of the young woman to be married stipulates for a dowry, and the half of
it is paid. The other half may be exacted the day that the woman is
repudiated. It would then be three half dowries that I should have to
pay if I sent back three of my wives. I ought, however, to rectify one
inaccuracy in what I said just now, that my four wives had never agreed
together. Once, they were agreed among themselves in the feeling of a
common hatred. In going through the market I had bought a young negress.
In the evening, when I retired to rest, I perceived that my wives had
prepared no bed for her, and that the unfortunate girl was extended on
the ground. I rolled up my trowsers and laid them under her head as a
kind of pillow. In the morning the distracting cries of the poor slave
made me run to her, and I found her nearly sinking under the blows of my
four wives; for once they understood each other marvellously well."
In February, 1809, the new Dey, the successor of the "épileur," a short
time after having entered on his functions, claimed from two to three
hundred thousand francs,--I do not remember exactly the sum,--which he
pretended was due to him from the French Government. M. Dubois
Thainville answered that he had received the Emperor's orders not to pay
one centime.
The Dey was furious, and decided upon declaring war against us. A
declaration of war at Algiers used to be immediately followed by putting
all the persons of other nations into prison. This time matters were not
pushed to this extreme limit. Our names might be figuring on the list of
the slaves of the Regency; but in fact, so far as I was concerned, I
remained free in the consular house. By means of a pecuniary guarantee,
contracted with the Swedish Consul, M. Norderling, I was even permitted
to live at his country house, situated near the Emperor's fort.
The most insignificant event was sufficient to modify the ideas of these
barbarians. I had come into the town one day, and was seated at table at
M. Dubois Thainville's, when the English Consul, Mr. Blankley, arrived
in great haste, announcing to our Consul the entrance into the port of a
French prize. "I never will uselessly add," said he, generously, "to the
severities of war; I came to announce to you, my colleague, that I will
give up your prisoners on a receipt which will insure me the deliverance
of an equal number of Englishmen detained in France." "I thank you,"
answered M. Dubois Thainville; "but I do not the less deplore this event
that it will retard, indefinitely, perhaps, the settlement of the
account in which I am engaged with the Dey."
During this conversation, armed with a telescope, I was looking through
the window of the dining-room, trying to persuade myself at least that
the captured vessel was not one of much importance. But one must yield
to evidence. It was pierced for a great number of guns. All at once, the
wind having displayed the flags, I perceived with surprise the French
flag over the English flag. I communicated what I observed to Mr.
Blankley. He answered immediately, "You do not surely pretend to observe
better with your bad telescope than I did with my _Dollond_?"
"And you cannot pretend," said I to him in _my_ turn, "to see better
than an astronomer by profession? I am sure of my fact. I beg M.
Thainville's permission, and will go this instant to visit this
mysterious prize."
In short, I went there; and this is what I learnt:--
General Duhesme, Governor of Barcelona, wishing to rid himself of the
most ill-disciplined portion of his garrison, formed the principal part
into the crew of a vessel, the command of which he gave to a lieutenant
of Babastre, a celebrated corsair of the Mediterranean.
There were amongst these improvised seamen a hussar, a dragoon, two
veterans, a miner with his long beard, &c. &c. The vessel, leaving
Barcelona by night, escaped the English cruiser, and got to the entrance
of Port Mahon. An English "lettre de marque" was coming out of the port.
The crew of the French vessel boarded her; and a furious combat on the
deck ensued, in which the French got the upper hand. It was this "lettre
de marque" which had now arrived at Algiers.
Invested with full power by M. Dubois Thainville, I announced to the
prisoners that they were about to be immediately given up to their
Consul. I respected even the trick of the captain, who, wounded by
several sabre-cuts, had contrived to cover up his head with his
principal flag. I re-assured his wife; but my chief care was especially
devoted to a passenger whom I saw with one arm amputated.
"Where is the surgeon," I said to him, "who operated on you?"
"It was not our surgeon," he answered. "He basely fled with a part of
the crew, and saved himself on land."
"Who, then, cut off your arm?"
"It was the hussar whom you see here."
