XXXIX 



at Algiers) had distinguished himself to an extent which induced 

 Biot to make it almost a condition that the young man should be 

 appointed his assistant, before he would undertake the conduct of 

 the survey. When a place in the astronomical section of the In- 

 stitute became vacant, Poisson was thought of as a successor to 

 Lalande, with every chance of success. Biot protested, and urged 

 strongly to both Lagrange and Laplace, that the astronomer ought 

 to be a person conversant with astronomy, and that Poisson' s future 

 chair ought to be one of geometry. Lagrange gave way at once 

 "Vous avez raison," he said, " c'est la lunette qui fait I'astronome. 3 ' 

 Laplace was harder to convince, but yielded at last. 



In 1809 Biot obtained those apartments in the College de France 

 which he occupied with hardly any intermission until his death. 

 We have heard it said that he never left Paris for one single night 

 during fifty years : this is probably not literally true, but is cer- 

 tainly very near it. In the same year (April) an imperial decree 

 named him professor of astronomy in the new University then 

 founded. Biot had not been an Imperialist ; and the appointment 

 was a free testimony to his merit. In 1804 he had endeavoured to 

 prevent the Institute from expressing an opinion in favour of the 

 new regime, on the ground that a scientific body should not meddle 

 with politics : this opinion he always maintained. The police were 

 well aware that he had assisted Benjamin Constant, Andrieu, and 

 perhaps other frequenters of the house of Madame de Stae'l, in the 

 composition of a satirical piece which had great success in such 

 private circulation as could be safely given. Fouche had charged 

 Laplace to tell his young friend to be a little less witty and a little 

 more prudent. Biot, as might be expected, obtained no very great 

 patronage from the Emperor. He had a turn for dry satire, which, 

 under very effective restraint, is visible in his controversial writings ; 

 and he had the mode of delivering a sarcasm which tells. In 1800, 

 Roederer, then high in the direction of public instruction, paid a 

 visit to the College de France, and, surrounded by the professors, 

 read them a lecture on their functions, recommended practice in pre- 

 ference to theory, and pointed out geometry and algebra as not good 

 for much. " Cependant," quietly remarked Biot, " la geometric a 

 du bon pour 1'arpentage," to which the other was unfortunate 

 enough to assent in a manner which showed he did not understand 



