POLITICAL INFLUENCES. 277 



more devoted than myself to the august family of our 

 kin^s, and to the wise institutions which France owes to 



O / 



it." " All this, sir, is too vague ; we shall understand 

 one another better by using plain terms. If you were a 

 deputy, by the side of which member would you sit ? " 

 " Monseigneur," replied Fresnel, without hesitation, " by 

 the side of Camille Jordan, if I were worthy." " Many 

 thanks for your frankness," replied the minister. The 

 next day an unknown individual was named examiner 

 of the marine. 



Fresnel received this repulse without a word of com- 

 plaint. In his mind, the personal question was entirely 

 effaced in comparison with the pain he felt in seeing, 

 after thirty years of debates and troubles, political pas- 

 sions still so little subdued. When a minister, whose 

 private qualities might claim the homage of good men of 

 all parties, considered himself obliged to ask a scientific 

 examiner, not for proofs of incorruptibility, of zeal, or of 

 knowledge, but for an assurance that, if by chance he 

 should ever happen to become a deputy, Jae would not 

 determine to sit at the side of Camille Jordan, a good 

 citizen could not but fear that our political future was not 

 to be exempt from storms. 



The body of instructors of the Ecole Polytechnique, 

 under all regimens, has suffered little from political influ- 

 ences. There the examiner and the professor must daily 

 discharge their duties in person ; there, under the eyes 

 of a nursery of skilful hearers, and in some slight degree 

 inclined to malice, inaccurate refinements, false calcula- 

 tions, bad experiments in chemistry or physics would in 

 vain seek refuge under the shelter of the opinions of the 

 day. Fresnel might then hope that, notwithstanding his 

 recent profession of faith, they would not deprive him of 