"Unhappy man!" I exclaimed; "what could lead you, when it was not your
profession, to perform this operation?"
"The pressing request of the wounded man. His arm had already swollen to
an enormous size. He wanted some one to cut it off for him with a blow
of a hatchet. I told him that in Egypt, when I was in hospital, I had
seen several amputations made; that I would imitate what I had seen, and
might perhaps succeed. That at any rate it would be better than the blow
of a hatchet. All was agreed; I armed myself with the carpenter's saw;
and the operation was done."
I went off immediately to the American consul, to claim the assistance
of the only surgeon worthy of confidence who was then in Algiers. M.
Triplet--I think I recollect that that was the name of the man of the
distinguished art whose aid I invoked--came at once on board the vessel,
examined the dressing of the wound, and declared, to my very lively
satisfaction, that all was going on well, and that the Englishman would
survive his horrible injury.
The same day we had the wounded men carried on litters to Mr. Blankley's
house; this operation, executed with somewhat of ceremony, modified,
though slightly, the feelings of the Dey in our favour, and his
sentiments became yet more favourable towards us in consequence of
another maritime occurrence, although a very insignificant one.
One day a corvette was seen in the horizon armed with a very great
number of guns, and shaping her way towards the port of Algiers; there
appeared immediately after an English brig of war, in full sail; a
combat was therefore expected, and all the terraces of the town were
covered with spectators; the brig appeared to be the best sailer, and
seemed to us likely to reach the corvette, but the latter tacked about,
and seemed desirous to engage in battle; the English vessel fled before
her; the corvette tacked about a second time, and again directed her
course towards Algiers, where, one would have supposed, she had some
special mission to execute. The brig, in her turn now changed her
course, but held herself constantly beyond the reach of shot from the
corvette; at last the two vessels arrived in succession in the port, and
cast anchor, to the lively disappointment of the Algerine population,
who had hoped to be present without danger at a maritime combat between
the "Christian dogs," belonging to two nations equally detested in a
religious point of view; but shouts of laughter could not be repressed
when it was seen that the corvette was a merchant vessel, and that she
was only armed with wooden imitations of cannon. It was said in the town
that the English sailors were furious, and had been on the point of
mutiny against their too prudent captain.
I have very little to tell in favour of the Algerines; hence I must do
an act of justice by mentioning, that the corvette departed the next day
for the Antilles, her destination, and that the brig was not permitted
to set sail until the next day but one.
Bakri often came to the French Consulate to talk of our affairs with M.
Dubois Thainville: "What can you want?" said the latter, "you are an
Algerine; you will be the first victim of the Dey's obstinacy. I have
already written to Livorno that your families and your goods are to be
seized. When the vessels laden with cotton, which you have in this port,
arrive at Marseilles, they will be immediately confiscated; it is for
you to judge whether it would not better suit you to pay the sum which
the Dey claims, than to expose yourself to tenfold and certain loss."
Such reasoning was unanswerable; and whatever it might cost him, Bakri
decided on paying the sum that was demanded of France.
Permission to depart was immediately granted to us; I embarked the 21st
of June, 1809, on board a vessel in which M. Dubois Thainville and his
family were passengers.
The evening before our departure from Algiers, a corsair deposited at
the consul's the Majorcan mail, which he had taken from a vessel which
he had captured. It was a complete collection of the letters which the
inhabitants of the Baléares had been writing to their friends on the
Continent.
"Look here," said M. Dubois Thainville to me, "here is something to
amuse you during the voyage,--you who generally keep your room from
sea-sickness,--break the seals and read all these letters, and see
whether they contain any accounts by which we might profit how to aid
the unhappy soldiers who are dying of misery and despair in the little
island of Cabrera."
Scarcely had we arrived on board the vessel, when I set myself to the
work, and acted without scruple or remorse the part of an official of
the black chamber, with this sole difference, that the letters were
unsealed without taking any precautions. I found amongst them several
dispatches, in which Admiral Collingwood signified to the Spanish
Government the ease with which the prisoners might be delivered.
Immediately on our arrival at Marseilles these letters were sent to the
minister of naval affairs, who, I believe, did not pay much attention to
them.
