophers and mathematicians. He does not suppose that the
+mutual attractions of originally immovable bodies must ultimately reduce
+all the bodies to a state of rest around their common centre of gravity.
+He maintains, on the contrary, that three bodies, in a state of rest,
+two of which have a much greater mass than the third, would concentrate
+into a single mass only in certain exceptional cases. In general, the
+two most considerable bodies would unite together, while the third would
+revolve around their common centre of gravity. Attraction would thus
+become the cause of a sort of movement which would seem to be explicable
+solely by an impulsive force.
+
+It might be supposed, indeed, that in explaining this part of his system
+Laplace had before his eyes the words which Rousseau has placed in the
+mouth of the vicar of Savoy, and that he wished to refute them: "Newton
+has discovered the law of attraction," says the author of _Emile_, "but
+attraction alone would soon reduce the universe to an immovable mass:
+with this law we must combine a projectile force in order to make the
+celestial bodies describe curve lines. Let Descartes reveal to us the
+physical law which causes his vortices to revolve; and let Newton show
+us the hand which launched the planets along the tangents of their
+orbits."
+
+According to the cosmogonic ideas of Laplace, comets did not originally
+form part of the solar system; they are not formed at the expense of the
+matter of the immense solar nebula; we must consider them as small
+wandering nebulae which the attractive force of the sun has caused to
+deviate from their original route. Such of those comets as penetrated
+into the great nebula at the epoch of condensation and of the formation
+of planets fell into the sun, describing spiral curves, and must by
+their action have caused the planetary orbits to deviate more or less
+from the plane of the solar equator, with which they would otherwise
+have exactly coincided.
+
+With respect to the zodiacal light, that rock against which so many
+reveries have been wrecked, it consists of the most volatile parts of
+the primitive nebula. These molecules not having united with the
+equatorial zones successively abandoned in the plane of the solar
+equator, continued to revolve at their original distances, and with
+their original velocities. The circumstance of this extremely rare
+substance being included wholly within the earth's orbit, and even
+within that of Venus, seemed irreconcilable with the principles of
+mechanics; but this difficulty occurred only when the zodiacal substance
+being conceived to be in a state of direct and intimate dependence on
+the solar photosphere properly so called, an angular movement of
+rotation was impressed on it equal to that of the photosphere, a
+movement in virtue of which it effected an entire revolution in
+twenty-five days and a half. Laplace presented his conjectures on the
+formation of the solar system with the diffidence inspired by a result
+which was not founded upon calculation and observation.[39] Perhaps it
+is to be regretted that they did not receive a more complete
+development, especially in so far as concerns the division of the matter
+into distinct rings; perhaps it would have been desirable if the
+illustrious author had expressed himself more fully respecting the
+primitive physical condition, the molecular condition of the nebula at
+the expense of which the sun, planets, and satellites, of our system
+were formed. It is perhaps especially to be regretted that Laplace
+should have only briefly alluded to what he considered the obvious
+possibility of movements of revolution having their origin in the action
+of simple attractive forces, and to other questions of a similar nature.
+
+Notwithstanding these defects, the ideas of the author of the _Mecanique
+Celeste_ are still the only speculations of the kind which, by their
+magnitude, their coherence, and their mathematical character, may be
+justly considered as forming a physical cosmogony; those alone which in
+the present day derive a powerful support from the results of the recent
+researches of astronomers on the nebulae of every form and magnitude,
+which are scattered throughout the celestial vault.
+
+In this analysis, we have deemed it right to concentrate all our
+attention upon the _Mecanique Celeste_. The _Systeme du Monde_ and the
+_Theorie Analytique des Probabilites_ would also require detailed
+notices.
+
+The _Exposition du Systeme du Monde_ is the _Mecanique Celeste_ divested
+of the great apparatus of analytical formulae which ought to be
+attentively perused by every astronomer who, to use an expression of
+Plato, is desirous of knowing the numbers which govern the physical
+universe. It is in the _Exposition du Systeme du Monde_ that persons
+unacquainted with mathematical studies will obtain an exact and
+competent knowledge of the methods to which physical astronomy is
+indebted for its astonishing progress. This work, written with a noble
+simplicity of style, an exquisite propriety of expression, and a
+scrupulous accuracy, is terminated by a sketch of the history of
+astronomy, universally ranked in the present day among the finest
+monuments of the French language.
+
+A regret has been often expressed, that Caesar, in his immortal
+_Commentaries_, should have confined himself to a narration of his own
+campaigns: the astronomical commentaries of Laplace ascend to the origin
+of communities. The labours undertaken in all ages for the purpose of
+extracting new truths from the heavens, are there justly, clearly, and
+profoundly analyzed; it is genius presiding as the impartial judge of
+genius. Laplace has always remained at the height of his great mission;
+his work will be read with respect so long as the torch of science shall
+continue to throw any light.
+
+The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits, ought
+to interest, in an equal degree, the mathematician, the experimentalist,
+and the statesman. From the time when Pascal and Fermat established its
+first principles, it has rendered and continues daily to render services
+of the most eminent kind. It is the calculus of probabilities, which,
+after having suggested the best arrangements of the tables of population
+and mortality, teaches us to deduce from those numbers, in general so
+erroneously interpreted, conclusions of a precise and useful character:
+it is the calculus of probabilities which alone can regulate justly the
+premiums to be paid for assurances; the reserve funds for the
+disbursement of pensions, annuities, discounts, &c.: it is under its
+influence that lotteries, and other shameful snares cunningly laid for
+avarice and ignorance, have definitively disappeared. Laplace has
+treated these questions, and others of a much more complicated nature,
+with his accustomed superiority. In short, the _Theorie Analytique des
+Probabilites_ is worthy of the author of the _Mecanique Celeste_.
+
+A philosopher, whose name is associated with immortal discoveries, said
+to his audience who had allowed themselves to be influenced by ancient
+and consecrated authorities, "Bear in mind, Gentlemen, that in questions
+of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning
+of a single individual." Two centuries have passed over these words of
+Galileo without depreciating their value, or obliterating their truthful
+character. Thus, instead of displaying a long list of illustrious
+admirers of the three beautiful works of Laplace, we have preferred
+glancing briefly at some of the sublime truths which geometry has there
+deposited. Let us not, however, apply this principle in its utmost
+rigour, and since chance has put into our hands some unpublished letters
+of one of those men of genius, whom nature has endowed with the rare
+faculty of seizing at a glance the salient points of an object, we may
+be permitted to extract from them two or three brief and characteristic
+appreciations of the _Mecanique Celeste_ and the _Traite des
+Probabilites_.
+
+On the 27th Vendemiaire in the year X., General Bonaparte, after having
+received a volume of the _Mecanique Celeste_, wrote to Laplace in the
+following terms:--"The first _six months_ which I shall have at my
+disposal will be employed in reading your beautiful work." It would
+appear that the words, the first _six months_, deprive the phrase of the
+character of a common-place expression of thanks, and convey a just
+appreciation of the importance and difficulty of the subject-matter.
+
+On the 5th Frimaire in the year XI., the reading of some chapters of the
+volume, which Laplace had dedicated to him, was to the general "a new
+occasion for regretting, that the force of circumstances had directed
+him into a career which removed him from the pursuit of science."
+
+"At all events," added he, "I have a strong desire that future
+generations, upon reading the _Mecanique Celeste_, shall not forget the
+esteem and friendship which I have entertained towards its author."
+
+On the 17th Prairial in the year XIII., the general, now become emperor,
+wrote from Milan: "The _Mecanique Celeste_ appears to me destined to
+shed new lustre on the age in which we live."
+
+Finally, on the 12th of August, 1812, Napoleon, who had just received
+the _Traite du Calcul des Probabilites_, wrote from Witepsk the letter
+which we transcribe textually:--
+
+"There was a time when I would have read with interest your _Traite du
+Calcul des Probabilites_. For the present I must confine myself to
+expressing to you the satisfaction which I experience every time that I
+see you give to the world new works which serve to improve and extend
+the most important of the sciences, and contribute to the glory of the
+nation. The advancement and the improvement of mathematical science are
+connected with the prosperity of the state."
+
+I have now arrived at the conclusion of the task which I had imposed
+upon myself. I shall be pardoned for having given so detailed an
+exposition of the principal discoveries for which philosophy, astronomy,
+and navigation are indebted to our geometers.
+
+It has appeared to me that in thus tracing the glorious past I have
+shown our contemporaries the full extent of their duty towards the
+country. In fact, it is for nations especially to bear in remembrance
+the ancient adage: _noblesse oblige_!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[22] The author here refers to the series of biographies contained in
+tome III. of the _Notices Biographiques_.--_Translator_.
+
+[23] These celebrated laws, known in astronomy as the laws of Kepler,
+are three in number. The first law is, that the planets describe
+ellipses around the sun in their common focus; the second, that a line
+joining the planet and the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times;
+the third, that the squares of the periodic times of the planets are
+proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun. The
+first two laws were discovered by Kepler in the course of a laborious
+examination of the theory of the planet Mars; a full account of this
+inquiry is contained in his famous work _De Stella Martis_, published in
+1609. The discovery of the third law was not effected until, several
+years afterwards, Kepler announced it to the world in his treatise on
+Harmonics (1628). The passage quoted below is extracted from that
+work.--_Translator_.
+
+[24] The spheroidal figure of the earth was established by the
+comparison of an arc of the meridian that had been measured in France,
+with a similar arc measured in Lapland, from which it appeared that the
+length of a degree of the meridian increases from the equator towards
+the poles, conformably to what ought to result upon the supposition of
+the earth having the figure of an oblate spheroid. The length of the
+Lapland arc was determined by means of an expedition which the French
+Government had despatched to the North of Europe for that purpose. A
+similar expedition had been despatched from France about the same time
+to Peru in South America, for the purpose of measuring an arc of the
+meridian under the equator, but the results had not been ascertained at
+the time to which the author alludes in the text. The variation of
+gravity at the surface of the earth was established by Richer's
+experiments with the pendulum at Cayenne, in South America (1673-4),
+from which it appeared that the pendulum oscillates more slowly--and
+consequently the force of gravity is less intense--under the equator
+than in the latitude of Paris.--_Translator_.
+
+[25] It may perhaps be asked why we place Lagrange among the French
+geometers? This is our reply: It appears to us that the individual who
+was named Lagrange Tournier, two of the most characteristic French names
+which it is possible to imagine, whose maternal grandfather was M. Gros,
+whose paternal great-grandfather was a French officer, a native of
+Paris, who never wrote except in French, and who was invested in our
+country with high honours during a period of nearly thirty years;--ought
+to be regarded as a Frenchman although born at Turin.--_Author_.
+
+[26] The problem of three bodies was solved independently about the same
+time by Euler, D'Alembert, and Clairaut. The two last-mentioned
+geometers communicated their solutions to the Academy of Sciences on the
+same day, November 15, 1747. Euler had already in 1746 published tables
+of the moon, founded on his solution of the same problem, the details of
+which he subsequently published in 1753.--_Translator_.
+
+[27] It must be admitted that M. Arago has here imperfectly represented
+Newton's labours on the great problem of the precession of the
+equinoxes. The immortal author of the Principia did not merely
+_conjecture_ that the conical motion of the earth's axis is due to the
+disturbing action of the sun and moon upon the matter accumulated around
+the earth's equator: he _demonstrated_ by a very beautiful and
+satisfactory process that the movement must necessarily arise from that
+cause; and although the means of investigation, in his time, were
+inadequate to a rigorous computation of the quantitative effect, still,
+his researches on the subject have been always regarded as affording one
+of the most striking proofs of sagacity which is to be found in all his
+works.--_Translator_.
+
+[28] It would appear that Hooke had conjectured that the figure of the
+earth might be spheroidal before Newton or Huyghens turned their
+attention to the subject. At a meeting of the Royal Society on the 28th
+of February, 1678, a discussion arose respecting the figure of Mercury
+which M. Gallet of Avignon had remarked to be oval on the occasion of
+the planet's transit across the sun's disk on the 7th of November, 1677.
+Hooke was inclined to suppose that the phenomenon was real, and that it
+was due to the whirling of the planet on an axis "which made it somewhat
+of the shape of a turnip, or of a solid made by an ellipsis turned round
+upon its shorter diameter." At the meeting of the Society on the 7th of
+March, the subject was again discussed. In reply to the objection
+offered to his hypothesis on the ground of the planet being a solid
+body, Hooke remarked that "although it might now be solid, yet that at
+the beginning it might have been fluid enough to receive that shape; and
+that although this supposition should not be granted, it would be
+probable enough that it would really run into that shape and make the
+same appearance; _and that it is not improbable but that the water here
+upon the earth might do it in some measure by the influence of the
+diurnal motion, which, compounded with that of the moon, he conceived to
+be the cause of the Tides_." (Journal Book of the Royal Society, vol.
+vi. p. 60.) Richer returned from Cayenne in the year 1674, but the
+account of his observations with the pendulum during his residence
+there, was not published until 1679, nor is there to be found any
+allusion to them during the intermediate interval, either in the volumes
+of the Academy of Sciences or any other publication. We have no means of
+ascertaining how Newton was first induced to suppose that the figure of
+the earth is spheroidal, but we know, upon his own authority, that as
+early as the year 1667, or 1668, he was led to consider the effects of
+the centrifugal force in diminishing the weight of bodies at the
+equator. With respect to Huyghens, he appears to have formed a
+conjecture respecting the spheroidal figure of the earth independently
+of Newton; but his method for computing the ellipticity is founded upon
+that given in the Principia.--_Translator_.
+
+[29] Newton assumed that a homogeneous fluid mass of a spheroidal form
+would be in equilibrium if it were endued with an adequate rotatory
+motion and its constituent particles attracted each other in the inverse
+proportion of the square of the distance. Maclaurin first demonstrated
+the truth of this theorem by a rigorous application of the ancient
+geometry.--_Translator_.
+
+[30] The results of Clairaut's researches on the figure of the earth are
+mainly embodied in a remarkable theorem discovered by that geometer, and
+which may be enunciated thus:--_The sum of the fractions expressing the
+ellipticity and the increase of gravity at the pole is equal to two and
+a half times the fraction expressing the centrifugal force at the
+equator, the unit of force being represented by the force of gravity at
+the equator._ This theorem is independent of any hypothesis with respect
+to the law of the densities of the successive strata of the earth. Now
+the increase of gravity at the pole may be ascertained by means of
+observations with the pendulum in different latitudes. Hence it is plain
+that Clairaut's theorem furnishes a practical method for determining the
+value of the earth's ellipticity.--_Translator_.
+
+[31] The researches on the secular variations of the eccentricities and
+inclinations of the planetary orbits depend upon the solution of an
+algebraic equation equal in degree to the number of planets whose mutual
+action is considered, and the coefficients of which involve the values
+of the masses of those bodies. It may be shown that if the roots of this
+equation be equal or imaginary, the corresponding element, whether the
+eccentricity or the inclination, will increase indefinitely with the
+time in the case of each planet; but that if the roots, on the other
+hand, be real and unequal, the value of the element will oscillate in
+every instance within fixed limits. Laplace proved by a general
+analysis, that the roots of the equation are real and unequal, whence it
+followed that neither the eccentricity nor the inclination will vary in
+any case to an indefinite extent. But it still remained uncertain,
+whether the limits of oscillation were not in any instance so far apart
+that the variation of the element (whether the eccentricity or the
+inclination) might lead to a complete destruction of the existing
+physical condition of the planet. Laplace, indeed, attempted to prove,
+by means of two well-known theorems relative to the eccentricities and
+inclinations of the planetary orbits, that if those elements were once
+small, they would always remain so, provided the planets all revolved
+around the sun in one common direction and their masses were
+inconsiderable. It is to these theorems that M. Arago manifestly alludes
+in the text. Le Verrier and others have, however, remarked that they are
+inadequate to assure the permanence of the existing physical condition
+of several of the planets. In order to arrive at a definitive conclusion
+on this subject, it is indispensable to have recourse to the actual
+solution of the algebraic equation above referred to. This was the
+course adopted by the illustrious Lagrange in his researches on the
+secular variations of the planetary orbits. (_Mem. Acad. Berlin_,
+1783-4.) Having investigated the values of the masses of the planets, he
+then determined, by an approximate solution, the values of the several
+roots of the algebraic equation upon which the variations of the
+eccentricities and inclinations of the orbits depended. In this way, he
+found the limiting values of the eccentricity and inclination for the
+orbit of each of the principal planets of the system. The results
+obtained by that great geometer have been mainly confirmed by the recent
+researches of Le Verrier on the same subject. (_Connaissance des Temps_,
+1843.)--_Translator_.
+
+[32] Laplace was originally led to consider the subject of the
+perturbations of the mean motions of the planets by his researches on
+the theory of Jupiter and Saturn. Having computed the numerical value of
+the secular inequality affecting the mean motion of each of those
+planets, neglecting the terms of the fourth and higher orders relative
+to the eccentricities and inclinations, he found it to be so small that
+it might be regarded as totally insensible. Justly suspecting that this
+circumstance was not attributable to the particular values of the
+elements of Jupiter and Saturn, he investigated the expression for the
+secular perturbation of the mean motion by a general analysis,
+neglecting, as before, the fourth and higher powers of the
+eccentricities and inclinations, and he found in this case, that the
+terms which were retained in the investigation absolutely destroyed each
+other, so that the expression was reduced to zero. In a memoir which he
+communicated to the Berlin Academy of Sciences, in 1776, Lagrange first
+showed that the mean distance (and consequently the mean motion) was not
+affected by any secular inequalities, no matter what were the
+eccentricities or inclinations of the disturbing and disturbed
+planets.--_Translator_.
