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 pa.s.sed 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 const.i.tuted formerly in France a cla.s.s 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 l.u.s.tre 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 t.i.tle which a Lagrange, a Laplace, a Monge, a Berthollet, had borne, became a proper match to the finest t.i.tles. 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 ill.u.s.trious 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. n.o.body, however, would concur in this reproach, however slight it may appear, if I were permitted to point out in this very apartment an ill.u.s.trious 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 a.s.signed 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 t.i.tle of Superintendent of Lectures on Fortification, afterwards appointed to deliver a course of lectures on a.n.a.lysis, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 cooperation of several men of judgment and of experience. Monge and Berthollet, both members of the Inst.i.tute and Professors in the Polytechnic School, became, with a view to this object, the princ.i.p.al 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 Inst.i.tute, 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 Inst.i.tute 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 a.s.signed 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 Inst.i.tute 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 a.s.siduous researches on almost every branch of knowledge which the vast plan of the Inst.i.tute embraced. The _Decade_ and the _Courier of Egypt_ will acquaint the reader with the t.i.tles 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 a.n.a.lysis; 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 Inst.i.tute 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 sh.o.r.es of Africa, without any possible communication with the mother country, obliged to contend at once with the elements and with formidable armies, dest.i.tute 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 grat.i.tude.
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 p.r.o.nounce 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 princ.i.p.al 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 n.o.ble character_, in the bulletin of Heliopolis, and who moreover was already celebrated from one extremity of Asia to the other, in consequence of the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 pa.s.sed 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 Inst.i.tute 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 mult.i.tude 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 a.s.signed 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 const.i.tution 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.senger, this arose from the circ.u.mstance 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 Inst.i.tute of Egypt, the influence which he justly granted to him on a mult.i.tude 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 a.s.sa.s.sin. 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 a.s.sa.s.sin 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 pa.s.sed and you find him at the head of the Inst.i.tute 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 a.s.sault, 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sa.s.sin! I call you to witness, intrepid cavalry, who rushed to save him upon the heights of Koram, and dispelled in an instant the mult.i.tude 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 Inst.i.tute 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 t.i.tle 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 princ.i.p.al 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 l.u.s.tre 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 partic.i.p.ated 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 pa.s.sions 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 cla.s.ses 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 circ.u.mstance effected a reconciliation which the unalterable respect of the first magistrate of Gren.o.ble for all conscientious opinions cemented every day more and more.
As soon as he was a.s.sured 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 cla.s.s, the superb road from Gren.o.ble 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 doc.u.ments 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 munic.i.p.al 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 Gren.o.ble had just attained the twentieth year of his age.
Fate calls him to shoulder the musket. Fourier exempts him by investing him with the t.i.tle 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 Inst.i.tute, the contingent of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt of Paris in which he was cla.s.sed.
MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF HEAT.