MALUS. 
A BIOGRAPHY PREPARED FOR THE PUBLIC SITTING OF 
THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 1854; AND READ BY 
SPECIAL DESIRE OF THAT LEARNED BODY, ON THE 
8TH OF JANUARY, 1855. 
BIRTH OF MALUS.—HIS LITERARY EDUCATION.—HIS 
ADMISSION TO THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL. 
StepHeN Louis Matus, whose name will be per- 
petuated by an immortal discovery as long as the phys- 
ical sciences shall be honoured among men, was _ born 
at Paris, on the 23d of July, 1775, his parents being 
Anne-Louis Malus of Mitry, treasurer of France, and 
Louisa Charlotte Desbres. 
His first studies were principally literary ; he acquired 
a very sound knowledge of the authors who form the 
glory of Greek and Latin literature. Up to his latest 
years he continued to be able to recite, without hesita- 
tion, long passages of the Iliad, of Anacreon, Horace, 
and Virgil. Like almost all scholars gifted with some 
facility of composition, he rashly devoted his youthful 
talents to productions of a kind really above his powers, 
and the difficulty of which one of our great poets so 
energetically characterizes when he calls them, “ ceuvres 
du démon.” But he carried out his endeavours to an 
