NlfcPCE DK SAINT-VICTOR. 



NlfcPCE DE SAINT-VICTOR. 



ea*e of Krnilov's Tables,' the tran-lation had been versified by 

 various distinguished nut hen. Engliali tianslations of n few of these 

 srfsiU. ' Specimens of the Polish Poets,' were published in 1 k 

 ha* been remarked however, that while most of Niemcewicz's works 

 krar marks of talent, not one of them has the decided stamp of genius. 

 Though be lived in stirring time*, and took an active part in them, 

 his IrUrary creed appears to have been singularly tame. He apolo- 

 giees at tome length in the preface to one of his tragedies, ' Laditdaus 

 t Varna,' for a violation of some of the most conventional rules of 

 the French critics. He was well acquainted with English literature, 

 and fond of it, but it appears to hare been chiefly the English lite- 

 rature of the ISth century in which he found his models. He 

 translated not only the ' Rape of the Lock,' but Pope's ' Ode to St 

 Cecilia's Day,' Urydrn's 'Alexander's Feast,' Cotton's 'Fireside,' Gray's 

 Elegy" and 'Ode to Adversity,' and the 'Children in the Wood,' 

 changing the scene however to the banks of the Dnieper. Of modern 

 English we only notice Wordsworth's ' We are Seven,' and Byron's 

 ' Fare thee well.' With German literature bis acquaintance must have 

 been slender, is a modification of Burger's ' Lenora ' figures in his 

 poems as 'Malvina, from the KnglUh.' Among liis own poems, after 

 the Ballads, a collection of Fables enjoys the highest reputation. Of 

 his novels, ' Lrvi and Sarah,' a delineation of Jewish life in Poland, 

 was translated into English in 1830, through the medium of tho 

 Oerman ; ' Jnn z Teezyna,' or ' John of Tenchin," a picture of Poland 

 in the Kill c ntnry, was at first popular, but has none of the requisites 

 for permanent fame. One of his 1- ast ambitions but most meritorious 

 works i liis ' ZbWr I'amietnikow historycznyoh o ciawney Polszcze,' 

 or * Collection of Historical Memoirs on Ancient Poland,' in 5 vols., 

 the first publiihed at Warsaw in 1822, the lait at Pulawy, the feat of 

 Prince Crartorvski, in 1830. It comprises a selection of interesting 

 matter bearing on the subject, taken from manuscripts and from 

 printed foreign sources, of which the earliest date is 1067 and tho 

 latent 1792. A second edition was issued by J. N. Bobrowicz, at 

 Leipzig, in 1838-40. Most of his other works of importance havo 

 been noticed in the narrative of his life. A complete collection of his 

 Poetical Works,' in prose and verse, appeared in 12 small volumes, 

 tinder the superintendence of liobrowicz, at Leipzig, in 1888-40. At 

 his death be left a large number of unpublished manuscripts to the 

 Polish Historical Committee at Paris; they comprised four volumes 

 of ' Travels in Poland,' and several volumes of memoirs, which the 

 committee stated to be of the highest interest. In 1843 the com- 

 mittee published bis ' Notes on his Captivity at St. Petersburg in 

 1794-96,' written by himself, in French, in 1800, at Elizabethtown, in 

 New Jersey. A translation of it into English, by Alexander Laski, 

 appeared at Edinburgh in 1844. The volume is interesting in many 

 respects, and the manly and unaffected tone in which it is written 

 commandi the confidence of the reader. A volume of memoirs of bis 

 own times, in Polish, ' Pamietniki czasow nioich,' appeared at 1'arn in 

 1848. The life of Niemcewicz is especially interesting' as presenting 

 in miniature, in the shape of the biography of a man of honour and 

 literary taste, the contemporary history of Poland. 



