THE CENTENARY OP THE ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE. 
173 
intelligence and admitted him. The event well justified the examiner's 
prescience. Nearly four hundred pupils were thus admitted to the 
school and lodged in the old Palais Bourbon, then re-named the Maison 
de la Revolution, and built upon the site of the once famous “ Pve aux 
Clercs ,” so long the scene of scholastic galantries and students' exploits. 
Citoyen Jacques Elie Lamblardie, who had lately been summoned from 
Cherbourg to become Inspector-General of the Ecole des pouts et 
chaussees, was appointed Director of the newly-established Ecole Poly¬ 
technique. A uniform was adopted by the advice of this competent 
engineer, as he remarked that the young republicans were more dis¬ 
tinguished for their patriotic zeal and talent than for their elegance or 
decency of costume, which can readily be imagined to have been some¬ 
what free and easy. Within a short time the students were clothed in 
the uniform of the gunners of the National Guard, blue coat and 
breeches, red facings, three-cornered hat with red feather, and brass 
buttons bearing the motto “La Nation, la loi!” 
The First Opening op the School. 
The opening of the first term took place on the 19th December, 1794. 
Monge directed the course of study, and organised the staff of instruc¬ 
tors; the first savants of the day assisted him as professors of the 
various classes. In spite of this the school was subjected to extreme 
criticism. The expenses of the establishment were objected to, and it 
almost became a question of suppressing the school. Prieur defended 
the Polytechnic School in a memoir before the Commission entrusted 
with the preparation of the Constitution of the Year III. He called 
to mind the advantages which France would derive from this establish¬ 
ment, etc., and thus saved the institution; whilst the law of (15 Fructidor 
An. III.) 1st September, 1795, finally removed all fear of suppression. 
The 1st Article of this law, inserted in deference to Prieur's proposi¬ 
tion, laid down that henceforth the school should take the name of the 
“Ecole Poly technique and the following Articles regulated its rela¬ 
tions with the several schools of Artillery, Engineering, Mining, Hoads 
and Bridges, etc. From that date the Ecole Polytechnique ranked 
among the general scientific institutions of France; and Fourcroy, the 
President of the School Council, wrote to Prieur :—“ The School will 
never forget the services which thou hast rendered it, and the obligation 
which it owes thee, for the success of this great national enterprise." 
In truth the school has not forgotten Prieur, any more than it has 
forgotten Monge, who was the soul of the institution throughout the 
whole period of the duration of the Revolution and of the first Empire ; 
nor has it forgotten Lamblardie, who was its first director, or Carnot, 
who in the midst of his victories, carried out his idea of a great 
national establishment of sciences and prepared the decree of its foun¬ 
dation, which Fourcroy and Prieur submitted to the Convention of the 
11th March, 1794. 
Prominent Position Assigned to the School. 
The original idea of the Ecole Polytechnique had been the creation 
of a common school of science, replacing all others in existence pre- 
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