The Measure of All Things

by Ken Alder

  THE ALBUFERA MARSHES NEAR VALENCIA

  This map shows the region where Méchain caught malaria. The area surrounding the Albufera marshes was cultivated with rice fields, and the lagoon itself teemed with flamingos and other waterfowl. The level of water was controlled by a sluice gate at the entrance to the Mediterranean. Méchain’s southernmost station was on the rocky promontory near Cullera, located in the bottom left corner of this map. The town of Valencia is located in the bottom right corner. (Note: This map is oriented so that north is to the right.) (From Antonio José Cavanilles, Observaciones sobre la historia natural, geografía, agricultura, población y frutos del reyno de Valencia [Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1795–97], 1:184; photograph by University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center)

  In his last letter to Delambre—another ten pages in his dense crabbed hand—Méchain admitted that he was exhausted. “For until this moment I have not proved successful, and my unlucky star—or rather, fate—which, as you say yourself, my dear colleague, seems to preside over this mission, hardly gives me leave to hope that I will bring it to a happy conclusion.” Yet he did not fear hard labor or the scorching heat; he did not fear anything, except failure. He would continue until he succumbed, he said—which admittedly seemed likely, given that one by one everyone around him had already fallen ill and “I am not made of harder stuff than they, nor am I younger, nor more robust, nor better acclimatized.” He was even ready to come home if the Bureau of Longitudes could find a savant to replace him, one “more able, less maladroit, and luckier than me.” He did not think that finding such a person would prove difficult. He had but one consolation, paltry though it might be: he had nothing to reproach himself with. He had made every effort to fulfill his mission. As he wrote to a friend:

  As for the rest, I tell you that though I do not seek death, I am far from fearing it. I would watch its approach without the least regret and in my current state would even consider it a gift from heaven. . . . Never, no never, though I have spent much of my life in suffering and shed many tears over my loved ones and myself, never, I say, have I found myself in a situation so hopeless, so terrifying, and so wrenching. This dreadful commission, whose success appears so far off and so improbable, will more than likely be the end of me, and worse yet, that of my family, and become my tomb and that of my honor.

  It was as if, having failed to die on his first trip to Spain, he was now mounting a more determined effort. In frustration, he handed over the final measurements at Puig to Dezauche—the first time he had trusted someone else with the repeating circle—so that he might prepare the next station. He ordered his son to shift his position sixty miles to the north and set up his reflector on the high mountain of Arès. He would himself move inland to the Sierra de Espadán, a three-thousand-foot mountain peak covered with pine trees.

  Three days after he set up camp at Espadán, Méchain felt the first thrill of fever. At night, while he waited for the signal lights, icy chills crawled under his clothes. His body shivered in tune with the stars. His appetite had vanished. All that week he took no food, only hot tea. At night, the high dry air was filled with the scent of wild herbs: rosemary, thyme, lavender, and mesquite. One evening, overcome with exhaustion, he fell asleep before the reflectors were lit, and the night watchman did not dare wake him when the lights finally came on. In the morning, Méchain bitterly condemned this failure.

  A VIEW OF THE VALENCIA COAST

  This panorama over the coast of Valencia captures Méchain’s last view as he descended from the Sierra de Espadán to the town of Castellón de la Plana (labeled “b” here). (From Antonio José Cavanilles, Observaciones sobre la historia natural, geografía, agricultura, población y frutos del reyno de Valencia [Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1795–97], 1:110; photograph by University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center)

  On September 12, although the observations were not quite complete, his companions convinced him that he had to leave the Sierra de Espadán. He was emaciated and his fevers, though intermittent, were growing more intense. He agreed to be taken to the provincial capital of Castellón de la Plana, an eight-gated city of 11,000 inhabitants, a mile from the coast and the hometown of his new friend the Barón de la Puebla. He could see its solitary octagonal bell tower as he rode down through the fertile fields of sugarcane and hemp. Once in town, he checked himself into an inn. At first, his illness did not appear serious, but he passed a horrible night. Summoned by an urgent letter, young Dezauche rushed down from his station to join his expedition leader the next morning, just as the baron arrived from Valencia. Together, they transferred him to the baron’s local residence. There he passed his final days, recorded with vivid sympathy in Dezauche’s private journal.

