ESTIMATION OF WATT’S MERITS. 459 
tary eloquence, of which he will for ever remain the 
model.” 
On the 28th of February, the day after the celebrated 
sitting that I have just described, the Moniteur, with its 
known fidelity, published an answer from the emperor to 
Chenier’s discourse. It was cold, laconic, unmeaning ; 
it had, in short, all the characteristics that other people 
would say are those of an official document. As to the 
incident that I recorded, there was no allusion to it; a 
wretched concession to predominant opinions, to the sus- 
cédptibilities of a military etiquette! The master of the 
world, to use Pliny’s expression, ceding for a moment to 
his inward feeling, had not the less bowed his fasces to 
the literary title awarded to him by an Academy. 
These reflections on the comparative merits of the 
man of letters and the man of arms, although not chiefly 
suggested by what is said, by what is done under our 
ocular experience, would not be inapplicable to the 
country of James Watt. I travelled not long since 
through England and Scotland. The good will with 
which I was received, authorized questions on my part, 
as dry, as pointed, as direct, as might, under other cir- 
cumstances, have come only from the president of a com- 
mission of inquiry. Already fully preoccupied with the 
obligation I should be under, at my return, to give a 
judgment on the illustrious mechanic; already feeling 
uneasy at the solemn character of the meeting before 
which I am speaking, I had prepared the following 
question: “What do you think of the influence that 
Watt had on the riches, on the power, and on the pros- 
perity of England?” I do not exaggerate in saying 
that I addressed this question to upwards of a hundred 
persons belonging to all classes of society, to all varie- 
