JOSEPH FOURIER. 



BIOGrAniY READ BEFORE THE FREXCII ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, BY M. ARAGO. 



Gentlemen : In former times one Academician differed from another 

 only in the number, the nature, and the brilliancy of his discoveries. 

 Their lives, thrown in some respects into the same mold, consisted of 

 events little worthy of remark. A boyhood more or less studious ; pro- 

 gress sometimes slow, sometimes rapid ; inclinations thwarted by capri- 

 cious or shortsighted parents • inadequacy of means, the privations whi(;h 

 it introduces in its train ; thirty years of a laborious professors! ii[) and 

 difficult studies — such were the elements from which the admirable tal- 

 ents of the early secretaries of the Academy were enabled to execute 

 those portraits so piquant, so lively, and so varied, which form one of 

 the princi[)al ornaments of your learned collections. 



In the present day, biographies are less confined in tlieir object. The 

 convulsions which France has experienced in emancipating herself from 

 the swaddling-clothes of routine, of superstition, and of privilege, have 

 cast into the storms of political life citizens of all ages, of all conditions, 

 and of all characters. Thus has the Academy of Sciences ligured during 

 forty years in the devouring arena, wherein might and right have alter- 

 nately seized the supreme power by a glorious sacrifice of combatants 

 and victims! 



Recall to mind, for example, the immortal National Assembly. You 

 will find at its head a modest Academician, a pattern of all the private 

 virtues, the unfortunate Bailly, who, in the different phases of his politi- 

 cal life, knew how to reconcile a passionate aft'ection for his country with 

 a moderation which his most cruel enemies themselves have been com- 

 pelled to admire. 



When, at a later period, coalesced Europe launched against France a 

 million of soldiers ; when it became necessary to organize lV)r the crisis 

 fourteen armies, it was the ingenious author of the Ussai sur Ics Machines 

 and of the Geometric dcs Ponifions who directed this gigantic operation. 

 It was again Carnot, our honorable colleague, who presided over the 

 inconq)arable campaign of seventeen months, during which French 

 troops, novices in the profession of arms, gained eight pitched battles, 

 were victorious in one hundred and forty combats, occupied one hun- 

 dred and sixteen fortified places, and two hundred and thirty forts or 

 redoubts, enriched our arsenals with four thousand cannon and seventy 

 thousand muskets, took a hundred thousand prisoners, and adorned 

 the dome of the Invalids with ninety flags. During the same time 



