MATHEMATICAL STUDIES. 5 



in attempts to comprehend at first sight the propositions 

 before me, I admitted their truth provisionally ; I went 

 on further, and was quite surprised, on the morrow, that 

 I comprehended perfectly what overnight appeared to me 

 to be encompassed with thick clouds. 



I thus made myself master, in a year and a half, of all 

 the subjects contained in the programme for admission, 

 and I went to Montpellier to undergo the examination. 

 I was then sixteen years of age. M. Monge, junior, the 

 examiner, was detained at Toulouse by indisposition, and 

 wrote to the candidates assembled at Montpellier that he 

 would examine them in Paris. I was myself too unwell 

 to undertake so long a journey, and I returned to Per- 

 pignan. 



There I listened for a moment to the solicitations of 

 my family, who pressed me to renounce the prospects 

 which the Polytechnic School opened. But my taste for 

 mathematical studies soon carried the day ; I increased 

 my library with Euler's " Introduction a 1' Analyse Infini- 

 te'simale," with the " Resolution des Equations Numeri- 

 ques," with Lagrange's " Theorie des Fonctions Analyti- 

 ques," and " Me'canique Analytique," and finally with 

 Laplace's " Mecanique Celeste." I gave myself up with 

 great ardour to the study of these books. From the jour- 

 nal of the Polytechnic School containing such investiga- 

 tions as those of M. Poisson on Elimination, I imagined 

 that all the pupils were as much advanced as this geome- 

 ter, and that it would be necessary to rise to this height 

 to succeed. 



From this moment, I prepared myself for the artillery 

 service, the aim of my ambition ; and as I had heard 

 that an officer ought to understand music, fencing, and 

 dancing, I devoted the first hours of each clay to the cul- 

 tivation of these accomplishments. 



