ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 165 



party influence, holds itself in the first position in public 

 esteem by taking the greatest care always to recruit its 

 ranks solely from among those who are most worthy. 



Mains had become major, a rank corresponding with 

 that of lieutenant-colonel, December 5, 1810. The gov- 

 ernment had often entrusted him with the mission to 

 classify in their order of merit the officers of artillery and 

 engineers at their departure from the Practical School of 

 Metz. He became afterwards examiner of the pupils of 

 the Ecole Polytechnique for descriptive geometry, and 

 the sciences dependent on it. 



On the 14th Vendemiaire an IX.* Malus wrote from 

 Benisouf to his friend Lancret : " I live here like a her- 

 mit ; I pass whole days without speaking a word." It 

 appeared that our friend often abandoned himself to his 

 taste for silence. The pupils of the Ecole Polytechnique 

 and the Ecole d'Application, related that in going over 

 their exercises he contented himself by pointing out with 

 his finger the parts on which he required explanations, 

 without saying a word. This mode of asking, which con- 

 trasted so singularly with that of some other examiners, his 

 contemporaries, not a little astonished them. But they 

 did not the less do complete justice to the enlightened 

 patience, the intelligence, and the perfect honesty which 

 characterized all the decisions made by Malus at the close 

 of his examinations. Malus filled, ad interim, in 1811, 

 the functions of Director of Studies at the Ecole Poly- 

 technique. There were only wanting some regimental 

 formalities to entrust to him definitively this important 

 employment. 



The companion of his choice whom he went to seek at 

 Giessen after the expedition to Egypt, threw over his 



* October 5, 1800. 



