The bargain was complete. He was to have two rubles for the drive,
and a little something to warm up his shivering breast. So he could
not be Struve's man.
There is no welcome warmer than a Russian one, and none in any
country warmer than that which the visiting astronomer receives at an
observatory. Great is the contrast between the winter sky of a clear
moonless night and the interior of a dining-room, forty feet square,
with a big blazing fire at one end and a table loaded with eatables
in the middle. The fact that the visitor had never before met one
of his hosts detracted nothing from the warmth of his reception.
The organizer of the observatory, and its first director, was Wilhelm
Struve, father of the one who received me, and equally great as man
and astronomer. Like many other good Russians, he was the father of a
large family. One of his sons was for ten years the Russian minister
at Washington, and as popular a diplomatist as ever lived among us.
The instruments which Struve designed sixty years ago still do as
fine work as any in the world; but one may suspect this to be due more
to the astronomers who handle them than to the instruments themselves.
The air is remarkably clear; the entrance to St. Petersburg, ten or
twelve miles north, is distinctly visible, and Struve told me that
during the Crimean war he could see, through the great telescope,
the men on the decks of the British ships besieging Kronstadt,
thirty miles away.
One drawback from which the astronomers suffer is the isolation of
the place. The village at the foot of the little hill is inhabited
only by peasants, and the astronomers and employees have nearly all
to be housed in the observatory buildings. There is no society but
their own nearer than the capital. At the time of my visit the
scientific staff was almost entirely German or Swedish, by birth
or language. In the state, two opposing parties are the Russian,
which desires the ascendency of the native Muscovites, and the German,
which appreciates the fact that the best and most valuable of the
Tsar's subjects are of German or other foreign descent. During the
past twenty years the Russian party has gradually got the upper hand;
and the result of this ascendency at Pulkova will be looked for with
much solicitude by astronomers everywhere.
Once a year the lonely life of the astronomers is enlivened by a
grand feast--that of the Russian New Year. One object of the great
dining-room which I have mentioned, the largest room, I believe, in
the whole establishment, was to make this feast possible. My visit
took place early in March, so that I did not see the celebration;
but from what I have heard, the little colony does what it can to
make up for a year of ennui. Every twenty-five years it celebrates
a jubilee; the second came off in 1889.
There is much to interest the visitor in a Russian peasant
village, and that of Pulkova has features some of which I have
never seen described. Above the door of each log hut is the name
of the occupant, and below the name is a rude picture of a bucket,
hook, or some other piece of apparatus used in extinguishing fire.
Inside, the furniture is certainly meagre enough, yet one could
not see why the occupants should be otherwise than comfortable.
I know of no good reason why ignorance should imply unhappiness;
altogether, there is some good room for believing that the less
civilized races can enjoy themselves, in their own way, about as
well as we can. What impressed me as the one serious hardship of
the peasantry was their hours of labor. Just how many hours of
the twenty-four these beings find for sleep was not clear to the
visitor; they seemed to be at work all day, and at midnight many of
them had to start on their way to St. Petersburg with a cartload
for the market. A church ornamented with tinsel is a feature of
every Russian village; so also are the priests. The only two I saw
were sitting on a fence, wearing garments that did not give evidence
of having known water since they were made. One great drawback to
the growth of manufactures in Russia is the number of feast days,
on which the native operators must one and all abandon their work,
regardless of consequences.
The astronomical observations made at Pulkova are not published
annually, as are those made at most of the other national
observatories; but a volume relating to one subject is issued whenever
the work is done. When I was there, the volumes containing the
earlier meridian observations were in press. Struve and his chief
assistant, Dr. Wagner, used to pore nightly over the proof sheets,
bestowing on every word and detail a minute attention which less
patient astronomers would have found extremely irksome.
Dr. Wagner was a son-in-law of Hansen, the astronomer of the little
ducal observatory at Gotha, as was also our Bayard Taylor. My first
meeting with Hansen, which occurred after my return to Berlin, was
accompanied with some trepidation. Modest as was the public position
that he held, he may now fairly be considered the greatest master of
celestial mechanics since Laplace. In what order Leverrier, Delaunay,
Adams, and Hill should follow him, it is not necessary to decide.
