CHABANEAU 65 



monk of the order of St. Antony, at Aveyron (in south-central France, a hundred 

 or so miles from Nontron). Young Chabaneau spent several years with this 

 uncle, pursuing his studies along ecclesiastical lines, destined for the church. 

 He was then sent to Paris for further theological study with the Oratorians, for 

 his uncle was evidently by no means an ascetic. Here, for the sake of his kins- 

 man, he entered upon his studies with great ardor and made such rapid progress 

 that he astonished his teachers; his theses were the admiration of all. Never- 

 theless, in spite of his brilliant successes, other influences were working on him, 

 as is so often the case with such natures. He was not born for metaphysical 

 studies; his inquiring disposition could not accommodate itself to the abstrac- 

 tions of scholastic philosophy. The unsupported scaffolding of theological 

 hypotheses, the interminable verbiage, the halting arguments of the doctors, all 

 failed to satisfy the spirt of the young Chabaneau and to accord with his ideas. 

 He demanded mathematical arguments, the definiteness of figures, exact science, 

 and not the science of paradoxes; his reason rebelled at the false ideas they 

 sought to teach him. In his dissertations he refuted his teachers by arguments 

 which they could not controvert, and did it so thoroughly that the furious pro- 

 fessors finally expelled their audacious scholar, as a punishment for his inde- 

 pendence and for his success. 



Behold now our young man in the streets of Paris, in the midst of the 

 immense Babylon, without relatives, without friends, having neither experience 

 of the world nor yet money! The six livres, which represented his whole for- 

 tune, had been expended in the purchase of a perruque, imperiously demanded 

 by the customs of the times. He dared not return to his angry uncle, nor indeed 

 had he the means for the journey. A kind Providence directed him to the abbe 1 

 La Bose, to whom he related his story and revealed the extreme embarrassment 

 in which he found himself. The worthy abb6 was greatly interested and offered 

 to place him as professor of mathematics in the Jesuit college at Passy (just 

 out of Paris), of which he was the director. The young theologian, whose studies 

 had been confined to Greek, Latin and philosophy, was absolutely unacquainted 

 even with arithmetic. He was greatly disappointed when he learned what his 

 employment would be, but necessity compelled him to seize even this plank of 

 safety; it was this or nothing. He unhesitatingly accepted the position, without 

 venturing to acknowledge his complete ignorance of the subject he was to teach; 

 he thought that perhaps by work and perseverance he might be able to fulfil his 

 duties. He gave proof on this occasion of energy rare in one of his age, for he 

 was only seventeen. 



It is related of Jacques Amyot, the celebrated translator of Plutarch, that 

 while he was a college servant, he was possessed of such a desire for knowledge, 

 that he studied at night by the light of the fire. Young Chabaneau, whom chance 

 and want compelled to teach others what he did not know himself, and who had 

 great ambition to worthily carry out his task, passed the nights in preparation 

 of the lessons for the following day. He hid his lamp, and then, when all the 

 college world slept, lit it and worked till day. And so it was that, with inde- 

 fatigable labor, aided by a powerful physical constitution, he made himself 

 master of arithmetic, algebra and geometry. Nor did he stop with these studies; 

 the passion for knowledge dominated him. He studied experimental physics, 

 natural history and chemistry, that prodigious science which had just begun to 

 give promise of the astounding wonders which have been realized in our day. 



Just at this time was beginning the most active period in the work 

 of Lavoisier, and it was the year before that he had presented to the 

 Academie des Sciences his refutation of the supposed transformation 



