174 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



We found ourselves seated at the same table. Tlie guest from whom 

 I separated him was an old officer. Our colleague was informed of this, 

 and the question "Have you been in Egypt?" served as a commence- 

 ment of a conversation between them. The reply was in the affirmative. 

 Fourier hastened to add : "As regards myself, I remained in that mag- 

 nificent country until the period of its complete evacuation. Although 

 foreign to the profession of arms, I have, in the midst of our soldiers, 

 fired against the insurgents of Cairo; I have had the honor of hearing 

 the cannon of Heliopolis." Hence to give an account of the battle was 

 but a step. This step was soon made, and we were presented with four 

 battalions drawn up in squares in the plain of Quoubbeh, and maneuver- 

 ing, with admirable precision, conformably to the orders of the illustrious 

 geometer. My neighbor, with attentive ear, with immovable eyes, and 

 with outstretched neck, listened to this recital with the liveliest inter- 

 est. He did not lose a single syllable of it ; one would hare sworn that 

 he had for the first time heard of those memorable events. Gentlemen, 

 it is so delightful a task to please ! After having remarked the effect 

 which he produced, Fourier reverted, with still greater detail, to the 

 principal fight of those great days : to the capture of the fortified vil- 

 lage of Mattaryeh, to the passage of two feeble columns of French 

 grenadiers across ditches heajied up with the dead and wounded of the 

 Ottoman army. " Generals, ancient and modern, have sometimes spoken 

 of similar deeds of prowess," exclaimed our colleague, "but it was in 

 the hyperbolic style of the bulletin ; here the fact is materially true — 

 it is true like geometry. I feel conscious, however," added he, " that 

 in order to induce you to believe it, all my assurances will not be more 

 than sufficient." 



" Do not be anxious upon this point," replied the officer, who at that 

 moment seemed to awaken from a long dream. " In case of necessity, 

 I might guarantee the accuracy of your statement. It was I who, at 

 the head of the grenadiers of the 13th and 85th semi-brigades, forced 

 the entrenchments of Mattaryeh, by passing over the dead bodies of 

 the janissaries." 



My neighbor was General Tarayre. You may imagine much better 

 than I can express, the effect of the few words which had just escaped 

 from him. Fourier made a thousand excuses, while I reflected upon 

 the seductive influence, ui)on the power of language, which for more 

 than half an hour had robbed the celebrated general even of the recol- 

 lection of the part which he had played in the battle of giants he was 

 listening to. 



The more our secretary had occasion to converse the greater repug- 

 nance he experienced to verbal discussions. Fourier cut short every 

 debate as soon as there presented itself a somewhat marlced difference 

 of opinion, only to resunu' afterward the same subject upon tlie modest 

 pretext of making a small step in advance each time. Some one asked 

 Fontaine, a celebrated geometer of this Academy, how he occupied his 



