14 CARNOT. 
since she has never given occasion for any talk about 
her.” 
Such an epigram would not have been applicable to 
the Academy of Dijon. This celebrated society did not 
shun the public gaze, either when it proposed the ques- 
tion, “ Whether the reéstablishment of the arts and 
sciences had contributed to the refinement of manners,” 
nor, more especially, when it rewarded the discourse in 
which Jean-Jacques pronounced in the negative. Time 
has done ample justice to the paradox; but- it ought not 
to have effaced the remembrance of the generous pro- 
ceeding which, in giving to Rousseau an unexpected 
celebrity, attached him for ever to the brilliant career in 
which he met with competitors and rivals, but not with a 
master. 
To the merit which I have just related, the Academy 
of Dijon can add that of having called forth the first pro- 
duction of Carnot’s which the press took possession of,— 
the Lloge of Vauban. 
The intrepidity, the disinterestedness, and the science 
of the illustrious marshal had already received, from the 
tongue of Fontenelle, an homage to which it seemed 
difficult to add. What speech indeed could more 
worthily characterize a military life than these few 
figures ? “ Vauban caused work to be done at 300 for- 
tresses ; he constructed 33 new ones; he conducted 53 
sieges; he was present at 140 actions of importance.” 
And does not this other sentence seem as though bor- 
rowed from Plutarch? “The morals of Vauban held 
out perfectly against the most brilliant dignities, and 
never even wavered. In a word, he was a Roman 
whom it seemed as if our age had stolen from the best 
times of the Republic !” 
