374 MEMOIR OF LOUIS JACQUES THENARD. 



secrets -of clwmistry, tlic book sold, adds Fontcnelle, "like one of gallantry or 

 satire." It is true that, by using intelligible language and precise ideas, Lemcry 

 cleared away mucli that was mysterious and gave an important impulse to 

 chemistry. But a science only acquires consistency when known facts are 

 united by a common bond. This the German physician, Stahl, attempted to 

 effect in regard to the great phenomenon of combustion, and his explanation 

 of that phenomenon, by the disengagement of a principle which he called 

 phlogiston, held learned Europe in thrall for fifty years. 



This system was overthrown by a Frenchman who, though idly charged 

 with being too much of a finaiicier for a savant, and too much of a savant for 

 a financier, made his own epoch the great epoch of chemistry. Lavoisier 

 began with teaching us that air, the medivim in which we live, is composed of 

 two gases, one of Avhich, oxygen, serves for respiration and combustion, while 

 the othei*, azote, is unsuitable for those pin-poses. He showed that an animal 

 immersed in oxygen breathes therein with more energy than in common air, 

 but dies if immersed in azote. He demonstrated that combustion can never 

 take place without oxygen ; that metals, in calcining, increase in weight, and 

 that they acquire this increase because oxygen luiitcs with them. This theory 

 of combustion, by the decomposition of air and fixation of the oxygen, seemed 

 to leave nothing wanting when the illustrious chemist further evinced that this 

 same oxygen was also the principle of acidification. 



Nothing could be more simple and satisfactory than this chain of discoveries. 

 Under the impetus thus given the progress of chemistry became a series of 

 marvels. France must ever mourn the sacrilege which prematurely terminated 

 the life of her gifted son, but the interests of chemistry did not languish in the 

 hands of the Berthollets, the Fourcroys, the Monges. Illustrated every day 

 by some new application, this science rapidly advanced to a popularity which 

 none of its sisters could emulate. 



The story is told us that a boyish herdsman one day exclaimed, " Wei'e I 

 Emperor, I would tend my cows on horseback." "And I," rejoined his com- 

 rade, "would eat meat three times a v>^eek. "For my part," cried the third 

 and youngest, "If such a thing should happen to me, I would be paid thirty 

 farthings a day, that I might give twenty of them to my mother." Animated 

 by some of these primitive and better inspirations, which find no echo in our 

 large cities, three vigorous lads of Champagne were traversing, on a fine morn- 

 ing in spring, one of the great routes which lead to the capital of France. 

 With swelling hearts and light purses they had quitted the paternal roof and 

 the village of La Louptiere, near Nogent sur Seine, and had turned their faces 

 towards Paris, not with a view to make their fortunes there, but from an ambi- 

 tion to add something to the stock of knowledge which they had gathered from 

 the lessons of his reverence, the curate, and father Bardin, then the oracle of 

 the department. One of the three looked forward to nothing less than being- 

 physician of his parish ; the others proposed to occupy the same field, as apothe- 

 caries ; the most enterprising of the three thought of adding something to the 

 profits of the laboratory by a small trade in groceries. What justified the 

 more avaricious projects of the latter was the circumstance that his parents, 

 honest tillers of the soil, had lost some moderate resource through the undis- 

 tinguishing violence of the revolution, and were burdened besides with the 

 support of five other children. The one now departing, moreover, had been 

 ever the ambitious hope of his mother ; what more natural than that he should 

 form plans for her gratification. 



As our young adventurers neared the great city, the centre of so many illu- 

 sions, it occurred to the most circumspect of the party that it would not be 

 amiss to scrutinize the resources of their budget. Scrupulously told, the con- 

 tents could by no dexterity of computation be brought to authorize an outlay of 

 more than sixteen sols (eightpeuce) a day for each of them. This considera 