+
+[33] Mr. Adams has recently detected a remarkable oversight committed by
+Laplace and his successors in the analytical investigation of the
+expression for this inequality. The effect of the rectification rendered
+necessary by the researches of Mr. Adams will be to diminish by about
+one sixth the coefficient of the principal term of the secular
+inequality. This coefficient has for its multiplier the square of the
+number of centuries which have elapsed from a given epoch; its value was
+found by Laplace to be 10".18. Mr. Adams has ascertained that it must be
+diminished by 1".66. This result has recently been verified by the
+researches of M. Plana. Its effect will be to alter in some degree the
+calculations of ancient eclipses. The Astronomer Royal has stated in his
+last Annual Report, to the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory,
+(June 7, 1856,) that steps have recently been taken at the Observatory,
+for calculating the various circumstances of those phenomena, upon the
+basis of the more correct data furnished by the researches of Mr.
+Adams.--_Translator_.
+
+[34] [Illustration]
+
+The origin of this famous inequality may be best understood by reference
+to the mode in which the disturbing forces operate. Let P Q R, P' Q' R'
+represent the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, and let us suppose, for the
+sake of illustration, that they are both situate in the same plane. Let
+the planets be in conjunction at P, P', and let them both be revolving
+around the sun S, in the direction represented by the arrows. Assuming
+that the mean motion of Jupiter is to that of Saturn exactly in the
+proportion of five to two, it follows that when Jupiter has completed
+one revolution, Saturn will have advanced through two fifths of a
+revolution. Similarly, when Jupiter has completed a revolution and a
+half, Saturn will have effected three fifths of a revolution. Hence when
+Jupiter arrives at T, Saturn will be a little in advance of T'. Let us
+suppose that the two planets come again into conjunction at Q, Q'. It is
+plain that while Jupiter has completed one revolution, and, advanced
+through the angle P S Q (measured in the direction of the arrow), Saturn
+has simply described around S the angle P' S' Q'. Hence the _excess_ of
+the angle described around S, by Jupiter, over the angle similarly
+described by Saturn, will amount to one complete revolution, or, 360 deg..
+But since the mean motions of the two planets are in the proportion of
+five to two, the angles described by them around S in any given time
+will be in the same proportion, and therefore the _excess_ of the angle
+described by Jupiter over that described by Saturn will be to the angle
+described by Saturn in the proportion of three to two. But we have just
+found that the excess of these two angles in the present case amounts to
+360 deg., and the angle described by Saturn is represented by P' S' Q';
+consequently 360 deg. is to the angle P' S' Q' in the proportion of three to
+two, in other words P' S' Q' is equal to two thirds of the circumference
+or 240 deg.. In the same way it may be shown that the two planets will come
+into conjunction again at R, when Saturn has described another arc of
+240 deg.. Finally, when Saturn has advanced through a third arc of 240 deg., the
+two planets will come into conjunction at P, P', the points whence they
+originally set out; and the two succeeding conjunctions will also
+manifestly occur at Q, Q' and R, R'. Thus we see, that the conjunctions
+will always occur in three given points of the orbit of each planet
+situate at angular distances of 120 deg. from each other. It is also
+obvious, that during the interval which elapses between the occurrence
+of two conjunctions in the same points of the orbits, and which includes
+three synodic revolutions of the planets, Jupiter will have accomplished
+five revolutions around the sun, and Saturn will have accomplished two
+revolutions. Now if the orbits of both planets were perfectly circular,
+the retarding and accelerating effects of the disturbing force of either
+planet would neutralize each other in the course of a synodic
+revolution, and therefore both planets would return to the same
+condition at each successive conjunction. But in consequence of the
+ellipticity of the orbits, the retarding effect of the disturbing force
+is manifestly no longer exactly compensated by the accelerative effect,
+and hence at the close of each synodic revolution, there remains a
+minute outstanding alteration in the movement of each planet. A similar
+effect will he produced at each of the three points of conjunction; and
+as the perturbations which thus ensue do not generally compensate each
+other, there will remain a minute outstanding perturbation as the result
+of every three conjunctions. The effect produced being of the same kind
+(whether tending to accelerate or retard the movement of the planet) for
+every such triple conjunction, it is plain that the action of the
+disturbing forces would ultimately lead to a serious derangement of the
+movements of both planets. All this is founded on the supposition that
+the mean motions of the two planets are to each other as two to five;
+but in reality, this relation does not exactly hold. In fact while
+Jupiter requires 21,663 days to accomplish five revolutions, Saturn
+effects two revolutions in 21,518 days. Hence when Jupiter, after
+completing his fifth revolution, arrives at P, Saturn will have advanced
+a little beyond P', and the conjunction of the two planets will occur at
+P, P' when they have both described around S an additional arc of about
+8 deg.. In the same way it may be shown that the two succeeding conjunctions
+will take place at the points _q, q', r, r'_ respectively 8 deg. in advance
+of Q, Q', R, R'. Thus we see that the points of conjunction will travel
+with extreme slowness in the same direction as that in which the planets
+revolve. Now since the angular distance between P and R is 120 deg., and
+since in a period of three synodic revolutions or 21,758 days, the line
+of conjunction travels through an arc of 8 deg., it follows that in 892
+years the conjunction of the two planets will have advanced from P, P'
+to R, R'. In reality, the time of travelling from P, P' to R, R' is
+somewhat longer from the indirect effects of planetary perturbation,
+amounting to 920 years. In an equal period of time the conjunction of
+the two planets will advance from Q, Q' to R, R' and from R, R' to P,
+P'. During the half of this period the perturbative effect resulting
+from every triple conjunction will lie constantly in one direction, and
+during the other half it will lie in the contrary direction; that is to
+say, during a period of 460 years the mean motion of the disturbed
+planet will be continually accelerated, and, in like manner, during an
+equal period it will be continually retarded. In the case of Jupiter
+disturbed by Saturn, the inequality in longitude amounts at its maximum
+to 21'; in the converse case of Saturn disturbed by Jupiter, the
+inequality is more considerable in consequence of the greater mass of
+the disturbing planet, amounting at its maximum to 49'. In accordance
+with the mechanical principle of the equality of action and reaction, it
+happens that while the mean motion of one planet is increasing, that of
+the other is diminishing, and _vice versa_. We have supposed that the
+orbits of both planets are situate in the same plane. In reality,
+however, they are inclined to each other, and this circumstance will
+produce an effect exactly analogous to that depending on the
+eccentricities of the orbits. It is plain that the more nearly the mean
+motions of the two planets approach a relation of commensurability, the
+smaller will be the displacement of every third conjunction, and
+consequently the longer will be the duration, and the greater the
+ultimate accumulation, of the inequality.--_Translator_.
+
+[35] The utility of observations of the transits of the inferior planets
+for determining the solar parallax, was first pointed out by James
+Gregory (_Optica Promota_, 1663).--_Translator_.
+
+[36] Mayer, from the principles of gravitation (_Theoria Lunae_, 1767),
+computed the value of the solar parallax to be 7".8. He remarked that
+the error of this determination did not amount to one twentieth of the
+whole, whence it followed that the true value of the parallax could not
+exceed 8".2. Laplace, by an analogous process, determined the parallax
+to be 8".45. Encke, by a profound discussion of the observations of the
+transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, found the value of the same element
+to be 8".5776.--_Translator_.
+
+[37] The theoretical researches of Laplace formed the basis of
+Burckhardt's Lunar Tables, which are chiefly employed in computing the
+places of the moon for the Nautical Almanac and other Ephemerides. These
+tables were defaced by an empiric equation, suggested for the purpose of
+representing an inequality of long period which seemed to affect the
+mean longitude of the moon. No satisfactory explanation of the origin of
+this inequality could be discovered by any geometer, although it formed
+the subject of much toilsome investigation throughout the present
+century, until at length M. Hansen found it to arise from a combination
+of two inequalities due to the disturbing action of Venus. The period of
+one of these inequalities is 273 years, and that of the other is 239
+years. The maximum value of the former is 27".4, and that of the latter
+is 23".2.--_Translator_.
+
+[38] This law is necessarily included in the law already enunciated by
+the author relative to the mean longitudes. The following is the most
+usual mode of expressing these curious relations: 1st, the mean motion
+of the first satellite, plus twice the mean motion of the third, minus
+three times the mean motion of the second, is rigorously equal to zero;
+2d, the mean longitude of the first satellite, plus twice the mean
+longitude of the third, minus three times the mean longitude of the
+second, is equal to 180 deg.. It is plain that if we only consider the mean
+longitude here to refer to a _given epoch_, the combination of the two
+laws will assure the existence of an analogous relation between the mean
+longitudes _for any instant of time whatever_, whether past or future.
+Laplace has shown, as the author has stated in the text, that if these
+relations had only been approximately true at the origin, the mutual
+attraction of the three satellites would have ultimately rendered them
+rigorously so; under such circumstances, the mean longitude of the first
+satellite, plus twice the mean longitude of the third, minus three times
+the mean longitude of the second, would continually oscillate about 180 deg.
+as a mean value. The three satellites would participate in this
+libratory movement, the extent of oscillation depending in each case on
+the mass of the satellite and its distance from the primary, but the
+period of libration is the same for all the satellites, amounting to
+2,270 days 18 hours, or rather more than six years. Observations of the
+eclipses of the satellites have not afforded any indications of the
+actual existence of such a libratory motion, so that the relations
+between the mean motions and mean longitudes may be presumed to be
+always rigorously true.--_Translator_.
+
+[39] Laplace has explained this theory in his _Exposition du Systeme du
+Monde_ (liv. iv. note vii.).--_Translator_.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+(A.)
+
+THE FOLLOWING IS A BRIEF NOTICE OF SOME OTHER INTERESTING RESULTS OF THE
+RESEARCHES OF LAPLACE WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN MENTIONED IN THE TEXT.
+
+
+_Method for determining the orbits of comets._--Since comets are
+generally visible only during a few days or weeks at the utmost, the
+determination of their orbits is attended with peculiar difficulties.
+The method devised by Newton for effecting this object was in every
+respect worthy of his genius. Its practical value was illustrated by the
+brilliant researches of Halley on cometary orbits. It necessitated,
+however, a long train of tedious calculations, and, in consequence, was
+not much used, astronomers generally preferring to attain the same end
+by a tentative process. In the year 1780, Laplace communicated to the
+Academy of Sciences an analytical method for determining the elements of
+a comet's orbit. This method has been extensively employed in France.
+Indeed, previously to the appearance of Olber's method, about the close
+of the last century, it furnished the easiest and most expeditious
+process hitherto devised, for calculating the parabolic elements of a
+comet's orbit.
+
+_Invariable plane of the solar system._--In consequence of the mutual
+perturbations of the different bodies of the planetary system, the
+planes of the orbits in which they revolve are perpetually varying in
+position. It becomes therefore desirable to ascertain some fixed plane
+to which the movements of the planets in all ages may be referred, so
+that the observations of one epoch might be rendered readily comparable
+with those of another. This object was accomplished by Laplace, who
+discovered that notwithstanding the perpetual fluctuations of the
+planetary orbits, there exists a fixed plane, to which the positions of
+the various bodies may at any instant be easily referred. This plane
+passes through the centre of gravity of the solar system, and its
+position is such, that if the movements of the planets be projected upon
+it, and if the mass of each planet be multiplied by the area which it
+describes in a given time, the sum of such products will be a maximum.
+The position of the plane for the year 1750 has been calculated by
+referring it to the ecliptic of that year. In this way it has been found
+that the inclination of the plane is 1 deg. 35' 31", and that the longitude
+of the ascending node is 102 deg. 57' 30". The position of the plane when
+calculated for the year 1950, with respect to the ecliptic of 1750,
+gives 1 deg. 35' 31" for the inclination, and 102 deg. 57' 15" for the longitude
+of the ascending node. It will be seen that a very satisfactory
+accordance exists between the elements of the position of the invariable
+plane for the two epochs.
+
+_Diminution of the obliquity of the ecliptic._--The astronomers of the
+eighteenth century had found, by a comparison of ancient with modern
+observations, that the obliquity of the ecliptic is slowly diminishing
+from century to century. The researches of geometers on the theory of
+gravitation had shown that an effect of this kind must be produced by
+the disturbing action of the planets on the earth. Laplace determined
+the secular displacement of the plane of the earth's orbit due to each
+of the planets, and in this way ascertained the whole effect of
+perturbation upon the obliquity of the ecliptic. A comparison which he
+instituted between the results of his formula and an ancient observation
+recorded in the Chinese Annals exhibited a most satisfactory accordance.
+The observation in question indicated the obliquity of the ecliptic for
+the year 1100 before the Christian era, to be 23 deg. 54' 2".5. According to
+the principles of the theory of gravitation, the obliquity for the same
+epoch would be 23 deg. 51' 30".
+
+_Limits of the obliquity of the ecliptic modified by the action of the
+sun and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid._--The ecliptic will not
+continue indefinitely to approach the equator. After attaining a certain
+limit it will then vary in the opposite direction, and the obliquity
+will continually increase in like manner as it previously diminished.
+Finally, the inclination of the equator and the ecliptic will attain a
+certain maximum value, and then the obliquity will again diminish. Thus
+the angle contained between the two planes will perpetually oscillate
+within certain limits. The extent of variation is inconsiderable.
+Laplace found that, in consequence of the spheroidal figure of the
+earth, it is even less than it would otherwise have been. This will be
+readily understood, when we state that the disturbing action of the sun
+and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid produces an oscillation of the
+earth's axis which occasions a periodic variation of the obliquity of
+the ecliptic. Now, as the plane of the ecliptic approaches the equator,
+the mean disturbing action of the sun and moon upon the redundant matter
+accumulated around the latter will undergo a corresponding variation,
+and hence will arise an inconceivably slow movement of the plane of the
+equator, which will necessarily affect the obliquity of the ecliptic.
+Laplace found that if it were not for this cause, the obliquity of the
+ecliptic would oscillate to the extent of 4 deg. 53' 33" on each side of a
+mean value, but that when the movements of both planes are taken into
+account, the extent of oscillation is reduced to 1 deg. 33' 45".
+
+_Variation of the length of the tropical year._--The disturbing action
+of the sun and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid occasions a continual
+_regression_ of the equinoctial points, and hence arises the distinction
+between the sidereal and tropical year. The effect is modified in a
+small degree by the variation of the plane of the ecliptic, which tends
+to produce a _progression_ of the equinoxes. If the movement of the
+equinoctial points arising from these combined causes was uniform, the
+length of the tropical year would be manifestly invariable. Theory,
+however, indicates that for ages past the rate of regression has been
+slowly increasing, and, consequently, the length of the tropical year
+has been gradually diminishing. The rate of diminution is exceedingly
+small. Laplace found that it amounts to somewhat less than half a second
+in a century. Consequently, the length of the tropical year is now about
+ten seconds less than it was in the time of Hipparchus.
+
+_Limits of variation of the tropical year modified by the disturbing
+action of the sun and moon upon the terrestrial spheroid._--The tropical
+year will not continue indefinitely to diminish in length. When it has
+once attained a certain minimum value, it will then increase until
+finally having attained an extreme value in the opposite direction, it
+will again begin to diminish, and thus it will perpetually oscillate
+between certain fixed limits. Laplace found that the extent to which the
+tropical year is liable to vary from this cause, amounts to thirty-eight
+seconds. If it were not for the effect produced upon the inclination of
+the equator to the ecliptic by the mean disturbing action of the sun and
+moon upon the terrestrial spheroid, the extent of variation would amount
+to 162 seconds.
+
+_Motion of the perihelion of the terrestrial orbit._--The major axis of
+the orbit of each planet is in a state of continual movement from the
+disturbing action of the other planets. In some cases, it makes the
+complete tour of the heavens; in others, it merely oscillates around a
+mean position. In the case of the earth's orbit, the perihelion is
+slowly advancing in the same direction as that in which all the planets
+are revolving around the sun. The alteration of its position with
+respect to the stars amounts to about 11" in a year, but since the
+equinox is regressing in the opposite direction at the rate of 50" in a
+year, the whole annual variation of the longitude of the terrestrial
+perihelion amounts to 61". Laplace has considered two remarkable epochs
+in connection with this fact; viz: the epoch at which the major axis of
+the earth's orbit coincided with the line of the equinoxes, and the
+epoch at which it stood perpendicular to that line. By calculation, he
+found the former of these epochs to be referable to the year 4107,
+B.C., and the latter to the year 1245, A.D. He accordingly suggested
+that the latter should be used as a universal epoch for the regulation
+of chronological occurrences.
+
+
+
+
+(B.)
+
+The _Mecanique Celeste_.--This stupendous monument of intellectual
+research consists, as stated by the author, of five quarto volumes. The
+subject-matter is divided into sixteen books, and each book again is
+subdivided into several chapters. Vol. I. contains the first and second
+books of the work; Vol. II. contains the third, fourth, and fifth books;
+Vol. III. contains the sixth and seventh books; Vol. IV. contains the
+eighth, ninth, and tenth books; and, finally, Vol. V. contains the
+remaining six books. In the first book the author treats of the general
+laws of equilibrium and motion. In the second book he treats of the law
+of gravitation, and the movements of the centres of gravity of the
+celestial bodies. In the third book he investigates the subject of the
+figures of the celestial bodies. In the fourth book he considers the
+oscillations of the ocean and the atmosphere, arising from the
+disturbing action of the celestial bodies. The fifth book is devoted to
+the investigation of the movements of the celestial bodies around their
+centres of gravity. In this book the author gives a solution of the
+great problems of the precession of the equinoxes and the libration of
+the moon, and determines the conditions upon which the stability of
+Saturn's ring depends. The sixth book is devoted to the theory of the
+planetary movements; the seventh, to the lunar theory; the eighth, to
+the theory of the satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus; and the
+ninth, to the theory of comets. In the tenth book the author
+investigates various subjects relating to the system of the universe.
