112 EULOGY ON AMPEKE. 



INFANCY OF AMPI^RE, HIS EXTRAOEDINARY JIEMOBY, HIS PRECO- 

 CIOUS TALENTS, HIS FAVORITE BOOKS — HE WRITES ON THE PRIMI- 

 TIVE LANGUAGE. 



Andre Marie Ampere, the son of Jean Jacques Ampere and Jeanne 

 Antoinette JSarcey de Sntieres, was born at Lyons, in the parish of Saint 

 ]S^izier, on the 22d of January, 1775. 



Jean Jacques Ampere was* well educated, and highly esteemed. His 

 wife was also generally beloved for the uniform sweetness of her dispo- 

 sition and a beneficence, ever on the watch for occasion upon which to 

 exercise itself. A short time after the birth of their son, M. Ampere 

 abandoned commerce and retii'ed with his wife to a small estate in Poley- 

 mieux-lez-Mont-d'Or, near Lyons, and here in an obsciu'e ^dllage, without 

 the assistance of a teacher, began to dawn, or, as I should say, to be de- 

 veloped that w^onderful intellect, the brilliant phases of which I am about 

 to unfold. 



The first talent shown by Ampere was that for arithmetic. Before 

 even understanding figures, or knowing how to form them, he made 

 long calcuhitious with the aid of a limited number of pebbles or beans. 

 It may be he had fallen upon the ingenious method of the Hindoos, or, 

 j)erhaps, his pebbles were combined like the corn strung upon parallel 

 lines by the Brahmin mathematicians of Pondichery, Calcutta, and 

 Benares, and handled by them with such rapidity, precision and accur- 

 acy. As we advance in the life of Ampere we shall find this supposi- 

 tion gradually losing its apparent improbability. To illustrate to what 

 an extraordinary degree the love of calculation had seized upon the 

 young student, being deprived, by the tenderness of his mother, during 

 a serious illness, of his dear little pebbles, he supplied their places 

 with pieces of biscuit which had been allowed him after three days 

 strict diet. I shall not dwell longer on this illustration, as I am far from 

 wishing to give it as an unanswerable or incontestible indication of the 

 future vocation of Ampere. There are children, I know, whose apathy 

 nothing seems able to arouse, and others, again, who take an interest iu 

 every thing, amuse themselves with even mathematical calculations 

 without an object. You object to this assertion, charge it, perhaps, with 

 exaggeration, and class numerical calculation with those distasteful 

 tasks which duty and necessity alone can induce one to undertake. My 

 answer is ready, and I will cite, not mere school-boys, but a distinguished 

 savant, who, perceiving my astonishment at seeing him, during a public 

 meeting of the academy, undertake the multiplication of two long lines 

 of ligures, said to me at once, " You forget the pleasure it Avill give me 

 directly to prove this calculation by division.^ 



Young Ampere soon learned to read, and devoured every book that fell 

 into his hand. History, ti'avels, poetry, romances and philosophy inter- 

 ested him almost equally. If he showed any preference, it was for 

 Homer, Lucian, Tasso, Fenelon, Corneille, Voltau-e, and for Thomas, 



