Many pupils refused to add their felicitations to the mean adulations of the constituted bodies.
General Lacuée, who was appointed governor of the school, reported this opposition to the Emperor.
"M. Lacuée," cried Napoleon, in the midst of a group of courtiers, who applauded with speech and gesture, "you cannot retain at the school those pupils who have shown such ardent Republicanism; you will send them away." Then, collecting himself, he added, "I will first know their names and their stages of promotion." Seeing the list the next day, he did not proceed further than the first name, which was the first in the artillery. "I will not drive away the first men in advancement," said he. "Ah! if they had been at the bottom of the list! M. Lacuée, leave them alone."
Nothing was more curious than the séance to which General Lacuée came to receive the oath of obedience from the pupils. In the vast amphitheatre which contained them, one could not discern a trace of the gravity which such a ceremony should inspire. The greater part, instead of answering, at the call of their names, "I swear it," cried out, "Present."
All at once the monotony of this scene was interrupted by a pupil, son of the Conventionalist Brissot, who called out in a stentorian voice, "I will not take the oath of obedience to the Emperor." Lacuée, pale and with little presence of mind, ordered a detachment of armed pupils placed behind him to go and arrest the recusant. The detachment, of which I was at the head, refused to obey. Brissot, addressing himself to the General, with the greatest calmness said to him, "Point out the place to which you wish me to go; do not force the pupils to dishonour themselves by laying hands on a comrade who has no desire to resist."
The next morning Brissot was expelled.
About this time, M. Méchain, who had been sent to Spain to prolong the meridional line as far as Formentera, died at Castellon de la Plana. His son, Secretary at the Observatory, immediately gave in his resignation. Poisson offered me the situation. I declined his first proposal. I did not wish to renounce the military career,—the object of all my predilections, and in which, moreover, I was assured of the protection of Marshal Lannes,—a friend of my father's. Nevertheless I accepted, on trial, the position offered me in the Observatory, after a visit which I made to M. de Laplace in company with M. Poisson, under the express condition that I could re-enter the Artillery if that should suit me. It was from this cause that my name remained inscribed on the list of the pupils of the school. I was only detached to the Observatory on a special service.
I entered this establishment, then, on the nomination of Poisson, my friend, and through the intervention of Laplace. The latter loaded me with civilities. I was happy and proud when I dined in the Rue de Tournon with the great geometer. My mind and my heart were much disposed to admire all, to respect all, that was connected with him who had discovered the cause of the secular equation of the moon, had found in the movement of this planet the means of calculating the ellipticity of the earth, had traced to the laws of attraction the long inequalities of Jupiter and of Saturn, &c. &c. But what was my disenchantment, when one day I heard Madame de Laplace, approaching her husband, say to him, "Will you entrust to me the key of the sugar?"
Some days afterwards, a second incident affected me still more vividly. M. de Laplace's son was preparing for the examinations of the Polytechnic School. He came sometimes to see me at the Observatory. In one of his visits I explained to him the method of continued fractions, by help of which Lagrange obtains the roots of numerical equations. The young man spoke of it to his father with admiration. I shall never forget the rage which followed the words of Emile de Laplace, and the severity of the reproaches which were addressed to me, for having patronized a mode of proceeding which may be very long in theory, but which evidently can in no way be found fault with on the score of its elegance and precision. Never had a jealous prejudice shown itself more openly, or under a more bitter form. "Ah!" said I to myself, "how true was the inspiration of the ancients when they attributed weaknesses to him who nevertheless made Olympus tremble by a frown!"
Here I should mention, in order of time, a circumstance which might have produced the most fatal consequences for me. The fact was this:—