406 | JOSEPH FOURIER. 
advantage. He took personal cognizance of the projects 
which were submitted to him; he was the indefatigable 
promoter of all those which narrow-minded persons 
sought to stifle in their birth; we may include in this 
last class, the superb road from Grenoble to Turin by 
Mount Genévre, which the events of 1814 have so 
unfortunately interrupted, and especially the drainage of 
the marshes of Bourgoin. 
These marshes, which Louis XIV. had given to Mar- 
shal Turenne, were a focus of infection to the thirty- 
seven communes, the lands of which were partially 
covered by them. Fourier directed personally the topo- 
graphic operations which established the possibility of 
drainage. With these documents in his hand he went 
from village to village, I might almost say from house 
to house, to fix the sacrifice which each family ought 
to impose upon itself for the general interest. By tact 
and perseverance, taking “the ear of corn always in the 
right direction, thirty-seven municipal councils were in- 
duced to contribute to a common fund, without which the 
projected operation would not even have been commenced. 
Success crowned this rare perseverance. Rich harvests, 
fat pastures, numerous flocks, a robust and happy popu- 
lation now covered an immense territory, where formerly 
the traveller dared not remain more than a few hours. 
One of the predecessors of Fourier, in the situation of 
perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, deemed 
it his duty, on one occasion, to beg an excuse for having 
given a detailed account of certain researches of Leib- 
nitz, which had not required great efforts of the intellect: 
“We ought,” says he, “to be very much obliged toa 
man such as he is, when he condescends, for the public 
good, to do something which does not partake of genius!” 
