66 Xotes on the Life of Arago. 



eluding paragraph from a sketch by Cormenin (Les Orateurs), 

 published in 1842, may give a good idea: — 



"Whenever Arago ascends the tribune, the Chamber, at- 

 tentive and anxious, becomes still, and listens eagerly. The 

 spectators hang over the galleries to see him. His stature 

 is lofty, his hair is naturally curled and flowing, and his fine 

 Southern head rises over the Assembly. In the muscular 

 contraction of his temples there is a power of will and of 

 thought which reveals a noble spirit. Unlike those speakers 

 who address the house on every occasion, and who, nine times 

 out of ten, are ignorant of what they talk about, Arago does 

 not speak except on questions already prepared, and which 

 combine the interest of the circumstance with the attractions 

 of science. His speeches are therefore quite to the purpose 

 as well as general, and appeal at once to the reason and the 

 passions of his auditory. In this manner he soon comes to 

 master them. The very moment he enters on his subject, 

 he concentrates on himself the eyes and the attention of all. 

 He takes science, as it were, between his hands ; he strips it 

 of its asperities and its technical forms, and he renders it so 

 clear that the most ignorant are astonished, as they are 

 charmed, at the ease with which they understand its mys- 

 teries. There is something perfectly lucid in his demonstra- 

 tions. His manner is so expressive that light seems to issue 

 from his eyes, from his lips, from his very fingers. He inter- 

 weaves in his discourses the most caustic appeals to Minis- 

 ters — appeals which defy all answer ; the most piquant anec- 

 dotes, which seem to belong naturally to the subject, and 

 which adorn without overloading it. When he confines him- 

 self to the narration of facts, his elocution has all the graces 

 of simplicity. But when he is, as it were, face to face with 

 science, he looks into its very depths, draws forth its inmost 

 secrets, and displays all its wonders ; he invests his admira- 

 tion of it with the most magnificent language, his expressions 

 become more and more ardent, his style more coloured, and 

 his eloquence is equal to the grandeur of his subject." 



Arago stood the busiest man in a busy age — the great ex- 

 positor of nature's truths as they were developed by the 

 labours of experimentalists. The idea given, Arago saw at 