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1804: I go to see Monsieur Méchain. I find him well enough, but very weak because he refuses to take anything, not even chicken broth, and has not eaten in eight days.

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1804: I go promptly in to see M. Méchain and find him quite well, even gay, but still very weak.

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1804: At nine in the morning, a servant begs me to come quickly to the baron’s. There, I learn that M. Méchain passed a horrific night, and that since morning his mind has been distracted. I go in to see him. He opens his eyes very wide but does not recognize me.

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1804: At seven in the morning, I go to see M. Méchain. I find him in the grip of a violent fever, in delirium, his mind vacant, not knowing what he says or does. The people looking after him find it difficult to confine him to bed. At nine, two doctors arrive, neither of whom inspires much confidence. They prescribe cinchona. I write to his son to come immediately. The doctors return at noon, and again in the afternoon. The patient has been enervated by his morning outburst. The doctors agree that he has a nervous tertian fever, which does not mean much to me. They summon the baron and me into the antechamber to tell us that the fever has turned deadly and that they cannot answer for their patient surviving another attack that night. Then, to ease their conscience, they ask that M. Méchain be confessed. The news stuns me. When M. Méchain himself is sounded on this topic, he indicates that he does not feel as bad as all that. I spend all day with my patient, turning him to urinate, and carrying him to the toilet when he needs to use it. Having heard the likely course of his illness from the doctors, I resolve to spend all night with him, not wishing to leave him to the servants, who are country people and cannot understand him. Around four-thirty in the afternoon I find him much better. His mind is again clear, and his speech orderly. At nine at night I give him cinchona, at ten-thirty a broth, and so on in alternation until three in the morning. My patient is getting better and better. He has no fever but is still excessively tired. Finally, at six-thirty in the morning, I leave him in a good state and hand him over to the care of the baron.

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1804: At seven-thirty I return to M. Méchain; he is doing very poorly and has lost consciousness. Four doctors, whom I summon, all say he has malignant tertian fever. At noon they say he has an ardent fever. That night, I have him given extreme unction out of fear that he will die at any minute. Then the doctors apply the Spanish fly—a blistering agent—to the back of his head. They put a compress on each of his feet. I send for M. Lanusse, the French commercial attaché in Valencia, and ask him to bring a surgeon and some cinchona, since the supplies here are no good.

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1804: I spend all night awake, watching over my patient. He will not drink. He rejects any medicine as soon as it is given him. He is unconscious; his eyes, half-closed, are yellow, as is his complexion. At six in the morning, the doctors return to examine the patient. His arms are trembling and they decide he is apoplectic. He is still unconscious, his eyes open and vacant. He still refuses to swallow. At ten in the morning, they remove the blistering agent, which has taken well; the wounds are dressed with a poultice of pear leaves and honey. At noon, the doctor prescribes a febrifuge to reduce the nervous
heat in his chest. He revives somewhat, enough so that when I say to him, “My dear friend, drink, it is for your own good,” he looks at me through half-opened eyes and parts his lips for me to feed him some cinchona on a spoon. At one o’clock, I am summoned for my own lunch, and with hope for his improvement, I go.

  As soon as the meal is done I return to my patient. It is two o’clock. I am astonished. I find him in agony, with a very strong bronchial rattle, his eyes almost entirely shut, his mouth wide open, his tongue very dry, and in the grip of a fever worse than any yet. I immediately call the four doctors. They arrive and agree there is no further remedy; he is all but dead.

