by Emile Calvet
On the same subject, he described the progress resulting from the application of the helical propeller to the movement of ships, and recounted the bitter disappointments suffered by its inventor, Sauvage.28
The orator then described the resistance that the establishment of the first railways had encountered among the most eminent of men, and painted a magnificent picture of all the riches that the new force, whose conquest had been imposed in spite of all obstacles, had spread through the civilized world.
The network of railways that covered the old continent, the rapid construction of works of art by the employment of iron, the piercing of mountains, which had previously opposed insurmountable barriers to communication, and the establishment of inter-oceanic canals passed in turn before the surprised eyes of the audience.
The application of gases furnished by the distillation of oil, as a source of light, heat and power, was treated with precision, and astonished a large number of spectators, whose ideas of methods they considered as primitive were rather vague.
The misfortunes of Philippe Lebon, forced to trail his invention from door to door all the way to Watt’s workshops, where he finally found shelter, excited the sympathy of the audience,29 and the terror of Parisians, opposed to the laying of pipes in their streets for fear of to sleeping on a volcano, provoked some hilarity.
The examination of various systems of aerial navigation, alternately commended and condemned by experimentation, and the opposed prognostications that divided the scientific world on the immense problem, whose solution was to renew the face of the world, excited attention to the highest degree.
Pursuing the origin of great inventions, the professor described the history of dynamic electricity, from the first mysterious phenomena that had sparked rivalry between Galvani and Volta, to the telegraphic exploitation of currents, which, a hundred years later, incessantly streamed over the surface of the globe and the depths of the seas.
The orator briefly summarized the observational sciences. “Astronomy,” he said, “had shone with a vivid glare in the previous century with Laplace, Lalande, Clairaut, Herschel, Cassini, Lacaille, Maupertuis, Bradley and a host of other illustrious names, but the 19th century counts with pride the great Arago: astronomer, physicist and technologist, his genius cast light on previously-unfathomable; illustrious scientist, profound thinker, integral citizen, he had every glory. Solely by the power of his calculations, his colleague Le Verrier divined the presence in the heavens of the planet Neptune and determined its volume, its distance and its orbit. The telescope, in confirming his formula, filled his contemporaries with admiration for the resources of celestial mechanics.
“Delaunay studied the moon to the extent of the depth of its craters. Faye and Jansen sounded the atmosphere of the sun. Chacornac, Laugier, Marié-Davy, Foucault and Puiseux shone among the most illustrious astronomers of the epoch. The observational sciences, seconded by the positive method, took great strides.
“In less than a century, chemistry, rationally founded by Lavoisier, Fourcroy, Berthollet, Scheele, Priestley and Rutherford, gathered such momentum through the work of Davy, Gay-Lussac, Liebig, Dumas, Chevreul, Claude Bernard, Deville and Berthelot, that in less than a hundred years it had attained the level of other sciences, which had been amassing their materials for several centuries.
“The magnificent theories of Ampère in magnetism, Faraday’s studies of electromagnetic induction, the research of Helmholtz on acoustics, the works of Arago, Fresnel and Brewster on light, constituted physics.
“That fecund period, on which we ought to look back with gratitude, can also list in the first rank of its conquests the study of the general physics of the globe and the first attempts to organize meteorological science; the discovery of the action of light on silver salts, which was the source of photography; the intimate knowledge of the chemical constitution of organic matter; spectral analysis, which permitted the determination with the aid of the prism of the presence of known and unknown metals in milieux where they only existed in an infinitesimal state, thanks to which physicists and chemists extended their investigations with certainty into the heavens; and finally, the mechanical theory of heat and the transformation of forces, which opened the most elevated horizons to the philosophy of science.”
The professor’s elegant and precise speech, the precision of facts, places, dates and circumstances, the remembrance of the names of glorious toilers of science, tarnished if not forgotten by ten centuries of events, held the audience in thrall for a long time.
“Such are,” he said, in concluding his peroration, “the conquests that illustrated the 19th century. If one compares it to the present era, its gleam would doubtless be considerably lessened, but if one sets it alongside the centuries that preceded it, one recognizes that it overshadows all of them by the prodigious character of its discoveries and the sum of relative wellbeing that it injected into the great current of humanity.
“Among its contemporaries, many regarded it as the highest achievement to which humankind could aspire, but if it had been possible to allow them to glimpse the radiant image of the 29th century, they would have recognized the sovereignty of the fundamental principle of the evolution of the human species: Every century adds a new stone to the edifice of progress, and progress has no limit.”
The interest and astonishment provoked by the physicist’s speech suddenly overflowed in the prolonged applause of the audience.
The orator bowed one last time and slowly descended to the stage. The schoolmaster went to meet him and, while congratulating him warmly, led him back to his chair. As he sat down, the scientist’s eyes encountered those of Madame Herber, who testified her satisfaction with a gracious gesture.