To many readers it will seem singular to place any name ahead of
that of the master who pointed out the position of Neptune before
a human eye had ever recognized it. But this achievement, great
as it was, was more remarkable for its boldness and brilliancy than
for its inherent difficulty. If the work had to be done over again
to-day, there are a number of young men who would be as successful
as Leverrier; but there are none who would attempt to reinvent
the methods of Hansen, or even to improve radically upon them.
Their main feature is the devising of new and refined methods of
computing the variations in the motions of a planet produced by the
attraction of all the other planets. As Laplace left this subject,
the general character of these variations could be determined without
difficulty, but the computations could not be made with mathematical
exactness. Hansen's methods led to results so precise that, if they
were fully carried out, it is doubtful whether any deviation between
the predicted and the observed motions of a planet could be detected
by the most refined observation.
At the time of my visit Mrs. Wagner was suffering from a severe
illness, of which the crisis passed while I was at Pulkova, and
left her, as was supposed, on the road to recovery. I was, of
course, very desirous of meeting so famous a man as Hansen. He was
expected to preside at a session of the German commission on the
transit of Venus, which was to be held in Berlin about the time of
my return thither from Pulkova. The opportunity was therefore open
of bringing a message of good news from his daughter. Apart from
this, the prospect of the meeting might have been embarrassing.
The fact is that I was at odds with him on a scientific question,
and he was a man who did not take a charitable view of those who
differed from him in opinion.
He was the author of a theory, current thirty or forty years ago,
that the farther side of the moon is composed of denser materials
than the side turned toward us. As a result of this, the centre
of gravity of the moon was supposed to be farther from us than the
actual centre of her globe. It followed that, although neither
atmosphere nor water existed on our side of the moon, the other
side might have both. Here was a very tempting field into which
astronomical speculators stepped, to clothe the invisible hemisphere
of the moon with a beautiful terrestrial landscape, and people it as
densely as they pleased with beings like ourselves. If these beings
should ever attempt to explore the other half of their own globe,
they would find themselves ascending to a height completely above
the limits of their atmosphere. Hansen himself never countenanced
such speculations as these, but confined his claims to the simple
facts he supposed proven.
In 1868 I had published a little paper showing what I thought a
fatal defect, a vicious circle in fact, in Hansen's reasoning on
this subject. Not long before my visit, Delaunay had made this paper
the basis of a communication to the French Academy of Sciences, in
which he not only indorsed my views, but sought to show the extreme
improbability of Hansen's theory on other grounds.
When I first reached Germany, on my way from Italy, I noticed
copies of a blue pamphlet lying on the tables of the astronomers.
Apparently, the paper had been plentifully distributed; but it was
not until I reached Berlin that I found it was Hansen's defense
against my strictures,--a defense in which mathematics were not
unmixed with seething sarcasm at the expense of both Delaunay
and myself. The case brought to mind a warm discussion between
Hansen and Encke, in the pages of a scientific journal, some fifteen
years before. At the time it had seemed intensely comical to see two
enraged combatants--for so I amused myself by fancying them--hurling
algebraic formulae, of frightful complexity, at each other's heads.
I did not then dream that I should live to be an object of the same
sort of attack, and that from Hansen himself.
To be revised, pulled to pieces, or superseded, as science advances,
is the common fate of most astronomical work, even the best.
It does not follow that it has been done in vain; if good, it
forms a foundation on which others will build. But not every great
investigator can look on with philosophic calm when he sees his work
thus treated, and Hansen was among the last who could. Under these
circumstances, it was a serious question what sort of reception Hansen
would accord to a reviser of his conclusions who should venture to
approach him. I determined to assume an attitude that would show
no consciousness of offense, and was quite successful. Our meeting
was not attended by any explosion; I gave him the pleasant message
with which I was charged from his daughter, and, a few days later,
sat by his side at a dinner of the German commission on the coming
transit of Venus.
As Hansen was Germany's greatest master in mathematical astronomy,
so was the venerable Argelander in the observational side of the
science. He was of the same age as the newly crowned Emperor,
and the two were playmates at the time Germany was being overrun
by the armies of Napoleon. He was held in love and respect by the
entire generation of young astronomers, both Germans and foreigners,
many of whom were proud to have had him as their preceptor. Among
these was Dr. B. A. Gould, who frequently related a story of the
astronomer's wit. When with him as a student, Gould was beardless,
but had a good head of hair. Returning some years later, he had
become bald, but had made up for it by having a full, long beard.
