Part 31 (1/2)
It is to the Normal School that we must inevitably ascend if ould desire to ascertain the earliest public teaching of _descriptive Geoe It is from this source that it has passed almost without modification to the Polytechnic School, to foundries, to manufactories, and the most humble workshops
The establishly 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 tied them to recast upon new bases the works destined for instruction
With soed in the cultivation of science constituted formerly in France a class totally distinct froeometers, the first philosophers, and the first naturalists of the world to be professors, the Convention thre lustre upon the profession of teaching, the advantageous influence of which is felt in the present day In the opinion of the public at large a title which a Lagrange, a Laplace, a Monge, a Berthollet, had borne, became a proper match to the finest titles If under the e its active professors councillors of state, ministers, and the president of the senate, you iven by the Nores, professors concealed in so 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 sa of this kind existed at the Normal School; oral lessons alone were there permitted The authorities even went so far as to require of the illustrious savans appointed to the task of instruction the forht 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, soreater speed, so his steps, of awakening the attention by so in a new forht which, when first expressed, had left some doubts in the minds of his audience
And do not suppose that the beautiful impromptu lectures hich the amphitheatre of the Normal School resounded, remained unknown to the public Short-hand writers paid by the State reported the revised by the professors, were sent to the fifteen hundred pupils, to the ents of the Republic in foreign countries, to all governors of districts There was in this so certainly of profusion compared with the parsimonious and mean habits of our time nobody, however, would concur in this reproach, however slight it may appear, if I were permitted to point out in this very apartenius akened by the lectures of the Normal School in an obscure district town!
The necessity of denored in the present day, for which the dissemination of the sciences is indebted to the first North on the subject than I intended I hope to be pardoned; the exaiuer fashi+onable 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 onic drauard of tooto fear froic
I have already stated that the brilliant success of Fourier at the Nor the persons whoree with the talent of public tuition Accordingly, he was not forgotten by the founders of the Polytechnic School Attached to that celebrated establishment, first with the title of Superintendent of Lectures on Fortification, afterwards appointed to deliver a course of lectures on analysis, Fourier has left there a venerated nauished 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 ofof 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 co applications, and of historical details little known, and derived, a thing so rare in our days, froinal sources
We have now arrived at the epoch when the peace of Leoben brought back to the metropolis the principal ornaments of our armies Then the professors and the pupils of the Polytechnic School had so in their a indicated to them then an active participation in the events which each foresaw, and which in fact were not long of occurring
Notwithstanding the precarious condition of Europe, the Directory decided upon denuding the country of its best troops, and launching them upon an adventurous expedition The five chiefs of the Republic were then desirous of re an end to the popular demonstrations of which he everywhere formed the object, and which sooner or later would becoer
On the other hand, the illustrious general did not dreaypt; he wished to restore to that country its ancient splendour; he wished to extend its cultivation, to iation, to create new branches of industry, to open to co hand to the unfortunate inhabitants, to rescue thees, in a word, to bestow upon them without delay all the benefits of European civilization Designs of such nitude 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 e and Berthollet, both members of the Institute and Professors in the Polytechnic School, beca 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 per 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 iue, 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 a else than refusals; but in 1798, France had hardly e which her very existence was frequently at stake Who, besides, had not encountered ier? 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 uishi+ng features of the epoch of the Directory
Fourier accepted then without hesitation the proposals which his colleagues brought to hireeable 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 friendshi+p which the philosopher and the warrior vowed to each other from that moment was not without soypt was the theatre after the departure of Napoleon
He who signed his orders of the day, the _Member of the Institute, Commander-in-Chief of the Ar the dom of the Pharaohs The valiant army which he commanded had barely conquered at Cairo, on the occasion of the ypt sprung into existence It consisted of forty-eight e had the honour of being the first president As at Paris, Bonaparte belonged to the section of Mathe up of which was left to the free choice of the Society, was unanined to Fourier
You have seen the celebrated geoe the same duty at the Academy of Sciences; you have appreciated his liberality ofaffability, his straightforward and conciliatory disposition: add in iination to so many rare qualities the activity which youth, which health can alone give, and you will have again conjured into existence the Secretary of the Institute of Egypt; and yet the portrait which I have atteinal
Upon the banks of the Nile, Fourier devoted himself to assiduous researches on ale which the vast plan of the Institute eypt_ will acquaint the reader with the titles of his different labours I find in these journals a ebraic equations; researches on the methods of eliebra; a eneral 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 Me-places; a descriptive account of the revolutions and ypt, from the tiyptian _Decade_, that, on the first complementary day of the year VI, Fourier communicated to the Institute the description of a ation, and which was to be driven by the power of wind
This work, so far reue, has not been printed It would very naturally find a place in a work of which the Expedition to Egyptthe 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 ar our infancy, the expedients which Robinson Crusoe practised in order to escape froers which he had incessantly to encounter, excite our interest in a lively degree, how, in ard with indifference a handful of Frenchmen thrown upon the inhospitable shores of Africa, without any possible coed to contend at once with the elements and with for, of ar every want by the force of genius!