I knew almost every one at Palma, the capital of Majorca. I leave it to
be imagined with what curiosity I read the missives in which the
beautiful ladies of the town expressed their hatred against _los
malditos cavachios_, (French,) whose presence in Spain had rendered
necessary the departure for the Continent of a magnificent regiment of
hussars; how many persons might I not have embroiled, if under a mask I
had found myself with them at the opera ball!
Many of the letters made mention of me, and were particularly
interesting to me; I was sure in this instance there was nothing to
constrain the frankness of those who had written them. It is an
advantage which few people can boast having enjoyed to the same degree.
The vessel in which I was, although laden with bales of cotton, had some
corsair papers of the Regency, and was the reputed escort of three
richly laden merchant vessels which were going to France.
We were off Marseilles on the 1st of July, when an English frigate came
to stop our passage: "I will not take you," said the English captain;
"but you will go towards the Hyères Islands, and Admiral Collingwood
will decide on your fate."
"I have received," answered the Barbary captain, "an express commission
to conduct these vessels to Marseilles, and I will execute it."
"You, individually, can do what may seem to you best," answered the
Englishman; "as to the merchant vessels under your escort, they will be,
I repeat to you, taken to Admiral Collingwood." And he immediately gave
orders to those vessels to set sail to the East.
The frigate had already gone a little distance when she perceived that
we were steering towards Marseilles. Having then learnt from the crews
of the merchant vessels that we were ourselves laden with cotton, she
tacked about to seize us.
She was very near reaching us, when we were enabled to enter the port of
the little island of Pomègue. In the night she put her boats to sea to
try to carry us off; but the enterprise was too perilous, and she did
not dare attempt it.
The next morning, 2d of July, 1809, I disembarked at the lazaretto.
At the present day they go from Algiers to Marseilles in four days; it
had taken me eleven months to make the same voyage. It is true that here
and there I had made involuntary sojourns.
My letters sent from the lazaretto at Marseilles were considered by my
relatives and friends as certificates of resurrection, they having for a
long time past supposed me dead. A great geometer had even proposed to
the Bureau of Longitude no longer to pay my allowance to my authorized
representative; which appears the more cruel inasmuch as this
representative was my father.
The first letter which I received from Paris was full of sympathy and
congratulations on the termination of my laborious and perilous
adventures; it was from a man already in possession of an European
reputation, but whom I had never seen: M. de Humboldt, after what he had
heard of my misfortunes, offered me his friendship. Such was the first
origin of a connection which dates from nearly forty-two years back,
without a single cloud ever paving troubled it.
M. Dubois Thainville had numerous acquaintances in Marseilles; his wife
was a native of that town, and her family resided there. They received,
therefore, both of them, numerous visits in the parlour of the
lazaretto. The bell which summoned them, for me alone was dumb; and I
remained as solitary and forsaken, at the gates of a town peopled with a
hundred thousand of my countrymen, as if I had been in the heart of
Africa. One day, however, the parlour-bell rang three times (the number
of times corresponding to the number of my room); I thought it must be a
mistake. I did not, however, allow this to appear. I traversed proudly
under the escort of my guard of health the long space which separates
the lazaretto, properly so called, from the parlour; and there I found,
with very lively satisfaction, M. Pons, the director of the Observatory
at Marseilles, and the most celebrated discoverer of comets of whom the
annals of Astronomy have ever had to register the success.
At any time a visit from the excellent M. Pons, whom I have since seen
director of the Observatory at Florence, would have been very agreeable
to me; but, during my quarantine, I felt it unappreciably valuable. It
proved to me that I had returned to my native soil.
Two or three days before our admission to freedom, we experienced a loss
which was deeply felt by each of us. To pass away the heavy time of a
severe quarantine, the little Algerine colony was in the habit of going
to an enclosure near the lazaretto, where a very beautiful gazelle,
belonging to M. Dubois Thainville, was confined; she bounded about there
in full liberty with a grace which excited our admiration. One of us
endeavoured to stop this elegant animal in her course; he seized her
unluckily by the leg, and broke it. We all ran, but only, alas! to
witness a scene which excited the deepest emotion in us.
