386 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



ideas of order, civilization, and internal prosperity, re- 

 solved upon organizing a system of public instruction, 

 but a difficulty arose in finding professors. The mem- 

 bers of the corps of instruction had become officers of 

 artillery, of engineering, or of the staff, and were com- 

 bating the enemies of France at the frontiers. Fortu- 

 nately at this epoch of intellectual exaltation, nothing 

 seemed impossible. Professors were wanting ; it was 

 resolved without delay to create some, and the Normal 

 School sprung into existence. Fifteen hundred citizens 

 of all ages, despatched from the principal district towns, 

 assembled together, not to study in all their ramifications 

 the different branches of human knowledge, but in order 

 to learn the art of teaching under the greatest masters. 



Fourier was one of these fifteen hundred pupils. It 

 will, no doubt, excite some surprise that he was elected 

 at St. Florentine, and that Auxerre appeared insensible. 

 to the honour of being represented at Paris by the most 

 illustrious of her children. But this indifference will be 

 readily understood. The elaborate scaffolding of calumny 

 which it has served to support will fall to the ground as 

 soon as I recall to mind, that after the 9th Thermidor 

 the capital, and especially the provinces, became a prey 

 to a blind and disorderly reaction, as all political reactions 

 invariably are ; that crime (the crime of having changed 

 opinions it was nothing less hideous) usurped the place 

 of justice ; that excellent citizens, that pure, moderate, 

 and conscientious patriots were daily massacred by hired 

 bands of assassins in presence of whom the inhabitants 

 remained mute with fear. Such are, Gentlemen, the 

 formidable influences which for a moment deprived 

 Fourier of the suffrages of his countrymen ; and carica- 

 tured, as a partisan of Robespierre, the individual whom 



