442 JOSEPH FOURIER. 
if it did not teach us to conquer our passions? It is not 
that occasionally the natural disposition of Fourier did 
not display itself in full relief. “It is strange,” said one 
day a certain very influential personage of the court of 
Charles X., whom Fourier’s servant would not allow to 
pass beyond the antechamber of our colleague,— it is 
truly strange that your master should be more difficult of 
access than a minister!” Fourier heard the conversa- 
tion, leaped out of his bed to which he was confined by 
indisposition, opened the door of the chamber, and ex- 
claimed, face to face with the courtier: “Joseph, tell 
Monsieur, that if I was minister, I should receive every- 
body, because it would be my duty to do so; but, being 
a private individual, I receive whomsoever I please, and 
at what hour soever I please!” Disconcerted by the 
liveliness of the retort, the great seignior did not utter 
one word in reply. We must even believe that from 
that moment he resolved not to visit any but ministers, 
for the plain man of science heard nothing more of him. 
Fourier was endowed with a constitution which held 
forth a promise of long life; but what can natural ad- 
vantages avail against the anti-hygienic habits which 
men arbitrarily acquire! In order to guard against 
slight attacks of rheumatism, our colleague was in the 
habit of clothing himself, even in the hottest season of 
the year, after a fashion which is not practised even by 
travellers condemned to spend the winter amid the snows 
of the polar regions. “One would suppose me to be 
corpulent,” he used to say occasionally with a smile; 
“be assured, however, that there is much to deduct from 
this opinion. If, after the example of the Egyptian 
mummies, I was subjected to the operation of disem- 
bowelment,—from which heaven preserve me,—the resi- 
due would be found to be a very slender body.” I might 
