M A L U S . 



A BIOGRAPHY PREPARED FOR THE PUBLIC SITTING OF 

 THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 1854; AND READ BY 

 SPECIAL DESIRE OF THAT LEARNED BODY, ON THE 

 STH OF JANUARY, 1855. 



BIRTH OF MALUS. HIS LITERARY EDUCATION. HIS 



ADMISSION TO THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL. 



STEPHEN Louis MALUS, whose name will be per- 

 petuated by an immortal discovery as long as the phys- 

 ical sciences shall be honoured among men, was born 

 at Paris, on the 23d of July, 1775, his parents being 

 Anne-Louis Malus of Mitry, treasurer -of France, and 

 Louisa Charlotte Desbres. 



His first studies were principally literary ; he acquired 

 a very sound knowledge of the authors who form the 

 glory of Greek and Latin literature. Up to his latest 

 years he continued to be able to recite, without hesita- 

 tion, long passages of the Iliad, of Anacreon, Horace, 

 and Virgil. Like almost all scholars gifted with some 

 facility of composition, he rashly devoted his youthful 

 talents to productions of a kind really above his powers, 

 and the difficulty of which one of our great poets so 

 energetically characterizes when he calls them, "ceuvres 

 du demon." But he carried out his endeavours to an 



