The exigencies of the war had rendered more glaring the urgent necessity of having good topographical maps, and the insufficiency of those in use became every day more evident. The geographical engineers, which corps had been suppressed by the Constituent Assembly, were recalled to the armies, and although they could not, in these first moments, give to their labours the necessary extent and detail, they nevertheless paved the way to the great results since obtained in this branch of the art military. Nothing is more easy than to destroy; nothing is so difficult, and, above all, so tedious as to reconstruct.
The persons then in power had likewise had the prudence to preserve in their functions such pupils and engineers in the civil line as were of an age to come under the requisition. Whatever might be the want of defenders, it was felt that it requires ten years' study to form an engineer; while health and courage suffice for making a soldier. This disastrous period affords instances of foresight and skill which have not always been imitated in times more tranquil.
The Sciences had just rendered great services to the country. They were calumniated; those who had made use of them were compelled to defend them, and did so with courage. A circumstance, equally singular and unforeseen, occasioned complete recourse to be had to their assistance.
An officer arrived at the Committee of Public Welfare: he announced that the republican armies were in presence of the enemy; but that the French generals durst not march their soldiers to battle, because the brandies were poisoned, and that the sick in the hospitals, having drunk some, had died. He requested the Committee to cause them to be examined, asked for orders on this subject, and wished to set off again immediately.
The most skilful chymists were instantly assembled: they were ordered to analyze the brandies, and to indicate, in the course of the day, the poison and the remedy.
These savans laboured without intermission, trusting only to themselves for the most minute details. Scarcely was time allowed them to finish their operations, when they were summoned to appear before the Committee of Public Welfare, over which ROBESPIERRE presided.
They announced that the brandies were not poisoned, and that water only had been added to them, in which was slate in suspension, so that it was sufficient to filter them, in order to deprive them of their hurtful quality.
ROBESPIERRE, who hoped to discover a treason, asked the Commissioners if they were perfectly sure of what they had just advanced. As a satisfactory answer to the question, one of them took a strainer, poured the liquor through it, and drank it without hesitation. All the others followed his example. "What!" said ROBESPIERRE to him, "do you dare to drink these poisoned brandies?"----"I durst do much more," answered he, "when I put my name to the Report."
This service, though in itself of little importance, impressed the public mind with a conception of the utility of the savans, a greater number of whom were called into the Committee of Public Welfare. There they were secure from subaltern informers, with which France abounded. Having concerns only with the members charged with the military department, who were endeavouring to save them, they might, by keeping silence, escape the suspicious looks of the tyrants of the day. There was then but one resource for men of merit and virtue, namely, to conceal their existence, and cause themselves to be forgotten.
In the midst of this sanguinary persecution, all the means of defence employed by France, issued from the obscure retreat where the genius of the Sciences had taken refuge.