Chapter III: Part 3

This solution, to which our Consul at Algiers, M. Dubois Thainville, had not remained inattentive, reached us at the moment when we least expected it. We at once made preparations for our departure, and on the 28th of November, 1808, we set sail, steering for Marseilles; but, as the Mussulmen on board the vessel declared, it was written above that we should not enter that town. We could already perceive the white buildings which crown the neighbouring hills of Marseilles, when a gust of the "mistral," of great violence, sent us from the north towards the south.

I do not know what route we followed, for I was lying in my cabin, overcome with sea-sickness; I may therefore, though an astronomer, avow without shame, that at the moment when our unqualified pilots supposed themselves to be off the Baléares, we landed, on the 5th of December, at Bougie.

There, they pretended that during the three months of winter, all communication with Algiers, by means of the little boats named _sandalis_, would be impossible, and I resigned myself to the painful prospect of so long a stay in a place at that time almost a desert. One evening I was making these sad reflections while pacing the deck of the vessel, when a shot from a gun on the coast came and struck the side planks close to which I was passing. This suggested to me the thought of going to Algiers by land.

I went next day, accompanied by M. Berthémie and Captain Spiro Calligero, to the Caïd of the town: "I wish," said I to him, "to go to Algiers by land." The man, quite frightened, exclaimed, "I cannot allow you to do so; you would certainly be killed on the road; your Consul would make a complaint to the Dey, and I should have my head cut off."

"Fear not on that ground. I will give you an acquittance."

It was immediately drawn up in these terms: "We, the undersigned, certify that the Caïd of Bougie wished to dissuade us from going to Algiers by land; that he has assured us that we shall be massacred on the road; that notwithstanding his representations, reiterated twenty times, we have persisted in our project. We beg the Algerine authorities, particularly our Consul, not to make him responsible for this event if it should occur. We once more repeat, that the voyage has been undertaken against his will.

_Signed_: ARAGO and BERTHÉMIE."

Having given this declaration to the Caïd, we considered ourselves quit of this functionary; but he came up to me, undid, without saying a word, the knot of my cravat, took it off, and put it into his pocket. All this was done so quickly that I had not time, I will add that I had not even the wish, to reclaim it.

At the conclusion of this audience, which had terminated in so singular a manner, we made a bargain with a Mahomedan priest, who promised to conduct us to Algiers for the sum of twenty "piastres fortes," and a red mantle. The day was occupied in disguising ourselves well or ill, and we set out the next morning, accompanied by several Moorish sailors belonging to the crew of the ship, after having shown the Mahomedan priest that we had nothing with us worth a sou, so that if we were killed on the road he would inevitably lose all reward.

I went, at the last moment, to make my bow to the only lion that was still alive, and with whom I had lived in very good harmony; I wished also to say good-bye to the monkeys, who during nearly five months had been equally my companions in misfortune.[4] These monkeys during our frightful misery had rendered us a service which I scarcely dare mention, and which will scarcely be guessed by the inhabitants of our cities, who look upon these animals as objects of diversion; they freed us from the vermin which infested us, and showed particularly a remarkable cleverness in seeking out the hideous insects which lodged themselves in our hair.

Poor animals! they seemed to me very unfortunate in being shut up in the narrow enclosure of the vessel, when, on the neighbouring coast, other monkeys, as if to bully them, came on to the branches of the trees, giving innumerable proofs of their agility.

At the commencement of the day, we saw on the road two Kabyls, similar to the soldiers of Jugurtha, whose harsh appearance powerfully allayed our fancy for wandering. In the evening we witnessed a fearful tumult, which appeared to be directed against us. We learnt afterwards that the Mahomedan priest had been the object of it; that it originated with some Kabyls whom he had disarmed on one of their journeys to Bougie. This incident, which appeared likely to be repeated, inspired us for a moment with the thought of returning; but the sailors were resolute, and we continued our hazardous enterprise.

In proportion as we advanced, our troops became increased by a certain number of Kabyls, who wished to go to Algiers to work there in the quality of seamen, and who dared not undertake alone this dangerous journey.

