390 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



with his audience, sees in their looks, in their gestures, 

 in their countenance, sometimes the necessity for pro 

 ceeding at greater speed, sometimes, on the contrary, the 

 necessity of retracing his steps, of awakening the atten 

 tion by some incidental observations, of clothing in a new 

 form the thought which, when first expressed, had left 

 some doubts in the minds of his audience. And do not 

 suppose that the beautiful impromptu lectures with which 

 the amphitheatre of the Normal School resounded, re 

 mained unknown to the public. Short-hand writers paid 

 by the State reported them. The sheets, after being 

 revised by the professors, \vere sent to the fifteen hun 

 dred pupils, to the members of Convention, to the con 

 suls and agents of the Republic in foreign countries, to 

 all governors of districts. There was in this something 

 certainly of profusion compared with the parsimonious 

 and mean habits of our time. Nobody, however, would 

 concur in this reproach, however slight it may appear, if 

 I were permitted to point out in this very apartment an 

 illustrious Academician, whose mathematical genius was 

 awakened by the lectures of the Normal School in an 

 obscure district town ! 



The necessity of demonstrating the important services, 

 ignored in the present day, for which the dissemination 

 of the sciences is indebted to the first Normal School, has 

 induced me to dwell at greater length on the subject than 

 I intended. I hope to be pardoned ; the example in any 

 case will not be contagious. Eulogiums of the past, you 

 know, Gentlemen, are no longer fashionable. Every 

 thing which is said, every thing which is printed, induces 

 us to suppose that the world is the creation of yesterday. 

 This opinion, which allows to each a part more or less 

 brilliant in the cosmogonic drama, is under the safeguard 



