405 



COULOMB, CHARLES AUGUSTIN DE. 



COUSIN, JEAN. 



406 



tained a considerable number of valuable coins, chiefly Saxon and old 

 English, and several antiquities Roman and English, all of which are 

 now incorporated in the collection of the British Museum. 



A catalogue of this library, in a thiu folio volume, compiled by 

 Dr. Thomas Smith, was printed at Oxford iu 1696; and a more 

 ample one, accompanied by a copious index, compiled by the late 

 Joseph Plants, Esq., was published under the orders and at the expense 

 of the Commissioners upon the Public Records, folio, 1802. 



Sir Robert Cotton was liberal in communicating materials out of 

 his collections in his life-time. Speed's ' History of England' is said to 

 owe most of its value and ornaments to it; and Camden acknowledges 

 that he received the coins in the 'Britannia' from his collection. To 

 Knolles, the author of the 'Turkish History,' he communicated 

 authentic letters of the Knights of Rhodes, and the despatches of 

 Edward Barton, ambassador from queen Elizabeth to the Porte. Sir 

 Walter Ualeign, Lord Bacon, Selden, and Lord Herbert, were all 

 indebted to Sir Robert Cotton's library for materials. Almost every 

 recent work of importance connected with English history, is a proof 

 that its treasures continue at this day unexhausted. 



COULOMB, CHARLES AUGUSTIN DE, was born at Angouleme 

 iu 173iJ, stndk-d at Paris, and entered at an early age into the army. 

 After serving with distinction for three years in the Weet Indies, he 

 returned to Paris, where he became known by a treatise on the equi- 

 librium of vaults (1776). In 1779 he was employed at Rochefort, 

 where he wrote his ' Thdorie des Machines Simples,' a treatise on the 

 effects of friction and resistances, which gained the prize of the 

 academy, and was subsequently printed separately in 1809. A 

 project of navigable canals had been offered to the Etats of Bretagne, 

 and Coulomb was appointed by the minister of marine to examine 

 the ground. His report was unfavourable, which so displeased some 

 influential persons that he was placed in confinement : the pretext 

 was, that he had no order from the minister of war. 



The Etats afterwards saw their error, and offered Coulomb a large 

 recompense, but he would accept nothing but a seconds' watch, which 

 afterward served him in all his experiments. In 1784 he was intend- 

 ant des eaux et fontainea ; in 1786 he obtained the reversion of the 

 place of conservateur des plans et reliefs, and was sent to England as 

 a commissioner to obtain information oil the hospitals. At the revo- 

 lution he lost his public employments, and devoted himself to his 

 domestic affairs. He was one of the first members of the Institute, 

 and an inspector-general of public instruction. He died August 3, 1806, 

 having supported a high moral and social character through life. 



There are many men into whoso biographies we are obliged to insert 

 more account of their labours than will be necessary in the case of 

 Coulomb. All his researches are of a permanent character, and 

 belong to treatises of mechanics and electricity. We have no pro- 

 iniuent acts of mind to record which individualise his discoveries, 

 though they were marked by a union of patient industry and experi- 

 mental sagacity of no c irnmon order, accompanied by a strong sense 

 of the necessity of mathematical experiment, or numerical determina- 

 tion of mechanical phenomena. He was, we may say, the founder of 

 the school of experimental physics in France, a country which, till his 

 tiiU'-, had been by no means pre-eminent in that branch of discovery. 

 His rese irches on friction, and resistances in general, were the first in 

 which the subject bad been pursued manually by one with the know- 

 ledge of mathematics necessary to combine or separate the results 

 according to the subject and the method. In electricity ho was the 

 fir-t who invented the method of measuring the quantity of action, 

 and from it he deduced the fact of electrical attractions and repulsions, 

 following the Newtonian law. He ascertained the non-penetration 

 of these agent* into the interior of solid bodies, and on these two 

 conclusions the mathematical theory of electricity is now based. He 

 even deduced the second phenomenon from the first. He extended 

 in a great degree to magnetism his conclusions on electricity. The 

 instrument by which these brilliant results were obtained was of his 

 own invention, the Tonion Balance, the principle of which is a needle 

 hanging from a flexible thread, in which the force of torsion necessary 

 to produce a given effect in producing oscillations of the needle being 

 fir.-.t ascertained, the instrument remains a determinate measurer of 

 any small forces; or, if the absolute force of torsion be unknown, it 

 may be made to give comparative determinations. This construction, 

 in the hands of Cavendish, determined the mean density of the earth, 

 and is now as much of primary use in delicate measurements of force, 

 as the common balance in analytical chemistry. There is, perhaps, 

 no one to whom either the determination of resistances in mechanics, 

 or the theory of electricity, is so much indebted as to Coulomb. The 

 account of his life is from the article in the ' Biog. Univ.' by M. Biot. 



COURIER, PAUL LOUIS, was born in 1774. His father was a 

 substantial farmer, who gave him a good education. Courier marie 

 considerable progress both in classical and mathematical studies. He 

 served in the French army in the campaign of Rome in 1798-99. In 

 his lette-s written from that country to several friends, and especially 

 in one dated Rome, January 8, 1799, published long after in his 

 '('orrespoudancD Inddite,' he gives a frightful account of the spolia- 

 tions, plunder, and cruelties committed by the invaders in that 

 unfortunate country. Courier's love of the arts and literature, which 

 never forsook him during his military career, made him especially 

 indignant at the rapacity with which precious sculptures, paiutiuga, 



and manuscripts were torn from public and private collections, and 

 hastily and often ignorantly or carelessly huddled together and 

 packed up for Paris, by which several valuable objects were injured or 

 lost. He also describes the misery of the people of Rome, many of 

 whom were absolutely starving, while the generals, commissioners, and 

 other agents of the French Directory were revelling in luxury. On hU 

 return to France after the first peace, Courier published several trans- 

 lations from the Greek, such as ' Isocrates," ' Eulogy of Helena,' Xeuo- 

 phon's treatise on the ' Command of Cavalry and on Equitation," and 

 remarks upon Schweighoouser's edition of ' Athenseus." He also began 

 a translation of Herodotus. 



