818 



CALORIC. 



40 millions ; that, from 1776 to 1783, it had increased 

 nlxmt as much more ; and, at last, confessed tliat he 

 him>elf had increased it about 35 millions from that 

 time till 1786. Lafayette appeared at the head of 

 those numerous complainants who now came forward 

 against C. ; but the king seemed, at first, to support 

 his minister. The keeper of the ijreat seal, C.'s con- 

 stant adversary, was dismissed. This triumph was, 

 hmvever, of short duration. Independently of the 

 friends of Lafayette and Necker, a third party came 

 forward against him that party which brought into 

 the iniiiiMVy the archbishop of Toulouse, Lomenie- 

 Brienne. The court was alarmed at the delays of the 

 assembly of the notables, and the ferment which it 

 excited. C. was deprived of his office, and banished 

 to Lorraine. Thence he went to England, where he 

 received a flattering invitation from the empress 

 Catharine II. He now employed himself in refuting 

 the charges which were brought against him. In 

 his petition addressed to the king about the end ot 

 1787, he takes a review of all his ministerial opera- 

 tions, and endeavours to prove tliat he had always 

 for his object the improvement of the finances. The 

 archbishop of Toulouse, his successor, had informed 

 him of the personal displeasure of'the king ; the par- 

 liaments of Grenoble, Toulouse, Besanson, had made 

 him the object of public animadversion ; the parlia- 

 ment of Paris had come forward formally against 

 him. C. defended himself against all these attacks. 

 He besought the king to declare, that he had con- 

 stantly acted by his express command or with his 

 consent, and offered, in case the king should be silent, 

 to justify himself before the tribunal of peers, before 

 which he had been accused. To all the charges 

 brought against him, his friends opposed this fact, 

 which is certainly true, that he retired from the min- 

 istry poor. In a letter of C. to the king, Feb. 9th, 

 1789, containing political reflections, and principally 

 directed against Necker, he manifested the intention 

 of offering himself a candidate for the states- general. 

 He actually made his appearance in the electoral as- 

 sembly of the nobility of Bailleul, but returned to 

 London without effecting his purpose, where he em- 

 ployed himself in writing on the state of affairs in 

 France. The revolution had, in the mean time, be- 

 gun. C. took part in it with a zeal which seemed to 

 exceed his powers. His negotiations, his journeys 

 to Germany, Italy, and Russia, his perseverance, his 

 attachment to their cause, made him invaluable to 

 the party which he served. In order to assist his 

 unfortunate party with the pen, he wrote his Tableau 

 de V Europe en Novembre, 1795, remarkable on ac- 

 count of its warmth, and its faithful delineation of 

 events. From that time he lived in London, princi- 

 pally occupied with the fine arts, which he had al- 

 ways cultivated with taste. In 1802, he returned 

 to Paris, where he died in October of the same year. 

 Such was the career of a minister who gave the first 

 impulse to the French revolution. He possessed, in 

 a high degree, the qualities requisite to a great states- 

 man an accurate acquaintance with details, together 

 with comprehensive views, and the power of conceiv- 

 ing extensive projects. But, if wisdom, which ma- 

 tures the conceptions, if a prophetic glance, which 

 foresees all the impediments, if consistency and a 

 spirit of method which provides for the success of the 

 execution, are essential to a statesman, then C. can 

 lay no claim to that title. A knowledge of human 

 nature was wanting in his character. His morals 

 were far from being strict. His works, among which 

 his speeches and memorials to the notables deserve 

 the first place, are valuable contributions to the history 

 of financial administration. 



CALORIC is the name given, in chemistry, to that 

 agent which produces the phenomena of heat and 



combustion. It is hypolhetically regarded as a einV 

 tile fluid, the particles of which repel one another, 

 and are attracted by all other substances. It is im- 

 ponderable, and, by its distribution, in various pro* 

 portions, among the particles of matter, gives rise to 

 the three general forms of gas, liquids, and solids. 

 The particles of water, by losing caloric, have their 

 cohesion so much increased, tliat they assume the 

 solid form of ice ; by adding caloric, they again be- 

 come fluid ; and by a still further addition, they are 

 converted into vapour. 



Caloric exists in two different states -free or vn- 

 combined, and in a state of combination. In the former 

 condition, it creates the sensation of heat, and pro- 

 duces expansion in other bodies. The power which 

 any body has of exciting the sensation of heat, and 

 occasioning expansion, is understood by the expres- 

 sion of its temperature. This is supposed to vary 

 with the quantity of free caloric in a given quantity 

 of matter; a high temperature being ascribed to the 

 presence of a large quantity of free caloric, and a low 

 temperature to that of a small quantity. We are 

 ignorant, however, of the extremes of temperature, 

 and may compare it to a chain, of which a few of tne 

 middle links, only, are exposed to our observation, 

 while its extremities are concealed from our view. 



The expansion of bodies is one of the most universal 

 effects of an increase of temperature. This increase 

 in bulk, however, is not the same in all bodies. The 

 same increase of temperature causes liquids to expand 

 more than solids, and aeriform bodies much more than 

 either. On this principle are constructed the various 

 instruments for measuring temperature; since the 

 degree of expansion produced by caloric bears a suffi- 

 cient proportion to its quantity, to afford us the means 

 of ascertaining it with tolerable accuracy. Our senses, 

 it is obvious, are quite inadequate to afford us this 

 information ; for we compare our sensations of heat, 

 not with any fixed of uniform standard, but with those 

 sensations which we have had immediately previous. 

 Hence, the same portion of water will feel warm to a 

 hand removed from contact with snow, and cold to 

 another hand which has been heated before the fire. 

 To convey precise notions of temperature, therefore, 

 we are obliged to describe the degree of expansion 

 produced in some one body which has been previously 

 agreed upon as a standard * comparison. The 

 standard most generally ado t ' .. ^ is quicksilver, which 

 is contained in a glass ball, terminating a long, nar- 

 row tube. This instrument is called a thermometer. 

 If quicksilver, or, indeed, any other substance except 

 the gases, suffered equal expansion by equal incre- 

 ments of the calorific power, then this instrument 

 would be perfect ; but the same increase of bulk is 

 not effected in the same liquid or solid, at all tempera- 

 tures, by adding similar quantities of heat ; for bodies 

 expand, by equal increments of caloric, more in high 

 than in low temperatures, because the force opposing 

 expansion is diminished by the interposition of caloric 

 between the particles of bodies ; and, therefore, when 

 equal quantities of caloric are added in succession, the 

 last portions meet with less resistance to their expan 

 sive force than the first. In gases, on the contrary, 

 which are destitute of cohesion, equal increments of 

 heat appear to be attended with equal augmentations 

 of bulk. 



The tendency to an equilibrium is a characteristic of 

 free caloric. Any number of different bodies, une- 

 qually heated, when exposed, in an apartment, to the 

 same temperature, gradually arrive to an equality of 

 temperature. It is in obedience to this law, that we 

 experience the sensations of heat and cold when we 

 touch bodies which are warmer or colder than our- 

 selves. There exists much diversity in the rapidity 

 with which different substances abstract caloric when 