The third day we encamped in the open air, at the entrance of a forest. The Arabs lighted a very large fire in the form of a circle, and placed themselves in the middle. Towards eleven o'clock, I was awakened by the noise which the mules made, all trying to break their fastenings. I asked what was the cause of this disturbance. They answered me that a "_sebâá_" had come roaming in the neighbourhood. I was not aware then that a "_sebâá_" was a lion, and I went to sleep again. The next day, in traversing the forest, the arrangement of the caravan was changed. It was grouped in the smallest space possible; one Kabyl was at the head, his gun ready for service; another was in the rear, in the same position. I inquired of the owner of the mule the cause of these unusual precautions. He answered me, that they were dreading an attack from a "_sebâá_" and that if this should occur, one of us would be carried off without having time to put himself on the defensive. "I would rather be a spectator," I said to him, "than an actor in the scene you describe; consequently, I will give you two piastres more if you will keep your mule always in the centre of the moving group." My proposal was accepted. It was then for the first time that I saw that my Arab carried a yatagan under his tunic, which he used for pricking on the mule the whole time that we were in the thicket. Superfluous cautions! The "_sebâá_" did not show himself.

Each village being a little republic, whose territory we could not cross without obtaining permission and a passport from the Mahomedan priest _président_, the priest who conducted our caravan used to leave us in the fields, and went sometimes a good way off to a village to solicit the permission without which it would have been dangerous to continue our route. He remained entire hours without returning to us, and we then had occasion to reflect sadly on the imprudence of our enterprise. We generally slept amongst habitations. Once, we found the streets of a village barricaded, because they were fearing an attack from a neighbouring village. The foremost man of our caravan removed the obstacles; but a woman came out of her house like a fury, and belaboured us with blows from a pole. We remarked that she was fair, of brilliant whiteness, and very pretty.

Another time we lay down in a lurking-place dignified by the beautiful name of caravansary. In the morning, when the sun rose, cries of "_Roumi! Roumi!_" warned us that we had been discovered. The sailor, Mehemet, he who figured in the scene of the oath at Palamos, entered in a melancholy mood the enclosure where we were together, and made us understand that the cries of "Roumi!" vociferated under these circumstances, were equivalent to a sentence of death. "Wait," said he; "a means of saving you has occurred to me." Mehemet entered some moments afterwards, told us that his means had succeeded, and invited me to join the Kabyls, who were going to say prayers.

I accordingly went out, and prostrated myself towards the East. I imitated minutely the gestures which I saw made around me, pronouncing the sacred words,--_La elah il Allah! oua Mahommed raçoul Allah!_ It was the scene of Mamamouchi of the "Bourgeois Gentilhomme," which I had so often seen acted by Dugazon,--with this one difference, that this time it did not make me laugh. I was, however, ignorant of the consequences it might have brought upon me on my arrival at Algiers. After having made the profession of faith before Mahomedans--_There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet_, if I had been informed against to the mufti, I must inevitably have become Mussulman, and they would not have allowed me to go out of the Regency.

I must not forget to relate by what means Mehemet had saved us from inevitable death. "You have guessed rightly," said he to the Kabyls; "there are two Christians in the caravansary, but they are Mahomedans at heart, and are going to Algiers to be adopted by the mufti into our holy religion. You will not doubt this when I tell you that I was myself a slave to some Christians, and that they redeemed me with their money."

"In cha Allah!" they exclaimed with one voice. And it was then that the scene took place which I have just described.

We arrived in sight of Algiers the 25th December, 1808. We took leave of the Arab owners of our mules, who walked on foot by the side of us, and we spurred them on, in order to reach the town before the closing of the gates. On our arrival, we learnt that the Dey, to whom we owed our first deliverance, had been beheaded. The guard of the palace before which we passed, stopped us and questioned us as to whence we came. We replied that we came from Bougie by land. "It is not possible!" exclaimed all the janissaries at once; "the Dey himself would not venture to undertake such a journey!" "We acknowledge that we have committed a great imprudence; that we would not undertake to recommence the journey for millions; but the fact that we have just declared is the strict truth."

Arrived at the consular house, we were, as on the first occasion, very cordially welcomed. We received a visit from a dragoman sent by the Dey, who asked whether we persisted in maintaining that Bougie had been our point of departure, and not Cape Matifou, or some neighbouring port. We again affirmed the truth of our recital; it was confirmed, the next day, on the arrival of the proprietors of our mules.

