JUVENILE CAREER. 7 
vent their believing ; let us compassionate the weaknesses 
of others, since every one has his own; and let us allow 
prejudices to wear away by time when we cannot obviate 
them by reason.” 
After theology, scientific studies, especially those of 
geometry and algebra, had their turn, and, as at Nolay 
and Autun, his success was rapid and brilliant. M. de 
Longpré, director of the preparatory school, was ac- 
quainted with D’Alembert. The illustrious geometer was 
not above going amongst very young scholars, to encour- 
age rising merit by his approbation. In one of his visits 
he particularly distinguished Carnot, and addressed to 
him flattering and prophetic words, which our colleague 
would repeat with emotion, even during those periods 
when fortune had rendered him one of the arbiters of the 
destinies of Europe. 
Perhaps this is an opportunity, Gentlemen, for re- 
gretting that, in our society, such as half a century of 
revolutions has made it, the personal intercourse which 
formerly existed between the professors and distinguished 
scholars of great schools, has totally disappeared, and has 
become indeed, to a certain degree, impossible. Now-a- 
days, at the hour set down in the programmes, illustrious 
men of learning or of literature arrive in spacious am- 
phitheatres. A crowd is waiting for them. During entire 
hours, all that is profound, intricate, or new, in science or 
literature, is developed with system, clearness, and elo- 
quence; but, the lesson finished, the professor retires, 
without even knowing the names of those who have 
listened to him. Nevertheless, in the midst of such an 
audience (I will confine myself, Gentlemen, to a single 
example), Fourcroy found, in an apothecary’s boy who 
had come furtively to hear him, the devoted, exact, in- 
