Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men. François Arago
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