After making his excuses on the ground of important duties, the mayor of the eleventh arrondissement, who was in the habit of taking the lead in the conversation wherever he went, said, having swallowed a few hasty mouthfuls:—
“Messieurs and mesdames, have you heard the great news?”
“No, what is it?” cried several voices at once.
“The Academy of Sciences received, to-day, at its afternoon session, the announcement of a vast discovery: the heavens possess a new star!”
“Tiens!” said Colleville; “that will help to replace the one that Beranger thought was lost when he grieved (to that air of ‘Octavie’) over Chateaubriand’s departure: ‘Chateaubriand, why fly thy land?’”
This quotation, which he sang, exasperated Flavie, and if the custom had been for wives to sit next to their husbands, the former clarionet of the Opera-Comique would not have escaped with a mere “Colleville!” imperiously calling him to order.
“The point which gives this great astronomical event a special interest on this occasion,” continued Minard, “is that the author of the discovery is a denizen of the twelfth arrondissement, which many of you still inhabit, or have inhabited. But other points are striking in this great scientific fact. The Academy, on the reading of the communication which announced it, was so convinced of the existence of this star that a deputation was appointed to visit the domicile of the modern Galileo and compliment him in the name of the whole body. And yet this star is not visible to either the eye or the telescope! It is only by the power of calculation and induction that its existence and the place it occupies in the heavens have been proved in the most irrefutable manner: ‘There must be there a hitherto unknown star; I cannot see it, but I am sure of it,’—that is what this man of science said to the Academy, whom he instantly convinced by his deductions. And do you know, messieurs, who is this Christopher Columbus of a new celestial world? An old man, two-thirds blind, who has scarcely eyes enough to walk in the street.”
“Wonderful! Marvellous! Admirable!” came from all sides.
“What is the name of this learned man?” asked several voices.
“Monsieur Picot, or, if you prefer it, pere Picot, for that is how they call him in the rue du Val-de-Grace, where he lives. He is simply an old professor of mathematics, who has turned out several very fine pupils,—by the bye, Felix Phellion, whom we all know, studied under him, and it was he who read, on behalf of his blind old master, the communication to the Academy this afternoon.”