In developing the description of events in the midst of which he had still been living two days before and from which ten centuries now separated him, the professor had invoked the specter of the past, which, for the first time, presented itself supported by the oral testimony of a contemporary. The strange sentiment of curiosity that agitated the entire hall was further stimulated by the approach of the doctor, who, led by Herber, advanced toward the podium.
Antius climbed the steps with the same ease that had once caused the members of the Biological Society to marvel, and paraded an assured gaze over this brilliant audience. After having taken a form grip on the podium with his left hand, a gesture that was customary to him, the orator bowed to the assembly.
“Mesdames et Messieurs,” he said, in a clear and perfectly-pitched voice that had once won the admiration of all stenographers, “although a faithful description of an epoch from the viewpoint of the physical sciences and their industrial applications establishes an important base, fertile in deductions of every sort, the examination of what it discovered about the mysteries of organic matter offers a considerable interest, as much by virtue of the immensity and variety of the field of investigation as the critique of theories. If we consider as a whole the progress that the 19th century realized in the study of the human organism and its protection, we will find results whose true value the contemporaries did not always appreciate.
“It can be affirmed today that the period in question witnessed, if not the first, at least the most constant efforts of science to subject medicine to the sage methods of observation and detach it from the vague and baseless concepts that had previously opposed an insurmountable barrier to its progressive development. Supported by the other sciences that were growing around it, it began to gain a regular momentum that was to be a guarantee against going astray.
“Already, surgery, ensured by the profound study of human anatomy and powerfully supported by the employment of anesthetics, had acquired an authority and a certainty that had resisted the efforts of the best practitioners of the previous century. For the first time, the science submitted the intimate constitution of tissues to the power of the microscope, and histology was created.
“The 19th century saw the birth of a powerful endeavor that had t
hus far, by virtue of its immensity, defied all attempts. A man who was perhaps the most erudite and whose genius was affirmed simultaneously in philosophy, history, linguistics and all the observational sciences, Littré, presented to the astonished world a complete history of medicine since antiquity, founded on the authentic documents of all epochs.30
“A creator of the positive method, inaccessible to the tendencies that draw the human mind toward regions that it cannot reach, the great thinker said: Let the human mind reject firmly the vain desires that are not its condition, and, to be recompensed for its resignation, it will see revealed all those agencies that accomplish the work of the world, in the cultivation of the ensemble of the sciences, the precious and powerful intermediary between the thought that contemplates and the hand that acts...
“The epidemics that had devastated Europe in previous centuries had found a powerful barrier in the developments, even though very restricted, of general hygiene. On the other hand, the magnificent discoveries of Pasteur regarding the inoculation of certain principles in humans and animals had extinguished on location those epidemic agents that had terrified our forefathers and condemned them to an impotent fatalism.”
The doctor then displayed to the wonderstuck eyes of the audience the rapid development of physiology, supported by the progress of chemistry, and the genesis of anthropology, which, reaching back through the course of the ages, had traced the history of the human species back to its appearance on the globe.
Then he described the marvelous resources of paleontology, reconstituting vanished worlds with the aid of a few fragments, and receiving striking confirmation of its deductions in discoveries made in the most distant regions.
The orator paused momentarily, and applause resounded throughout the hall.
“The political condition of France in the 19th century,” he said, raising his head again, “is more difficult to assess. Society had suffered all the struggles characteristic of epochs of transition. Erected with difficulty on the ruins of a past whose crumbling had caused a new world to emerge, it was often tossed between two contrary excesses. Sometimes comprised by fear and egotism, sometimes undermined by appetites, the state of society only rarely found equilibrium.
“However, it ought to be recognized that the century counted a great many men of progress, disinterest and devotion to humanity. The great principles of national sovereignty, the abolition of slavery, political equality and individual liberty were proclaimed then.
“Obligatory education, decreed by the peoples who marched at the head of civilization, not only opposed a powerful barrier to moral degradation by ennobling human beings in their own eyes, but also favored the blossoming of all the great intelligences that would have been stifled in a latent state without any profit to society. Although still shackled by the political condition of Europe, the fraternity of peoples was glimpsed by a great many generous minds.”
And in a surge of great eloquence, the orator displayed to his audience the inordinate ambitions of rulers, the rivalries of peoples, the bloody wars and, by virtue of that state of affairs, as barbaric as it was paradoxical, the anxiety that gripped everyone as soon as the slightest conflict broke out anywhere on the continent.
“The enormous progress of industry, commerce and navigation consequent on the extraordinary development of the applied sciences,” he added, “offers us a less somber and desolate picture. Industrial expansion in all its forms brings endeavor everywhere and expands around it a previously unknown wellbeing. The condition of the disinherited classes is considerably ameliorated and the gradual extinction of poverty delights the philanthropic soul.
“The end of the 19th century no longer saw lamentable hordes clad in rags, corroded by misery and malady, trailing painfully along the public highway. On the other hand, seconded by the facility, safety and rapidity of communications, the authority of old Europe overflowed into the remotest regions. Rich colonies were founded and gradually raised to the level of the motherland. Bold pioneers, the majority of whom were to swell the martyrologies of science, had already ventured into the mysterious depths of the African continent that now occupies such a high rank in the scale of civilization.”