The gazelle, lying on her side, raised her head sadly; her beautiful
eyes (the eyes of a gazelle!) shed torrents of tears; no cry of
complaint escaped her mouth; she produced that effect upon us which is
always felt when a person who is suddenly struck by an irreparable
misfortune, resigns himself to it, and shows his profound anguish only
by silent tears.
Having ended my quarantine, I went at once to Perpignan, to the bosom of
my family, where my mother, the most excellent and pious of women,
caused numerous masses to be said to celebrate my return, as she had
done before to pray for the repose of my soul, when she thought that I
had fallen under the daggers of the Spaniards. But I soon quitted my
native town to return to Paris; and I deposited at the Bureau of
Longitude and the Academy of Sciences my observations, which I had
succeeded in preserving amidst the perils and tribulations of my long
campaign.
A few days after my arrival, on the 18th of September, 1809, I was
nominated an academician in the place of Lalande. There were fifty-two
voters; I obtained forty-seven voices, M. Poisson four, and M. Nouet
one. I was then twenty-three years of age.
A nomination made with such a majority would appear, at first sight, as
if it could give rise to no serious difficulties; but it proved
otherwise. The intervention of M. de Laplace, before the day of ballot,
was active and incessant to have my admission postponed until the time
when a vacancy, occurring in the geometry section, might enable the
learned assembly to nominate M. Poisson at the same time as me. The
author of the _Mécanique Céleste_ had vowed to the young geometer an
unbounded attachment, completely justified, certainly, by the beautiful
researches which science already owed to him. M. de Laplace could not
support the idea that a young astronomer, younger by five years than M.
Poisson, a pupil, in the presence of his professor at the Polytechnic
School, should become an academician before him. He proposed to me,
therefore, to write to the Academy that I would not stand for election
until there should be a second place to give to Poisson. I answered by a
formal refusal, and giving my reasons in these terms: "I care little to
be nominated at this moment. I have decided upon leaving shortly with M.
de Humboldt for Thibet. In those savage regions the title of member of
the Institute will not smooth the difficulties which we shall have to
encounter. But I would not be guilty of any rudeness towards the
Academy. If they were to receive the declaration for which I am asked,
would not the savans who compose this illustrious body have a right to
say to me: 'How are you certain that we have thought of you? You refuse
what has not yet been offered to you.'"
On seeing my firm resolution not to lend myself to the inconsiderate
course which he had advised me to follow, M. de Laplace went to work in
another way; he maintained that I had not sufficient distinction for
admission into the Academy. I do not pretend that, at the age of
three-and-twenty, my scientific attainments were very considerable, if
estimated in an _absolute_ manner; but when I judged by _comparison_, I
regained courage, especially on considering that the three last years of
my life had been consecrated to the measurement of an arc of the
meridian in a foreign country; that they were passed amid the storms of
the war with Spain; often enough in dungeons, or, what was yet worse, in
the mountains of Kabylia, and at Algiers, at that time a very dangerous
residence.
Here is, therefore, my statement of accounts for that epoch. I make it
over to the impartial appreciation of the reader.
On leaving the Polytechnic School, I had made, in conjunction with M.
Biot, an extensive and very minute research on the determination of the
coefficient of the tables of atmospheric refraction.
We had also measured the refraction of different gases, which, up to
that time, had not been attempted.
A determination, more exact than had been previously obtained, of the
relation of the weight of air to the weight of mercury, had furnished a
direct value of the coefficient of the barometrical formula which served
for the calculation of the heights.
I had contributed, in a regular and very assiduous manner, during nearly
two years, to the observations which were made day and night with the
transit telescope and with the mural quadrant at the Paris Observatory.
I had undertaken, in conjunction with M. Bouvard, the observations
relating to the verification of the laws of the moon's libration. All
the calculations were prepared; it only remained for me to put the
numbers into the formulæ, when I was, by order of the Bureau of
Longitude, obliged to leave Paris for Spain. I had observed various
comets, and calculated their orbits. I had, in concert with M. Bouvard,
calculated, according to Laplace's formula, the table of refraction
which has been published in the _Recueil des Tables_ of the Bureau of
Longitude, and in the _Connaissance des Temps_. A research on the
velocity of light, made with a prism placed before the object end of the
telescope of the mural circle, had proved that the same tables of
refraction might serve for the sun and all the stars.