At Palamos, during the various interviews which I had with the dowager Duchess of Orleans, one circumstance had particularly affected me. The Princess spoke to me unceasingly of the wish she had to go and rejoin one of her sons, whom she believed to be alive, but of whose death I had been informed by a person belonging to her household. Hence I was anxious to do all that lay in my power to mitigate a sorrow which she must experience before long.

At the moment when I quitted Spain for Marseilles, the Duchess confided to me two letters which I was to forward in safety to their addresses. One was destined for the Empress-mother of Russia, the other for the Empress of Austria.

Scarcely had I arrived at Algiers, when I mentioned these two letters to M. Dubois Thainville, and begged him to send them to France by the first opportunity. "I shall do nothing of the sort," he at once answered me. "Do you know that you have behaved in this affair like a young inexperienced man, or, to speak out, like a blunderer? I am surprised that you did not comprehend that the Emperor, with his pettish spirit, might take this much amiss, and consider you, according to the contents of the two letters, as the promoter of an intrigue in favour of the exiled family of the Bourbons." Thus the paternal advice of the French Consul taught me that in all that regards politics, however nearly or remotely, one cannot give himself up without danger to the dictates of the heart and the reason.

I enclosed my two letters in an envelope bearing the address of a trustworthy person, and gave them into the hands of a corsair, who, after touching at Algiers, would proceed to France. I have never known whether they reached their destination.

The reigning Dey, successor to the beheaded Dey, had formerly filled the humble office of "_épileur_"[5] of dead bodies in the mosques. He governed the Regency with much gentleness, occupying himself with little but his harem. This disgusted those who had raised him to this eminent post, and they resolved upon getting rid of him. We became aware of the danger which menaced him, by seeing the courts and vestibules of the consular house full, according to the custom under such circumstances, of Jews, carrying with them whatever they had of most value. It was a rule at Algiers, that all that happened in the interval comprised between the death of a Dey and the installation of his successor, could not be followed up by justice, and must remain unpunished. One can imagine, then, why the children of Moses should seek safety in the consular houses, the European inhabitants of which had the courage to arm themselves for self-defence as soon as the danger was apparent, and who, moreover, had a janissary to guard them.

Whilst the unfortunate Dey "épileur" was being conducted towards the place where he was to be strangled, he heard the cannon which announced his death and the installation of his successor. "They are in great haste," said he; "what will you gain by carrying matters to extremities? Send me to the Levant; I promise you never to return. What have you to reproach me with?" "With nothing," answered his escort, "but your insignificance. However, a man cannot live as a mere private man, after having been Dey of Algiers." And the unfortunate man perished by the rope.

The communication by sea between Bougie and Algiers was not so difficult, even with the "_sandalas_," as the Caïd of the former town wished to assure me. Captain Spiro had the cases landed, which belonged to me. The Caïd sought to discover what they contained; and, having perceived through a chink something yellowish, he hastened to send the news to the Dey, that the Frenchmen who had come to Algiers by land had among their baggage cases filled with zechins, destined to revolutionize the Kabylie. They immediately had these cases forwarded to Algiers, and at their opening, before the Minister of Naval Affairs, all the phantasmagoria of zechins, of treasure, of revolution, disappeared at the sight of the stands and the limbs of several repeating circles in copper.

We are now going to sojourn several months in Algiers. I will take advantage of this to put together some details of manners which may be interesting as the picture of a state of things anterior to that of the occupation of the Regency by the French. This occupation, it must be remarked, has already fundamentally altered the manners and the habits of the Algerine population.

I am about to report a curious fact, and one which shows that politics, which insinuate themselves and bring discord into the bosom of the most united families, had succeeded, strange to say, in penetrating as far as the galley-slaves' prison at Algiers. The slaves belonged to three nations: there were in 1809 in this prison, Portuguese, Neapolitans, and Sicilians; among these two latter classes were counted partisans of Murat and those of Ferdinand of Naples. One day, at the beginning of the year, a dragoman came in the name of the Dey to beg M. Dubois Thainville to go without delay to the prison, where the friends of the French and their adversaries had involved themselves in a furious combat; and already several had fallen. The weapon with which they struck each other was the heavy long chain attached to their legs.

