4 M. Arago's Historical Eloge of Joseph Fourier. 



iirst compositions of the youth of Fourier, as, when divulging 

 the plagiarism, he had the discretion never to name those who 

 pi'ofited by it. 



Fourier had, when thirteen, the petulance and noisy vivacity 

 of most young people of that age, but his character changed 

 suddenly, and, as if by enchantment, from the moment that he 

 was initiated in the first notions of Mathematics, that is to say, 

 whenever he had become aware of his true calling. The regular 

 hours of study no longer sufficed for his insatiable curiosity. 

 Pieces of candles, carefully collected in the kitchen, and in 

 the corridors and the refectory of the college, served at night, 

 in a chimney corner shut in by a folding screen, to light the 

 solitary studies that were the prelude to those works by which, 

 a few years afterwards, Fourier was to do honour to his name 

 and his country. 



In a military school directed by monks, the inclinations of 

 the pupils were likely to fluctuate only between two careers, — 

 the church and the army. Like D^ scartes, Fourier wished to 

 become a soldier ; like Descartes, :.j would, without doubt, 

 very soon have bepome tired of a garrison life ; he was not, 

 however, allowed to make trial of it. His request to undergo 

 an examination for the artillery, although strenuously supported 

 by our illustrious fellow member Legendre, was refused with a 

 cynical remark of which you yourselves shall judge; — " As 

 Fourier,"" replied the minister, " is not noble, he could not be 

 admitted into the artillery, although he were a second Newton !" 



There is, gentlemen, in .the strict enforcement of regulations, 

 even when they are of the most absurd description, something 

 respectable, which I take pleasure in acknowledging. In re- 

 gard to this circumstance nothing could diminish the odious 

 nature of the ministerial words. It is not true, in point of fact, 

 that there was formerly no admission into the artillery, unless 

 for those who had titles of nobility ; — a certain degree of for- 

 tune often supplied the want of parchment. Thus, it was not 

 only something undefinable, and which, be it remarked, our 

 ancestors the Franks had not invented, that was awanting in 

 the young Fourier ; it was a certain amount of income whose 

 equivalent the men, at that time placed at the head of affairs, 

 would have refused to see in the genius of a second Newton I 

 Let us, gentlemen, preserve the remembrance of these things ; 