  At ten o’clock at night, the baron, M. Lanusse, and I are in the antechamber, discussing what arrangements to make for the calamity that awaits us, when suddenly we see Augustin Méchain enter. He embraces us all in turn, me last, then asks where his father is. I tell him that he cannot see his father at present because he has been in a fever all day, and is exhausted now and resting. He repeats his request more emphatically, and I tell him again that it is impossible for him to see his father. At this, the unhappy young man throws himself onto a bed and cries: “Where is my father? My poor father! I want to see my father! Oh, I know what you’re up to: this is his bed, he lay here and now he’s dead. My poor father, I will never see you again!” We assure him that his father is not dead, only very sick. The young man wants to sleep in the house, but I insist that he goes to M. Bigne’s instead, and have the gentlemen escort him there.

  I then return to the father’s sickroom. The doctors agree that there is not much time left, but to drag things out, they place a compress of hot wine on his stomach and occasionally moisten his lips and tongue with wine and water. That is our procedure for the rest of the night. At midnight, the death rattle ceases, his pulse fails, and at five in the morning, on Thursday, September 20, 1804, on the third complementary day of the year XII, he dies in my arms: I receive his final breath.

  And so ends the life of one of Europe’s greatest talents, a man who was very good to me and who will be mourned by all Europe.

  Augustin Méchain fell sick that night. Unable to sleep, he collapsed in the morning. His fever was slight, although he suffered from an attack of nerves that caused his legs to twitch uncontrollably. He sobbed in his bed. Later that day he had a still more violent attack, and it took five men to hold him down while he cried out for his father and mother. He subsided only after being bled from the arm. Dezauche stayed all that night in a cot beside the young man.

  The funeral was the next morning. Dezauche put on his naval uniform. The cortège was led by the Provincial Governor, the Barón de la Puebla, and the members of the expedition, followed by Spanish nobles and military officers, French expatriates, and three hundred monks. The cortège was met under the carved portico of the cathedral by the wives of the nobles and expatriates, all dressed in mourning. After the Mass Méchain was buried in the cathedral’s cemetery—in a lead casing, in case the French government or his family ever wished to retrieve the body.

  What eighteenth-century physicians called “tertian fever,” because the fever returned every third day, we today call malaria. The disease was endemic in Valencia, especially around the Albufera marshes, which Méchain had recently traversed. The ailment had been diagnosed since ancient times, and by the end of the seventeenth century physicians had discovered a palliative: an extract of the bark of the cinchona tree of South America. This is what they were giving Méchain. But the bark’s active ingredient, quinine, comprised less than one-sixtieth of cinchona, and hence the potion was not always as effective as it would be today.

  In his final delirium, Méchain had obsessed over the fate of his mission—and his papers. During all his years of geodesic travels he had always carried his manuscripts with him in a trunk. These calculations, logbooks, and notes were the summation of a life of scientific labor. They were his continual point of reference, consulted and adjusted with each new insight. As Méchain was famously reluctant to publish his findings, these papers were all the more precious. No wonder, reasoned his subordinates, that he spoke of them so often during his final collapse.

  Now that Méchain was dead, they had no choice but to abandon the mission and return home to Paris. However, they took special care to bring the manuscripts with them. They deposited some of the larger surveying instruments in Valencia for the use of his replacement (should the Bureau of Longitudes appoint one), then packed one portion of his papers for shipment back to Paris. Augustin took the rest with him on his mournful journey home.

  News of Méchain’s death reached Paris on October 8. A few weeks later, Augustin himself arrived. Without hesitation he personally delivered the papers to Delambre, his father’s former partner. The remainder, sent by post, were handed over to Delambre by Madame Méchain some four months later. All told, they included several thousand pages of formulas, observations, and calculations, scribbled, revised, and rewritten. As Méchain’s scientific executor, Delambre had the task of going through those papers and salvaging what knowledge he could.

  The rest of Méchain’s small collection of scientific books and instruments was quickly auctioned off. Neither son had any intention of pursuing a scientific career. And after what they had seen of their father’s fate, who could blame them? With her husband’s death, Madame Méchain was obliged to vacate her apartments in the Observatory. She took up residence in Paris’ ninth arrondissement on a modest pension. The Méchain scientific dynasty had lasted five short years.

