16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



more openly, or under a more bitter form. " Ah ! " said 

 I to myself, " how true was the inspiration of the ancients 

 when they attributed weaknesses to him who nevertheless 

 made Olympus tremble by a frown ! " 



Here I should mention, in order of time, a circum- 

 stance which might have produced the most fatal conse- 

 quences for me. The fact was this : 



I have described above, the scene which caused the ex- 

 pulsion of Brissot's son from the Polytechnic School. I 

 had entirely lost sight of him for several months, when 

 he came to pay me a visit at the Observatory, and placed 

 me in the most delicate, the most terrible, position that 

 an honest man ever found himself in. 



" I have not seen you," he said to me, " because since 

 leaving the school I have practised daily firing with a 

 pistol ; I have now acquired a skill beyond the common, 

 and I am about to employ it in ridding France of the 

 tyrant who has confiscated all her liberties. My meas- 

 ures are taken : I have hired a small room on the Car- 

 rousel, close to the place by which Napoleon, on coming 

 out from the court, will pass to review the cavalry ; from 

 the humble window of my apartment will the ball be 

 fired which will go through his head." 



I leave it to be imagined with what despair I received 

 this confidence. I made every imaginable effort to deter 

 Brissot from his sinister project; I remarked how all 

 those who had rushed on enterprises of this nature had 

 been branded in history by the odious title of assassin. 

 Nothing succeeded in shaking his fatal resolution ; I only 

 obtained from him a promise on his honour that the exe- 

 cution of it should be postponed for a time, and I put 

 myself in quest of means for rendering it abortive. 



The idea of announcing Brissot's project to the author- 



