THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 451 



the Magnificent and Monsieur the Dauphin and le Grand 

 Conde, attended by a gorgeous retinue, came in state to 

 visit them, it was the king himself who, after intrepidly 

 withstanding several chemical lectures, remarked that he 

 had "no need to exhort them to work, for they were doing 

 it enough for themselves.'' 



So they kept on experimenting manfully, and quarrel- 

 ling fiercely; and their activity was prodigious. The re- 

 sults of these practical labors appeared principally in the 

 shape of dissertations on abstract mathematics, and they 

 fill ten volumes of "Anciens Memoirs." Still, as long as 

 Colbert lived, the philosophers were protected, and experi- 

 mental science as they viewed it flourished. 



But when Louvois became Minister, matters took a new 

 turn. If the work of the Academy thus far was properly 

 defined as experimental, then Louvois soon showed the 

 most opposite, and hence theoretical, disposition. When 

 the public-spirited king decided to improve the landscape 

 at Versailles with more indispensable cascades and the 

 erection of a much-needed additional mountain, it was 

 Louvois who told the members that they were paid to work, 

 and set them at such, theoretical tasks as aqueduct build- 

 ing, pipe laying' and surveying. He made La Hire and 

 Picard supervise the building and engineering, Thevenot 

 plan watercourses, and Mariotte attack the problems of 

 water supply. When there was not sufficient of this sort 

 of theorizing to do at Versailles, Conde invited them to 

 theorize in the same fashion at Chantilly. 



Besides, the haut monde of Paris had heard of the new 

 fashion at Whitehall, and how all the great English 

 milords and miladies were besieging the Royal Society. 

 Should the Court of the Grand Monarque be distanced in 

 a matter of la mode? Immediately were the mathema- 

 ticians invited to calculate the chances in every gambling 

 game in vogue, in "quinque nova," in u le hoca" and 

 "le lansquenet." Sauveur, however, who too com- 

 placently evolved a surely winning system adapted to u la 