+Among these may be mentioned the theory of astronomical refractions;
+the determination of heights by the barometer; the investigation of the
+effects produced on the movements of the planets and comets by a
+resisting medium; and the determination of the values of the masses of
+the planets and satellites. In the six books forming the fifth volume of
+the work, the author, besides presenting his readers with an historical
+exposition of the labours of Newton and his successors on the theory of
+gravitation, gives an account of various researches relative to the
+system of the universe, which had occupied his attention subsequently to
+the publication of the previous volumes. In the eleventh book he
+considers the subjects of the figure and rotation of the earth. In the
+twelfth book he investigates the attraction and repulsion of spheres,
+and the laws of equilibrium and motion of elastic fluids. The thirteenth
+book is devoted to researches on the oscillations of the fluids which
+cover the surfaces of the planets; the fourteenth, to the subject of the
+movements of the celestial bodies around their centres of gravity; the
+fifteenth, to the movements of the planets and comets; and the
+sixteenth, to the movements of the satellites. The author published a
+supplement to the third volume, containing the results of certain
+researches on the planetary theory, and a supplement to the tenth book,
+in which he investigates very fully the theory of capillary attraction.
+There was also published a posthumous supplement to the fifth volume,
+the manuscript of which was found among his papers after his death.
+
+
+
+
+JOSEPH FOURIER.
+
+BIOGRAPHY READ AT A PUBLIC ASSEMBLY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, ON THE
+18TH OF NOVEMBER, 1833.
+
+
+Gentlemen,--In former times one academician differed from another only
+in the number, the nature, and the brilliancy of his discoveries. Their
+lives, thrown in some respects into the same mould, consisted of events
+little worthy of remark. A boyhood more or less studious; progress
+sometimes slow, sometimes rapid; inclinations thwarted by capricious or
+shortsighted parents; inadequacy of means, the privations which it
+introduces in its train; thirty years of a laborious professorship and
+difficult studies,--such were the elements from which the admirable
+talents of the early secretaries of the Academy were enabled to execute
+those portraits, so piquant, so lively, and so varied, which form one of
+the principal ornaments of your learned collections.
+
+In the present day, biographies are less confined in their object. The
+convulsions which France has experienced in emancipating herself from
+the swaddling-clothes of routine, of superstition and of privilege, have
+cast into the storms of political life citizens of all ages, of all
+conditions, and of all characters. Thus has the Academy of Sciences
+figured during forty years in the devouring arena, wherein might and
+right have alternately seized the supreme power by a glorious sacrifice
+of combatants and victims!
+
+Recall to mind, for example, the immortal National Assembly. You will
+find at its head a modest academician, a patern of all the private
+virtues, the unfortunate Bailly, who, in the different phases of his
+political life, knew how to reconcile a passionate affection for his
+country with a moderation which his most cruel enemies themselves have
+been compelled to admire.
+
+When, at a later period, coalesced Europe launched against France a
+million of soldiers; when it became necessary to organize for the crisis
+fourteen armies, it was the ingenious author of the _Essai sur les
+Machines_ and of the _Geometrie des Positions_ who directed this
+gigantic operation. It was, again, Carnot, our honourable colleague, who
+presided over the incomparable campaign of seventeen months, during
+which French troops, novices in the profession of arms, gained eight
+pitched battles, were victorious in one hundred and forty combats,
+occupied one hundred and sixteen fortified places and two hundred and
+thirty forts or redoubts, enriched our arsenals with four thousand
+cannon and seventy thousand muskets, took a hundred thousand prisoners,
+and adorned the dome of the Invalides with ninety flags. During the same
+time the Chaptals, the Fourcroys, the Monges, the Berthollets rushed
+also to the defence of French independence, some of them extracting from
+our soil, by prodigies of industry, the very last atoms of saltpetre
+which it contained; others transforming, by the aid of new and rapid
+methods, the bells of the towns, villages, and smallest hamlets into a
+formidable artillery, which our enemies supposed, as indeed they had a
+right to suppose, we were deprived of. At the voice of his country in
+danger, another academician, the young and learned Meunier, readily
+renounced the seductive pursuits of the laboratory; he went to
+distinguish himself upon the ramparts of Koenigstein, to contribute as a
+hero to the long defence of Mayence, and met his death, at the age of
+forty years only, after having attained the highest position in a
+garrison wherein shone the Aubert-Dubayets, the Beaupuys, the Haxos, the
+Klebers.
+
+How could I forget here the last secretary of the original Academy?
+Follow him into a celebrated Assembly, into that Convention, the
+sanguinary delirium of which we might almost be inclined to pardon, when
+we call to mind how gloriously terrible it was to the enemies of our
+independence, and you will always see the illustrious Condorcet occupied
+exclusively with the great interests of reason and humanity. You will
+hear him denounce the shameful brigandage which for two centuries laid
+waste the African continent by a system of corruption; demand in a tone
+of profound conviction that the Code be purified of the frightful stain
+of capital punishment, which renders the error of the judge for ever
+irreparable. He is the official organ of the Assembly on every occasion
+when it is necessary to address soldiers, citizens, political parties,
+or foreign nations in language worthy of France; he is not the tactician
+of any party, he incessantly entreats all of them to occupy their
+attention less with their own interests and a little more with public
+matters; he replies, finally, to unjust reproaches of weakness by acts
+which leave him the only alternative of the poison cup or the scaffold.
+
+The French Revolution thus threw the learned geometer, whose discoveries
+I am about to celebrate, far away from the route which destiny appeared
+to have traced out for him. In ordinary times it would be about Dom[40]
+Joseph Fourier that the secretary of the Academy would have deemed it
+his duty to have occupied your attention. It would be the tranquil, the
+retired life of a Benedictine which he would have unfolded to you. The
+life of our colleague, on the contrary, will be agitated and full of
+perils; it will pass into the fierce contentions of the forum and amid
+the hazards of war; it will be a prey to all the anxieties which
+accompany a difficult administration. We shall find this life intimately
+associated with the great events of our age. Let us hasten to add, that
+it will be always worthy and honourable, and that the personal qualities
+of the man of science will enhance the brilliancy of his discoveries.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[40] An abbreviation of Dominus, equivalent to the English prefix
+Reverend.--_Translator_.
+
+
+
+
+BIRTH OF FOURIER.--HIS YOUTH.
+
+Fourier was born at Auxerre on the 21st of March, 1768. His father, like
+that of the illustrious geometer Lambert, was a tailor. This
+circumstance would formerly have occupied a large place in the _eloge_
+of our learned colleague; thanks to the progress of enlightened ideas, I
+may mention the circumstance as a fact of no importance: nobody, in
+effect, thinks in the present day, nobody even pretends to think, that
+genius is the privilege of rank or fortune.
+
+Fourier became an orphan at the age of eight years. A lady who had
+remarked the amiability of his manners and his precocious natural
+abilities, recommended him to the Bishop of Auxerre. Through the
+influence of this prelate, Fourier was admitted into the military school
+which was conducted at that time by the Benedictines of the Convent of
+St. Mark. There he prosecuted his literary studies with surprising
+rapidity and success. Many sermons very much applauded at Paris in the
+mouth of high dignitaries of the Church were emanations from the pen of
+the schoolboy of twelve years of age. It would be impossible in the
+present day to trace those first compositions of the youth Fourier,
+since, while divulging the plagiarism, he had the discretion never to
+name those who profited by it.
+
+At thirteen years Fourier had the petulance, the noisy vivacity of most
+young people of the same age; but his character changed all at once, and
+as if by enchantment, as soon as he was initiated in the first
+principles of mathematics, that is to say, as soon as he became sensible
+of his real vocation. The hours prescribed for study no longer sufficed
+to gratify his insatiable curiosity. Ends of candles carefully collected
+in the kitchen, the corridors and the refectory of the college, and
+placed on a hearth concealed by a screen, served during the night to
+illuminate the solitary studies by which Fourier prepared himself for
+those labours which were destined, a few years afterwards, to adorn his
+name and his country.
+
+In a military school directed by monks, the minds of the pupils
+necessarily waver only between two careers in life--the church and the
+sword. Like Descartes, Fourier wished to be a soldier; like that
+philosopher, he would doubtless have found the life of a garrison very
+wearisome. But he was not permitted to make the experiment. His demand
+to undergo the examination for the artillery, although strongly
+supported by our illustrious colleague Legendre, was rejected with a
+severity of expression of which you may judge yourselves: "Fourier,"
+replied the minister, "not being noble, could not enter the artillery,
+although he were a second Newton."
+
+Gentlemen, there is in the strict enforcement of regulations, even when
+they are most absurd, something respectable which I have a pleasure in
+recognizing; in the present instance nothing could soften the odious
+character of the minister's words. It is not true in reality that no one
+could formerly enter into the artillery who did not possess a title of
+nobility; a certain fortune frequently supplied the want of parchments.
+Thus it was not a something undefinable, which, by the way, our
+ancestors the Franks had not yet invented, that was wanting to young
+Fourier, but rather an income of a few hundred livres, which the men who
+were then placed at the head of the country would have refused to
+acknowledge the genius of Newton as a just equivalent for! Treasure up
+these facts, Gentlemen; they form an admirable illustration of the
+immense advances which France has made during the last forty years.
+Posterity, moreover, will see in this, not the excuse, but the
+explanation of some of those sanguinary dissensions which stained our
+first revolution.
+
+Fourier not having been enabled to gird on the sword, assumed the habit
+of a Benedictine, and repaired to the Abbey of St. Benoit-sur-Loire,
+where he intended to pass the period of his noviciate. He had not yet
+taken any vows when, in 1789, every mind was captivated with beautifully
+seductive ideas relative to the social regeneration of France. Fourier
+now renounced the profession of the Church; but this circumstance did
+not prevent his former masters from appointing him to the principal
+chair of mathematics in the Military School of Auxerre, and bestowing
+upon him numerous tokens of a lively and sincere affection. I venture to
+assert that no event in the life of our colleague affords a more
+striking proof of the goodness of his natural disposition and the
+amiability of his manners. It would be necessary not to know the human
+heart to suppose that the monks of St. Benoit did not feel some chagrin
+upon finding themselves so abruptly abandoned, to imagine especially
+that they should give up without lively regret the glory which the order
+might have expected from the ingenious colleague who had just escaped
+from them.
+
+Fourier responded worthily to the confidence of which he had just become
+the object. When his colleagues were indisposed, the titular professor
+of mathematics occupied in turns the chairs of rhetoric, of history, and
+of philosophy; and whatever might be the subject of his lectures, he
+diffused among an audience which listened to him with delight, the
+treasures of a varied and profound erudition, adorned with all the
+brilliancy which the most elegant diction could impart to them.
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIR ON THE RESOLUTION OF NUMERICAL EQUATIONS.
+
+About the close of the year 1789 Fourier repaired to Paris and read
+before the Academy of Sciences a memoir on the resolution of numerical
+equations of all degrees. This work of his early youth our colleague, so
+to speak, never lost sight of. He explained it at Paris to the pupils of
+the Polytechnic School; he developed it upon the banks of the Nile in
+presence of the Institute of Egypt; at Grenoble, from the year 1802, it
+was his favourite subject of conversation with the Professors of the
+Central School and of the Faculty of Sciences; this finally, contained
+the elements of the work which Fourier was engaged in seeing through the
+press when death put an end to his career.
+
+A scientific subject does not occupy so much space in the life of a man
+of science of the first rank without being important and difficult. The
+subject of algebraic analysis above mentioned, which Fourier had studied
+with a perseverance so remarkable, is not an exception to this rule. It
+offers itself in a great number of applications of calculation to the
+movements of the heavenly bodies, or to the physics of terrestrial
+bodies, and in general in the problems which lead to equations of a high
+degree. As soon as he wishes to quit the domain of abstract relations,
+the calculator has occasion to employ the roots of these equations; thus
+the art of discovering them by the aid of an uniform method, either
+exactly or by approximation, did not fail at an early period to excite
+the attention of geometers.
+
+An observant eye perceives already some traces of their efforts in the
+writings of the mathematicians of the Alexandrian School. These traces,
+it must be _acknowledged_, are so slight and so imperfect, that we
+should truly be justified in referring the origin of this branch of
+analysis only to the excellent labours of our countryman Vieta.
+Descartes, to whom we render very imperfect justice when we content
+ourselves with saying that he taught us much when he taught us to doubt,
+occupied his attention also for a short time with this problem, and left
+upon it the indelible impress of his powerful mind. Hudde gave for a
+particular but very important case rules to which nothing has since been
+added; Rolle, of the Academy of Sciences, devoted to this one subject
+his entire life. Among our neighbours on the other side of the channel,
+Harriot, Newton, Maclaurin, Stirling, Waring, I may say all the
+illustrious geometers which England produced in the last century, made
+it also the subject of their researches. Some years afterwards the names
+of Daniel Barnoulli, of Euler, and of Fontaine came to be added to so
+many great names. Finally, Lagrange in his turn embarked in the same
+career, and at the very commencement of his researches he succeeded in
+substituting for the imperfect, although very ingenious, essays of his
+predecessors, a complete method which was free from every objection.
+From that instant the dignity of science was satisfied; but in such a
+case it would not be permitted to say with the poet:
+
+     "Le temps ne fait rien a l'affaire."
+
+Now although the processes invented by Lagrange, simple in principle and
+applicable to every case, have theoretically the merit of leading to the
+result with certainty, still, on the other hand, they demand
+calculations of a most repulsive length. It remained then to perfect the
+practical part of the question; it was necessary to devise the means of
+shortening the route without depriving it in any degree of its
+certainty. Such was the principal object of the researches of Fourier,
+and this he has attained to a great extent.
+
+Descartes had already found, in the order according to which the signs
+of the different terms of any numerical equation whatever succeed each
+other, the means of deciding, for example, how many real positive roots
+this equation may have. Fourier advanced a step further; he discovered a
+method for determining what number of the equally positive roots of
+every equation may be found included between two given quantities. Here
+certain calculations become necessary, but they are very simple, and
+whatever be the precision desired, they lead without any trouble to the
+solutions sought for.
+
+I doubt whether it were possible to cite a single scientific discovery
+of any importance which has not excited discussions of priority. The new
+method of Fourier for solving numerical equations is in this respect
+amply comprised within the common law. We ought, however, to acknowledge
+that the theorem which serves as the basis of this method, was first
+published by M. Budan; that according to a rule which the principal
+Academies of Europe have solemnly sanctioned, and from which the
+historian of the sciences dares not deviate without falling into
+arbitrary assumptions and confusion, M. Budan ought to be considered as
+the inventor. I will assert with equal assurance that it would be
+impossible to refuse to Fourier the merit of having attained the same
+object by his own efforts. I even regret that, in order to establish
+rights which nobody has contested, he deemed it necessary to have
+recourse to the certificates of early pupils of the Polytechnic School,
+or Professors of the University. Since our colleague had the modesty to
+suppose that his simple declaration would not be sufficient, why (and
+the argument would have had much weight) did he not remark in what
+respect his demonstration differed from that of his competitor?--an
+admirable demonstration, in effect, and one so impregnated with the
+elements of the question, that a young geometer, M. Sturm, has just
+employed it to establish the truth of the beautiful theorem by the aid
+of which he determines not the simple limits, but the exact number of
+roots of any equation whatever which are comprised between two given
+quantities.
+
+
+
+
+PART PLAYED BY FOURIER IN OUR REVOLUTION.--HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE CORPS
+OF PROFESSORS OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL AND THE POLYTECHNIC
+SCHOOL.--EXPEDITION TO EGYPT.
+
+We had just left Fourier at Paris, submitting to the Academy of Sciences
+the analytical memoir of which I have just given a general view. Upon
+his return to Auxerre, the young geometer found the town, the
+surrounding country, and even the school to which he belonged, occupied
+intensely with the great questions relative to the dignity of human
+nature, philosophy, and politics, which were then discussed by the
+orators of the different parties of the National Assembly. Fourier
+abandoned himself also to this movement of the human mind. He embraced
+with enthusiasm the principles of the Revolution, and he ardently
+associated himself with every thing grand, just, and generous which the
+popular impulse offered. His patriotism made him accept the most
+difficult missions. We may assert, that never, even when his life was at
+stake, did he truckle to the base, covetous, and sanguinary passions
+which displayed themselves on all sides.
+
+A member of the popular society of Auxerre, Fourier exercised there an
+almost irresistible ascendency. One day--all Burgundy has preserved the
+remembrance of it--on the occasion of a levy of three hundred thousand
+men, he made the words honour, country, glory, ring so eloquently, he
+induced so many voluntary enrolments, that the ballot was not deemed
+necessary. At the command of the orator the contingent assigned to the
+chief town of the Yonne formed in order, assembled together within the
+very enclosure of the Assembly, and marched forthwith to the frontier.
+Unfortunately these struggles of the forum, in which so many noble lives
+then exercised themselves, were far from having always a real
+importance. Ridiculous, absurd, and burlesque motions injured
+incessantly the inspirations of a pure, sincere, and enlightened
+patriotism. The popular society of Auxerre would furnish us, in case of
+necessity, with more than one example of those lamentable contrasts.
+Thus I might say that in the very same apartment wherein Fourier knew
+how to excite the honourable sentiments which I have with pleasure
+recalled to mind, he had on another occasion to contend with a certain
+orator, perhaps of good intentions, but assuredly a bad astronomer, who,
+wishing to escape, said he, from _the good pleasure_ of municipal
+rulers, proposed that the names of the north, east, south, and west
+quarters should be assigned by lot to the different parts of the town of
+Auxerre.
+
+Literature, the fine arts, and the sciences appeared for a moment to
+flourish under the auspicious influence of the French Revolution.
