2 Biographical Memoir of M. Duhamel. 



memory with that care which he himself too much neglected, 

 and to influence you in paying towards him the debt of his con- 

 temporaries. 



Jean Pierre- Fran90is-Guillot Duhamel, Inspector-Ge- 

 neral of the Mines, and member of the Academy of Sciences of 

 the Institute, was born on the 31st August 1730, at Nicorps 

 near Coutances, in the Department de La Manche, and was 

 descended from an old family in the province. 



From his earliest years, he was mild and reserved in his 

 manners, but manifested great steadiness in his undertakings. 

 His father, who intended him for the bar, placed him under the 

 care of an attorney, according to the practice which had become 

 necessary at that period, when, through the negligence and sel- 

 fishness of the professors, the instruction in law to be ob- 

 tained in the public schools had become utterly inefficient. 



Placing him with an attorney, and at the extremity of Lower 

 Normandy, was less likely to enable him to learn jurisprudence, 

 than to shew him chicanery in ail its deformity. Nor had the 

 profession any charm for him. A young man of his character 

 required another object of study; an irresistible presentiment 

 made him think there existed more worthy occupations ; and in 

 order to seek them unrestrained, without apprising any one, he 

 commenced making his escape from the sort of prison in which he 

 felt that his intellect could never be expanded. He had a grand- 

 uncle, who, after having long served as an engineer, without ob- 

 taining advancement, and after having in vain tried several 

 other professions, resolved to put an end to his disappointments 

 by becoming a capuchin friar. More fortunate under the frock 

 than in the world, he had arrived at the dignities of his order — 

 for there is no society of men, however humble, that has not dig- 

 nities and baits for ambition — and at this time he was guardian 

 of the capuchins of the city of Caen, and superior of those of 

 the provinces. It was with him that the young Duhamel sought 

 a refuge. 



A man such as he could not be insensible to evils which he 

 had himself experienced, nor to that restlessness so common in 

 youth of energetic minds, so long as they have not obtained the 

 true place assigned them by nature. He not only received his 



