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 againstlos 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 theMécanique Célestehad 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 anabsolutemanner; but when I judged bycomparison, 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 theRecueil des Tablesof the Bureau of Longitude, and in theConnaissance 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 theMécanique 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,—
"Hisname is Arago?"
"What science do you cultivate?"
My neighbour on the left immediately replied,—
"Hecultivates 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,—
"Hehas 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 absurdmeteorology, 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 theGrey 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. Theprotégéof 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 thegreat electorof 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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
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 wordprescriptionwould 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.
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 theItalian Comedy; but the son commenced at the age of sixteen by a serious work of time,—a tragedy.
This tragedy was entitledClothaire. 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 exposingClothaireto the risk of a public representation. On the advice of the comedian-author, the young poet tookIphygenia in Taurisfor 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 ofMahomet 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 ofAsparalso 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, producingTheagenes and Charicles, and theInimical Brothers; that Crébillon was nearly forty years of age when he composed a tragedy onThe 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 DoctorsandThe 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.
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 callindolent vision(the only sort that the ancients ever required) must substitutestrained 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 ofObservatoryto 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.