He entered Argelander's study unannounced. At first the astronomer
did not recognize him.
"Do you not know me, Herr Professor?"
The astronomer looked more closely. "Mine Gott! It is Gould mit
his hair struck through!"
Argelander was more than any one else the founder of that branch of
his science which treats of variable stars. His methods have been
followed by his successors to the present time. It was his policy
to make the best use he could of the instruments at his disposal,
rather than to invent new ones that might prove of doubtful utility.
The results of his work seem to justify this policy.
We passed the last month of the winter in Berlin waiting for the
war to close, so that we could visit Paris. Poor France had at
length to succumb, and in the latter part of March, we took almost
the first train that passed the lines.
Delaunay was then director of the Paris Observatory, having succeeded
Leverrier when the emperor petulantly removed the latter from his
position. I had for some time kept up an occasional correspondence
with Delaunay, and while in England, the autumn before, had forwarded
a message to him, through the Prussian lines, by the good offices
of the London legation and Mr. Washburn. He was therefore quite
prepared for our arrival. The evacuation of a country by a hostile
army is rather a slow process, so that the German troops were met
everywhere on the road, even in France. They had left Paris just
before we arrived; but the French national army was not there,
the Communists having taken possession of the city as fast as the
Germans withdrew. As we passed out of the station, the first object
to strike our eyes was a flaming poster addressed to "Citoyens,"
and containing one of the manifestoes which the Communist government
was continually issuing.
Of course we made an early call on Mr. Washburn. His career in
Paris was one of the triumphs of diplomacy; he had cared for the
interests of German subjects in Paris in such a way as to earn the
warm recognition both of the emperor and of Bismarck, and at the
same time had kept on such good terms with the French as to be not
less esteemed by them. He was surprised that we had chosen such a
time to visit Paris; but I told him the situation, the necessity
of my early return home, and my desire to make a careful search
in the records of the Paris Observatory for observations made two
centuries ago. He advised us to take up our quarters as near to
the observatory as convenient, in order that we might not have to
pass through the portions of the city which were likely to be the
scenes of disturbance.
We were received at the observatory with a warmth of welcome that
might be expected to accompany the greeting of the first foreign
visitor, after a siege of six months. Yet a tinge of sadness in
the meeting was unavoidable. Delaunay immediately began lamenting
the condition of his poor ruined country, despoiled of two of its
provinces by a foreign foe, condemned to pay an enormous subsidy
in addition, and now the scene of an internal conflict the end of
which no one could foresee.
While I was mousing among the old records of the Paris Observatory,
the city was under the reign of the Commune and besieged by the
national forces. The studies had to be made within hearing of
the besieging guns; and I could sometimes go to a window and see
flashes of artillery from one of the fortifications to the south.
Nearly every day I took a walk through the town, occasionally as
far as the Arc de Triomphe. The story of the Commune has been so
often written that I cannot hope to add anything to it, so far as the
main course of events is concerned. Looking back on a sojourn at so
interesting a period, one cannot but feel that a golden opportunity
to make observations of historic value was lost. The fact is,
however, that I was prevented from making such observations not only
by my complete absorption in my work, but by the consideration that,
being in what might be described as a semi-official capacity, I did
not want to get into any difficulty that would have compromised
the position of an official visitor. I should not deem what we
saw worthy of special mention, were it not that it materially
modifies the impressions commonly given by writers on the history
of the Commune. What an historian says may be quite true, so far
as it goes, and yet may be so far from the whole truth as to give
the reader an incorrect impression of the actual course of events.
The violence and disease which prevail in the most civilized country
in the world may be described in such terms as to give the impression
of a barbarous community. The murder of the Archbishop of Paris and
of the hostages show how desperate were the men who had seized power,
yet the acts of these men constitute but a small part of the history
of Paris during that critical period.
What one writes at the time is free from the suspicion that may
attach to statements not recorded till many years after the events
to which they relate. The following extract from a letter which I
wrote to a friend, the day after my arrival, may therefore be taken
to show how things actually looked to a spectator:--
Dear Charlie,--Here we are, on this slumbering volcano.
