PART PLAYED BY FOURIER IN OUR REVOLUTION.—HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE CORPS OF PROFESSORS OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL AND THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL.—EXPEDITION TO EGYPT.
We had just left Fourier at Paris, submitting to the Academy of Sciences the analytical memoir of which I have just given a general view. Upon his return to Auxerre, the young geometer found the town, the surrounding country, and even the school to which he belonged, occupied intensely with the great questions relative to the dignity of human nature, philosophy, and politics, which were then discussed by the orators of the different parties of the National Assembly. Fourier abandoned himself also to this movement of the human mind. He embraced with enthusiasm the principles of the Revolution, and he ardently associated himself with every thing grand, just, and generous which the popular impulse offered. His patriotism made him accept the most difficult missions. We may assert, that never, even when his life was at stake, did he truckle to the base, covetous, and sanguinary passions which displayed themselves on all sides.
A member of the popular society of Auxerre, Fourier exercised there an almost irresistible ascendency. One day—all Burgundy has preserved the remembrance of it—on the occasion of a levy of three hundred thousand men, he made the words honour, country, glory, ring so eloquently, he induced so many voluntary enrolments, that the ballot was not deemed necessary. At the command of the orator the contingent assigned to the chief town of the Yonne formed in order, assembled together within the very enclosure of the Assembly, and marched forthwith to the frontier. Unfortunately these struggles of the forum, in which so many noble lives then exercised themselves, were far from having always a real importance. Ridiculous, absurd, and burlesque motions injured incessantly the inspirations of a pure, sincere, and enlightened patriotism. The popular society of Auxerre would furnish us, in case of necessity, with more than one example of those lamentable contrasts. Thus I might say that in the very same apartment wherein Fourier knew how to excite the honourable sentiments which I have with pleasure recalled to mind, he had on another occasion to contend with a certain orator, perhaps of good intentions, but assuredly a bad astronomer, who, wishing to escape, said he, from the good pleasure of municipal rulers, proposed that the names of the north, east, south, and west quarters should be assigned by lot to the different parts of the town of Auxerre.
Literature, the fine arts, and the sciences appeared for a moment to flourish under the auspicious influence of the French Revolution. Observe, for example, with what grandeur of conception the reformation of weights and measures was planned; what geometers, what astronomers, what eminent philosophers presided over every department of this noble undertaking! Alas! frightful revolutions in the interior of the country soon saddened this magnificent spectacle. The sciences could not prosper in the midst of the desperate contest of factions. They would have blushed to owe any obligations to the men of blood, whose blind passions immolated a Saron, a Bailly, and a Lavoisière.
A few months after the 9th Thermidor, the Convention being desirous of diffusing throughout the country ideas of order, civilization, and internal prosperity, resolved upon organizing a system of public instruction, but a difficulty arose in finding professors. The members of the corps of instruction had become officers of artillery, of engineering, or of the staff, and were combating the enemies of France at the frontiers. Fortunately at this epoch of intellectual exaltation, nothing seemed impossible. Professors were wanting; it was resolved without delay to create some, and the Normal School sprung into existence. Fifteen hundred citizens of all ages, despatched from the principal district towns, assembled together, not to study in all their ramifications the different branches of human knowledge, but in order to learn the art of teaching under the greatest masters.
Fourier was one of these fifteen hundred pupils. It will, no doubt, excite some surprise that he was elected at St. Florentine, and that Auxerre appeared insensible to the honour of being represented at Paris by the most illustrious of her children. But this indifference will be readily understood. The elaborate scaffolding of calumny which it has served to support will fall to the ground as soon as I recall to mind, that after the 9th Thermidor the capital, and especially the provinces, became a prey to a blind and disorderly reaction, as all political reactions invariably are; that crime (the crime of having changed opinions—it was nothing less hideous) usurped the place of justice; that excellent citizens, that pure, moderate, and conscientious patriots were daily massacred by hired bands of assassins in presence of whom the inhabitants remained mute with fear. Such are, Gentlemen, the formidable influences which for a moment deprived Fourier of the suffrages of his countrymen; and caricatured, as a partisan of Robespierre, the individual whom St. Just, making allusion to his sweet and persuasive eloquence, styled a patriot in music; who was so often thrown into prison by the decemvirs; who, at the very height of the Reign of Terror, offered before the Revolutionary Tribunal the assistance of his admirable talents to the mother of Marshal Davoust, accused of the crime of having at that unrelenting epoch sent some money to the emigrants; who had the incredible boldness to shut up at the inn of Tonnerre an agent of the Committee of Public Safety, into the secret of whose mission he penetrated, and thus obtained time to warn an honourable citizen that he was about to be arrested; who, finally, attaching himself personally to the sanguinary proconsul before whom every one trembled in Yonne, made him pass for a madman, and obtained his recall! You see, Gentlemen, some of the acts of patriotism, of devotion, and of humanity which signalized the early years of Fourier. They were, you have seen, repaid with ingratitude. But ought we in reality to be astonished at it? To expect gratitude from the man who cannot make an avowal of his feelings without danger, would be to shut one's eyes to the frailty of human nature, and to expose one's self to frequent disappointments.
In the Normal School of the Convention, discussion from time to time succeeded ordinary lectures. On those days an interchange of characters was effected; the pupils interrogated the professors. Some words pronounced by Fourier at one of those curious and useful meetings sufficed to attract attention towards him. Accordingly, as soon as a necessity was felt to create Masters of Conference, all eyes were turned towards the pupil of St. Florentine. The precision, the clearness, and the elegance of his lectures soon procured for him the unanimous applause of the fastidious and numerous audience which was confided to him.
When he attained the height of his scientific and literary glory, Fourier used to look back with pleasure upon the year 1794, and upon the sublime efforts which the French nation then made for the purpose of organizing a Corps of Public Instruction. If he had ventured, the title of Pupil of the original Normal School would have been beyond doubt that which he would have assumed by way of preference. Gentlemen, that school perished of cold, of wretchedness, and of hunger, and not, whatever people may say, from certain defects of organization which time and reflection would have easily rectified. Notwithstanding its short existence, it imparted to scientific studies quite a new direction which has been productive of the most important results. In supporting this opinion at some length, I shall acquit myself of a task which Fourier would certainly have imposed upon me, if he could have suspected, that with just and eloquent eulogiums of his character and his labours there should mingle within the walls of this apartment, and even emanate from the mouth of one of his successors, sharp critiques of his beloved Normal School.
It is to the Normal School that we must inevitably ascend if we would desire to ascertain the earliest public teaching of descriptive Geometry, that fine creation of the genius of Monge. It is from this source that it has passed almost without modification to the Polytechnic School, to foundries, to manufactories, and the most humble workshops.