REMINISCENCES OF DECEASED SAVANTS. 21 



ing his whole bearing. After a few weeks he disappeared as he had 

 come. "I must go," he said, "but I hope to be back soon." We were 

 surprised to discover now that Demarcay had had his yellow spot re- 

 moved it was owing to Regnault's urgent representations and, at the 

 same time, we learned that the time granted for scientific journeys to 

 every engineer of the School of Mines had expired in Regnault's case, 

 but that Liebig, who had immediately discerned the eminent talents of 

 the young man, had interceded in Regnault's behalf in Paris, in order 

 that another sojourn at Giessen might be allowed to him. The request 

 was granted, and Regnault came back. 



Ten years later my destiny brought me to Paris. Agassiz, with 

 whom I had worked five years at Neufchatel, had emigrated to America, 

 whither I did not want to accompany him. I was indebted to him for 

 letters of introduction to some of the prominent members of the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, which was then split into two great parties : one, 

 headed by Arago, embraced the few republicans, the mathematicians 

 and physicists ; the other, led by the elder Brongniart, embraced most 

 of the naturalists, the chemists, and the Orleanists. I had been recom- 

 mended to the latter group ; with Arago I was brought into closer con- 

 tact by several radical Alsacians, whose acquaintance I had made partly 

 during my flight from the gendarmes of his royal highness the Grand- 

 duke of Hesse, and partly afterward in Switzerland. I was to make 

 my living in Paris by reporting the proceedings of the Academy of 

 Sciences for the Augsburg Universal Gazette. Upon entering the 

 gloomy hall for the first time, I immediately noticed Regnault ; he sat 

 with his dreamy gaze before a few papers, as before the retorts in 

 the laboratory; and, after the lapse of ten years, looked as young 

 and fresh as at Giessen. Thus I saw him for three years in Paris, and 

 again after long intervals ; and when, during the Franco-German War, 

 he came to Geneva, broken-hearted because of the death of his excel- 

 lent son, who, in his youth, had caused him many a pang by his mad 

 freaks, but had afterward filled his heart with just pride and joy, the 

 deep furrows of suffering, and the consequences of a dangerous fall 

 several years before at the porcelain-factory of Sevres, had been unable 

 to obliterate his youthful appearance completely. But his last years 

 were a long, slow agony ; death had made the most cruel gaps in his 

 family already, prior to the death of his son ; the war had rudely de- 

 stroyed the instruments which he had patiently collected for many 

 years at Sevres, and this destruction had affected him the more pain- 

 fully, as the utmost precision and the most conscientious calculation 

 formed the most essential peculiarity of his labors. Ever studious to 

 detect the most insignificant sources of errors, to reduce miscalcula- 

 tions to their very minimum, to bring his apparatus and instruments 

 to the highest degree of efficiency and technical perfection, Regnault 

 will always be a shining model for those moving in similar paths of 

 experimental physics. 