Perhaps you will hear of the burst-up long before you get
this. We have seen historic objects which fall not to the
lot of every generation, the barricades of the Paris streets.
As we were walking out this morning, the pavement along one
side of the street was torn up for some distance, and used
to build a temporary fort. Said fort would be quite strong
against musketry or the bayonet; but with heavy shot against
it, I should think it would be far worse than nothing,
for the flying stones would kill more than the balls.
The streets are placarded at every turn with all sorts of
inflammatory appeals, and general orders of the Comite
Central or of the Commune. One of the first things I
saw last night was a large placard beginning "Citoyens!"
Among the orders is one forbidding any one from placarding
any orders of the Versailles government under the severest
penalties; and another threatening with instant dismissal
any official who shall recognize any order issuing from
the said government.
I must do all hands the justice to say that they are all
very well behaved. There is nothing like a mob anywhere, so
far as I can find. I consulted my map this morning, right
alongside the barricade and in full view of the builders,
without being molested, and wife and I walked through the
insurrectionary districts without being troubled or seeing
the slightest symptoms of disturbance. The stores are all
open, and every one seems to be buying and selling as usual.
In all the cafes I have seen, the habitues seem to be
drinking their wine just as coolly as if they had nothing
unusual on their minds.
From this date to that of our departure I saw nothing suggestive
of violence within the limited range of my daily walks, which were
mostly within the region including the Arc de Triomphe, the Hotel
de Ville, and the observatory; the latter being about half a mile
south of the Luxembourg. The nearest approach to a mob that I
ever noticed was a drill of young recruits of the National Guard,
or a crowd in the court of the Louvre being harangued by an orator.
With due allowance for the excitability of the French nature,
the crowd was comparatively as peaceable as that which we may see
surrounding a gospel wagon in one of our own cities. A drill-ground
for the recruits happened to be selected opposite our first lodgings,
beside the gates of the Luxembourg. This was so disagreeable that we
were glad to accept an invitation from Delaunay to be his guests at
the observatory, during the remainder of our stay. We had not been
there long before the spacious yard of the observatory was also used
as a drill-ground; and yet later, two or three men were given _billets
de logement_ upon the observatory; but I should not have known of the
latter occurrence, had not Delaunay told me. I believe he bought
the men off, much as one pays an organ-grinder to move on. In one
of our walks we entered the barricade around the Hotel de Ville, and
were beginning to make a close examination of a mitrailleuse, when a
soldier (beg his pardon, _un citoyen membre de la Garde Nationale_)
warned us away from the weapon. The densest crowd of Communists was
along the Rue de Rivoli and in the region of the Colonne Vendome,
where some of the principal barricades were being erected. But even
here, not only were the stores open as usual, but the military were
doing their work in the midst of piles of trinkets exposed for sale
on the pavement by the shopwomen. The order to destroy the Column
was issued before we left, but not executed until later. I have no
reason to suppose that the shopwomen were any more concerned while
the Column was being undermined than they were before. To complete
the picture, not a policeman did we see in Paris; in fact, I was
told that one of the first acts of the Commune had been to drive
the police away, so that not one dared to show himself.
An interesting feature of the sad spectacle was the stream of
proclamations poured forth by the Communist authorities. They
comprised not only decrees, but sensational stories of victories over
the Versailles troops, denunciations of the Versailles government,
and even elaborate legal arguments, including a not intemperate
discussion of the ethical question whether citizens who were not
adherents of the Commune should be entitled to the right of suffrage.
The conclusion was that they should not. The lack of humor on the
part of the authorities was shown by their commencing one of a rapid
succession of battle stories with the words, "Citoyens! Vous avez
soif de la verite!" The most amusing decree I noticed ran thus:--
"Article I. All conscription is abolished.
"Article II. No troops shall hereafter be allowed in Paris, except
the National Guard.
"Article III. Every citizen is a member of the National Guard."
We were in daily expectation and hope of the capture of the city,
little imagining by what scenes it would be accompanied. It did not
seem to my unmilitary eye that two or three batteries of artillery
could have any trouble in demolishing all the defenses, since a
wall of paving-stones, four or five feet high, could hardly resist
solid shot, or prove anything but a source of destruction to those
behind it if attacked by artillery. But the capture was not so easy
a matter as I had supposed.