In 1806 he again served in Italy with the army that invaded the 

 kingdom of Naples. He went into Calabria as far as Reggio, and 

 witnessed the desultory but cruel warfare carried on in those regions. 

 His letters from Naples, Calabria, and Puglia, 1806-7, give some 

 valuable information concerning those times and events. Courier 

 served with the rank of chef d'escadron in the Austrian campaign of 

 1809. After the battle of Wagram he gave in his resignation, which 

 was readily accepted ; for bis inquisitive turn of mind and inde- 

 pendent temper made him looked upon as a troublesome person by 

 the more thoroughgoing officers of Napoleon. On reaching Florence, 

 he discovered in the Laurentian library an unedited manuscript of 

 Longus, of which he meant to avail himself for a translation of that 

 author. Happening to upset an inkstand on the manuscript, by which 

 accident a page was blotted, the librarian accused him of having done 

 it purposely. Courier defended himself; but some persons in power 

 at the court of the Princess Eliza, Napoleon's sister, took part against 

 lim, and he was ordered out of Tuscany. Courier wrote a humorous 

 account of the whole transaction in a letter addressed to Mr. Ray- 

 nouard, in which he did not spare his accusers. His translation of 

 Lougus was published in 1813, and was well received by the learned. 



Retiring to his farm at Veretz, in the department of Indre-et-Loire, 

 Courier heard with no regret the fall of Napoleon, and expressed him- 

 self satisfied with the charter given by Louis XVIII., if conscientiously 

 fulfilled. He however began soon to find fresh matter for his satirical 

 His ' Livret," or ' Memorandum-book,' and his letters, give a 

 curious picture of provincial politics and of the state of society in the 

 interior of France after the restoration. His letters, several of which 

 were published at the time in the ' Censeur,' have been compared for 

 their power and humour to Pascal's celebrated ' Provinciates." When, 

 in 1821, a subscription was opened all over France to purchase the 

 estate of Chambord for the infant Duke of Bordeaux, he wrote 

 ' Simple Discours aux Membrea de la Commune de Veretz,' for whicli 

 he was tried, and condemned to one month's imprisonment. He pub- 

 lished an account of his trial, uuder the title of ' Proces de Paul 

 Louis Courier, vigneron.' Courier was now looked upon as one of 

 the most formidable antagonists of the Bourbonist party. He was 

 however by temper caustic and satirical rather than factious. At the 

 beginning of 1825 he was found murdered near his house at Veretz, 

 but no clue was discovered to the perpetrators of the crime. Some 

 attributed it to political, others, perhaps with more reason, to private 

 enmity. His works were collected and published in 4 vols. 8vo, Brus- 

 sels, 1828. The fourth volume contains his unedited letters. They 

 are valuable as sketches of actual life and manners, and as materials 

 for contemporary history. 

 COURTOIS, JACQUES. [BORGOQNONE.] 



COUSIN, JEAN, a celebrated French painter, sculptor, and geo- 

 metrician, contemporary with II Rosso and Primaticcio in the 16th 

 century. The date neither of his birth nor death is known ; but he 

 was born at Soucy near Sens, was the first Frenchman who attained 

 distinction in historical painting, and was the principal favourite at 

 the French court in the reigns of Honri II., Fnu^oia II., Charles IX., 

 and Henri III. Ho is sometimes in vague language termed the founder 

 of the French school, which however means nothing more than that 

 he was the first distinguished French historical painter. He married 

 the daughter of a French general officer, Lieut-Gen. Rousseau, of Sens, 

 and he was established chiefly as a painter on glass at Sens, but he 

 generally spent a portion of the year at Paris. His most celebrated 

 picture is the ' Last Judgment," painted for the Minims of Vincennes, 

 and now in the Louvre. Though not a work of high order, it is care- 

 fully executed, and in parts well drawn though harsh, well fore- 

 shortened, and well though highly coloured. It was engraved by 

 Peter de Jode the elder, in twelve sheets ; the whole print is four 

 French feet high, by three feet four inches wide, and one of the largest 

 prints iu existence. 



Many of the old painted windows of the churches of Sens and Paris, 

 and elsewhere, were from the designs of Cousin. There are still 

 some remains of his paintings on glass in the church of St.-Gervais, 

 which were his principal works of this class at Paris. He was also a 

 writer of ability ; he wrote on geometry and perspective, and a small 

 work on the proportions of the human body, with illustrative wood- 

 cuts, which went through many editions; the first work was published 

 in 1560, and an edition of the second was printed in 1625 in 4to, uuder 

 the following title : ' Livre de Pourtraicture de Maistre Jean Cousin, 

 Peintre et Geometrien tros excellent," &c. In sculpture his principal 

 wurk is the monument of Admiral Cbabot, in the church of the 

 Celestines. Cousin was still living in 1589, but much advanced in 

 years. (Felibien, Entretiena iw lea Vies, &<;., des feintrea.) 