+Observe, for example, with what grandeur of conception the reformation
+of weights and measures was planned; what geometers, what astronomers,
+what eminent philosophers presided over every department of this noble
+undertaking! Alas! frightful revolutions in the interior of the country
+soon saddened this magnificent spectacle. The sciences could not prosper
+in the midst of the desperate contest of factions. They would have
+blushed to owe any obligations to the men of blood, whose blind passions
+immolated a Saron, a Bailly, and a Lavoisiere.
+
+A few months after the 9th Thermidor, the Convention being desirous of
+diffusing throughout the country ideas of order, civilization, and
+internal prosperity, resolved upon organizing a system of public
+instruction, but a difficulty arose in finding professors. The members
+of the corps of instruction had become officers of artillery, of
+engineering, or of the staff, and were combating the enemies of France
+at the frontiers. Fortunately at this epoch of intellectual exaltation,
+nothing seemed impossible. Professors were wanting; it was resolved
+without delay to create some, and the Normal School sprung into
+existence. Fifteen hundred citizens of all ages, despatched from the
+principal district towns, assembled together, not to study in all their
+ramifications the different branches of human knowledge, but in order to
+learn the art of teaching under the greatest masters.
+
+Fourier was one of these fifteen hundred pupils. It will, no doubt,
+excite some surprise that he was elected at St. Florentine, and that
+Auxerre appeared insensible to the honour of being represented at Paris
+by the most illustrious of her children. But this indifference will be
+readily understood. The elaborate scaffolding of calumny which it has
+served to support will fall to the ground as soon as I recall to mind,
+that after the 9th Thermidor the capital, and especially the provinces,
+became a prey to a blind and disorderly reaction, as all political
+reactions invariably are; that crime (the crime of having changed
+opinions--it was nothing less hideous) usurped the place of justice;
+that excellent citizens, that pure, moderate, and conscientious patriots
+were daily massacred by hired bands of assassins in presence of whom the
+inhabitants remained mute with fear. Such are, Gentlemen, the formidable
+influences which for a moment deprived Fourier of the suffrages of his
+countrymen; and caricatured, as a partisan of Robespierre, the
+individual whom St. Just, making allusion to his sweet and persuasive
+eloquence, styled a _patriot in music_; who was so often thrown into
+prison by the decemvirs; who, at the very height of the Reign of Terror,
+offered before the Revolutionary Tribunal the assistance of his
+admirable talents to the mother of Marshal Davoust, accused of the crime
+of having at that unrelenting epoch sent some money to the emigrants;
+who had the incredible boldness to shut up at the inn of Tonnerre an
+agent of the Committee of Public Safety, into the secret of whose
+mission he penetrated, and thus obtained time to warn an honourable
+citizen that he was about to be arrested; who, finally, attaching
+himself personally to the sanguinary proconsul before whom every one
+trembled in Yonne, made him pass for a madman, and obtained his recall!
+You see, Gentlemen, some of the acts of patriotism, of devotion, and of
+humanity which signalized the early years of Fourier. They were, you
+have seen, repaid with ingratitude. But ought we in reality to be
+astonished at it? To expect gratitude from the man who cannot make an
+avowal of his feelings without danger, would be to shut one's eyes to
+the frailty of human nature, and to expose one's self to frequent
+disappointments.
+
+In the Normal School of the Convention, discussion from time to time
+succeeded ordinary lectures. On those days an interchange of characters
+was effected; the pupils interrogated the professors. Some words
+pronounced by Fourier at one of those curious and useful meetings
+sufficed to attract attention towards him. Accordingly, as soon as a
+necessity was felt to create Masters of Conference, all eyes were turned
+towards the pupil of St. Florentine. The precision, the clearness, and
+the elegance of his lectures soon procured for him the unanimous
+applause of the fastidious and numerous audience which was confided to
+him.
+
+When he attained the height of his scientific and literary glory,
+Fourier used to look back with pleasure upon the year 1794, and upon the
+sublime efforts which the French nation then made for the purpose of
+organizing a Corps of Public Instruction. If he had ventured, the title
+of Pupil of the original Normal School would have been beyond doubt that
+which he would have assumed by way of preference. Gentlemen, that school
+perished of cold, of wretchedness, and of hunger, and not, whatever
+people may say, from certain defects of organization which time and
+reflection would have easily rectified. Notwithstanding its short
+existence, it imparted to scientific studies quite a new direction which
+has been productive of the most important results. In supporting this
+opinion at some length, I shall acquit myself of a task which Fourier
+would certainly have imposed upon me, if he could have suspected, that
+with just and eloquent eulogiums of his character and his labours there
+should mingle within the walls of this apartment, and even emanate from
+the mouth of one of his successors, sharp critiques of his beloved
+Normal School.
+
+It is to the Normal School that we must inevitably ascend if we would
+desire to ascertain the earliest public teaching of _descriptive
+Geometry_, that fine creation of the genius of Monge. It is from this
+source that it has passed almost without modification to the Polytechnic
+School, to foundries, to manufactories, and the most humble workshops.
+
+The establishment of the Normal School accordingly indicates the
+commencement of a veritable revolution in the study of pure mathematics;
+with it demonstrations, methods, and important theories, buried in
+academical collections, appeared for the first time before the pupils,
+and encouraged them to recast upon new bases the works destined for
+instruction.
+
+With some rare exceptions, the philosophers engaged in the cultivation
+of science constituted formerly in France a class totally distinct from
+that of the professors. By appointing the first geometers, the first
+philosophers, and the first naturalists of the world to be professors,
+the Convention threw new lustre upon the profession of teaching, the
+advantageous influence of which is felt in the present day. In the
+opinion of the public at large a title which a Lagrange, a Laplace, a
+Monge, a Berthollet, had borne, became a proper match to the finest
+titles. If under the empire, the Polytechnic School counted among its
+active professors councillors of state, ministers, and the president of
+the senate, you must look for the explanation of this fact in the
+impulse given by the Normal School.
+
+You see in the ancient great colleges, professors concealed in some
+degree behind their portfolios, reading as from a pulpit, amid the
+indifference and inattention of their pupils, discourses prepared
+beforehand with great labour, and which reappear every year in the same
+form. Nothing of this kind existed at the Normal School; oral lessons
+alone were there permitted. The authorities even went so far as to
+require of the illustrious savans appointed to the task of instruction
+the formal promise never to recite any lectures which they might have
+learned by heart. From that time the chair has become a tribune where
+the professor, identified, so to speak, with his audience, sees in
+their looks, in their gestures, in their countenance, sometimes the
+necessity for proceeding at greater speed, sometimes, on the contrary,
+the necessity of retracing his steps, of awakening the attention by some
+incidental observations, of clothing in a new form the thought which,
+when first expressed, had left some doubts in the minds of his audience.
+And do not suppose that the beautiful impromptu lectures with which the
+amphitheatre of the Normal School resounded, remained unknown to the
+public. Short-hand writers paid by the State reported them. The sheets,
+after being revised by the professors, were sent to the fifteen hundred
+pupils, to the members of Convention, to the consuls and agents of the
+Republic in foreign countries, to all governors of districts. There was
+in this something certainly of profusion compared with the parsimonious
+and mean habits of our time. Nobody, however, would concur in this
+reproach, however slight it may appear, if I were permitted to point out
+in this very apartment an illustrious Academician, whose mathematical
+genius was awakened by the lectures of the Normal School in an obscure
+district town!
+
+The necessity of demonstrating the important services, ignored in the
+present day, for which the dissemination of the sciences is indebted to
+the first Normal School, has induced me to dwell at greater length on
+the subject than I intended. I hope to be pardoned; the example in any
+case will not be contagious. Eulogiums of the past, you know, Gentlemen,
+are no longer fashionable. Every thing which is said, every thing which
+is printed, induces us to suppose that the world is the creation of
+yesterday. This opinion, which allows to each a part more or less
+brilliant in the cosmogonic drama, is under the safeguard of too many
+vanities to have any thing to fear from the efforts of logic.
+
+I have already stated that the brilliant success of Fourier at the
+Normal School assigned to him a distinguished place among the persons
+whom nature has endowed in the highest degree with the talent of public
+tuition. Accordingly, he was not forgotten by the founders of the
+Polytechnic School. Attached to that celebrated establishment, first
+with the title of Superintendent of Lectures on Fortification,
+afterwards appointed to deliver a course of lectures on Analysis,
+Fourier has left there a venerated name, and the reputation of a
+professor distinguished by clearness, method, and erudition; I shall add
+even the reputation of a professor full of grace, for our colleague has
+proved that this kind of merit may not be foreign to the teaching of
+mathematics.
+
+The lectures of Fourier have not been collected together. The Journal of
+the Polytechnic School contains only one paper by him, a memoir upon the
+"principle of virtual velocities." This memoir, which probably had
+served for the text of a lecture, shows that the secret of our
+celebrated professor's great success consisted in the combination of
+abstract truths, of interesting applications, and of historical details
+little known, and derived, a thing so rare in our days, from original
+sources.
+
+We have now arrived at the epoch when the peace of Leoben brought back
+to the metropolis the principal ornaments of our armies. Then the
+professors and the pupils of the Polytechnic School had sometimes the
+distinguished honour of sitting in their amphitheatres beside Generals
+Desaix and Bonaparte. Every thing indicated to them then an active
+participation in the events which each foresaw, and which in fact were
+not long of occurring.
+
+Notwithstanding the precarious condition of Europe, the Directory
+decided upon denuding the country of its best troops, and launching them
+upon an adventurous expedition. The five chiefs of the Republic were
+then desirous of removing from Paris the conqueror of Italy, of thereby
+putting an end to the popular demonstrations of which he everywhere
+formed the object, and which sooner or later would become a real danger.
+
+On the other hand, the illustrious general did not dream merely of the
+momentary conquest of Egypt; he wished to restore to that country its
+ancient splendour; he wished to extend its cultivation, to improve its
+system of irrigation, to create new branches of industry, to open to
+commerce numerous outlets, to stretch out a helping hand to the
+unfortunate inhabitants, to rescue them from the galling yoke under
+which they had groaned for ages, in a word, to bestow upon them without
+delay all the benefits of European civilization. Designs of such
+magnitude could not have been accomplished with the mere _personnel_ of
+an ordinary army. It was necessary to appeal to science, to literature,
+and to the fine arts; it was necessary to ask the cooeperation of several
+men of judgment and of experience. Monge and Berthollet, both members of
+the Institute and Professors in the Polytechnic School, became, with a
+view to this object, the principal recruiting aids to the chief of the
+expedition. Were our colleagues really acquainted with the object of
+this expedition? I dare not reply in the affirmative; but I know at all
+events that they were not permitted to divulge it. We are going to a
+distant country; we shall embark at Toulon; we shall be constantly with
+you; General Bonaparte will command the army, such was in form and
+substance the limited amount of confidential information which had been
+imperiously traced out to them. Upon the faith of words so vague, with
+the chances of a naval battle, with the English hulks in perspective, go
+in the present day and endeavour to enroll a father of a family, a
+savant already known by useful labours and placed in some honourable
+position, an artist in possession of the esteem and confidence of the
+public, and I am much mistaken if you obtain any thing else than
+refusals; but in 1798, France had hardly emerged from a terrible crisis,
+during which her very existence was frequently at stake. Who, besides,
+had not encountered imminent personal danger? Who had not seen with his
+own eyes enterprises of a truly desperate nature brought to a fortunate
+issue? Is any thing more wanted to explain that adventurous character,
+that absence of all care for the morrow, which appears to have been one
+of the most distinguishing features of the epoch of the Directory.
+Fourier accepted then without hesitation the proposals which his
+colleagues brought to him in the name of the Commander-in-Chief; he
+quitted the agreeable duties of a professor of the Polytechnic School,
+to go--he knew not where, to do--he knew not what.
+
+Chance placed Fourier during the voyage in the vessel in which Kleber
+sailed. The friendship which the philosopher and the warrior vowed to
+each other from that moment was not without some influence upon the
+events of which Egypt was the theatre after the departure of Napoleon.
+
+He who signed his orders of the day, the _Member of the Institute,
+Commander-in-Chief of the Army in the East_, could not fail to place an
+Academy among the means of regenerating the ancient kingdom of the
+Pharaohs. The valiant army which he commanded had barely conquered at
+Cairo, on the occasion of the memorable battle of the Pyramids, when the
+Institute of Egypt sprung into existence. It consisted of forty-eight
+members, divided into four sections. Monge had the honour of being the
+first president. As at Paris, Bonaparte belonged to the section of
+Mathematics. The situation of perpetual secretary, the filling up of
+which was left to the free choice of the Society, was unanimously
+assigned to Fourier.
+
+You have seen the celebrated geometer discharge the same duty at the
+Academy of Sciences; you have appreciated his liberality of mind, his
+enlightened benevolence, his unvarying affability, his straightforward
+and conciliatory disposition: add in imagination to so many rare
+qualities the activity which youth, which health can alone give, and you
+will have again conjured into existence the Secretary of the Institute
+of Egypt; and yet the portrait which I have attempted to draw of him
+would grow pale beside the original.
+
+Upon the banks of the Nile, Fourier devoted himself to assiduous
+researches on almost every branch of knowledge which the vast plan of
+the Institute embraced. The _Decade_ and the _Courier of Egypt_ will
+acquaint the reader with the titles of his different labours. I find in
+these journals a memoir upon the general solution of algebraic
+equations; researches on the methods of elimination; the demonstration
+of a new theorem of algebra; a memoir upon the indeterminate analysis;
+studies on general mechanics; a technical and historical work upon the
+aqueduct which conveys the waters of the Nile to the Castle of Cairo;
+reflections upon the Oases; the plan of statistical researches to be
+undertaken with respect to the state of Egypt; programme of an intended
+exploration of the site of the ancient Memphis, and of the whole extent
+of burying-places; a descriptive account of the revolutions and manners
+of Egypt, from the time of its conquest by Selim.
+
+I find also in the Egyptian _Decade_, that, on the first complementary
+day of the year VI., Fourier communicated to the Institute the
+description of a machine designed to promote irrigation, and which was
+to be driven by the power of wind.
+
+This work, so far removed from the ordinary current of the ideas of our
+colleague, has not been printed. It would very naturally find a place in
+a work of which the Expedition to Egypt might again furnish the subject,
+notwithstanding the many beautiful publications which it has already
+called into existence. It would be a description of the manufactories of
+steel, of arms, of powder, of cloth, of machines, and of instruments of
+every kind which our army had to prepare for the occasion. If, during
+our infancy, the expedients which Robinson Crusoe practised in order to
+escape from the romantic dangers which he had incessantly to encounter,
+excite our interest in a lively degree, how, in mature age, could we
+regard with indifference a handful of Frenchmen thrown upon the
+inhospitable shores of Africa, without any possible communication with
+the mother country, obliged to contend at once with the elements and
+with formidable armies, destitute of food, of clothing, of arms, and of
+ammunition, and yet supplying every want by the force of genius!
+
+The long route which I have yet to traverse, will hardly allow me to add
+a few words relative to the administrative services of the illustrious
+geometer. Appointed French Commissioner at the Divan of Cairo, he
+became the official medium between the General-in-Chief and every
+Egyptian who might have to complain of an attack against his person, his
+property, his morals, his habits, or his creed. An invariable sauvity of
+manner, a scrupulous regard for prejudices to oppose which directly
+would have been vain, an inflexible sentiment of justice, had given him
+an ascendency over the Mussulman population, which the precepts of the
+Koran could not lead any one to hope for, and which powerfully
+contributed to the maintenance of friendly relations between the
+inhabitants of Cairo and the French soldiers. Fourier was especially
+held in veneration by the Cheiks and the Ulemas. A single anecdote will
+serve to show that this sentiment was the offspring of genuine
+gratitude.
+
+The Emir Hadgey, or Prince of the Caravan, who had been nominated by
+General Bonaparte upon his arrival in Cairo, escaped during the campaign
+of Syria. There existed strong grounds at the time for supposing that
+four _Cheiks Ulemas_ had rendered themselves accomplices of the treason.
+Upon his return to Egypt, Bonaparte confided the investigation of this
+grave affair to Fourier. "Do not," said he, "submit half measures to me.
+You have to pronounce judgment upon high personages: we must either cut
+off their heads or invite them to dinner." On the day following that on
+which this conversation took place, the four Cheiks dined with the
+General-in-Chief. By obeying the inspirations of his heart, Fourier did
+not perform merely an act of humanity; it was moreover one of excellent
+policy. Our learned colleague, M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, to whom I am
+indebted for this anecdote, has stated in fact that Soleyman and
+Fayoumi, the principal of the Egyptian chiefs, whose punishment, thanks
+to our colleague, was so happily transformed into a banquet, seized
+every occasion of extolling among their countrymen the generosity of the
+French.
+
+Fourier did not display less ability when our generals confided
+diplomatic missions to him. It is to his tact and urbanity that our army
+is indebted for an offensive and defensive treaty of alliance with
+Mourad Bey. Justly proud of this result, Fourier omitted to make known
+the details of the negotiation. This is deeply to be regretted, for the
+plenipotentiary of Mourad was a woman, the same Sitty Neficah whom
+Kleber has immortalized by proclaiming her _beneficence_, _her noble
+character_, in the bulletin of Heliopolis, and who moreover was already
+celebrated from one extremity of Asia to the other, in consequence of
+the bloody revolutions which her unparalleled beauty had excited among
+the Mamelukes.