  Augustin Méchain composed a brief obituary for his father. He wrote of a man who had died “far from his country, his wife, and his old friends,” but who had found in his last moments “the consolation one expects from untainted love . . . in the arms of those who accompanied him.” “They bathed him in their tears,” he wrote, “they were his friends and did not blush to call him maître.” His father had possessed the qualities that mattered most. He was “virtuous, frank, affable, modest, a good husband, a good father, a good friend. He loved his country, his fellow man, and the arts. His friends and the sciences will deplore his loss and record his memory to the most remote period of posterity.”

  In a still briefer obituary, Lalande spoke of the young man he had brought into astronomy, and who had died a martyr to that science.

  These touching obituaries were followed by a grand eulogy from Delambre, delivered before the assembled Academy of Sciences, with the bereaved family in attendance. Delambre paid this tribute not just as Méchain’s partner, but in his capacity as Permanent Secretary. In a tradition dating back to the masterful orations of the seventeenth century, a scientific eulogy in those days was more than a recital of the technical achievements of the deceased; it was a secular sermon on the moral qualities of the natural philosopher, whose life, like his work, was permeated with the virtues of self-sacrifice, disinterestedness, and stoic candor. These were the virtues that enabled the savant to contribute to the accumulation of true knowledge, thereby serving both the nation and humanity, and making him worthy, like the statesman and the general, of immortal remembrance. A eulogy consoled a family, assured colleagues of the sanctity of their calling, and inspired the young to join their ranks. Making sense of death is the survivor’s privilege—and his burden.

  Delambre recounted Méchain’s life as a tale of arduous labor and ultimate sacrifice, driven not by overblown ambition but by the obstinacy of service. Méchain came from a humble family, he reminded his audience, but had risen by dint of hard study. Patient observation and fastidious calculation had led him to discover eleven comets. These same qualities had earned him a role in the grand mission to measure the world. Delambre did not make Méchain’s labors appear glamorous; on the contrary, he emphasized their tediousness.

  It was those same virtues that had enabled Méchain to complete his grand mission. Delambre walked his audience through the stations Méchain had traveled on his route to martyrdom: his arrest on his first day’s travel out of
Paris, his stamina through the mountains of Catalonia, his fateful accident at the pumping station, his detention in blockaded Spain, his long struggle to return to France, his battles with the ignorant peasants who tore down his signals, his triumphant return to Paris—and then, when his life promised ease at long last, his self-sacrificing return to the field of his scientific labor. Delambre did not assert that Méchain’s achievement was due to his genius or intellectual creativity. No such claim was possible. Rather, he ascribed his success to a kind of obstinacy. It was Méchain’s obsession that had produced the most precise measurements in the history of astronomy. For proof, one need look no further than his repeated efforts to confirm his latitude measurements at Barcelona. “And never has a verification been more thorough, more satisfactory, and for just that reason, all the more superfluous.”

  Delambre acknowledged that Méchain had occasionally seemed to tarry on his mission. At times he had been tempted to set aside his burden, overcome by a melancholy brought on in part by his injuries, in part by the grievous trauma that had befallen his nation. In his darkest moments Méchain had even contemplated emigration, so painful was the thought of returning to Paris, where several of his colleagues had met a terrible fate. Yet the same obstinacy that had propelled him to complete his mission had also driven him to return home to perfect his study. He was a martyr to the endless quest for precision, Delambre concluded, not because he sought personal glory, but out of modesty and fierce self-doubt. Méchain had always been dissatisfied with his own work, piling on new observations, adjusting his formulas, refining his calculations. As a result, he had avoided the finality of the printed page, even when it came to their joint labor on the meridian. “Never did he consider these observations, the most exact ever achieved in this domain and conducted with unsurpassed certainty and precision, never did he consider them sufficiently perfected—and so he worked continually to refine them.” This scrupulousness had long delayed the publication of the Base du système métrique. But now that all Méchain’s papers were in his hands, Delambre promised to prove a faithful guardian.