We took leave of our friend and host on May 5, three weeks before
the final catastrophe, of which he wrote me a graphic description.
As the barricades were stormed by MacMahon, the Communist line of
retreat was through the region of the observatory. The walls of
the building and of the yard were so massive that the place was
occupied as a fort by the retreating forces, so that the situation
of the few non-combatants who remained was extremely critical.
They were exposed to the fire of their friends, the national troops,
from without, while enraged men were threatening their lives within.
So hot was the fusillade that, going into the great dome after the
battle, the astronomer could imagine all the constellations of the
sky depicted by the bullet-holes. When retreat became inevitable,
the Communists tried to set the building on fire, but did not succeed.
Then, in their desperation, arrangements were made for blowing it up;
but the most violent man among them was killed by a providential
bullet, as he was on the point of doing his work. The remainder
fled, the place was speedily occupied by the national troops, and
the observatory with its precious contents was saved.
The Academy of Sciences had met regularly through the entire Prussian
siege. The legal quorum being three, this did not imply a large
attendance. The reason humorously assigned for this number was that,
on opening a session, the presiding officer must say, _Messieurs,
la seance est ouverte_, and he cannot say _Messieurs_ unless there
are at least two to address. At the time of my visit a score of
members were in the city. Among them were Elie de Beaumont, the
geologist; Milne-Edwards, the zoologist; and Chevreul, the chemist.
I was surprised to learn that the latter was in his eighty-fifth
year; he seemed a man of seventy or less, mentally and physically.
Yet we little thought that he would be the longest-lived man of equal
eminence that our age has known. When he died, in 1889, he was nearly
one hundred and three years old. Born in 1786, he had lived through
the whole French Revolution, and was seven years old at the time of
the Terror. His scientific activity, from beginning to end, extended
over some eighty years. When I saw him, he was still very indignant
at a bombardment of the Jardin des Plantes by the German besiegers.
He had made a formal statement of this outrage to the Academy of
Sciences, in order that posterity might know what kind of men were
besieging Paris. I suggested that the shells might have fallen in
the place by accident; but he maintained that it was not the case,
and that the bombardment was intentional.
The most execrated man in the scientific circle at this time was
Leverrier. He had left Paris before the Prussian siege began, and had
not returned. Delaunay assured me that this was a wise precaution
on his part; for had he ventured into the city he would have been
mobbed, or the Communists would have killed him as soon as caught.
Just why the mob should have been so incensed against one whose
life was spent in the serenest fields of astronomical science was
not fully explained. The fact that he had been a senator, and was
politically obnoxious, was looked on as an all-sufficient indictment.
Even members of the Academy could not suppress their detestation
of him. Their language seemed not to have words that would fully
express their sense of his despicable meanness, not to say turpitude.
Four years later I was again in Paris, and attended a meeting of
the Academy of Sciences. In the course of the session a rustle
of attention spread over the room, as all eyes were turned upon
a member who was entering rather late. Looking toward the door,
I saw a man of sixty, a decided blond, with light chestnut hair
turning gray, slender form, shaven face, rather pale and thin, but
very attractive, and extremely intellectual features. As he passed
to his seat hands were stretched out on all sides to greet him, and
not until he sat down did the bustle caused by his entrance subside.
He was evidently a notable.
"Who is that?" I said to my neighbor.
"Leverrier."
Delaunay was one of the most kindly and attractive men I ever met.
We spent our evenings walking in the grounds of the observatory,
discussing French science in all its aspects. His investigation
of the moon's motion is one of the most extraordinary pieces of
mathematical work ever turned out by a single person. It fills two
quarto volumes, and the reader who attempts to go through any part
of the calculations will wonder how one man could do the work in
a lifetime. His habit was to commence early in the morning, and
work with but little interruption until noon. He never worked in
the evening, and generally retired at nine. I felt some qualms of
conscience at the frequency with which I kept him up till nearly ten.
I found it hopeless to expect that he would ever visit America,
because he assured me that he did not dare to venture on the ocean.
The only voyage he had ever made was across the Channel, to receive
the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for his work.
Two of his relatives--his father and, I believe, his brother--had
been drowned, and this fact gave him a horror of the water.
