FOURIER APPOINTED PREFECT OF I/ISERE. 407 



I cannot conceive the ground of such scruples ; in the 

 present day, the sciences are regarded from too high a 

 point of view, that we should hesitate in placing in the 

 first rank of the labours with which they are adorned, 

 those which diifuse comfort, health, and happiness amidst 

 the working population. 



In presence of a part of the Academy of Inscriptions, 

 in an apartment wherein the name of hieroglyph has so 

 often resounded, I cannot refrain from alluding to the 

 service which Fourier rendered to science by retaining 

 Champollion. The young professor of history of the 

 Faculty of Letters of Grenoble had just attained the 

 twentieth year of his age. Fate calls him to shoulder 

 the musket. Fourier exempts him by investing him 

 with the title of pupil of the School of Oriental Lan- 

 guages which he had borne at Paris. The Minister of 

 War learns that the pupil formerly gave in his resigna- 

 tion ; he denounces the fraud, and dispatches a peremp- 

 tory order for his departure, which seems even to 

 exclude all idea of remonstrance. Fourier, however, is 

 not discouraged ; his intercessions are skilful and of a 

 pressing nature ; finally, he draws so animated a portrait 

 of the precocious talent of his young friend, that he suc- 

 ceeds in wringing from the government an order of special 

 exemption. It was not easy, Gentlemen, to obtain such 

 success. At the same time, a conscript, a member of our 

 Academy, succeeded in obtaining a revocation of his 

 order for departure only by declaring that he would fol- 

 low on foot, in the costume of the Institute, the contin- 

 gent of the arrondissement of Paris in which he was 

 classed. 



