8 CARNOT. 
defatigable, and ingenious codperator whom, by these 
traits, each of you has already recognized—he discovered 
Vauquelin ! 
ENTRANCE OF CARNOT INTO THE SCHOOL OF ME- 
ZIERES AS SECOND LIEUTENANT OF ENGINEERS. 
At the time when Carnot quitted the establishment of 
M. de Longpré, the “ ordonnance” in virtue of which a 
genealogist codperated with a geometer in the examina- 
tion of the future officers of engineers was not in force.. 
In 1771 any Frenchman might still be admitted at the 
school of Méziéres without showing any parchments, on 
condition always that neither his father nor mother had 
endeavoured to enrich their family and their country by 
commerce or by manual labour. The young aspirant 
displayed unusual mathematical knowledge before the 
examiner, Bossut. His father, in obedience to the sad 
exigencies of the period, proved on his part that no ship 
of his had ever been to distant countries to exchange the 
fruits of the French soil or of French industry, for pro- 
ductions reserved by nature to other climates; that his 
hands had never put together the movable types of 
Gutenberg, even for the purpose of reproducing the 
Bible or the Gospel; that he had not personally co- 
operated in the construction of any of those admirable 
instruments which measure time, or which sound the 
depths of space. 
After legal proof of these negative merits, young 
Carnot was declared of sufficiently good family to wear 
an epaulette, and received without delay that of a second 
lieutenant. 
Decorated with this so-much-desired epaulette, Carnot, 
at the age of eighteen years, came to the School of En- 
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