138 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



the Cliaptals, tbe Fourcroys, the Monges, the Berthollets, rushed also 

 to the defense of French independence, some of them extracting from 

 our soil, by prodigies of industry, the very last atoms of saltpeter 

 which it contained ; others transforming, by the aid of uew and rapid 

 methods, the bells of the towns, viHages, and smallest hamlets into a 

 formidable artillery, which our enemies supposed, as indeed they had a 

 right to suppose, we were deprived of. At the voice of his country in 

 danger, another Academiciau, the young and learned Meunier, readily 

 renounced the seductive pursuits of the laboratory ; he went to distin- 

 guish himself upon the ramparts of Konigstein, to contribute as a hero 

 to the long defense of Mayence, and met his death, at the age of forty 

 years only, after having attained the highest position in a garrison 

 wherein shone the Aubert-Dubayets, the Beaupuys, the Haxos, the 

 Klebers. 



How could I forget here the last secretary of the original Academy? 

 Follow him into a celebrated assembly, into that convention, the sanguin- 

 ary delirium of which we might almost be inclined to pardon, when we 

 call to mind how gloriously terrible it was to the enemies of our inde- 

 pendence, and you will always see the illustrious Condorcet occupied 

 exclusively with the great interests of reason and humanity. Yon will 

 hear him denounce the shameful brigandage which for two centuries 

 laid waste the African continent by a .system of corruption ; demand in 

 a tone of profound conviction that the code be purified of the frightful 

 stain of capital punishment, which renders the error ol' the judge for- 

 ever irreparable. He is the official organ of the Assembly on every ottca- 

 sion when it is necessary to address soldiers, citizens, political parties, 

 or foreign nations in language worthy of France; he is not the tactician 

 of any party ; he incessantly entreats all of them to occupy tlieir atten- 

 tion less with their own interests and a little more with public mat- 

 ters ; he rei)lies, finally, to unjust reproaches of weakness by acts which 

 leave him the only alternative of the poison en]} or the scaffold. 



The French Eevolution thus threw the learned geometer, whose dis- 

 coveries T am about to celebrate, far away from the route which destiny 

 appeared to have traced out for him. In ordinary times it would be 

 about Dom * Joseph Fourier that the secretary of the Academy would 

 have deemed it his duty to have occu])ied your attention. It would be 

 the trancpiil, the retired life of a Benedictine which he would have 

 unfolded to you. The life of our colleague, on the contrary, will be agi- 

 tated and full of perils; it will pass into the fierce contentions of the 

 forum and amid the hazards of war ; it will be a prey to all the anxieties 

 which accomi)any a difficult administration. We shall find this life inti- 

 mately associated with the great events of our age. Let us hasten to 

 add, that it will be always worthy and honorable, and that the personal 

 qualities of the man of science will enhance the brilliancy of his dis- 

 coveries. 



*Aii abbreviation of Doniiuus, equivalent to the English <piefix Reverend.— TraMsktor. 



