444 JOSEPH FOURIER. 



recall here the grief which the Institute experienced 

 upon losing one of its most important members ; and 

 those obsequies, on the occasion of which so many per- 

 sons, usually divided by interests and opinions, united 

 together, in one common feeling of admiration and regret, 

 around the mortal remains of Fourier ; and the Poly- 

 technic School swelling in a mass the cortege, in order 

 to render homage to one of its earliest, of its most cele- 

 brated professors ; and the words which, on the brink of 

 the tomb, depicted so eloquently the profound mathe- 

 matician, the elegant writer, the upright administrator, 

 the good citizen, the devoted friend. We shall merely 

 state that Fourier belonged to all the great learned socie- 

 ties of the world, that they united with the most touch- 

 ing unanimity in the mourning of the Academy, in the 

 mourning of all France : a striking testimony that the 

 republic of letters is no longer, in the present day, merely 

 a vain name ! What, then, was wanting to the memory 

 of our colleague ? A more able successor than I have 

 been to exhibit in full relief the different phases of a life 

 so varied, so laborious, so gloriously interlaced with the 

 greatest events of the most memorable epochs of our 

 history. Fortunately, the scientific discoveries of the 

 illustrious secretary had nothing to dread from 'the in- 

 competency of the panegyrist. My object will have been 

 completely attained if, notwithstanding the imperfection 

 of my sketches, each of you will have learned that the 

 progress of general physics, of terrestrial physics, and of 

 geology, will daily multiply the fertile applications of the 

 Theorie Analytique de la Chaleur, and that this work 

 will transmit the name of Fourier down to the remotest 

 posterity. 



