Part 34 (1/2)

Restored at length, after so many vicissitudes, to his favourite pursuits, Fourier passed the last years of his life in retiree of academic duties _To converse_ had become the half of his existence Those who have been disposed to consider this the subject of just reproach, have no doubt forgotten that constant reflection is no less imperiously forbidden to , recruits our frail machine; but, Gentleate your own recollections and say, if, when you are pursuing a new truth, a walk, the intercourse of society, or even sleep, have the privilege of distracting you frohts? The extremely shattered state of Fourier's health enjoined the most careful attention

Afterfrom the contentions ofaloud upon the events of his life; upon his scientific labours, which were either in course of being planned, or which were already terminated; upon the acts of injustice of which he had reason to conificant was the state which our gifted colleague assigned to those ere in the habit of conversing with him; we are now acquainted with the cause of this

Fourier had preserved, in old age, the grace, the urbanity, the varied knowledge which, a quarter of a century previously, had ireat a charm to his lectures at the Polytechnic School There was a pleasure in hearing him relate the anecdote which the listener already knew by heart, even the events in which the individual had taken a direct part I happened to be a witness of the kind of _fascination_ which he exercised upon his audience, in connection with an incident which deserves to be known, for it will prove that the hich I have just eerated

We found ourselves seated at the sauest froue was inforypt?” served as the commencement of a conversation between them The reply was in the affirards nificent country until the period of its con to the profession of arainst the insurgents of Cairo; I have had the honour of hearing the cannon of Heliopolis” Hence to give an account of the battle was but a step This step was soon made, and ere presented with four battalions drawn up in squares in the plain of Quoubbeh, and , with admirable precision, conforhbour, with attentive ear, with immovable eyes, and with outstretched neck, listened to this recital with the liveliest interest He did not lose a single syllable of it: one would have sworn that he had for the first tihtful a task to please! After having remarked the effect which he produced, Fourier reverted, with still greater detail, to the principal fight of those great days: to the capture of the fortified village of Mattaryeh, to the passage of two feeble colurenadiers across ditches heaped up with the dead and wounded of the Ottoman army ”Generals ancient and modern, have sometiue, ”but it was in the hyperbolic style of the bulletin: here the fact is eometry I feel conscious, however,”

added he, ”that in order to induce your belief in it, all my assurances will not be more than sufficient”

”Do not be anxious upon this point,” replied the officer, who at thatdreauarantee the accuracy of your staterenadiers of the 13th and 85th seades, forced the entrench over the dead bodies of the Janissaries!”

My neighbour was General Tarayre: you ine much better than I can express, the effect of the feords which had just escaped from him

Fourier made a thousand excuses, while I reflected upon the seductive influence, upon the power of language, which for eneral even of the recollection of the part which he had played in the battle of giants he was listening to

The nance he experienced to verbal discussions Fourier cut short every debate as soon as there presented itself a somewhat marked difference of opinion, only to resume afterwards the sa a small step in advance each tieohts in society, wherein he maintained an almost absolute silence: ”I observe,”

he replied, ”the vanity of mankind, to wound it as occasion offers” If, like his predecessor, Fourier also studied the baser passions which contend for honours, riches, and power, it was not in order to engage in hostilities with them: resolved never to compromise matters with them, he yet so calculated his movements beforehand, as not to find himself in their way We perceive a wide difference between this disposition and the ardent i orator of the popular society of Auxerre But what purpose would philosophy serve, if it did not teach us to conquer our passions? It is not that occasionally the natural disposition of Fourier did not display itself in full relief

”It is strange,” said one day a certain very influential personage of the court of Charles X, whom Fourier's servant would not allow to pass beyond the antechae that your master should be more difficult of access than a minister!” Fourier heard the conversation, leaped out of his bed to which he was confined by indisposition, opened the door of the chamber, and exclaimed, face to face with the courtier: ”Joseph, tell Monsieur, that if I was minister, I should receive everybody, because it would bea private individual, I receive whomsoever I please, and at what hour soever I please!” Disconcerted by the liveliness of the retort, the great seignior did not utter one word in reply We must even believe that from that moment he resolved not to visit any butmore of him

Fourier was endoith a constitution which held forth a proainst the anti-hygienic habits which ht attacks of rheu himself, even in the hottest season of the year, after a fashi+on which is not practised even by travellers condeions ”One would suppose me to be corpulent,” he used to say occasionally with a smile; ”be assured, however, that there is much to deduct froyptian mummies, I was subjected to the operation of disembowelment,--from which heaven preserve me,--the residue would be found to be a very slender body” Ialso my comparison from the banks of the Nile, that in the apartments of Fourier, which were always of small extent, and intensely heated even in summer, the currents of air to which one was exposed rese wind of the desert, which the caravans dread as ue

The prescriptions of medicine which, in theand constant friendshi+p, failed to induce a iypt and Grenoble, some attacks of aneurism of the heart At Paris, it was impossible to be mistaken with respect to the primary cause of the frequent suffocations which he experienced A fall, however, which he sustained on the 4th of May, 1830, while descending a flight of stairs, aggravated the malady to an extent beyond what could have been ever feared Our colleague, notwithstanding pressing solicitations, persisted in refusing to co syh temperature On the 16th of May, 1830, about four o'clock in the evening, Fourier experienced in his study a violent crisis the serious nature of which he was far fro thrown himself completely dressed upon his bed, he requested M Petit, a young doctor of his acquaintance who carefully attended hio far away, in order, said he, that we ether But to these words succeeded soon the cries, ”Quick, quick! so!”

and one of the htest lustre upon the Academy had ceased to live

Gentlemen, this cruel event is too recent, that I should recall here the grief which the Institute experienced upon losing one of its most important members; and those obsequies, on the occasion of which so many persons, usually divided by interests and opinions, united together, in one coret, around thein a e to one of its earliest, of its most celebrated professors; and the words which, on the brink of the tomb, depicted so eloquently the profound ht adood citizen, the devoted friend We shall reat learned societies of the world, that they united with theof the Acade testier, in the present day,to the ue? A more able successor than I have been to exhibit in full relief the different phases of a life so varied, so laborious, so gloriously interlaced with the greatest events of the most memorable epochs of our history

Fortunately, the scientific discoveries of the illustrious secretary had nothing to dread froyrist My object will have been co the imperfection of ress of general physics, of terrestrial physics, and of geology, will daily multiply the fertile applications of the _Theorie analytique de la Chaleur_, and that this ill transmit the name of Fourier down to the remotest posterity

THE END

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