+
+The incomparable victory which Kleber gained over the army of the Grand
+Vizier did not damp the energy of the Janissaries, who had seized upon
+Cairo while the war was raging at Heliopolis. They defended themselves
+from house to house with heroic courage. The besieged had to choose
+between the entire destruction of the city and an honourable
+capitulation. The latter alternative was adopted. Fourier, charged, as
+usual, with the negotiations, conducted them to a favourable issue; but
+on this occasion the treaty was not discussed, agreed to, and signed
+within the mysterious precincts of a harem, upon downy couches, under
+the shade of balmy groves. The preliminary discussions were held in a
+house half ruined by bullets and grape-shot; in the centre of the
+quarter of which the insurgents valiantly disputed the possession with
+our soldiers; before even it would have been possible to agree to the
+basis of a treaty of a few hours. Accordingly, when Fourier was
+preparing to celebrate the welcome of the Turkish commissioner
+conformably to oriental usages, a great number of musket-shots were
+fired from the house in front, and a ball passed through the coffee-pot
+which he was holding in his hand. Without calling in question the
+bravery of any person, do you not think, Gentlemen, that if diplomatists
+were usually placed in equally perilous positions, the public would have
+less reason to complain of their proverbial slowness?
+
+In order to exhibit, under one point of view, the various administrative
+duties of our indefatigable colleague, I should have to show him to you
+on board the English fleet, at the instant of the capitulation of Menou,
+stipulating for certain guarantees in favour of the members of the
+Institute of Egypt; but services of no less importance and of a
+different nature demand also our attention. They will even compel us to
+retrace our steps, to ascend even to the epoch of glorious memory when
+Desaix achieved the conquest of Upper Egypt, as much by the sagacity,
+the moderation, and the inflexible justice of all his acts, as by the
+rapidity and boldness of his military operations. Bonaparte then
+appointed two numerous commissions to proceed to explore in those remote
+regions, a multitude of monuments of which the moderns hardly suspected
+the existence. Fourier and Costas were the commandants of these
+commissions; I say the commandants, for a sufficiently imposing military
+force had been assigned to them; since it was frequently after a combat
+with the wandering tribes of Arabs that the astronomer found in the
+movements of the heavenly bodies the elements of a future geographical
+map; that the naturalist collected unknown plants, determined the
+geological constitution of the soil, occupied himself with troublesome
+dissections; that the antiquary measured the dimensions of edifices,
+that he attempted to take a faithful sketch of the fantastic images with
+which every thing was covered in that singular country,--from the
+smallest pieces of furniture, from the simple toys of children, to those
+prodigious palaces, to those immense facades, beside which the vastest
+of modern constructions would hardly attract a look.
+
+The two learned commissions studied with scrupulous care the magnificent
+temple of the ancient Tentyris, and especially the series of
+astronomical signs which have excited in our days such lively
+discussions; the remarkable monuments of the mysterious and sacred Isle
+of Elephantine; the ruins of Thebes, with her hundred gates, before
+which (and yet they are nothing but ruins) our whole army halted, in a
+state of astonishment, to applaud.
+
+Fourier also presided in Upper Egypt over these memorable works, when
+the Commander-in-Chief suddenly quitted Alexandria and returned to
+France with his principal friends. Those persons then were very much
+mistaken who, upon not finding our colleague on board the frigate
+_Muiron_ beside Monge and Berthollet, imagined that Bonaparte did not
+appreciate his eminent qualities. If Fourier was not a passenger, this
+arose from the circumstance of his having been a hundred leagues from
+the Mediterranean when the _Muiron_ set sail. The explanation contains
+nothing striking, but it is true. In any case, the friendly feeling of
+Kleber towards the Secretary of the Institute of Egypt, the influence
+which he justly granted to him on a multitude of delicate occasions,
+amply compensated him for an unjust omission.
+
+I arrive, Gentlemen, at the epoch so suggestive of painful
+recollections, when the _Agas_ of the Janissaries who had fled into
+Syria, having despaired of vanquishing our troops so admirably
+commanded, by the honourable arms of the soldier, had recourse to the
+dagger of the assassin. You are aware that a young fanatic, whose
+imagination had been wrought up to a high state of excitement in the
+mosques by a month of prayers and abstinence, aimed a mortal blow at the
+hero of Heliopolis at the instant when he was listening, without
+suspicion, and with his usual kindness, to a recital of pretended
+grievances, and was promising redress.
+
+This sad misfortune plunged our colony into profound grief. The
+Egyptians themselves mingled their tears with those of the French
+soldiers. By a delicacy of feeling which we should be wrong in supposing
+the Mahometans not to be capable of, they did not then omit, they have
+not since omitted, to remark, that the assassin and his three
+accomplices were not born on the banks of the Nile.
+
+The army, to mitigate its grief, desired that the funeral of Kleber
+should be celebrated with great pomp. It wished, also, that on that
+solemn day, some person should recount the long series of brilliant
+actions which will transmit the name of the illustrious general to the
+remotest posterity. By unanimous consent this honourable and perilous
+mission was confided to Fourier.
+
+There are very few individuals, Gentlemen, who have not seen the
+brilliant dreams of their youth wrecked one after the other against the
+sad realities of mature age. Fourier was one of those few exceptions.
+
+In effect, transport yourselves mentally back to the year 1789, and
+consider what would be the future prospects of the humble convert of St.
+Benoit-sur-Loire. No doubt a small share of literary glory; the favour
+of being heard occasionally in the churches of the metropolis; the
+satisfaction of being appointed to eulogize such or such a public
+personage. Well! nine years have hardly passed and you find him at the
+head of the Institute of Egypt, and he is the oracle, the idol of a
+society which counted among its members Bonaparte, Berthollet, Monge,
+Malus, Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Conte, &c.; and the generals rely upon
+him for overcoming apparently insurmountable difficulties, and the army
+of the East, itself so rich in adornments of all kinds, would desire no
+other interpreter when it is necessary to recount the lofty deeds of the
+hero which it had just lost.
+
+It was upon the breach of a bastion which our troops had recently taken
+by assault, in sight of the most majestic of rivers, of the magnificent
+valley which it fertilizes, of the frightful desert of Lybia, of the
+colossal pyramids of Gizeh; it was in presence of twenty populations of
+different origins which Cairo unites together in its vast basin; in
+presence of the most valiant soldiers that had ever set foot on a land,
+wherein, however, the names of Alexander and of Caesar still resound; it
+was in the midst of every thing which could move the heart, excite the
+ideas, or exalt the imagination, that Fourier unfolded the noble life of
+Kleber. The orator was listened to with religious silence; but soon,
+addressing himself with a gesture of his hand to the soldiers ranged in
+battle array before him, he exclaims: "Ah! how many of you would have
+aspired to the honour of throwing yourselves between Kleber and his
+assassin! I call you to witness, intrepid cavalry, who rushed to save
+him upon the heights of Koraim, and dispelled in an instant the
+multitude of enemies who had surrounded him!" At these words an electric
+tremor thrills throughout the whole army, the colours droop, the ranks
+close, the arms come into collision, a deep sigh escapes from some ten
+thousand breasts torn by the sabre and the bullet, and the voice of the
+orator is drowned amid sobs.
+
+A few months after, upon the same bastion, before the same soldiers,
+Fourier celebrated with no less eloquence the exploits, the virtues of
+the general whom the people conquered in Africa saluted with the name so
+flattering of _Just Sultan_; and who sacrificed his life at Marengo to
+secure the triumph of the French arms.
+
+Fourier quitted Egypt only with the last wreck of the army, in virtue of
+the capitulation signed by Menou. On his return to France, the object of
+his most constant solicitude was to illustrate the memorable expedition
+of which he had been one of the most active and most useful members. The
+idea of collecting together the varied labours of all his colleagues
+incontestibly belongs to him. I find the proof of this in a letter,
+still unpublished, which he wrote to Kleber from Thebes, on the 20th
+Vendemiaire, in the year VII. No public act, in which mention is made of
+this great literary monument, is of an earlier date. The Institute of
+Cairo having adopted the project of a _work upon Egypt_ as early as the
+month of Frimaire, in the year VIII., confided to Fourier the task of
+uniting together the scattered elements of it, of making them consistent
+with each other, and drawing up the general introduction.
+
+This introduction was published under the title of _Historical Preface_:
+Fontanes saw in it the graces of Athens and the wisdom of Egypt united
+together. What could I add to such an eulogium? I shall say only that
+there are to be found there, in a few pages, the principal features of
+the government of the Pharaohs, and the results of the subjection of
+ancient Egypt by the kings of Persia, the Ptolemies, the successors of
+Augustus, the emperors of Byzantium, the first Caliphs, the celebrated
+Saladin, the Mamelukes and the Ottoman princes. The different phases of
+our adventurous expedition are there characterized with the greatest
+care. Fourier carries his scruples to so great a length as _to attempt_
+to prove that it was just. I have said only so far as _to attempt_, for
+in that case there might have been something to deduct from the second
+part of the eulogium of Fontanes. If, in 1797, our countryman
+experienced at Cairo, or at Alexandria, outrages and extortions which
+the Grand Seignior either would not or could not repress, one may in all
+rigour admit that France ought to have exacted justice to herself; that
+she had the right to send a powerful army to bring the Turkish
+Custom-house officers to reason. But this is far from maintaining that
+the divan of Constantinople ought to have favoured the French
+expedition; that our conquest was about to restore to him, _in some
+sort_, Egypt and Syria; that the capture of Alexandria and the battle of
+the _Pyramids would enhance the lustre of the Ottoman name_! However,
+the public hastened to acquit Fourier of what appears hazarded in this
+small part of his beautiful work. The origin of it has been sought for
+in political exigencies. Let us be brief; behind certain sophisms the
+hand of the original Commander-in-Chief of the army of the East was
+suspected to be seen!
+
+Napoleon, then, would appear to have participated by his instructions,
+by his counsels, or, if we choose, by his imperative orders, in the
+composition of the essay of Fourier. What was not long ago nothing more
+than a plausible conjecture, has now become an incontestable fact.
+Thanks to the courtesy of M. Champollion-Figeac, I held in my hands,
+within the last few days, some parts of the first _proof sheets_ of the
+historical preface. These proofs were sent to the Emperor, who wished to
+make himself acquainted with them at leisure before reading them with
+Fourier. They are covered with marginal notes, and the additions which
+they have occasioned amount to almost a third of the original discourse.
+Upon these pages, as in the definitive work given to the public, one
+remarks a complete absence of proper names; the only exception is in the
+case of the three Generals-in-Chief. Thus Fourier had imposed upon
+himself the reserve which certain vanities have blamed so severely. I
+shall add that nowhere throughout the precious proof sheets of M.
+Champollion do we perceive traces of the miserable feelings of jealousy
+which have been attributed to Napoleon. It is true that upon pointing
+out with his finger the word illustrious applied to Kleber, the Emperor
+said to our colleague: "SOME ONE has directed my attention to
+THIS EPITHET;" but, after a short pause, he added, "it is
+desirable that you should leave it, for it is just and well deserved."
+These words, Gentlemen, honoured the monarch still less than they
+branded with disgrace the _some one_ whom I regret not being able to
+designate in more definite terms,--one of those vile courtiers whose
+whole life is occupied in spying out the frailties, the evil passions of
+their masters, in order to make them subservient in conducting
+themselves to honours and fortune!
+
+
+
+
+FOURIER PREFECT OF L'ISERE.
+
+Fourier had no sooner returned to Europe, than he was named (January 2,
+1802) Prefect of the Department of l'Isere. The Ancient Dauphiny was
+then a prey to ardent political dissensions. The republicans, the
+partisans of the emigrants, those who had ranged themselves under the
+banners of the consular government, formed so many distinct castes,
+between whom all reconciliation appeared impossible. Well, Gentlemen,
+this impossibility Fourier achieved. His first care was to cause the
+Hotel of the Prefecture to be considered as a neutral ground, where each
+might show himself without even the appearance of a concession.
+Curiosity alone at first brought the people there, but the people
+returned; for in France they seldom desert the saloons wherein are to be
+found a polished and benevolent host, witty without being ridiculous,
+and learned without being pedantic. What had been divulged of the
+opinions of our colleague, respecting the anti-biblican antiquity of the
+Egyptian monuments, inspired the religious classes especially with
+lively apprehensions; they were very adroitly informed that the new
+prefect counted a _Saint_ in his family; that the _blessed_ Pierre
+Fourier, who established the religious sisters of the congregation of
+Notre-Dame, was his grand uncle, and this circumstance effected a
+reconciliation which the unalterable respect of the first magistrate of
+Grenoble for all conscientious opinions cemented every day more and
+more.
+
+As soon as he was assured of a truce with the political and religious
+parties, Fourier was enabled to devote himself exclusively to the duties
+of his office. These duties did not consist with him in heaping up old
+papers to no advantage. He took personal cognizance of the projects
+which were submitted to him; he was the indefatigable promoter of all
+those which narrow-minded persons sought to stifle in their birth; we
+may include in this last class, the superb road from Grenoble to Turin
+by Mount Genevre, which the events of 1814 have so unfortunately
+interrupted, and especially the drainage of the marshes of Bourgoin.
+
+These marshes, which Louis XIV. had given to Marshal Turenne, were a
+focus of infection to the thirty-seven communes, the lands of which were
+partially covered by them. Fourier directed personally the topographic
+operations which established the possibility of drainage. With these
+documents in his hand he went from village to village, I might almost
+say from house to house, to fix the sacrifice which each family ought to
+impose upon itself for the general interest. By tact and perseverance,
+taking "the _ear of corn always in the right direction_," thirty-seven
+municipal councils were induced to contribute to a common fund, without
+which the projected operation would not even have been commenced.
+Success crowned this rare perseverance. Rich harvests, fat pastures,
+numerous flocks, a robust and happy population now covered an immense
+territory, where formerly the traveller dared not remain more than a few
+hours.
+
+One of the predecessors of Fourier, in the situation of perpetual
+secretary of the Academy of Sciences, deemed it his duty, on one
+occasion, to beg an excuse for having given a detailed account of
+certain researches of Leibnitz, which had not required great efforts of
+the intellect: "We ought," says he, "to be very much obliged to a man
+such as he is, when he condescends, for the public good, to do something
+which does not partake of genius!" I cannot conceive the ground of such
+scruples; in the present day, the sciences are regarded from too high a
+point of view, that we should hesitate in placing in the first rank of
+the labours with which they are adorned, those which diffuse comfort,
+health, and happiness amidst the working population.
+
+In presence of a part of the Academy of Inscriptions, in an apartment
+wherein the name of hieroglyph has so often resounded, I cannot refrain
+from alluding to the service which Fourier rendered to science by
+retaining Champollion. The young professor of history of the Faculty of
+Letters of Grenoble had just attained the twentieth year of his age.
+Fate calls him to shoulder the musket. Fourier exempts him by investing
+him with the title of pupil of the School of Oriental Languages which he
+had borne at Paris. The Minister of War learns that the pupil formerly
+gave in his resignation; he denounces the fraud, and dispatches a
+peremptory order for his departure, which seems even to exclude all idea
+of remonstrance. Fourier, however, is not discouraged; his intercessions
+are skilful and of a pressing nature; finally, he draws so animated a
+portrait of the precocious talent of _his young friend_, that he
+succeeds in wringing from the government an order of special exemption.
+It was not easy, Gentlemen, to obtain such success. At the same time, a
+conscript, a _member of our Academy_, succeeded in obtaining a
+revocation of his order for departure only by declaring that he would
+follow on foot, in the costume of the Institute, the contingent of the
+arrondissement of Paris in which he was classed.
+
+
+
+
+MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF HEAT.
+
+The administrative duties of the prefect of l'Isere hardly interrupted
+the labours of the geometer and the man of letters. It is from Grenoble
+that the principal writings of Fourier are dated; it was at Grenoble
+that he composed the _Theorie Mathematique de la Chaleur_, which forms
+his principal title to the gratitude of the scientific world.
+
+I am far from being unconscious of the difficulty of analyzing that
+admirable work, and yet I shall attempt to point out the successive
+steps which he has achieved in the advancement of science. You will
+listen to me, Gentlemen, with indulgence, notwithstanding several minute
+details which I shall have to recount, since I thereby fulfil the
+mission with which you have honoured me.
+
+The ancients had a taste, let us say rather a passion, for the
+marvellous, which caused them to forget even the sacred duties of
+gratitude. Observe them, for example, grouping together the lofty deeds
+of a great number of heroes, whose names they have not even deigned to
+preserve, and investing the single personage of Hercules with them. The
+lapse of ages has not rendered us wiser in this respect. In our own time
+the public delight in blending fable with history. In every career of
+life, in the pursuit of science especially, they enjoy a pleasure in
+creating Herculeses. According to vulgar opinion, there is no
+astronomical discovery which is not due to Herschel. The theory of the
+planetary movements is identified with the name of Laplace; hardly is a
+passing allusion made to the eminent labours of D'Alembert, of Clairaut,
+of Euler, of Lagrange. Watt is the sole inventor of the steam-engine.
+Chaptal has enriched the arts of Chemistry with the totality of the
+fertile and ingenious processes which constitute their prosperity. Even
+within this apartment has not an eloquent voice lately asserted, that
+before Fourier the phenomenon of heat was hardly studied; that the
+celebrated geometer had alone made more observations than all his
+predecessors put together; that he had with almost a single effort
+invented a new science.
+
+Although he runs the risk of being less lively, the organ of the Academy
+of Sciences cannot permit himself such bursts of enthusiasm. He ought to
+bear in mind, that the object of these solemnities is not merely to
+celebrate the discoveries of academicians; that they are also designed
+to encourage modest merit; that an observer forgotten by his
+contemporaries, is frequently supported in his laborious researches by
+the thought that he will obtain a benevolent look from posterity. Let us
+act, so far as it depends upon us, in such a manner that a hope so just,
+so natural, may not be frustrated. Let us award a just, a brilliant
+homage to those rare men whom nature has endowed with the precious
+privilege of arranging a thousand isolated facts, of making seductive
+theories spring from them; but let us not forget to state, that the
+scythe of the reaper had cut the stalks before one had thought of
+uniting them into sheaves!