XlKI't K I)!-: SAINT-VICTOR, to whom the photographic art is 

 indebted for Rome of its greatest and most remarkable developments, 

 was born at Saiut-Cyr, near Chalons sur-Saone, on the 26th of July 

 1805. Educated at the school of Saunnir for the army, he, according 

 to tho 'Preface liio-raphique' of M. Ernest Lacan, prefixed to the 

 ' Recherclies Photograpbiques,' devoted himself zealously to his mili- 

 tary dnties, and was quietly waiting for professional advancement 

 when a trifling occurrence led to an entire change in the direction of 

 hi* ambition, and may be cited as perhaps the remote cause of his 

 eminent discoveries. Ho was a lieutenant in the 1st Itegiment of 

 Dragoons, stationed at Montauban, when one day his gay uniform 

 received some stains from lemon-juice. After try ing several substances 

 be succeeded with some drops of ammonia in restoring the lost colour. 

 Though fond of the sciences, he had not previously paid any close 

 attention tp any one in particular, but ho now began to be interested 

 in chemistry, and an order from the minister of war directing that 

 the facings, cuffs, and collars of thirteen cavalry regiments should 

 be changed from crimton and rose colour to orange, led him to resume 

 hU investigations on dyes. He soon found that by applying the 

 colouring matter extracted from tho Indian pink (oclllet d'lnd*), for 

 which hv afterwards substituted fustic wood, combined with an acid, 

 : -t discharge the red colour, and then produce the desired 

 orange tint The projoscd change had been estimated to cost six 

 francs the suit M. Niopce showed that by bin method it would only 

 coat half a franc. Tho young officer wa summoned to Paris, his 

 method was examined, approved, and adopted, and the government 

 was saved an expenditure of upwards of 100,000 francs. Praises were 

 lavished upon him, the Due de Nemours himself expressed his warm 

 t in him, and he was encouraged to request as a reward an 

 exchange into the municipal guard, that he might, though at the 

 cost of professional advancement, establish himscK at Paris. 



He returned to his regiment, and whilst waiting for his promised 

 removal to Paris to the more earnest pursuit of his chemical studies. 

 His attention soon became Irresistibly directed towards the experi- 

 ments and researches of bis uncle JOSEPH Nicferuonr. Niferc*, to which 

 h will be neceraanr for us briefly to turn in order to understand 

 the real claims of the nephew. 



As was noticed in the article DAOCEBRE, M. Niee'phore 

 then resident at Chalons sur-Sone, commenced his researches on the 

 action of light upon various prepared surfaces in ISM. He discovered 

 that by spreading a thin film of bitumen on a polished metal plate 

 and expo-ing it to the action of the sun, certain changes would take 

 place ; and he eventually not only succeeded in obtaining by this means 

 copies of various objects, but in rendering them to a great degree un- 

 changeable by subsequent exposure to the light. H. Nicdphore Nii'pco 

 formed the highest estimate of the importance of his discovery, which 

 he termed 'hi51iograpliie,' and laboured hard to bring it to perfection. 

 He appears to have looked in the first instance chiefly to the pro- 

 duction of engraved plates ; though he is said to have fully anticipated 

 the obtaining of images in the natural colours, or, as he expressed it, 

 that the sun would paint portraits that should be as true in all 

 respects as the reflections in a looking-glass. In 1827 he came to 

 England, and laid the results of his experiments before the n . 

 societies of this country, where they produced a great sensation. 

 But the chemical and manipulative difficulties were only in a very 

 small measure overcome when he found that M. Daguerre had pro- 

 ceeded to an almost equal extent in a parallel course, and after some 

 correspondence the two ex|>erimenters agreed, in 182'i, to unite in 

 partnership with a view to the more effectual accomplishment of their 

 object. Before they had succeeded in briniv 'ocean into a 



practicable shape M. Nice'phore Nidpee died, in 1833, and M. Daguerre, 

 to whom is due the application of the camera, abandoned the 

 the bitumen which was Nidpce's peculiar medium but preserved the 

 name of the original inventor of the process by styling his the 'Mi'tlmdc 

 Niopce perfectionnee." As was stated in the article before referred to 

 [DAGCERRK, vol. ii , col. 477], the French government also recogn i- 

 iinportance of M. NiiSpce's labours by according to the representative 

 of M. \icpc.> a pension of 4000 francs, at the same time that it gave 

 one of 6000 francs to H. Daguerre. 



