146 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FEANCIS ARAGO. 



lage before daybreak. I saw a brigadier and five troopers come up, 

 who, at the sight of the tree of liberty, called out, " Somos i)crdidos !■' 

 I rau immediately to the house to arm myself with a lance which had 

 been left there by a soldier of the levee en masse, and placing myself in 

 ambush at the corner of a street, I struck with a blow of this weapon 

 the brigadier i)laced at the head of the party. The wound was not dan- 

 gerous. A cut of the saber, however, was descending to punish my 

 hardihood, when some countrymen came to my aid, and, armed with 

 forks, overturned the five cavaliers from their saddles, and made them 

 prisouers. I was then seven years old.* 



My father having gone to reside at Perpignan, as treasurer of the 

 mint, all the family quitted Estagel to follow him there. I was then 

 placed as an outdoor pupil at the municipal college of the town, where 

 I occupied myself almost exclusively with my literary studies. Our 

 classic authors had become the objects of my favorite reading. But the 

 direction of my ideas became changed all at once by a singular circum- 

 stance which I will relate. 



AValki ng one day on the ramparts of the town, I saw an officer of en- 

 gineers who was directing the execution of the repairs. This officer, 

 M. Cressac, was very young. I had the hardihood to approach him and 

 to ask him how he had succeeded in so soon wearing an epaulette. " I 

 come from the Polytechnic School,"' he answered. "What school is 

 that?" " It is a school which one enters by an examination."' " Is much 

 expected of the candidates I" " You will see it in the programme which 

 the government sends every year to the departmental administration ; 

 you will find it moreover in the numbers of the journal of the school, 

 which are in the library of the central school." 



I rau at once to the library, and there, for the first time, I read the 

 programme of the knowledge required in the candidates. 



From this moment I abandoned the classes of the central school, where 

 I was taught to admire Corneille, Eacine, La Fontaine, Moliere, and 

 attended only the mathematical course. This course was intrusted to 

 a retired ecclesiastic, the Abbe Verdier, a very respectable man, but 

 whose knowledge went no farther than the elementary course of La 

 Caille. I saw at a glance that M. Verdier's lessons would not be suffi- 

 cient to secure my admission to the Polytechnic School; I thei'efore 

 decided on studying by myself the newest works, wliich I sent for from 

 Paris. These were those of Legendre, Lacroix, and Gamier. In going 

 through these works I often met with difficulties which exceeded my 

 powers ; happily, strange though it be, and perhaps without example in 

 all the rest of France, there was a proprietor at Estagel, M. Raynal, who 

 made the study of the higher mathematics his recreation. It was in his 

 kitchen, while giving orders to numerous domestics for the labors of 



* With such precocious heroism it is by no meaus so clear that the author might not 

 have had a hand ia the revolution, from which he endeavors above to exculpate him- 

 self. 



