“You ask what that insolent young man had done to me? A rascally thing; and not the first, either. He knows that I cannot abide stars, having very good reason to hate them, as you shall hear: In 1807, being attached to the Bureau of Longitudes, I was part of the scientific expedition sent to Spain, under the direction of my friend and colleague, Jean-Baptiste Biot, to determine the arc of the terrestrial meridian from Barcelona to the Balearic isles. I was just in the act of observing a star (perhaps the very one my rascally pupil has discovered), when suddenly, war having broken out between France and Spain, the peasants, seeing me perched with a telescope on Monte Galazzo, took it into their heads that I was making signals to the enemy. A mob of savages broke my instruments, and talked of stringing me up. They were just going to do it, when the captain of a vessel took me prisoner and thrust me into the citadel of Belver, where I spent three years in the harshest captivity. Since them, as you may well believe, I loathe the whole celestial system; though I was, without knowing it, the first to observe the famous comet of 1811; but I should have taken care not to say a word about it if it had not been for Monsieur Flauguergues, who announced it. Like all my pupils, Phellion knows my aversion to stars, and he knew very well the worst trick he could play me would be to saddle one on my back; and that deputation that came to play the farce of congratulating me was mighty lucky not to find me at home, for if they had, I can assure those gentlemen of the Academy, they would have had a hot reception.”
Everybody present thought the old mathematician’s monomania quite delightful, except la Peyrade, who now, in perceiving Felix Phellion’s part in the affair, regretted deeply having caused the explanation.
“And yet, Monsieur Picot,” said Minard, “if Felix Phellion is only guilty of attributing his discovery to you, it seems to me that his indiscreet behavior has resulted in a certain compensation to you: the cross of the Legion of honor, a pension, and the glory attached to your name are not to be despised.”
“The cross and the pension I take,” said the old man, emptying his glass, which, to Brigitte’s terror, he set down upon the table with a force that threatened to smash it. “The government has owed them to me these twenty years; not for the discovery of stars,—things that I have always despised,—but for my famous ‘Treatise on Differential Logarithms’ (Kepler thought proper to call them monologarithms), which is a sequel to the tables of Napier; also for my ‘Postulatum’ of Euclid, of which I was the first to discover the solution; but above all, for my ‘Theory of Perpetual Motion,’—four volumes in quarto with plates; Paris, 1825. You see, therefore, monsieur, that to give me glory is bringing water to the Seine. I had so little need of Monsieur Felix Phellion to make me a position in the scientific world that I turned him out of my house long ago.”
“Then it isn’t the first star,” said Colleville, flippantly, “that he dared to put upon you?”
“He did worse than that,” roared the old man; “he ruined my reputation, he tarnished my name. My ‘Theory of Perpetual Motion,’ the printing of which cost me every penny I owned, though it ought to have been printed gratis at the Royal Printing-office, was calculated to make my fortune and render me immortal. Well, that miserable Felix prevented it. From time to time, pretending to bring messages from my editor, he would say, the young sycophant, ‘Papa Picot, your book is selling finely; here’s five hundred francs—two hundred francs—and once it was two thousand—which your publisher charged me to give you.’ This thing went on for years, and my publisher, who had the baseness to enter into the plot, would say to me, when I went to the shop: ‘Yes, yes, it doesn’t do badly, it bubbles, that book; we shall soon be at the end of this edition.’ I, who didn’t suggest anything, I pocketed my money, and thought to myself: ‘My book is liked, little by little its ideas are making their way; I may now expect, from day to day, that some great capitalist will come to me and propose to apply my system—‘”
“—of ‘Absorption of Liquids’?” asked Colleville, who had been steadily filling the old fellow’s glass.
“No, monsieur, my ‘Theory of Perpetual Motion,’ 4 vols. in quarto with plates. But no! days, weeks went by and nobody came; so, thinking that my publisher did not put all the energy he should into the matter, I tried to sell the second edition to another man. It was that, monsieur, that enabled me to discover the whole plot, on which, as I said before, I turned that serpent out of my house. In six years only nine copies had been sold! Kept quiet in false security I had done nothing for the propagation of my book, which had been left to take care of itself; and thus it was that I, victim of black and wicked jealousy, was shamefully despoiled of the value of my labors.”
“But,” said Minard, making himself the mouthpiece of the thoughts of the company, “may we not see in that act a manner as ingenious as it was delicate to—”
“To give me alms! is that what you mean?” interrupted the old man, with a roar that made Mademoiselle Minard jump in her chair; “to humiliate me, dishonor me—me, his old professor! Am I in need of charity? Has Picot (Nepomucene), to whom his wife brought a dowry of one hundred thousand francs, ever stretched out his palm to any one? But in these days nothing is respected. Old fellows, as they call us, our religion and our good faith is taken advantage of so that these youths may say to the public: ‘Old drivellers, don’t you see now they are good for nothing? It needs us, the young generation, us, the moderns, us, Young France, to bring them up on a bottle.’ Young greenhorn! let me see you try to feed me! Old drivellers know more in their little finger than you in your whole brain, and you’ll never be worth us, paltry little intriguer that you are! However, I know my day of vengeance will come; that young Phellion can’t help ending badly; what he did to-day, reading a statement to the Academy, under my name, was forgery, forgery! and the law will send him to the galleys for that.”