+
+Heat presents itself in natural phenomena, and in those which are the
+products of art under two entirely distinct forms, which Fourier has
+separately considered. I shall adopt the same division, commencing
+however with radiant heat, the historical analysis which I am about to
+submit to you.
+
+Nobody doubts that there is a physical distinction which is eminently
+worthy of being studied between the ball of iron at the ordinary
+temperature which may be handled at pleasure, and the ball of iron of
+the same dimensions which the flame of a furnace has very much heated,
+and which we cannot touch without burning ourselves. This distinction,
+according to the majority of physical inquirers, arises from a certain
+quantity of an elastic imponderable fluid, or at least a fluid which has
+not been weighed, with which the second ball has combined during the
+process of heating. The fluid which, upon combining with cold bodies
+renders them hot, has been designated by the name of _heat_ or
+_caloric_.
+
+Bodies unequally heated act upon each other _even at great distances,
+even through empty space_, for the colder becomes more hot, and the
+hotter becomes more cold; for after a certain time they indicate the
+same degree of the thermometer, whatever may have been the difference of
+their original temperatures. According to the hypotheses above
+explained, there is but one way of conceiving this action at a distance;
+this is to suppose that it operates by the aid of certain effluvia which
+traverse space by passing from the hot body to the cold body; that is,
+to admit that a hot body emits in every direction rays of heat, as
+luminous bodies emit rays of light.
+
+The effluvia, the radiating emanations by the aid of which two distant
+bodies form a calorific communication with each other, have been very
+appropriately designated by the name of _radiating caloric_.
+
+Whatever may be said to the contrary, radiating heat had already been
+the object of important experiments before Fourier undertook his
+labours. The celebrated academicians of the _Cimento_ found, nearly two
+centuries ago, that this heat is reflected like light; that, as in the
+case of light, a concave mirror concentrates it at the focus. Upon
+substituting balls of snow for heated bodies, they even went so far as
+to prove that frigorific foci may be formed by way of reflection. Some
+years afterwards Mariotte, a member of this Academy, discovered that
+there exist different kinds of radiating heat; that the heat with which
+rays of light are accompanied traverses all transparent media as easily
+as light does; while, again, the caloric which emanates from a strongly
+heated, but opaque substance, while the rays of heat, which are found
+mingled with the luminous rays of a body moderately incandescent, are
+almost entirely arrested in their passage through the most transparent
+plate of glass!
+
+This striking discovery, let us remark in passing, will show,
+notwithstanding the ridicule of pretended savans, how happily inspired
+were the workmen in founderies, who looked at the incandescent matter of
+their furnaces, only through a plate of ordinary glass, thinking by the
+aid of this artifice to arrest the heat which would have burned their
+eyes.
+
+In the experimental sciences, the epochs of the most brilliant progress
+are almost always separated by long intervals of almost absolute repose.
+Thus, after Mariotte, there elapsed more than a century without history
+having to record any new property of radiating heat. Then, in close
+succession, we find in the solar light obscure calorific rays, the
+existence of which could admit of being established only with the
+thermometer, and which may be completely separated from luminous rays by
+the aid of the prism; we discover, by the aid of terrestrial bodies,
+that the emission of caloric rays, and consequently the cooling of those
+bodies, is considerably retarded by the polish of the surfaces; that the
+colour, the nature, and the thickness of the outer coating of these
+same surfaces, exercise also a manifest influence upon their emissive
+power. Experience, finally, rectifying the vague predictions to which
+the most enlightened minds abandon themselves with so little reserve,
+shows that the calorific rays which emanate from the plane surface of a
+heated body have not the same force, the same intensity in all
+directions; that the _maximum_ corresponds to the perpendicular
+emission, and the _minimum_ to the emissions parallel to the surface.
+
+Between these two extreme positions, how does the diminution of the
+emissive power operate? Leslie first sought the solution of this
+important question. His observations seem to show that the intensities
+of the radiating rays are proportional (it is necessary, Gentlemen, that
+I employ the scientific expression) to the sines of the angles which
+these rays form with the heated surface. But the quantities upon which
+the experimenter had to operate were too feeble; the uncertainties of
+the thermometric estimations compared with the total effect were, on the
+contrary, too great not to inspire a strong degree of distrust: well,
+Gentlemen, a problem before which all the processes, all the instruments
+of modern physics have remained powerless, Fourier has completely solved
+without the necessity of having recourse to any new experiment. He has
+traced the law of the emission of caloric sought for, with a perspicuity
+which one cannot sufficiently admire, in the most ordinary phenomena of
+temperature, in the phenomena which at first sight appeared to be
+entirely independent of it.
+
+Such is the privilege of genius; it perceives, it seizes relations where
+vulgar eyes see only isolated facts.
+
+Nobody doubts, and besides experiment has confirmed the fact, that in
+all the points of a space terminated by any envelop maintained at a
+constant temperature, we ought also to experience a constant
+temperature, and precisely that of the envelop. Now Fourier has
+established, that if the calorific rays emitted were equally intense in
+all directions, if the intensity did not vary proportionally to the sine
+of the angle of emission, the temperature of a body situated in the
+enclosure would depend on the place which it would occupy there: _that
+the temperature of boiling water or of melting iron, for example, would
+exist in certain points of a hollow envelop of glass!_ In all the vast
+domain of the physical sciences, we should be unable to find a more
+striking application of the celebrated method of the _reductio ad
+absurdum_ of which the ancient mathematicians made use, in order to
+demonstrate the abstract truths of geometry.
+
+I shall not quit this first part of the labours of Fourier without
+adding, that he has not contented himself with demonstrating with so
+much felicity the remarkable law which connects the comparative
+intensities of the calorific rays, emanating under all angles from
+heated bodies; he has sought, moreover, the physical cause of this law,
+and he has found it in a circumstance which his predecessors had
+entirely neglected. Let us suppose, says he, that bodies emit heat not
+only from the molecules of their surfaces, but also from the particles
+in the interior. Let us suppose, moreover, that the heat of these latter
+particles cannot arrive at the surface by traversing a certain thickness
+of matter without undergoing some degree of absorption. Fourier has
+reduced these two hypotheses to calculation, and he has hence deduced
+mathematically the experimental law of the sines. After having resisted
+so radical a test, the two hypotheses were found to be completely
+verified, they have become laws of nature; they point out latent
+properties of caloric which could only be discerned by the eye of the
+intellect.
+
+In the second question treated by Fourier, heat presents itself under a
+new form. There is more difficulty in following its movements; but the
+conclusions deducible from the theory are also more general and more
+important.
+
+Heat excited, concentrated into a certain point of a solid body,
+communicates itself by way of conduction, first to the particles nearest
+the heated point, then gradually to all the regions of the body. Whence
+the problem of which the following is the enunciation.
+
+By what routes, and with what velocities, is the propagation of heat
+effected in bodies of different forms and different natures subjected to
+certain initial conditions?
+
+Fundamentally, the Academy of Sciences had already proposed this problem
+as the subject of a prize as early as the year 1736. Then the terms heat
+and caloric were not in use; it demanded _the study of nature, and the
+propagation_ OF FIRE! The word _fire_, thrown thus into the
+programme without any other explanation, gave rise to a mistake of the
+most singular kind. The majority of philosophers imagined that the
+question was to explain in what way _burning_ communicates itself, and
+increases in a mass of combustible matter. Fifteen competitors presented
+themselves; _three_ were crowned.
+
+This competition was productive of very meagre results. However, a
+singular combination of circumstances and of proper names will render
+the recollection of it lasting.
+
+Has not the public a right to be surprised upon reading this Academic
+declaration: "the question affords no handle to geometry!" In matter of
+inventions, to attempt to dive into the future, is to prepare for one's
+self striking mistakes. One of the competitors, the great Euler, took
+these words in their literal sense; the reveries with which his memoir
+abounds, are not compensated in this instance by any of those brilliant
+discoveries in analysis, I had almost said of those sublime
+inspirations, which were so familiar to him. Fortunately Euler appended
+to his memoir a supplement truly worthy of his genius. Father Lozeran de
+Fiesc and the Count of Crequi were rewarded with the high honour of
+seeing their names inscribed beside that of the illustrious geometer,
+although it would be impossible in the present day to discern in their
+memoirs any kind of merit, not even that of politeness, for the courtier
+said rudely to the Academy: "the question, which you have raised,
+interests only the curiosity of mankind."
+
+Among the competitors less favourably treated, we perceive one of the
+greatest writers whom France has produced; the author of the _Henriade_.
+The memoir of Voltaire was, no doubt, far from solving the problem
+proposed; but it was at least distinguished by elegance, clearness, and
+precision of language; I shall add, by a severe style of argument; for
+if the author occasionally arrives at questionable results, it is only
+when he borrows false data from the chemistry and physics of the
+epoch,--sciences which had just sprung into existence. Moreover, the
+anti-Cartesian colour of some of the parts of the memoir of Voltaire was
+calculated to find little favour in a society, where Cartesianism, with
+its incomprehensible vortices, was everywhere held in high estimation.
+
+We should have more difficulty in discovering the causes of the failure
+of a fourth competitor, Madame the Marchioness du Chatelet, for she also
+entered into the contest instituted by the Academy. The work of Emilia
+was not only an elegant portrait of all the properties of heat, known
+then to physical inquirers, there were remarked moreover in it,
+different projects of experiments, among the rest one which Herschel has
+since developed, and from which he has derived one of the principal
+flowers of his brilliant scientific crown.
+
+While such great names were occupied in discussing this question,
+physical inquirers of a less ambitious stamp laid experimentally the
+solid basis of a future mathematical theory of heat. Some established,
+that the same quantity of caloric does not elevate by the same number of
+degrees equal weights of different substances, and thereby introduced
+into the science the important notion of _capacity_. Others, by the aid
+of observations no less certain, proved that heat, applied at the
+extremity of a bar, is transmitted to the extreme parts with greater or
+less velocity or intensity, according to the nature of the substance of
+which the bar is composed; thus they suggested the original idea of
+_conductibility_. The same epoch, if I were not precluded from entering
+into too minute details, would present to us interesting experiments. We
+should find that it is not true that, at all degrees of the thermometer,
+the loss of heat of a body is proportional to the excess of its
+temperature above that of the medium in which it is plunged; but I have
+been desirous of showing you geometry penetrating, timidly at first,
+into questions of the propagation of heat, and depositing there the
+first germs of its fertile methods.
+
+It is to Lambert of Mulhouse, that we owe this first step. This
+ingenious geometer had proposed a very simple problem which any person
+may comprehend. A slender metallic bar is exposed at one of its
+extremities to the constant action of a certain focus of heat. The parts
+nearest the focus are heated first. Gradually the heat communicates
+itself to the more distant parts, and, after a short time, each point
+acquires the maximum temperature which it can ever attain. Although the
+experiment were to last a hundred years, the thermometric state of the
+bar would not undergo any modification.
+
+As might be reasonably expected, this maximum of heat is so much less
+considerable as we recede from the focus. Is there any relation between
+the final temperatures and the distances of the different particles of
+the bar from the extremity directly heated? Such a relation exists. It
+is very simple. Lambert investigated it by calculation, and experience
+confirmed the results of theory.
+
+In addition to the somewhat elementary question of the _longitudinal_
+propagation of heat, there offered itself the more general but much more
+difficult problem of the propagation of heat in a body of three
+dimensions terminated by any surface whatever. This problem demanded the
+aid of the higher analysis. It was Fourier who first assigned the
+equations. It is to Fourier, also, that we owe certain theorems, by
+means of which we may ascend from the differential equations to the
+integrals, and push the solutions in the majority of cases to the final
+numerical applications.
+
+The first memoir of Fourier on the theory of heat dates from the year
+1807. The Academy, to which it was communicated, being desirous of
+inducing the author to extend and improve his researches, made the
+question of the propagation of heat the subject of the great
+mathematical prize which was to be awarded in the beginning of the year
+1812. Fourier did, in effect, compete, and his memoir was crowned. But,
+alas! as Fontenelle said: "In the country even of demonstrations, there
+are to be found causes of dissension." Some restrictions mingled with
+the favourable judgment. The illustrious commissioners of the prize,
+Laplace, Lagrange, and Legendre, while acknowledging the novelty and
+importance of the subject, while declaring that the real differential
+equations of the propagation of heat were finally found, asserted that
+they perceived difficulties in the way in which the author arrived at
+them. They added, that his processes of integration left something to be
+desired, even on the score of rigour. They did not, however, support
+their opinion by any arguments.
+
+Fourier never admitted the validity of this decision. Even at the close
+of his life he gave unmistakable evidence that he thought it unjust, by
+causing his memoir to be printed in our volumes without changing a
+single word. Still, the doubts expressed by the Commissioners of the
+Academy reverted incessantly to his recollection. From the very
+beginning they had poisoned the pleasure of his triumph. These first
+impressions, added to a high susceptibility, explain how Fourier ended
+by regarding with a certain degree of displeasure the efforts of those
+geometers who endeavoured to improve his theory. This, Gentlemen, was a
+very strange aberration of a mind of so elevated an order! Our colleague
+had almost forgotten that it is not allotted to any person to conduct a
+scientific question to a definitive termination, and that the important
+labours of D'Alembert, Clairaut, Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace, while
+immortalizing their authors, have continually added new lustre to the
+imperishable glory of Newton. Let us act so that this example may not be
+lost. While the civil law imposes upon the tribunes the obligation to
+assign the motives of _their judgments_, the academies, which are the
+tribunes of science, cannot have even a pretext to escape from this
+obligation. Corporate bodies, as well as individuals, act wisely when
+they reckon in every instance only upon the authority of reason.
+
+
+
+
+CENTRAL HEAT OF THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE.
+
+At any time the _Theorie Mathematique de la Chaleur_ would have excited
+a lively interest among men of reflection, since, upon the supposition
+of its being complete, it threw light upon the most minute processes of
+the arts. In our time the numerous points of affinity existing between
+it and the curious discoveries of the geologists, have made it, if I may
+use the expression, a work for the occasion. To point out the ultimate
+relation which exists between these two kinds of researches would be to
+present the most important part of the discoveries of Fourier, and to
+show how happily our colleague, by one of those inspirations reserved
+for genius, had chosen the subject of his researches.
+
+The parts of the earth's crust, which the geologists call the
+sedimentary formations, were not formed all at once. The waters of the
+ocean, on several former occasions, covered regions which are situated
+in the present day in the centre of the continent. There they deposited,
+in thin horizontal strata, a series of rocks of different kinds. These
+rocks, although superposed like the layers of stones of a wall, must not
+be confounded together; their dissimilarities are palpable to the least
+practised eye. It is necessary also to note this capital fact, that
+each stratum has a well-defined limit; that no process of transition
+connects it with the stratum which it supports. The ocean, the original
+source of all these deposits, underwent then formerly enormous changes
+in its chemical composition to which it is no longer subject.
+
+With some rare exceptions, resulting from local convulsions the effects
+of which are otherwise manifest, the order of antiquity of the
+successive strata of rocks which form the exterior crust of the globe
+ought to be that of their superposition. The deepest have been formed at
+the most remote epochs. The attentive study of these different envelops
+may aid us in ascending the stream of time, even beyond the most remote
+epochs, and enlightening us with respect to those stupendous revolutions
+which periodically overwhelmed continents beneath the waters of the
+ocean, or again restored them to their former condition. Crystalline
+rocks of granite upon which the sea has effected its original deposits
+have never exhibited any remains of life. Traces of such are to be found
+only in the sedimentary strata.
+
+Life appears to have first exhibited itself on the earth in the form of
+vegetables. The remains of vegetables are all that we meet with in the
+most ancient strata deposited by the waters; still, they belong to
+plants of the simplest structure,--to ferns, to species of rushes, to
+lycopodes.
+
+As we ascend into the upper strata, vegetation becomes more and more
+complex. Finally, near the surface, it resembles the vegetation actually
+existing on the earth, with this characteristic circumstance, however,
+which is well deserving attention, that certain vegetables which grow
+only in southern climates, that the large palm-trees, for example, are
+found in their fossil state in all latitudes, and even in the centre of
+the frozen regions of Siberia.
+
+In the primitive world, these northern regions enjoyed then, in winter,
+a temperature at least equal to that which is experienced in the present
+day under the parallels where the great palms commence to appear: at
+Tobolsk, the inhabitants enjoyed the climate of Alicante or Algiers!
+
+We shall deduce new proofs of this mysterious result from an attentive
+examination of the size of plants.
+
+There exist, in the present day, willow grass or marshy rushes, ferns,
+and lycopodes, in Europe as well as in the tropical regions; but they
+are not met with in large dimensions, except in warm countries. Thus, to
+compare together the dimensions of the same plants is, in reality, to
+compare, in respect to temperature, the regions where they are produced.
+Well, place beside the fossil plants of our coal mines, I will not say
+the analogous plants of Europe, but those which grow in the countries of
+South America, and which are most celebrated for the richness of their
+vegetation, and you will find the former to be of incomparably greater
+dimensions than the latter.
+
+The _fossil flora_ of France, England, Germany, and Scandinavia offer,
+for example, ferns ninety feet high, the stalks being six feet in
+diameter, or eighteen feet in circumference.
+
+The _lycopodes_ which, in the present day, whether in cold or temperate
+climates, are creeping-plants rising hardly to the height of a decimetre
+above the soil; which even at the equator, under the most favourable
+circumstances, do not attain a height of more than _one_ metre, had in
+Europe, in the primitive world, an altitude of twenty-five metres.
