EVARISTE GALOIS 95 



One sees how his particular misery and his political grievances 

 are sadly muddled in his tired head. And a little further in the 

 same letter, in answer to a gentle warning by his friend : 



I like to doubt your cruel prophecy when you say that I shall 

 not work any more. But I admit it is not without likelihood. To be 

 a savant, I should need to be that alone. 7dy heart has revolted 

 against my head* I do not add as you do: It is a pity. 



Can a more tragic confession be imagined? One realizes that 

 there is no question here of a man possessing genius, but of genius 

 possessing a man. A man? a mere boy, a fragile little body divided 

 within itself by disproportionate forces, an undeveloped mind 

 crushed mercilessly between the exaltation of scientific discovery 

 and the exaltation of sentiment. 



Four days later two men challenged him to a duel. The circum- 

 stances of this affair are, and will ever remain, very mysterious. 

 According to Evariste's younger brother the duel was not fair. 

 Evariste, weak as he was, had to deal with two ruffians hired to 

 murder him. I find nothing to countenance this theory except that 

 he was challenged by two men at once. At any rate, it is certain 

 that the woman he had loved played a part in this fateful event. 

 On the day preceding the duel, Evariste wrote three letters of 

 which I translate one : 



May 29, 1832. 



Letter to all Republicans. 



I beg the patriots, my friends, not to reproach me for dying 

 otherwise than for the country. 



I die the victim of an infamous coquette. My life is quenched in 

 a miserable piece of gossip. 



Oh ! why do I have to die for such a little thing, to die for some- 

 thing so contemptible! 



I take heaven to witness that it is only under compulsion that I 

 have yielded to a provocation which I had tried to avert by all 

 means. 



* The italics arc mine. 



