a 
EARLY CAREER. 119 
attain the desired end with the least possible fatigue. A 
few moments’ conversation showed the engineer that he 
had found in the humble labourer of the 15th Battalion 
of Paris a superior man; and he accordingly sent him to 
the “ Ecole Polytechnique,” which had just. been founded. 
Malus then was one of the first pupils of this celebrated 
institution. He soon gained the good will of Monge, who 
became his friend ; indeed nothing less than such a warm 
friendship was necessary to preserve him from the mis- 
fortunes he would have incurred from his taking a part 
in the many political movements by which the capital 
was then agitated. 
On quitting the school, Malus went to Metz, where he 
was received as a pupil sub-lieutenant of engineers the 
20th February, 1796. He was named captain on the 
19th June following ; and was sent the next year to the 
army of the Sambre and Meuse, where he took an active 
and distinguished part in the actions in which that valiant 
army was engaged. 
There has been recently found among the family pa- 
pers, a small bound book, in which Malus, when captain 
of engineers, and employed in the army of the East, 
traced day by day an abridged narrative of all the events 
of which he had been an eyewitness, or in which he had 
taken a direct part. ‘These memoranda, which I have 
read with the greatest interest, and in which our fellow 
labourer figures chiefly as a military man, seem to me to 
deserve a detailed analysis. I have resolved to lay it 
before you, were it only to prove once more, that pro- 
found knowledge and a scientific genius did not weaken 
either the zeal, the constancy, the courage, or the spirit 
of enterprise, which ought to distinguish an officer of the 
highest military qualities. 
