96 THE LIFE OF SCIENCE 



I repent having told a baleful truth to men who were so little 

 able to listen to it coolly. Yet I have told the truth. I take with me 

 to the grave a conscience free from He, free from patriots' blood. 



Good-bye! I had in me a great deal of life for the public good. 



Forgiveness for those who killed me; they are of good faith. 



E. Galois 



Any comment could but detract from the pathos of this docu- 

 ment. I will only remark that the last line, in which Galois ab- 

 solves his adversaries, destroys his brother's theory. It is simpler 

 to admit that his impetuosity, aggravated by female intrigue, had 

 placed him in an impossible position from which there was no 

 honorable issue, according to the standards of the time, but a 

 duel. Evariste was too much of a gentleman to try to evade the 

 issue, however trifling its causes might be; he was anxious to pay 

 the full price of his folly. That he well realized the tragedy of his 

 life is quite clear from the laconic post-scriptum of his second 

 letter: Aliens lux, horrenda procella, tenebris ceternis involuta. 

 The last letter addressed to his friend, Auguste Chevalier, was a 

 sort of scientific testament. Its seven pages, hastily written, dated 

 at both ends, contain a summary of the discoveries which he had 

 been unable to develop. This statement is so concise and so full 

 that its significance could be understood only gradually as the 

 theories outlined by him were unfolded by others. It proves the 

 depth of his insight, for it anticipates discoveries of a much later 

 date. At the end of the letter, after requesting his friend to pub- 

 lish it and to ask Jacobi or Gauss to pronounce upon it, he added : 

 "After that, I hope some people will find it profitable to unravel 

 this mess. Je t'embrasse avec effusion/' — The first sentence is 

 rather scornful but not untrue and the greatest mathematicians of 

 the century have found it very profitable indeed to clear up 

 Galois' ideas. 



The duel took place on the 30th in the early morning, and he 

 was grievously wounded by a shot in the abdomen. He was found 

 by a peasant who transported him at 9:30 to the Hopital Cochin. 

 His younger brother — the only member of the family to be noti- 