He seemed to feel somewhat like the clients of the astrologists,
who, having been told from what agencies they were to die, took every
precaution to avoid them. I remember, as a boy, reading a history of
astrology, in which a great many cases of this sort were described;
the peculiarity being that the very measures which the victim took
to avoid the decree of fate became the engines that executed it.
The death of Delaunay was not exactly a case of this kind, yet it
could not but bring it to mind. He was at Cherbourg in the autumn
of 1872. As he was walking on the beach with a relative, a couple
of boatmen invited them to take a sail. Through what inducement
Delaunay was led to forget his fears will never be known. All we
know is that he and his friend entered the boat, that it was struck
by a sudden squall when at some distance from the land, and that
the whole party were drowned.
There was no opposition to the reappointment of Leverrier to his old
place. In fact, at the time of my visit, Delaunay said that President
Thiers was on terms of intimate friendship with the former director,
and he thought it not at all unlikely that the latter would succeed
in being restored. He kept the position with general approval till
his death in 1877.
The only occasion on which I met Leverrier was after the incident
I have mentioned, in the Academy of Sciences. I had been told that
he was incensed against me on account of an unfortunate remark I had
made in speaking of his work which led to the discovery of Neptune.
I had heard this in Germany as well as in France, yet the matter was
so insignificant that I could hardly conceive of a man of philosophic
mind taking any notice of it. I determined to meet him, as I had
met Hansen, with entire unconsciousness of offense. So I called
on him at the observatory, and was received with courtesy, but no
particular warmth. I suggested to him that now, as he had nearly
completed his work on the tables of the planets, the question of
the moon's motion would be the next object worthy of his attention.
He replied that it was too large a subject for him to take up.
To Leverrier belongs the credit of having been the real organizer of
the Paris Observatory. His work there was not dissimilar to that
of Airy at Greenwich; but he had a much more difficult task before
him, and was less fitted to grapple with it. When founded by Louis
XIV. the establishment was simply a place where astronomers of the
Academy of Sciences could go to make their observations. There was
no titular director, every man working on his own account and in
his own way. Cassini, an Italian by birth, was the best known of
the astronomers, and, in consequence, posterity has very generally
supposed he was the director. That he failed to secure that honor
was not from any want of astuteness. It is related that the monarch
once visited the observatory to see a newly discovered comet through
the telescope. He inquired in what direction the comet was going to
move. This was a question it was impossible to answer at the moment,
because both observations and computations would be necessary before
the orbit could be worked out. But Cassini reflected that the king
would not look at the comet again, and would very soon forget what
was told him; so he described its future path in the heavens quite
at random, with entire confidence that any deviation of the actual
motion from his prediction would never be noted by his royal patron.
One of the results of this lack of organization has been that the
Paris Observatory does not hold an historic rank correspondent to
the magnificence of the establishment. The go-as-you-please system
works no better in a national observatory than it would in a business
institution. Up to the end of the last century, the observations
made there were too irregular to be of any special importance.
To remedy this state of things, Arago was appointed director early in
the present century; but he was more eminent in experimental physics
than in astronomy, and had no great astronomical problem to solve.
The result was that while he did much to promote the reputation of
the observatory in the direction of physical investigation, he did
not organize any well-planned system of regular astronomical work.
When Leverrier succeeded Arago, in 1853, he had an extremely difficult
problem before him. By a custom extending through two centuries,
each astronomer was to a large extent the master of his own work.
Leverrier undertook to change all this in a twinkling, and, if reports
are true, without much regard to the feelings of the astronomers.
Those who refused to fall into line either resigned or were driven
away, and their places were filled with men willing to work under the
direction of their chief. Yet his methods were not up to the times;
and the work of the Paris Observatory, so far as observations of
precision go, falls markedly behind that of Greenwich and Pulkova.
In recent times the institution has been marked by an energy and a
progressiveness that go far to atone for its former deficiencies.
The successors of Leverrier have known where to draw the line
between routine, on the one side, and initiative on the part of the
assistants, on the other. Probably no other observatory in the world
has so many able and well-trained young men, who work partly on their
own account, and partly in a regular routine. In the direction of
physical astronomy the observatory is especially active, and it may
be expected in the future to justify its historic reputation.