Each Consul, as I said above, had a janissary placed with him as his guard; the one belonging to the French Consul was a Candiote; he had been surnamed _the Terror_. Whenever some news unfavourable to France was announced in the cafés, he came to the Consulate to inform himself as to the reality of the fact; and when we told him that the other janissaries had propagated false news, he returned to them, and there, yatagan in hand, he declared himself ready to enter the lists in combat against those who should still maintain the truth of the news. As these continual threats might endanger him, (for they had no support beyond his mere animal courage,) we had wished to render him expert in the handling of arms by giving him some lessons in fencing; but he could not endure the idea that Christians should touch him at every turn with foils; he therefore proposed to substitute for the simulated duel a real combat with the yatagan.

One may gain an exact idea of this savage nature when I mention that, having one day heard a pistol-shot, the sound of which proceeded from his room, people ran, and found him bathed in his blood; he had just shot off a ball into his arm to cure himself of a rheumatic pain.

Seeing with what facility the Deys disappeared, I said one day to our janissary, "With this prospect before your eyes, would you consent to become Dey?" "Yes, doubtless," answered he. "You seem to count as nothing the pleasure of doing all that one likes, if only even for a single day!"

When we wished to take a turn in the town of Algiers, we generally took care to be escorted by the janissary attached to the consular house; it was the only means of escaping insults, affronts, and even acts of violence. I have just said it was the only means. I made a mistake; there was one other; that was, to go in the company of a French "lazarist" of seventy years of age, and whose name, if my memory serves me, was Father Joshua; he had lived in this country for half a century. This man, of exemplary virtue, had devoted himself with admirable self-denial to the service of the slaves of the Regency, and had divested himself of all considerations of nationality;--the Portuguese, Neapolitans, Sicilians, all were equally his brethren.

In the times of plague he was seen day and night carrying eager help to the Mussulmans; thus, his virtue had conquered even religious hatreds; and wherever he passed, he and the persons who might accompany him received from multitudes of the people, from the janissaries, and even from the officials of the mosques, the most respectful salutations.

During our long hours of sailing on board the Algerine vessel, and our compulsory stay in the prisons at Rosas, and on the hulk at Palamos, I gathered some ideas as to the interior life of the Moors or the Coulouglous, which, even now when Algiers has fallen under the dominion of France, would perhaps be yet worth preserving. I shall, however, confine myself to recounting, nearly word for word, a conversation which I had with Raïs Braham, whose father was a "_Turc fin_," that is to say, a Turk born in the Levant.

"How is it that you consent," said I to him, "to marry a young girl whom you have never seen, and find in her, perhaps, an excessively ugly woman, instead of the beauty whom you had fancied to yourself?"

"We never marry without having obtained information from the women who serve in the capacity of servants at the public baths. The Jewesses are moreover, in these cases, very useful go-betweens."

"How many legitimate wives have you?"

"I have four, that is to say, the number authorized by the Koran."

"Do they live together on a good understanding?"

"Ah, sir, my house is a hell. I never enter it without finding them at the step of the door, or at the bottom of the stairs; then, each wants to be the first to make me listen to the complaints which she has to bring against her companions. I am about to utter blasphemy, but I think that our holy religion ought to prohibit a plurality of wives to those who are not rich enough to give to each a separate habitation."

"But since the Koran allows you to repudiate even legitimate wives, why do you not send back three of them to their parents?"

"Why? because that would ruin me. On the day of the marriage the father 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.

Immediately after my nomination, I was exposed to strange annoyances on the part of the military authorities. I had left for Spain, still holding the title of pupil of the Polytechnic School. My name could not remain on the books more than four years; consequently I had been enjoined to return to France to go through the examinations necessary on quitting the school. But in the meantime Lalande died, and thus a place in the Bureau of Longitude became vacant. I was named assistant astronomer. These places were submitted to the nomination of the Emperor. M. Lacuée, Director of the Conscription, thought that, through this latter circumstance, the law would be satisfied, and I was authorized to continue my operations.

M. Matthieu Dumas, who succeeded him, looked at the question from an entirely different point of view; he enjoined me either to furnish a substitute, or else to set off myself with the contingent of the twelfth arrondissement of Paris.