Finally, I had just terminated, under very difficult circumstances, the
grandest triangulation which had ever been achieved, to prolong the
meridian line from France as far as the island of Formentera.
M. de Laplace, without denying the importance and utility of these
labours and these researches, saw in them nothing more than indications
of promise; M. Lagrange then said to him explicitly:--
"Even you, M. de Laplace, when you entered the Academy, had done nothing
brilliant; you only gave promise. Your grand discoveries did not come
till afterwards."
Lagrange was the only man in Europe who could with authority address
such an observation to him.
M. de Laplace did not reply upon the ground of the personal question,
but he added,--"I maintain that it is useful to young savans to hold out
the position of member of the Institute as a future recompense, to
excite their zeal."
"You resemble," replied M. Hallé, "the driver of the hackney coach, who,
to excite his horses to a gallop, tied a bundle of hay at the end of his
carriage pole; the poor horses redoubled their efforts, and the bundle
of hay always flew on before them. After all, his plan made them fall
off, and soon after brought on their death."
Delambre, Legendre, Biot, insisted on the devotion, and what they termed
the courage, with which I had combated arduous difficulties, whether in
carrying on the observations, or in saving the instruments and the
results already obtained. They drew an animated picture of the dangers I
had undergone. M. de Laplace ended by yielding when he saw that all the
most eminent men of the Academy had taken me under their patronage, and
on the day of the election he gave me his vote. It would be, I must own,
a subject of regret with me even to this day, after a lapse of forty-two
years, if I had become member of the Institute without having obtained
the vote of the author of the _Mécanique Céleste_.
The Members of the Institute were always presented to the Emperor after
he had confirmed their nominations. On the appointed day, in company
with the presidents, with the secretaries of the four classes, and with
the academicians who had special publications to offer to the Chief of
the State, they assembled in one of the saloons of the Tuileries. When
the Emperor returned from mass, he held a kind of review of these
savans, these artists, these literary men, in green uniform.
I must own that the spectacle which I witnessed on the day of my
presentation did not edify me. I even experienced real displeasure in
seeing the anxiety evinced by members of the Institute to be noticed.
"You are very young," said Napoleon to me on coming near me; and without
waiting for a flattering reply, which it would not have been difficult
to find, he added,--"What is your name?" And my neighbour on the right,
not leaving me time to answer the simple enough question just addressed
to me, hastened to say,--
"_His_ name is Arago?"
"What science do you cultivate?"
My neighbour on the left immediately replied,--
"_He_ cultivates astronomy."
"What have you done?"
My neighbour on the right, jealous of my left hand neighbour for having
encroached on his rights at the second question, now hastened to reply,
and said,--
"_He_ has just been measuring the line of the meridian in Spain."
The Emperor imagining doubtless that he had before him either a dumb man
or an imbecile, passed on to another member of the Institute. This one
was not a novice, but a naturalist well known through his beautiful and
important discoveries; it was M. Lamarck. The old man presented a book
to Napoleon.
"What is that?" said the latter, "it is your absurd _meteorology_, in
which you rival Matthieu Laensberg. It is this 'annuaire' which
dishonours your old age. Do something in Natural History, and I should
receive your productions with pleasure. As to this volume, I only take
it in consideration of your white hair. Here!" And he passed the book to
an aide-de-camp.
Poor M. Lamarck, who, at the end of each sharp and insulting sentence of
the Emperor, tried in vain to say, "It is a work on Natural History
which I present to you," was weak enough to fall into tears.
The Emperor immediately afterwards met with a more energetic antagonist
in the person of M. Lanjuinais. The latter had advanced, book in hand.
Napoleon said to him, sneeringly:--
"The entire Senate, then, is to merge in the Institute?" "Sire,"
replied Lanjuinais, "it is the body of the state to which most time is
left for occupying itself with literature."
The Emperor, displeased at this answer, at once quitted the civil
uniforms, and busied himself among the great epaulettes which filled the
room.