tendent of Lectures on Fortification,
afterwards appointed to deliver a course of lectures on Analysis,
Fourier has left there a venerated name, and the reputation of a
professor distinguished by clearness, method, and erudition; I shall add
even the reputation of a professor full of grace, for our colleague has
proved that this kind of merit may not be foreign to the teaching of
mathematics.

The lectures of Fourier have not been collected together. The Journal of
the Polytechnic School contains only one paper by him, a memoir upon the
"principle of virtual velocities." This memoir, which probably had
served for the text of a lecture, shows that the secret of our
celebrated professor's great success consisted in the combination of
abstract truths, of interesting applications, and of historical details
little known, and derived, a thing so rare in our days, from original
sources.

We have now arrived at the epoch when the peace of Leoben brought back
to the metropolis the principal ornaments of our armies. Then the
professors and the pupils of the Polytechnic School had sometimes the
distinguished honour of sitting in their amphitheatres beside Generals
Desaix and Bonaparte. Every thing indicated to them then an active
participation in the events which each foresaw, and which in fact were
not long of occurring.

Notwithstanding the precarious condition of Europe, the Directory
decided upon denuding the country of its best troops, and launching them
upon an adventurous expedition. The five chiefs of the Republic were
then desirous of removing from Paris the conqueror of Italy, of thereby
putting an end to the popular demonstrations of which he everywhere
formed the object, and which sooner or later would become a real danger.

On the other hand, the illustrious general did not dream merely of the
momentary conquest of Egypt; he wished to restore to that country its
ancient splendour; he wished to extend its cultivation, to improve its
system of irrigation, to create new branches of industry, to open to
commerce numerous outlets, to stretch out a helping hand to the
unfortunate inhabitants, to rescue them from the galling yoke under
which they had groaned for ages, in a word, to bestow upon them without
delay all the benefits of European civilization. Designs of such
magnitude could not have been accomplished with the mere _personnel_ of
an ordinary army. It was necessary to appeal to science, to literature,
and to t