Memoir of the late Gaspard Mange. 177 



At that period when the pubHc distress called forth all the use- 

 ful talents and courage of the superior classes to the assistance 

 of their country menaced with invasion, Monge was created Mi- 

 nister of ihe Marine. He did every thing he could to keep those 

 men who were distinguished for their merit or bravery in France. 

 He even descended to entreaties to procure the continuation of 

 Borda's services, and he had the liappiness to succeed. He was 

 one of the most active men in those scientific employments which 

 the preservation of the state required. The construction of the new 

 grinding- machines erected in the powder-mills at Grenoble was 

 his, and also the drilling-machines constructed upon the barges 

 of the Seine. He spent his days in giving instructions and su- 

 perintending the workmen, and his nights in writing his treatise 

 on the casting of artillery, a work designed for the use of direc- 

 tors of foundries, and for workmen. 



It was in his course at the Normal school that he first gave his 

 lectures of descriptive geometry, the secrets of which he had not 

 been able to reveal sooner. Another establishment, which had 

 been originally conceived before the Normal school, but which, 

 having had less attention paid to it by the inventors, followed 

 it in the order of execution, realized some part of the hopes 

 which had Ijeen looked for in vain on the establishment of the 

 first Encyclopedic school that had been opened in France. Monge 

 brought into it his long experience at Mezieres, and joined to 

 this new and profound views; he drew up the plan of study, 

 marked out their succession, and proposed scientific methods of 

 execution. Out of four hundred pupils originally placed in the 

 Polytechnic school, fifty of the choicest were collected into a pre- 

 paratory school. Monge was almost the only one that taught 

 these pujiils. He remained the whole of the day among them, 

 giving them, in turn, lectures on geometry and analysis; — ex-^ 

 horting them, encouraging them, inflaming them, with that ar- 

 dour, that kindness, that impetuosity of genius, which made him 

 explain to these pupils the truths of science with an irresistible 

 force and charm. In the evening, when these labours were fi- 

 nished, Monge began others of a different kind ; he wrote the 

 sketches which were to serve as a text to his next lectures, and 

 the following day he was to be found with his pupils at the very 

 moment of their meeting. The good nature of Monge was 

 neither the cold calculation of the sage, nor even the effect of 

 education ; it was a simple benevolence, which arose from his 

 happy organization. He was born to love and to admire. His 

 admiration was excessive, like his love ; in conse(|uence of which 

 he did not always keep within the limits that cold and unfeeling 

 reason would have prescribed.— As he was the father of his pupils 

 in the school, so he was in camp the father of the soldier. 

 Vol. 5j. No. 263. March 1820. M la 