+
+One must be blind to all reason not to find, in these enormous
+dimensions, a new proof of the high temperature enjoyed by our country
+before the last irruptions of the ocean!
+
+The study of _fossil animals_ is no less fertile in results. I should
+digress from my subject if I were to examine here how the organization
+of animals is developed upon the earth; what modifications, or more
+strictly speaking, what complications it has undergone after each
+cataclysm, or if I even stopped to describe one of those ancient epochs
+during which the earth, the sea, and the atmosphere had for inhabitants
+cold-blooded reptiles of enormous dimensions; tortoises with shells
+three feet in diameter; lizards seventeen metres long; pterodactyles,
+veritable flying dragons of such strange forms, that they might be
+classed on good grounds either among reptiles, among mammiferous
+animals, or among birds. The object, which I have proposed, does not
+require that I should enter into such details; a single remark will
+suffice.
+
+Among the bones contained in the strata nearest the present surface of
+the earth, are those of the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, and the
+elephant. These remains of animals of warm countries are to be found in
+all latitudes. Travellers have discovered specimens of them even at
+Melville Island, where the temperature descends, in the present day, 50 deg.
+beneath zero. In Siberia they are found in such abundance as to have
+become an article of commerce. Finally, upon the rocky shores of the
+Arctic Ocean, there are to be found not merely fragments of skeletons,
+but whole elephants still covered with their flesh and skin.
+
+I should deceive myself very much, Gentlemen, if I were to suppose that
+each of you had not deduced from these remarkable facts a conclusion no
+less remarkable, to which indeed the fossil flora had already habituated
+us; namely, that as they have grown older, the polar regions of the
+earth have cooled down to a prodigious extent.
+
+In the explanation of so curious a phenomenon, cosmologists have not
+taken into account the existence of possible variations of the intensity
+of the solar heat; and yet the stars, those distant suns, have not the
+constant brightness which the common people attribute to them. Nay, some
+of them have been observed to diminish in a sufficiently short space of
+time to the hundredth part of their original brightness; and several
+have even totally disappeared. They have preferred to attribute every
+thing to an internal or primitive heat with which the earth was at some
+former epoch impregnated, and which is gradually being dissipated in
+space.
+
+Upon this hypothesis the inhabitants of the polar regions, although
+deprived of the sight of the sun for whole months together, must have
+evidently enjoyed, at very ancient epochs, a temperature equal to that
+of the tropical regions, wherein exist elephants in the present day.
+
+It is not, however, as an explanation of the existence of elephants in
+Siberia, that the idea of the intrinsic heat of the globe has entered
+for the first time into science. Some savans had adopted it before the
+discovery of those fossil animals. Thus, Descartes was of opinion that
+originally (I cite his own words,) _the earth did not differ from the
+sun in any other respect than in being smaller_. Upon this hypothesis,
+then, it ought to be considered as an extinct sun.
+
+Leibnitz conferred upon this hypothesis the honour of appropriating it
+to himself. He attempted to deduce from it the mode of formation of the
+different solid envelopes of which the earth consists. Buffon, also,
+imparted to it the weight of his eloquent authority. According to that
+great naturalist, the planets of our system are merely portions of the
+sun, which the shock of a comet had detached from it some tens of
+thousands of years ago.
+
+In support of this igneous origin of the earth, Mairan and Buffon cited
+already the high temperature of deep mines, and, among others, those of
+the mines of Giromagny. It appears evident that if the earth was
+formerly incandescent, we should not fail to meet in the interior
+strata, that is to say, in those which ought to have cooled last, traces
+of their primitive temperature. The observer who, upon penetrating into
+the interior of the earth, did not find an increasing heat, might then
+consider himself amply authorized to reject the hypothetical conceptions
+of Descartes, of Mairan, of Leibnitz, and of Buffon. But has the
+converse proposition the same certainty? Would not the torrents of heat,
+which the sun has continued incessantly to launch for so many ages, have
+diffused themselves into the mass of the earth, so as to produce there a
+temperature increasing with the depth? This a question of high
+importance. Certain easily satisfied minds conscientiously supposed that
+they had solved it, when they stated that the idea of a constant
+temperature was by far the _most natural_; but woe to the sciences if
+they thus included vague considerations which escape all criticism,
+among the motives for admitting and rejecting facts and theories!
+Fontenelle, Gentlemen, would have traced their horoscope in these words,
+so well adapted for humbling our pride, and the truth of which the
+history of discoveries reveals in a thousand places: "When a thing may
+be in two different ways, it is almost always that which appears at
+first the least natural."
+
+Whatever importance these reflections may possess, I hasten to add that,
+instead of the arguments of his predecessors, which have no real value,
+Fourier has substituted proofs, demonstrations; and we know what meaning
+such terms convey to the Academy of Sciences.
+
+In all places of the earth, as soon as we descend to a certain depth,
+the thermometer no longer experiences either diurnal or annual
+variation. It marks the same degree, and the same fraction of a degree,
+from day to day, and from year to year. Such is the fact: what says
+theory?
+
+Let us suppose, for a moment, that the earth has constantly received all
+its heat from the sun. Descend into its mass to a sufficient depth, and
+you will find, with Fourier, by the aid of calculation, a constant
+temperature for each day of the year. You will recognize further, that
+this solar temperature of the inferior strata varies from one climate to
+another; that in each country, finally, it ought to be always the same,
+so long as we do not descend to depths which are too great relatively to
+the earth's radius.
+
+Well, the phenomena of nature stand in manifest contradiction to this
+result. The observations made in a multitude of mines, observations of
+the temperature of hot springs coming from different depths, have all
+given an increase of one degree of the centigrade for every twenty or
+thirty metres of depth. Thus, there was some inaccuracy in the
+hypothesis which we were discussing upon the footsteps of our colleague.
+It is not true that the temperature of the terrestrial strata may be
+attributed solely to the action of the solar rays.
+
+This being established, the increase of heat which is observed in all
+climates when we penetrate into the interior of the globe, is the
+manifest indication of an intrinsic heat. The earth, as Descartes and
+Leibnitz maintained it to be, but without being able to support their
+assertions by any demonstrative reasoning,--thanks to a combination of
+the observations of physical inquirers with the analytical calculations
+of Fourier,--is _an encrusted sun_, the high temperature of which may be
+boldly invoked every time that the explanation of ancient geological
+phenomena will require it.
+
+After having established that there is in our earth an inherent heat,--a
+heat the source of which is not the sun, and which, if we may judge of
+it by the rapid increase which observation indicates, ought to be
+already sufficiently intense at the depth of only seven or eight leagues
+to hold in fusion all known substances,--there arises the question, what
+is its precise value at the surface of the earth; what weight are we to
+attach to it in the determination of terrestrial temperatures; what part
+does it play in the phenomena of life?
+
+According to Mairan, Buffon, and Bailly, this part is immense. For
+France, they estimate the heat which escapes from the interior of the
+earth, at twenty-nine times in summer, and four hundred times in winter,
+the heat which comes to us from the sun. Thus, contrary to general
+opinion, the heat of the body which illuminates us would form only a
+very small part of that whose propitious influence we feel.
+
+This idea was developed with ability and great eloquence in the _Memoirs
+of the Academy_, in the _Epoques sur la Nature_ of Buffon, in the
+letters from Bailly to Voltaire _upon the Origin of the Sciences and
+upon the Atlantide_. But the ingenious romance to which it has served as
+a base, has vanished like a shadow before the torch of mathematical
+science.
+
+Fourier having discovered that the excess of the aggregate temperature
+of the earth's surface above that which would result from the sole
+action of the solar rays, has a determinate relation to the increase of
+temperature at different depths, succeeded in deducing from the
+experimental value of this increase a numerical determination of the
+excess in question. This excess is the thermometric effect which the
+solar heat produces at the surface; now, instead of the large numbers
+adopted by Mairan, Bailly, and Buffon, what has our colleague found? _A
+thirtieth_ of a degree, not more.
+
+The surface of the earth, which originally was perhaps incandescent, has
+cooled then in the course of ages, so as hardly to preserve any sensible
+trace of its primitive heat. However, at great depths, the original heat
+is still enormous. Time will alter sensibly the internal temperature;
+but at the surface (and the phenomena of the surface can alone modify or
+compromise the existence of living beings), all the changes are almost
+accomplished. The frightful freezing of the earth, the epoch of which
+Buffon fixed at the instant when the central heat would be totally
+dissipated, is then a pure dream. At the surface, the earth is no longer
+impregnated except by the solar heat. So long as the sun shall continue
+to preserve the same brightness, mankind will find, from pole to pole,
+under each latitude, the climates which have permitted them to live and
+to establish their residence. These, Gentlemen, are great, magnificent
+results. While recording them in the annals of science, historians will
+not neglect to draw attention to this singular peculiarity: that the
+geometer to whom we owe the first certain demonstration of the existence
+of a heat independent of a solar influence in the interior of the earth,
+has annihilated the immense part which this primitive heat was made to
+play in the explanation of the phenomena of terrestrial temperature.
+
+Besides divesting the theory of climates of an error which occupied a
+prominent place in science, supported as it was by the imposing
+authority of Mairan, of Bailly, and of Buffon, Fourier is entitled to
+the merit of a still more striking achievement: he has introduced into
+this theory a consideration which hitherto had been totally neglected;
+he has pointed out the influence exercised by the _temperature of the
+celestial regions_, amid which the hearth describes its immense orb
+around the sun.
+
+When we perceive, even under the equator, certain mountains covered with
+eternal snow, upon observing the rapid diminution of temperature which
+the strata of the atmosphere undergo during ascents in balloons,
+meteorologists have supposed, that in the regions wherein the extreme
+rarity of the air will always exclude the presence of mankind, and that
+especially beyond the limits of the atmosphere, there ought to prevail a
+prodigious intensity of cold. It was not merely by hundreds, it was by
+thousands of degrees, that they had arbitrarily measured it. But, as
+usual, the imagination (_cette folie de la maison_) had exceeded all
+reasonable limits. The hundreds, the tens of thousands of degrees, have
+dwindled down, after the rigorous researches of Fourier, to fifty or
+sixty degrees only. Fifty or sixty degrees _beneath zero_, such is the
+temperature which the radiation of heat from the stars has established
+in the regions furrowed indefinitely by the planets of our system.
+
+You recollect, Gentlemen, with what delight Fourier used to converse on
+this subject. You know well that he thought himself sure of having
+assigned the temperature of space within eight or ten degrees. By what
+fatality has it happened that the memoir, wherein no doubt our colleague
+had recorded all the elements of that important determination, is not to
+be found? May that irreparable loss prove at least to so many observers,
+that instead of pursuing obstinately an ideal perfection, which it is
+not allotted to man to attain, they will act wisely in placing the
+public, as soon as possible, in the confidence of their labours.
+
+I should have yet a long course to pursue, if, after having pointed out
+some of those problems of which the condition of science enabled our
+learned colleague to give numerical solutions, I were to analyze all
+those which, still enveloped in general formulae, await merely the data
+of experience to assume a place among the most curious acquisitions of
+modern physics. Time, which is not at my disposal, precludes me from
+dwelling upon such developments. I should be guilty, however, of an
+unpardonable omission, if I did not state that, among the formulas of
+Fourier, there is one which serves to assign the value of the secular
+cooling of the earth, and in which there is involved the number of
+centuries which have elapsed since the origin of this cooling. The
+question of the antiquity of the earth, including even the period of
+incandescence, which has been so keenly discussed, is thus reduced to a
+thermometric determination. Unfortunately this point of theory is
+subject to serious difficulties. Besides, the thermometric
+determination, in consequence of its excessive smallness, must be
+reserved for future ages.
+
+
+
+
+RETURN OF NAPOLEON FROM ELBA.--FOURIER PREFECT OF THE RHONE.--HIS
+NOMINATION TO THE OFFICE OF DIRECTOR OF THE BOARD OF STATISTICS OF THE
+SEINE.
+
+I have just exhibited to you the scientific fruits of the leisure hours
+of the Prefect of l'Isere. Fourier still occupied this situation when
+Napoleon arrived at Cannes. His conduct during this grave conjuncture
+has been the object of a hundred false rumours. I shall then discharge a
+duty by establishing the facts in all their truth, according to what I
+have heard from our colleague's own mouth.
+
+Upon the news of the Emperor having disembarked, the principal
+authorities of Grenoble assembled at the residence of the Prefect. There
+each individual explained ably, but especially, said Fourier, with much
+detail, the difficulties which he perceived. As regards the means of
+vanquishing them, the authorities seemed to be much less inventive.
+Confidence in administrative eloquence was not yet worn out at that
+epoch; it was resolved accordingly to have recourse to proclamations.
+The commanding officer and the Prefect presented each a project. The
+assembly was discussing minutely the terms of them, when an officer of
+the gendarmes, an old soldier of the Imperial armies, exclaimed rudely,
+"Gentlemen, be quick, otherwise all deliberation will become useless.
+Believe me, I speak from experience; Napoleon always follows very
+closely the couriers who announce his arrival." Napoleon was in fact
+close at hand. After a short moment of hesitation, two companies of
+sappers which had been dispatched to cut down a bridge, joined their
+former commander. A battalion of infantry soon followed their example.
+Finally, upon the very glacis of the fortress, in presence of the
+numerous population which crowned the ramparts, the fifth regiment of
+the line to a man assumed the tricolour cockade, substituted for the
+white flag the eagle,--witness of twenty battles,--which it had
+preserved, and departed with shouts of _Vive l'Empereur!_ After such a
+commencement, to attempt to hold the country would have been an act of
+folly. General Marchand caused accordingly the gates of the city to be
+shut. He still hoped, notwithstanding the evidently hostile disposition
+of the inhabitants, to sustain a siege with the sole assistance of the
+third regiment of engineers, the fourth regiment of artillery, and some
+weak detachments of infantry, which had not abandoned him.
+
+From that moment, the civil authority had disappeared. Fourier thought
+then that he might quit Grenoble, and repair to Lyons, where the princes
+had assembled together. At the second restoration, this departure was
+imputed to him as a crime. He was very near being brought before a court
+of assizes, or even a provost's court. Certain personages pretended that
+the presence of the Prefect of the chief place of l'Isere might have
+conjured the storm; that the resistance might have been more animated,
+better arranged. People forgot that nowhere, and at Grenoble even less
+than anywhere else, was it possible to organize even a pretext of
+resistance. Let us see then, finally, how this martial city,--the fall
+of which Fourier might have prevented by his mere presence,--let us see
+how it was taken. It is eight o'clock in the evening. The inhabitants
+and the soldiers garrison the ramparts. Napoleon precedes his little
+troop by some steps; he advances even to the gate; he knocks (be not
+alarmed, Gentlemen, it is not a battle which I am about to describe,)
+_he knocks with his snuff-box!_ "Who is there?" cried the officer of the
+guard. "It is the Emperor! Open!"--"Sire, my duty forbids me."--"Open--I
+tell you; I have no time to lose."--"But, sire, even though I should
+open to you, I could not. The keys are in the possession of General
+Marchand."--"Go, then, and fetch them."--"I am certain that he will
+refuse them to me."--"If the General refuse them, _tell him that I will
+dismiss him_."
+
+These words petrified the soldiers. During the previous two days,
+hundreds of proclamations designated Bonaparte as a wild beast which it
+was necessary to seize without scruple; they ordered everybody to run
+away from him, and yet this man threatened the general with deprivation
+of his command! The single word _dismissal_, effaced the faint line of
+demarcation which separated for an instant the old soldiers from the
+young recruits; one word established the whole garrison in the interest
+of the emperor.
+
+The circumstances of the capture of Grenoble were not yet known when
+Fourier arrived at Lyons. He brought thither the news of the rapid
+advance of Napoleon; that of the revolt of two companies of sappers, of
+a regiment of infantry, and of the regiment commanded by Labedoyere.
+Moreover, he was a witness of the lively sympathy which the country
+people along the whole route displayed in favour of the proscribed exile
+of Elba.
+
+The Count d'Artois gave a very cold reception to the Prefect and his
+communications. He declared that the arrival of Napoleon at Grenoble was
+impossible; that no alarm need be apprehended respecting the disposition
+of the country people. "As regards the facts," said he to Fourier,
+"which would seem to have occurred in your presence at the very gates of
+the city, with respect to the tricoloured cockades substituted for the
+cockade of Henry IV., with respect to the eagles which you say have
+replaced the white flag, I do not suspect your good faith, but the
+uneasy state of your mind must have dazzled your eyes. Prefect, return
+then without delay to Grenoble; you will answer for the city with your
+head."
+
+You see, Gentlemen, after having so long proclaimed the necessity of
+telling the truth to princes, moralists will act wisely by inviting
+princes to be good enough to listen to its language.
+
+Fourier obeyed the order which had just been given him. The wheels of
+his carriage had made only a few revolutions in the direction of
+Grenoble, when he was arrested by hussars, and conducted to the
+head-quarters at Bourgoin. The Emperor, who was engaged in examining a
+large chart with a pair of compasses, said, upon seeing him enter:
+"Well, Prefect, you also have declared war against me?"--"Sire, my oath
+of allegiance made it my duty to do so!"--"A duty you say? and do you
+not see that in Dauphiny nobody is of the same mind? Do not imagine,
+however, that your plan of the campaign will frighten me much. It only
+grieved me to see among my enemies an _Egyptian_, a man who had eaten
+along with me the bread of the bivouac, an old friend!"
+
+It is painful to add that to those kind words succeeded these also:
+"How, moreover, could you have forgotten, Monsieur Fourier, that I have
+made you what you are?"
