JOSEPH FOURIER. 143 



eloquently, he iuduced so many voluntary enrollments, that the ballot 

 was not deemed necessary. At the command of the orator the contin- 

 gent assigned to the chief town of the Yonne formed in order, assembled 

 together within the very enclosure of the Assembly, and marched forth- 

 with to the frontier. Unfortunately these struggles of the forum, in 

 which so many noble lives then exercised themselves, were far from 

 having always a real importance, llidiculous, absurd, and burlesque 

 notions injured incessantly the inspirations of a pure, sincere, and en- 

 lightened patriotism. The popular society of Auxerre would furnish us, 

 in case of necessity, with more than one example of those lamentable 

 contrasts. Thus I might say that in the very same apartment wherein 

 Fourier knew how to excite the honorable sentiments wldcli I ha^'e with 

 pleasure recalled to mind, he had on another occasion to contend with 

 a certain orator, perhaps of good intentions, but assuredly a bad astron- 

 omer, who wishing to escape, said he, from the fjood pleasure of munici- 

 pal rulers, proposed that the names of the north, east, south, and west 

 quarters should be assigned by lot to the different parts of the town of 

 Auxerre. 



Literature, the fine arts, and the sciences appeared for a moment to 

 flourish under the auspicious influence of the French Eevolution. Ob- 

 serve, for example, with what grandeur of conception the reformation 

 of weights and measures was planned ; what geometers, what astrono- 

 mers, what eminent philosophers presided over every department of this 

 noble undertaking ! Alas ! frightful revolutions in the interior of the 

 country soon saddened this magnificent spectacle. The sciences could 

 not prosper in the midst of the desperate contest of factions. They 

 would have blushed to owe any obligations to the men of blood, whose 

 blind passions immolated a Saron, a Bailly, and a Lavoisicre. 



A few months after the 9th Thermidor, the convention being desirous 

 of diffusing throughout the country ideas of order, civilization, and in- 

 ternal pi'osperity, resolved upon organizing a system of public instruc- 

 tion, but a difticulty arose in finding professors. The members of the 

 corps of instruction had become ofticers of artillery, of engineering, or 

 of the staff, and were combating the enemies of France at the frontiers. 

 Fortunately at this epoch of intellectual exaltation, nothing seemed im- 

 possible. Professors were wanting: it was resolved without delay to 

 create some, and the normal school sprung into existence. Fifteen hun- 

 dred citizens of all ages, dispatched from the principal district towns, 

 assembled together, not to study in all their ramifications the dilferent 

 branches of human knowledge, but in order to learn the art of teaching 

 under the greatest masters. 



Fourier was one of these fifteen hundred pupils. It will, no doubt, 

 excite some surprise that he was elected at St. Florentine, and that 

 Auxerre appeared insensible to the honor of being represented at Paris 

 by the most illustrious of her children. Put this indifference will be 

 readily understood. The elaborate scafiblding of calumny which it has 