The long route which I have yet to traverse, will hardly allow me to add a feords relative to the adeometer Appointed French Commissioner at the Divan of Cairo, he became the official ht have to coainst his person, his property, his morals, his habits, or his creed An invariable sauvity of ard for prejudices to oppose which directly would have been vain, an inflexible sentiiven 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 Ulele anecdote will serve to show that this sentiratitude
The Eey, or Prince of the Caravan, who had been nominated by General Bonaparte upon his arrival in Cairo, escaped during the carounds at the ti that four _Cheiks Ulemas_ had rendered themselves accoypt, Bonaparte confided the investigation of this grave affair to Fourier ”Do not,” said he, ”subes: we must either cut off their heads or invite the 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 ue, M Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, to whom I am indebted for this anecdote, has stated in fact that Soleyyptian chiefs, whose punishue, was so happily transfor their countryenerosity 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 ootiation This is deeply to be regretted, for the plenipotentiary of Mourad was a woman, the sa her _beneficence_, _her noble character_, in the bulletin of Heliopolis, and who moreover was already celebrated from one extremity of Asia to the other, in consequence of the bloody revolutions which her unparalleled beauty had excited a the Maained over the ary of the Janissaries, who had seized upon Cairo while the as raging at Heliopolis They defended theed 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 hareroves 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 welcoes, a great number of musket-shots were fired froh 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 adue, I should have to show hilish fleet, at the instant of the capitulation of Menou, stipulating for certain guarantees in favour of the ypt; but services of no less importance and of a different nature demand also our attention They will even colorious ypt, as acity, the moderation, and the inflexible justice of all his acts, as by the rapidity and boldness of his military operations Bonaparte then appointed two nuions, a multitude of monuments of which the moderns hardly suspected the existence Fourier and Costas were the commandants of these co ned to the tribes of Arabs that the astronomer found in the raphical map; that the naturalist collected unknown plants, deterical constitution of the soil, occupied himself with troublesome dissections; that the antiquary measured the dimensions of edifices, that he attees hich every thing was covered in that singular country,--from the smallest pieces of furniture, froious palaces, to those immense facades, beside which the vastest of modern constructions would hardly attract a look
The two learned conificent temple of the ancient Tentyris, and especially the series of astronons 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 astonishypt over these memorable works, when the Commander-in-Chief suddenly quitted Alexandria and returned to France with his principal friends Those persons then were very ue on board the frigate _Muiron_ beside Monge and Berthollet, iined that Bonaparte did not appreciate his eer, this arose froues from the Mediterranean when the _Muiron_ set sail The explanation contains nothing striking, but it is true In any case, the friendly feeling of Kleber towards the Secretary of the Institute of Egypt, the influence which he justly granted to him on a multitude of delicate occasions, amply compensated him for an unjust oestive of painful recollections, when the _Agas_ of the Janissaries who had fled into Syria, having despaired of vanquishi+ng our troops so admirably commanded, by the honourable arer of the assassin You are aware that a young fanatic, whose ih 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 proed our colony into profound grief The Egyptians theled their tears with those of the French soldiers By a delicacy of feeling which we should be wrong in supposing the Mahometans not to be capable of, they did not then omit, they have not since omitted, to remark, that the assassin and his three accomplices were not born on the banks of the Nile
The arrief, desired that the funeral of Kleber should be celebrated with great pomp It wished, also, that on that sole series of brilliant actions which will transeneral to the remotest posterity By unanimous consent this honourable and perilous mission was confided to Fourier