176 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



cause of the frequent suffocations -which he experienced. A fall, how- 

 ever, which he sustained on the 4th of May, 1830, while descending a 

 flight of stairs, aggravated the malady to an extent beyond what could 

 hav« been ever feared. Our colleague, noth withstanding pressing sol- 

 icitations, persisted in refusing to combat the most threatening symp- 

 toms, except by the aid of patience and a high temperature. On the 

 16th of May, 1830, about four o'clock in the evening, Fourier experienced 

 in his study a violent crisis, the serious nature of which he was far from 

 being sensible of; for, having thrown himself completely dressed upon 

 his bed, he requested M. Petit, a young doctor of his acquaintance, who 

 carefully attended him, not to go far away, in order, said he, that we 

 may presently converse together. But to these words succeeded soon 

 the cries, " Quick, quick, some vinegar ; I am fainting ! " and one 

 of the men of science, who has shed the brightest luster upon the Aca- 

 demy, had ceased to live. 



Gentlemen, this cruel event is too recent that I should recall here the 

 grief which the Institute experienced upon losing one of its most 

 important members ; and those obsequies, on the occasion of which so 

 many persons, usually divided by interests and opinions, united together 

 in one common feeling of admiration and regret, around the mortal 

 remains of Fourier; and the Polytechnic School swelling in a mass the 

 cortege, in order to render homage to one of its earliest, of its most 

 celebrated professors ; and ^he words which on the brink of the tomb 

 depicted so eloquently the profound mathematician, the elegant writer, 

 the upright administrator, the good citizen, the devoted friend. We 

 shall merely state that Fourier belonged to all the great learned societies 

 of the world, that they united with the most touching unanimity in the 

 mourning of the Academy, in the mourning of all France : a striking 

 testimony that the republic of letters is no longer, in the present day, 

 merely a vain name. What, then, was wanting to the memory of our 

 colleague 1 A more able successor than I have been, to exhibit in full 

 relief the difterent phases of a life so varied, so laborious, so gloriously 

 interlaced with the greatest events of the most memorable epochs of 

 our history. Fortunately, the scientific discoveries of the illustrious 

 secretary had nothing to dread from the incompetency of the panegy- 

 rist. My object will have been completely attained if, notwithstanding 

 the imperfection of my sketches, each of you will have learned that the 

 progress of general physics, of terrestrial physics, and of geology will 

 daily multiply the fertile applications of the Theoric Anahjtiqiie de la 

 Chaleur^ and that this work will transmit the name of Fourier down to 

 the remotest posterity. 