+
+You will regret with me, Gentlemen, that a timidity, which circumstances
+would otherwise easily explain, should have prevented our colleague from
+at once emphatically protesting against this confusion, which the
+powerful of the earth are constantly endeavouring to establish between
+the perishable bounties of which they are the dispensers, and the noble
+fruits of thought. Fourier was Prefect and Baron by the favour of the
+Emperor; he was one of the glories of France by his own genius!
+
+On the 9th of March, Napoleon, in a moment of anger, ordered Fourier, by
+a mandate, dated from Grenoble, _to quit the territory of the seventh
+military division within five days, under pain of being arrested and
+treated as an enemy of the country!_ On the following day, our colleague
+departed from the Conference of Bourgoin, with the appointment of
+Prefect of the Rhone and the title of _Count_, for the Emperor after his
+return from Elba was again at his old practices.
+
+These unexpected proofs of favour and confidence afforded little
+pleasure to our colleague, but he dared not refuse them, although he
+perceived very distinctly the immense gravity of the events in which he
+was led by the vicissitude of fortune to play a part.
+
+"What do you think of my enterprise?" said the Emperor to him on the day
+of his departure from Lyons. "Sire," replied Fourier, "I am of opinion
+that you will fail. Let but a fanatic meet you on your way, and all is
+at an end."--"Bah!" exclaimed Napoleon, "the Bourbons have nobody on
+their side, not even a fanatic. In connection with this circumstance,
+you have read in the journals that they have excluded me from the
+protection of the law. I shall be more indulgent on my part; I shall
+content myself with excluding them from the Tuileries."
+
+Fourier held the appointment of Prefect of the Rhone only till the 1st
+of May. It has been alleged that he was recalled, because he refused to
+be accessory to the deeds of terrorism which the minister of the hundred
+days enjoined him to execute. The Academy will always be pleased when I
+collect together, and place on record, actions which, while honouring
+its members, throw new lustre around the entire body. I even feel that,
+in such a case, I may be disposed to be somewhat credulous. On the
+present occasion, it was imperatively necessary to institute a most
+rigorous examination. If Fourier honoured himself by refusing to obey
+certain orders, what are we to think of the minister of the interior
+from whom those orders emanated? Now this minister, it must not be
+forgotten, was also an academician, illustrious by his military
+services, distinguished by his mathematical works, esteemed and
+cherished by all his colleagues. Well! I declare, Gentlemen, with a
+satisfaction which you will all share, that a most scrupulous
+investigation of all the acts of the hundred days has not disclosed a
+trace of anything which might detract from the feelings of admiration
+with which the memory of Carnot is associated in your minds.
+
+Upon quitting the Prefecture of the Rhone, Fourier repaired to Paris.
+The Emperor, who was then upon the eve of setting out to join the army,
+perceiving him amid the crowd at the Tuileries, accosted him in a
+friendly manner, informed him that Carnot would explain to him why his
+displacement at Lyons had become indispensable, and promised to attend
+to his interest as soon as military affairs would allow him some leisure
+time. The second restoration found Fourier in the capital without
+employment, and justly anxious with respect to the future. He, who,
+during a period of fifteen years, administered the affairs of a great
+department; who directed works of such an expensive nature; who, in the
+affair of the marshes of Bourgoin, had to contract engagements for so
+many millions, with private individuals, with the communes and with
+public companies, had not _twenty thousand francs_ in his possession.
+This honourable poverty, as well as the recollection of glorious and
+important services, was little calculated to make an impression upon
+ministers influenced by political passion, and subject to the capricious
+interference of foreigners. A demand for a pension was accordingly
+repelled with rudeness. Be reassured, however, France will not have to
+blush for having left in poverty one of her principal ornaments. The
+Prefect of Paris,--I have committed a mistake, Gentlemen, a proper name
+will not be out of place here,--M. Chabrol, learns that his old
+professor at the Polytechnic School, that the Perpetual Secretary of the
+Institute of Egypt, that the author of the _Theorie Analytique de la
+Chaleur_, was reduced, in order to obtain the means of living, to give
+private lessons at the residences of his pupils. The idea of this
+revolts him. He accordingly shows himself deaf to the clamours of party,
+and Fourier receives from him the superior direction of the _Bureau de
+la Statistique_ of the Seine, with a salary of 6,000 francs. It has
+appeared to me, Gentlemen, that I ought not to suppress these details.
+Science may show herself grateful towards all those who give her support
+and protection, when there is some danger in doing so, without fearing
+that the burden should ever become too heavy.
+
+Fourier responded worthily to the confidence reposed in him by M. de
+Chabrol. The memoirs with which he enriched the interesting volumes
+published by the Prefecture of the Seine, will serve henceforth as a
+guide to all those who have the good sense to see in statistics,
+something else than an indigestible mass of figures and tables.
+
+
+
+
+ENTRANCE OF FOURIER INTO THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.--HIS ELECTION TO THE
+OFFICE OF PERPETUAL SECRETARY.--HIS ADMISSION TO THE FRENCH ACADEMY.
+
+The Academy of Sciences seized the first occasion which offered itself
+to attach Fourier to its interests. On the 27th of May, 1816, he was
+nominated a free academician. This election was not confirmed. The
+solicitations and influence of the Dauphin whom circumstances detained
+at Paris, had almost disarmed the authorities, when a courtier exclaimed
+that an amnesty was to be granted to _the civil Labedoyere!_[41] This
+word,--for during many ages past the poor human race has been governed
+by words,--decided the fate of our colleague. Thanks to political
+intrigue, the ministers of Louis XVIII. decided that one of the most
+learned men of France should not belong to the Academy; that a citizen
+who enjoyed the friendship of all the most distinguished persons in the
+metropolis, should be publicly stricken with disapprobation!
+
+In our country, the reign of absurdity does not last long. Accordingly
+in 1817, when the Academy, without being discouraged by the ill success
+of its first attempt, unanimously nominated Fourier to the place which
+had just been vacant in the section of physics, the royal confirmation
+was accorded without difficulty. I ought to add that soon afterwards,
+the ruling authorities whose repugnances were entirely dissipated,
+frankly and unreservedly applauded the happy choice which you made of
+the learned geometer to replace Delambre as perpetual secretary. They
+even went so far as to offer him the Directorship of the Fine Arts; but
+our colleague had the good sense to refuse the appointment.
+
+Upon the death of Lemontey, the French Academy, where Laplace and Cuvier
+already represented the sciences, called also Fourier into its bosom.
+The literary titles of the most eloquent of the writers connected with
+the work on Egypt were incontestable; they even were not contested, and
+still this nomination excited violent discussions in the journals, which
+profoundly grieved our colleague. And yet after all, was it not a fit
+subject for discussion, whether, these double nominations are of any
+real utility? Might it not be maintained, without incurring the reproach
+of paradox, that it extinguishes in youth an emulation which we are
+bound by every consideration to encourage? Besides, with double, triple,
+and quadruple academicians, what would eventually become of the justly
+boasted unity of the Institute? Without insisting further on these
+remarks, the justness of which you will admit if I mistake not, I hasten
+to repeat that the academic titles of Fourier did not form even the
+subject of a doubt. The applause which was lavished upon the eloquent
+eloges of Delambre, of Breguet, of Charles, and of Herschel, would
+sufficiently evince that, if their author had not been already one of
+the most distinguished members of the Academy of Sciences, the public
+would have invited him to assume a place among the judges of French
+literature.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[41] In allusion to the _military_ traitor Colonel Labedoyere, who was
+condemned to death for espousing the cause of Napoleon.--_Translator_.
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTER OF FOURIER.--HIS DEATH.
+
+Restored at length, after so many vicissitudes, to his favourite
+pursuits, Fourier passed the last years of his life in retirement and
+in the discharge of academic duties. _To converse_ had become the half
+of his existence. Those who have been disposed to consider this the
+subject of just reproach, have no doubt forgotten that constant
+reflection is no less imperiously forbidden to man than the abuse of
+physical powers. Repose, in every thing, recruits our frail machine;
+but, Gentlemen, he who desires repose may not obtain it. Interrogate
+your own recollections and say, if, when you are pursuing a new truth, a
+walk, the intercourse of society, or even sleep, have the privilege of
+distracting you from the object of your thoughts? The extremely
+shattered state of Fourier's health enjoined the most careful attention.
+After many attempts, he only found one means of escaping from the
+contentions of mind which exhausted him: this consisted in speaking
+aloud upon the events of his life; upon his scientific labours, which
+were either in course of being planned, or which were already
+terminated; upon the acts of injustice of which he had reason to
+complain. Every person must have remarked, how insignificant was the
+state which our gifted colleague assigned to those who were in the habit
+of conversing with him; we are now acquainted with the cause of this.
+
+Fourier had preserved, in old age, the grace, the urbanity, the varied
+knowledge which, a quarter of a century previously, had imparted so
+great a charm to his lectures at the Polytechnic School. There was a
+pleasure in hearing him relate the anecdote which the listener already
+knew by heart, even the events in which the individual had taken a
+direct part. I happened to be a witness of the kind of _fascination_
+which he exercised upon his audience, in connection with an incident
+which deserves to be known, for it will prove that the word which I have
+just employed is not in anywise exaggerated.
+
+We found ourselves seated at the same table. The guest from whom I
+separated him was an old officer. Our colleague was informed of this,
+and the question, "Have you been in Egypt?" served as the commencement
+of a conversation between them. The reply was in the affirmative.
+Fourier hastened to add: "As regards myself, I remained in that
+magnificent country until the period of its complete evacuation.
+Although foreign to the profession of arms, I have, in the midst of our
+soldiers, fired against the insurgents of Cairo; I have had the honour
+of hearing the cannon of Heliopolis." Hence to give an account of the
+battle was but a step. This step was soon made, and we were presented
+with four battalions drawn up in squares in the plain of Quoubbeh, and
+manoeuvring, with admirable precision, conformably to the orders of
+the illustrious geometer. My neighbour, with attentive ear, with
+immovable eyes, and with outstretched neck, listened to this recital
+with the liveliest interest. He did not lose a single syllable of it:
+one would have sworn that he had for the first time heard of those
+memorable events. Gentlemen, it is so delightful a task to please! After
+having remarked the effect which he produced, Fourier reverted, with
+still greater detail, to the principal fight of those great days: to the
+capture of the fortified village of Mattaryeh, to the passage of two
+feeble columns of French grenadiers across ditches heaped up with the
+dead and wounded of the Ottoman army. "Generals ancient and modern, have
+sometimes spoken of similar deeds of prowess," exclaimed our colleague,
+"but it was in the hyperbolic style of the bulletin: here the fact is
+materially true,--it is true like geometry. I feel conscious, however,"
+added he, "that in order to induce your belief in it, all my assurances
+will not be more than sufficient."
+
+"Do not be anxious upon this point," replied the officer, who at that
+moment seemed to awaken from a long dream. "In case of necessity, I
+might guarantee the accuracy of your statement. It was I who, at the
+head of the grenadiers of the 13th and 85th semi-brigades, forced the
+entrenchments of Mattaryeh, by passing over the dead bodies of the
+Janissaries!"
+
+My neighbour was General Tarayre: you may imagine much better than I can
+express, the effect of the few words which had just escaped from him.
+Fourier made a thousand excuses, while I reflected upon the seductive
+influence, upon the power of language, which for more than half an hour
+had robbed the celebrated general even of the recollection of the part
+which he had played in the battle of giants he was listening to.
+
+The more our secretary had occasion to converse, the greater repugnance
+he experienced to verbal discussions. Fourier cut short every debate as
+soon as there presented itself a somewhat marked difference of opinion,
+only to resume afterwards the same subject upon the modest pretext of
+making a small step in advance each time. Some one asked Fontaine, a
+celebrated geometer of this Academy, how he occupied his thoughts in
+society, wherein he maintained an almost absolute silence: "I observe,"
+he replied, "the vanity of mankind, to wound it as occasion offers." If,
+like his predecessor, Fourier also studied the baser passions which
+contend for honours, riches, and power, it was not in order to engage in
+hostilities with them: resolved never to compromise matters with them,
+he yet so calculated his movements beforehand, as not to find himself in
+their way. We perceive a wide difference between this disposition and
+the ardent impetuous character of the young orator of the popular
+society of Auxerre. But what purpose would philosophy serve, if it did
+not teach us to conquer our passions? It is not that occasionally the
+natural disposition of Fourier did not display itself in full relief.
+"It is strange," said one day a certain very influential personage of
+the court of Charles X., whom Fourier's servant would not allow to pass
+beyond the antechamber of our colleague,--"it is truly strange that your
+master should be more difficult of access than a minister!" Fourier
+heard the conversation, leaped out of his bed to which he was confined
+by indisposition, opened the door of the chamber, and exclaimed, face to
+face with the courtier: "Joseph, tell Monsieur, that if I was minister,
+I should receive everybody, because it would be my duty to do so; but,
+being a private individual, I receive whomsoever I please, and at what
+hour soever I please!" Disconcerted by the liveliness of the retort, the
+great seignior did not utter one word in reply. We must even believe
+that from that moment he resolved not to visit any but ministers, for
+the plain man of science heard nothing more of him.
+
+Fourier was endowed with a constitution which held forth a promise of
+long life; but what can natural advantages avail against the
+anti-hygienic habits which men arbitrarily acquire! In order to guard
+against slight attacks of rheumatism, our colleague was in the habit of
+clothing himself, even in the hottest season of the year, after a
+fashion which is not practised even by travellers condemned to spend the
+winter amid the snows of the polar regions. "One would suppose me to be
+corpulent," he used to say occasionally with a smile; "be assured,
+however, that there is much to deduct from this opinion. If, after the
+example of the Egyptian mummies, I was subjected to the operation of
+disembowelment,--from which heaven preserve me,--the residue would be
+found to be a very slender body." I might add, selecting also my
+comparison from the banks of the Nile, that in the apartments of
+Fourier, which were always of small extent, and intensely heated even in
+summer, the currents of air to which one was exposed resembled sometimes
+the terrible simoon, that burning wind of the desert, which the caravans
+dread as much as the plague.
+
+The prescriptions of medicine which, in the mouth of M. Larrey, were
+blended with the anxieties of a long and constant friendship, failed to
+induce a modification of of this mortal regime. Fourier had already
+experienced, in Egypt and Grenoble, some attacks of aneurism of the
+heart. At Paris, it was impossible to be mistaken with respect to the
+primary cause of the frequent suffocations which he experienced. A fall,
+however, which he sustained on the 4th of May, 1830, while descending a
+flight of stairs, aggravated the malady to an extent beyond what could
+have been ever feared. Our colleague, notwithstanding pressing
+solicitations, persisted in refusing to combat the most threatening
+symptoms, except by the aid of patience and a high temperature. On the
+16th of May, 1830, about four o'clock in the evening, Fourier
+experienced in his study a violent crisis the serious nature of which he
+was far from being sensible of; for, having thrown himself completely
+dressed upon his bed, he requested M. Petit, a young doctor of his
+acquaintance who carefully attended him, not to go far away, in order,
+said he, that we may presently converse together. But to these words
+succeeded soon the cries, "Quick, quick! some vinegar! I am fainting!"
+and one of the men of science who has shed the brightest lustre upon the
+Academy had ceased to live.
+
+Gentlemen, this cruel event is too recent, that I should recall here
+the grief which the Institute experienced upon losing one of its most
+important members; and those obsequies, on the occasion of which so many
+persons, usually divided by interests and opinions, united together, in
+one common feeling of admiration and regret, around the mortal remains
+of Fourier; and the Polytechnic School swelling in a mass the cortege,
+in order to render homage to one of its earliest, of its most celebrated
+professors; and the words which, on the brink of the tomb, depicted so
+eloquently the profound mathematician, the elegant writer, the upright
+administrator, the good citizen, the devoted friend. We shall merely
+state that Fourier belonged to all the great learned societies of the
+world, that they united with the most touching unanimity in the mourning
+of the Academy, in the mourning of all France: a striking testimony that
+the republic of letters is no longer, in the present day, merely a vain
+name! What, then, was wanting to the memory of our colleague? A more
+able successor than I have been to exhibit in full relief the different
+phases of a life so varied, so laborious, so gloriously interlaced with
+the greatest events of the most memorable epochs of our history.
+Fortunately, the scientific discoveries of the illustrious secretary had
+nothing to dread from the incompetency of the panegyrist. My object will
+have been completely attained if, notwithstanding the imperfection of my
+sketches, each of you will have learned that the progress of general
+physics, of terrestrial physics, and of geology, will daily multiply the
+fertile applications of the _Theorie Analytique de la Chaleur_, and that
+this work will transmit the name of Fourier down to the remotest
+posterity.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+""Any books in this list will be sent free of
+postage, on receipt of price.
+
+
+BOSTON, 135 WASHINGTON STREET
+JANUARY, 1859.
+
+
+A LIST OF BOOKS
+
+published by
+
+TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
+
+
+Sir Walter Scott.
+
+ILLUSTRATED HOUSEHOLD EDITION OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS. In portable size,
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+
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+This Edition contains all the latest notes and corrections of the
+author, a Glossary and Index; and some curious additions, especially in
+"Guy Mannering" and the "Bride of Lammermoor;" being the fullest edition
+of the Novels ever published. _The notes are at the foot of the
+page_,--a great convenience to the reader.
+
+
+Any of the following Novels sold separate.
+
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+     BLACK DWARF,            )
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+     HEART OF MID LOTHIAN, 2 vols.
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+     PEVERIL OF THE PEAK, 2 vols.
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+     REDGAUNTLET, 2 vols.
+     THE BETROTHED,          )
+     THE HIGHLAND WIDOW,     ) 2 vols.
+     THE TALISMAN,                   )
+     TWO DROVERS,                    )
+     MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR,      ) 2 vols.
+     THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER,         )
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+     THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTER,     )
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+     INDEX AND GLOSSARY.         )
+
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