All my remonstrances and those of my friends having been fruitless, I announced to the honourable General that I should present myself in the Place de l'Estrapade, whence the conscripts had to depart, in the costume of a member of the Institute; and that thus I should march on foot through the city of Paris. General Matthieu Dumas was alarmed at the effect which this scene would produce on the Emperor, himself a member of the Institute, and hastened, under fear of my threat, to confirm the decision of General Lacuée.

In the year 1809, I was chosen by the "conseil du perfectionnement" of the Polytechnic School, to succeed M. Monge, in his chair of Analysis applied to Geometry. The circumstances attending that nomination have remained a secret; I seize the first opportunity which offers itself to me to make them known.

M. Monge took the trouble to come to me one day, at the Observatory, to ask me to succeed him. I declined this honour, because of a proposed journey which I was going to make into Central Asia with M. de Humboldt. "You will certainly not set off for some months to come," said the illustrious geometer; "you could, therefore, take my place temporarily." "Your proposal," I replied, "flatters me infinitely; but I do not know whether I ought to accept it. I have never read your great work on partial differential equations; I do not, therefore, feel certain that I should be competent to give lessons to the pupils of the Polytechnic School on such a difficult theory." "Try," said he, "and you will find that that theory is clearer than it is generally supposed to be." Accordingly, I did try; and M. Monge's opinion appeared to me to be well founded.

The public could not comprehend, at that time, how it was that the benevolent M. Monge obstinately refused to confide the delivery of his course to M. Binet, (a private teacher under him,) whose zeal was well known. It is this motive which I am going to reveal.

There was then in the "Bois de Boulogne" a residence named the _Grey House_, where there assembled round M. Coessin, the high-priest of a new religion, a number of adepts, such as Lesueur, the musician, Colin, private teacher of chemistry at the school, M. Binet, &c. A report from the prefect of police had signified to the Emperor that the frequenters of the Grey House were connected with the Society of Jesuits. The Emperor was uneasy and irritated at this. "Well," said he to M. Monge, "there are your dear pupils become disciples of Loyola!" And on Monge's denial, "You deny it," answered the Emperor; "well, then, know that the private teacher of your course is in that clique." Every one can understand that after such a remark, Monge could not consent to being succeeded by M. Binet.

Having entered the academy, young, ardent, and impassioned, I took much greater part in the nominations than may have been suitable for my position and my time of life. Arrived at an epoch of life whence I examine retrospectively all my actions with calmness and impartiality, I can render this amount of justice to myself, that, excepting in three or four instances, my vote and interest were always in favour of the most deserving candidate, and more than once I succeeded in preventing the Academy from making a deplorable choice. Who could blame me for having maintained with energy the election of Malus, considering that his competitor, M. Girard, unknown as a physicist, obtained twenty-two votes out of fifty-three, and that an addition of five votes would have given him the victory over the savant who had just discovered the phenomenon of polarization by reflection, over the savant whom Europe would have named by acclamation? The same remarks are applicable to the nomination of Poisson, who would have failed against this same M. Girard if four votes had been otherwise given. Does not this suffice to justify the unusual ardour of my conduct? Although in a third trial the majority of the Academy was decided in favour of the same engineer, I cannot regret that I supported up to the last moment with conviction and warmth the election of his competitor, M. Dulong.

I do not suppose that, in the scientific world, any one will he disposed to blame me for having preferred M. Liouville to M. de Pontécoulant.

Sometimes it happened that the Government wished to influence the choice of the Academy; with a strong sense of my rights I invariably resisted all dictation. Once this resistance acted unfortunately on one of my friends--the venerable Legendre; as to myself, I had prepared myself beforehand for all the persecutions of which I could be made the object. Having received from the Minister of the Interior an invitation to vote for M. Binet against M. Navier on the occurrence of a vacant place in the section of mechanics, Legendre nobly answered that he would vote according to his soul and his conscience. He was immediately deprived of a pension which his great age and his long services rendered due to him. The _protégé_ of the authorities failed; and, at the time, this result was attributed to the activity with which I enlightened the members of the Academy as to the impropriety of the Minister's proceedings.

On another occasion the King wished the Academy to name Dupuytren, the eminent surgeon, but whose character at the time lay under grave imputations. Dupuytren was nominated, but several blanks protested against the interference of the authorities in academic elections.