Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men | Page 3

of the battle of Peires-Tortes. The Spanish troops in their retreat had partly mistaken their road. I was in the square of the village before daybreak; I saw a brigadier and five troopers come up, who, at the sight of the tree of liberty, called out, "_Somos perdidos!_" I ran immediately to the house to arm myself with a lance which had been left there by a soldier of the _lev��e en masse_, and placing myself in ambush at the corner of a street, I struck with a blow of this weapon the brigadier placed at the head of the party. The wound was not dangerous; a cut of the sabre, however, was descending to punish my hardihood, when some countrymen came to my aid, and, armed with forks, overturned the five cavaliers from their saddles, and made them prisoners. I was then seven years old.[1]
My father having gone to reside at Perpignan, as treasurer of the mint, all the family quitted Estagel to follow him there. I was then placed as an out-door pupil at the municipal college of the town, where I occupied myself almost exclusively with my literary studies. Our classic authors had become the objects of my favourite reading. But the direction of my ideas became changed all at once by a singular circumstance which I will relate.
Walking one day on the ramparts of the town, I saw an officer of engineers who was directing the execution of the repairs. This officer, M. Cressac, was very young; I had the hardihood to approach him, and to ask him how he had succeeded in so soon wearing an epaulette. "I come from the Polytechnic School," he answered. "What school is that?" "It is a school which one enters by an examination." "Is much expected of the candidates?" "You will see it in the programme which the Government sends every year to the departmental administration; you will find it moreover in the numbers of the journal of the school, which are in the library of the central school."
I ran at once to the library, and there, for the first time, I read the programme of the knowledge required in the candidates.
From this moment I abandoned the classes of the central school, where I was taught to admire Corneille, Racine, La Fontaine, Moli��re, and attended only the mathematical course. This course was entrusted to a retired ecclesiastic, the Abb�� Verdier, a very respectable man, but whose knowledge went no further than the elementary course of La Caille. I saw at a glance that M. Verdier's lessons would not be sufficient to secure my admission to the Polytechnic School; I therefore decided on studying by myself the newest works, which I sent for from Paris. These were those of Legendre, Lacroix, and Garnier. In going through these works I often met with difficulties which exceeded my powers; happily, strange though it be, and perhaps without example in all the rest of France, there was a proprietor at Estagel, M. Raynal, who made the study of the higher mathematics his recreation. It was in his kitchen, whilst giving orders to numerous domestics for the labours of the next day, that M. Raynal read with advantage the "Hydraulic Architecture" of Prony, the "M��canique Analytique," and the "M��canique C��leste." This excellent man often gave me useful advice; but I must say that I found my real master in the cover of M. Garnier's "Treatise on Algebra." This cover consisted of a printed leaf, on the outside of which blue paper was pasted. The reading of the page not covered made me desirous to know what the blue paper hid from me. I took off this paper carefully, having first damped it, and was able to read underneath it the advice given by d'Alembert to a young man who communicated to him the difficulties which he met with in his studies: "Go on, sir, go on, and conviction will come to you."
This gave me a gleam of light; instead of persisting in attempts to comprehend at first sight the propositions before me, I admitted their truth provisionally; I went on further, and was quite surprised, on the morrow, that I comprehended perfectly what overnight appeared to me to be encompassed with thick clouds.
I thus made myself master, in a year and a half, of all the subjects contained in the programme for admission, and I went to Montpellier to undergo the examination. I was then sixteen years of age. M. Monge, junior, the examiner, was detained at Toulouse by indisposition, and wrote to the candidates assembled at Montpellier that he would examine them in Paris. I was myself too unwell to undertake so long a journey, and I returned to Perpignan.
There I listened for a moment to the solicitations of my family, who pressed