EVARISTE GALOIS 91 



from among his papers. Thus his second memoir was lost like the 

 former. This was too much indeed and one will easily forgive the 

 wretched boy if in his feverish mood he was inclined to believe 

 that these repeated losses were not due to chance but to sys- 

 tematic persecution. He considered himself a victim of a bad social 

 organization which ever sacrifices genius to mediocrity, and nat- 

 urally enough he cursed the hated regime of oppression which 

 had precipitated his father's death and against which the storm 

 was gathering. We can well imagine his joy when he heard the 

 first shots of the July Revolution! But alas! While the boys of 

 Polytechnique were the very first in the fray, those of the Ecole 

 Normale were kept under lock and key by their faint-hearted di- 

 rector. It was only when the three glorious days of July were over 

 and the fall of the Bourbons was accomplished that this oppor- 

 tunist let his students out and indeed placed them at the disposal 

 of the provisional government! Never did Galois feel more bitterly 

 that his life had been utterly spoiled by his failure to become an 

 alumnus of his beloved Polytechnique. 



In the meanwhile the summer holidays began and we do not 

 know what happened to the boy in the interval. It must have been 

 to him a new period of crisis, more acute than any of the previous 

 ones. But before speaking of it let me say a last word about his 

 scientific efforts, for it is probable that thereafter political passion 

 obsessed his mind almost exclusively. At any rate it is certain that 

 Evariste was in the possession of his general principles by the be- 

 ginning of 1830, that is, at the age of eighteen, and that he fully 

 knew their importance. The consciousness of his power and of 

 the responsibility resulting from it increased the concentration 

 and the gloominess of his mind to the danger point; the lack of 

 recognition developed in him an excessive pride. By a strange 

 aberration he did not trouble himself to write his memoirs with 

 sufficient clearness to give the explanations which were the more 

 necessary because his thoughts were more novel. What a pity that 

 there was no understanding friend to whisper in his ear Descartes' 

 wise admonition: "When you have to deal with transcendent 



