6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 
The rest of the time I was seen walking in the moats 
of the citadel of Perpignan, seeking by more or less 
forced transitions to pass from one question to another, so 
as to be sure of being able to show the examiner how far 
my studies had been carried.* : 
At last the moment of examination arrived, and I 
went to Toulouse in company with a candidate who had 
studied at the public college. It was the first time that 
pupils from Perpignan had appeared at the competition. 
My intimidated comrade was completely discomfited. 
When I repaired after him to the board, a very singular 
* Méchain, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the Insti- 
tute, was charged in 1792 with the prolongation of the measure of the 
are of the meridian in Spain as far as Barcelona. 
During his operations in the Pyrenees, in 1794, he had known my 
father, who was one of the administrators of the department of the 
Eastern Pyrenees. Later, in 1803, when the question was agitated as 
to the continuation of the measure of the meridian line as far as the 
Balearic Islands, M. Méchain went again to Perpignan, and came to 
pay my father a visit. As I was about setting off to undergo the ex- 
amination for admission at the Polytechnic School, my father ventured 
to ask him whether he could not recommend me to M. Monge. “ Will- 
ingly,’’ answered he; “ but, with the frankness which is my charac- 
teristic, I ought not to leave you unaware that it appears to me im- 
probable that your son, left to himself, can have rendered himself com- 
pletely master of the subjects of which the programme consists. If, 
however, he be admitted, let him be destined for the artillery, or for 
the engineers; the career of the sciences, of which you have talked 
to me, is really too difficult to go through, and unless he had a special 
calling for it, your son would only find it deceptive.’ Anticipating 
a little the order of dates, let us compare this advice with what occur- 
red: I went to Toulouse, underwent the examination, and was admit- 
ted; one year and a half afterwards I filled the situation of secretary 
at the Observatory, which*had become vacant by the resignation of 
M. Méchain’s son; one year and a half later, that is to say, four years 
after the Perpignan “ horoscope,” associated with M. Biot, I filled the 
place, in Spain, of the celebrated academician who had died there, a 
victim to his labours. 
