XXXV 



JEAN-BAPTISTE BIOT, the last of that powerful school of science 

 which grew up during the first French revolution, cannot here be 

 the subject of a detailed scientific biography. The wide extent of 

 his labours would alone render this difficult ; and when it is added 

 that a large part of this extent contains matters in which the position 

 of Biot and of others could not be discriminated in few words, diffi- 

 culty merges in practical impossibility. And this is rendered still 

 more obvious when we state that we do not so much refer to actual 

 points of disagreement commenced and continuing, as to matters in 

 which anything short of a minute and cautious handling would pro- 

 bably create new discussions which had better find a natural origin 

 in the statements of professed historians. Of these matters some 

 are of very old date, and may therefore be said to have passed into 

 history ; while this very circumstance makes it more desirable to 

 dwell especially upon the personal life of one who was born under 

 Louis XV. and lived to the age of eighty-eight in the full enjoyment 

 of high faculties. Of this personal life we are able to give some 

 account from documents on which we can rely. 



Biot was born at Paris, April 21, 1774. His father, Joseph Biot, 

 was an employe at the Treasury, whose ancestors had been farmers in 

 Lorraine. The son, after a classical education at the college Louis- 

 le-Grand, and some instruction in mathematics from Mauduit, was 

 placed, against his wish, with a merchant at Havre, who employed 

 him in copying letters by the thousand. Disgusted with this occu- 

 pation, he volunteered for the army as soon as the legal age of 

 eighteen was attained, and served as an artilleryman in the army of 

 the North at the battle of Hondschoote in 1793. Declining the 

 promotion offered on condition of permanently engaging himself, he 

 remained a few months, at the end of which a severe illness made 

 him desirous of returning to his parents. The military authorities 

 were very slow about the dismissal of volunteers who were likely to 

 be useful, so Biot took his departure for Paris, with nothing but 

 his Serjeant's certificate, in September 1793. Walking feebly along 

 the road, he was overtaken by a smartly dressed person in a 

 cabriolet, who invited him into his carriage, and entered into con- 

 versation with him. Finding that he was going to Paris, the 

 stranger pointed out the danger of his purpose, a recent ordinance 

 having made it death for soldiers to approach the capital. Biot 



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