MEMOIR OF LOUIS JACQUES THENARD. 875 



tion determined them to direct their steps to the furthest recesses of the J. at in 

 Quarter, and even there it was only in the highest story of one of the build- 

 ings that they found the refuge of a common chamber. Under the same rooi' 

 there happened to be then domiciled a family of those hardy natives of 

 Auvergne, who, that they may some day possess a rood or two of land and be 

 enabled to die among their mountains, distribute for thirty years water and 

 charcoal among the inhabitants of the capital. With the maternal .head of this 

 family the young financier, whose thoughtful foresight has been already sig- 

 nalized, opened negotiations for himself and his comrades, and although the 

 difficulties of the situation were avowed with the ingenuousness of seventeen, 

 and the Avorthy dame could not but feel the risk she incurred in undertaking to 

 provide for the demands of three young stomachs on such scanty resources ; 

 although it was now the epoch of "ninety-four," and she a mother, or rather 

 • perhaps for that very reason, she agreed to receive them as boarders. Thus 

 were physical needs provided for ; 



• Food and a shelter; -who could ask for more? 



It remains to say that the conductor of this negotiation, one of the most 

 critical of his life, who thereby secured himself a footing in Paris, was Louis 

 Jacques Thenard, born May 4, 1777. Once or twice in the beginning of this 

 engagement it happened to him to be too late for the culinary arrangements of 

 mother Bateau. The trying abstinence which such a lapse of attention imposed 

 left its lesson. "I acquired from it," he said in after life, "a habit of punctu- 

 ality from which I have never deviated, and which adds to the claims of that 

 excellent woman to my grateful remembrance." 



Two eminent men were then engaged in teaching chemistry. Fourcroy, bv 

 the clearness of his intellect and a ready and learned method, had achieved a 

 success which secured him universal reputation. Vauquelin, less brilliant but 

 more experimentative, had amassed by incessant labor the materials with which 

 he has enriched science. Our young champagnard, all eyes and cars, lost not 

 one of their lessons; he listened and still lislened; at length conscientious self- 

 examination satisfied him that he comprehended nothing. At this mortifying 

 discovery, one which the incapable never make, he arrived on a sincere scrutiny 

 of the obstacle at the conclusion, that in a science not purely speculative it is 

 necessary to begin by a practifcal initiation. Vauquelin, who was then poor, 

 gave admission into his laboratory to such of his scholars as could pay a fee of 

 twenty francs a month, but with such a condition Thenard had no means of 

 complying. Yet here alone could he see any resource, and therefore, taking 

 courage, he presented himself before the professor, candidly disclosed to him at 

 once his penury and his inclination to labor, and entreated to be received, if 

 even on the terms of a domestic assistant. Vauquelin had, however reluctantly, 

 before discarded such offers ; the analogy of his own situation at one period d\([ 

 not prevent him from beginning to frame a refusal, when happily thejuterposing 

 voices of his own sisters, who had entered at the moment aiid were touched by 

 the mortification, the intelligence and even, through sympathy, by the provin- 

 cial accent of the young candidate, came to his succor. "Ah, do not send 

 him away; observe how modest, how docile he is; he would not only be useful 

 in the laboratory, but would mind our pot of soup, Avhich most of your dawd- 

 lers suffer to spoil by overboiling." Thanks to this lesson in practical chemistry, 

 Thenard Avas accepted. "I have never been so imgrateful," he used afterwards 

 to say, "as to forget that a pot which is allowed to boil can make but indifferent 

 soup." His rapid intelligence and accommodating nature soon made him a 

 favorite with the youth who frequented the laboratory and procured him at the 

 same time the means of extending the circle of his studies and developing his 

 singular dexterity. 



Three years now passed by without bringing any marked alleviation of his 