Though the peculiar process of M. Nie'pce seemed finally abandoned 

 for the more facile one of M. Daguerre, in England and i-lm-v. hoiv 

 experiments were being diligently prosecuted with a view to the dis- 

 covery of a less costly material for receiving tho sun-pictures than 

 Daguerre's silvered plates, and in 1810 Mr. Tnlbot succeeded in obtain- 

 ing impressions on iodized paper ; and M. liayard, in France, about 

 the same time or soon after obtained like results by a process some- 

 what similar, and a new and far more widely applicable art, Photo- 

 graphy, sprung into existence. 



The Daguerreotype, or 'Mc'thode Nie'pce perfectionnee,' and the 

 Calotype, or Talbotype photography in fact, though as yet but in its 

 rudimentary stages were in full operation and attracting universal 

 attention, when M. Nio'pce de Saint-Victor resolved to dedicate himself 

 to the completion of the task which his uncle had left unfinished. Hut 

 he was beginning to despair of obtaining his removal to Paris, where alone 

 he believed that he could with his humble means properly carry on his 

 experiments. Three y> ars had passed and the promised appointment 

 had not arrived. Female intercession is thought to have a superior 

 chance of attention in Paris. A lady of his family volunteered to pro- 

 ceed to the capital and lay his claims before the proper official. Intro- 

 duced by a relation, a deputy, sha was listened to with reaper 

 had tho good fortune to find her advocacy successful. In April 1845 

 Nio'pce was incorporated as a lieutenant in the garde municipal*'. On 

 the 25th of October 1847 he presented to the Academy of Sciences, in 

 two papers, tho result] of the experiments which he had been dili- 

 gently prosecuting. The first was in the form of a ' Note sur ! 

 prie'tc's particuliores a quclques Agents Chimiques,' and chiefly related 

 to the reproduction of designs by the uso of vapours of iodide, &c. 

 The other was a 'Premier Me'moire do U Photographie sur Verre,' in 

 which he announced his grand discovery of the method of oh' 

 images on glass prepared with starch, gelatine, or, ai he found best, 

 with albumen. 



II" Imd announced his process us but imperfect, and this as mer-'ly 

 a first paper on tho subject, and ho now set to work to perfect it. Hut 

 Nii'pce had little unbroken time to give to science. His room in tho 

 barracks of the Faubourg St. Martin he had converted into a sort of 

 humble laboratory, and there (says M. Lacan) the studious officer, his 

 police uniform covered with a blouse, spent the rare intervals ot K i- m 

 between his otlicial engagements busily occupied in his remarkable 

 researches. Tho revolution of February 1848 came however, the bar- 

 racks were attacked and burnt, his laboratory and all its priceless con- 

 tents destroyed. Yet though he bad lost sll that he had been so long 

 collecting, Niopce was not discouraged, and, profiting by his enforced 

 leisure, he was able on the 12th of June 1848 to present to the Academy 

 his second memoir on photography upon glaag, in which he detailed 

 very great improvements in the process. The process excited general 

 interest, and was speedily adopted by photographers throughout 

 Europe. His principal sut sequent papers on this branch of tho art 

 were a ' Note sur do Images dti Soleil et de 1 1 Lune obtenns par la 

 Photographie sur Verre,' presented to the Academy Juno 3, 1850 ; and 

 a ' Note sur quelques fails noureaux concemant la Photographie sur 

 Verre,' August 1W, 



Meanwhile tinder the new order of things his professional position 

 bad somewhat improved. In July 1848 he was mode lieutenant in the 

 10th regiment of dragoons, and captain in the following November; 

 and, by transfer to tho same rank in the garde republicaine he was in 