The orator then described the history of each of the great European nations, fixing with rigorous figures its extent, population, military and naval power, industry and commerce.
Narrowing his frame, he concentrated on old Paris, and before his audience, whose attention had suddenly intensified, he commenced an extensive nomenclature of its monuments, the greater number of which had disappeared, its schools, its museums, its libraries and its scientific societies, a strict critique of which permitted him to launch an attack on the homeopaths.
Subsequently delving into family life with the independence of a bachelor, Antius introduced hi audience to the hearths of their ancestors. He took the child from the cradle through all the phases of life, extending himself particularly on the education of youth in the old world, coming to grips with all the errors that had their principal points of support in routine and ignorance.
Recalling the benefits of physical culture and artistic education, once greatly neglected, he congratulated the modern maters who afforded them such an important role.
By establishing with marvelous precision the description of 19th century society and pursuing it, in turn, through political life and social life to the domestic hearth, with an incomparable surety in the whole and in the details, the doctor had excited the imagination of his audience to the highest degree. After a few general considerations of the splendors of the present time and the progress of contemporary society from the viewpoint of morality, education, health and universal fraternity, the orator quit the podium.
The enthusiasm that he had excited and maintained with an unparalleled artistry provoked frantic applause. He had to return to the edge of the stage twice to salute the public, and when he went back to his armchair, accompanied by noisy testimony of general satisfaction, he could not prevent himself from saying to the physicist in a low voice: “This evening, for the first time in my life, I’ve spoken without kicking up a storm.”
XX. A Humorous Lecture
The first two parts of the program had been a great success. While congratulating themselves for having been able, in some measure, to testify their gratitude for the generous hospitality they had received, the scientists retained grave anxieties regarding the denouement. Although their young companion was singularly endowed with imagination and had often given proof of an inexhaustible verve, they feared that he might suffer the intellectual perturbations that always accompany the fatal moment when an orator sees the terrifying gazes of the public focused on him for the first time.
At that moment, a fortunate diversion occurred, which postponed the moment of peril.
The schoolmaster had advanced to the edge of the stage and announced to the audience that, by reason of the importance of the speeches they had just heard and the attention they had provoked, the session would be interrupted by an interval of a few minutes during which all those who had been kind enough to come to the soirée were expressly invited by Madame Herber to do honor to the refreshments that were about to be distributed in the hall.
Scarcely had these words been pronounced that twenty servants of both sexes, the majority of whom had been supplied by the school’s neighbors, emerged from all directions, offering the guests vast trays laden with ice-creams and sorbets.
The cordiality that appeared to reign in the new world was affirmed, in the eyes of the strangers, as much by the frank acquiescence of the spectators as by the amicable simplicity of the invitation. In the meantime, Herber introduced the travelers and the individuals occupying the stage into the next room, where an abundantly-laden table awaited the guests.
The two scientists, surrounded by the schoolmaster’s friends, received congratulations with a modesty that, in default of their temperament, the consciousness of the scant effort they had been obliged to make in order to
retrace past times made into a duty.
The schoolmaster, after a few words of encouragement, had just left Gédéon when the physicist and the doctor approached the young man.
The latter, absorbed by reflections in which dread and self-confidence appeared to alternate their dominance, was standing with his eyes fixed on the depths of a cup made from a single turquoise, which he had emptied with particular care. “Sublime or idiotic,” he suddenly murmured, without noticing his two companions, who were standing beside him looking at him with manifest anxiety.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Terrier, generously.
“My speech—and I’ve arrived at the bizarre but certain conclusion that I shall either be stunning or inept.”
“Alas,” said the doctor, who seemed to be having difficulty admitting the first term.
Meanwhile, Herber had already darted two or three glances at the public when, after a final inspection, he turned round swiftly and announced to his guests that the second part of the program could begin.
Opening the door, he stood aside to let his guests through, and they went back to their respective seats. The strangers followed them, Gédéon in the lead, thanking an important member of the Institut, who had already given him a few premature eulogies, with a pale smile.
Herber seized the young man in passing at took him to the podium.
Instantly enveloped by the attentive gazes of two thousand individuals, Gédéon climbed the steps with a lack of urgency of someone mounting the scaffold. A false step, which nearly precipitated him to the bottom of the steps, did more to help him than any advice or encouragement could have done. Conscious of the ridicule that he had just escaped, he steeled himself with a supreme energy, and, his face pale and his muscles contracted, suddenly found himself face to face with his audience. A providential hazard dictated that his first glance encountered the charming visage of Madame Herber, who sent him a smile of encouragement from the edge of her box. The sight of the graceful enchantress, who had picked up the strangers at the moment of their distress, appeared to him to be a manifest sign of divine protection and calmed his mind as if by magic.