156 BIOGRAPHIES OF SCIENTIFIC MEN 



at the Quai d'Orsay events in the Transvaal did not fail to engage my 

 attention from the humanitarian point of view, from that of our natural 

 interests in Madagascar, and also from that of the important private 

 interests concerned in the gold mines. I had occasion to correspond 

 011 this subject with our excellent Consul, Monsieur Aubert, and to give 

 him all the help in my power. I also received the Envoy of the Boer 

 Republic kindly, but without wishing to play with him that immoral 

 game which consists in encouraging the weak in resistance in which one 

 is not resolved to take part. Neither England nor Germany ever 

 suggested to me an exchange of their views with those of the French 

 Government on the question. I do not even remember what was the 

 object of any conversation started either by Lord Dufferin, the Ambassador 

 of England, or by Count Minister, the Ambassador of Germany, at my 

 Wednesday receptions. 



French sympathy was strongly enlisted in favour of 

 the Transvaal, but France never dreamt of intervention 

 in any form. 



Berthelot had a remarkable memory, as the following 

 words of one of his most intimate friends testify : 



One day I remember he was turning over before me the leaves of 

 a copy of one of our important reviews. In a quarter of an hour he 

 had reached the last page. I chaffed him, saying that he did not 

 seem to attach much importance to its contents. He affirmed that 

 he had read it. So I put him to the test, questioning him on each of 

 the articles in the review. He replied without hesitation or error ; 

 he had actually read more than a hundred pages in a few minutes. 

 Another recollection at the Acade*mie des Sciences on one occasion 

 someone made an allusion to a certain work, almost unknown, and 

 two or three hundred years old. Berthelot gave the name of the 

 author, mentioned the subject of the book, and indicated the place it 

 occupied in the library of the Institut de France. I have seen at close 

 quarters a good many illustrious men in my time, and there have only 

 been three before whom I had the sentiment of grandeur : Berthelot, 

 Renan, and Taine. What was most admirable about Berthelot was 

 that, although he was universally acknowledged as a great scientist, 



