The Measure of All Things

by Ken Alder

  “As it is”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 9 vendémiaire VII [30 September 1798].

  Delambre neither returned: While Delambre waited for Méchain’s answer, he worked with Bellet and Tranchot to take geodetic measurements of the angle between Mont Alaric and Saint-Pons from Narbonne on 17–18 vendémiaire VI [8–9 October 1798]; see AOP E2-6, Delambre, “Registre,” 319.

  “But I cannot see”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 13 vendémiaire VII [4 October 1798].

  The days slipped by: For Méchain’s procrastinations, see AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 19, 29 fructidor, 4 jour comp. VI, 9, 11, 13, 15, 22, 28 vendémiaire, 1, 7 brumaire VII [5, 15 20, 30 September, 2, 4, 6, 13, 19, 22, 28 October 1798].

  “It would be an infinite”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 19 fructidor VI [5 September 1798].

  “but it does not always”: AOP E2-19, Fabre to Delambre, 15 fructidor VI [1 September 1798].

  “I am unshaken”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 29 fructidor VI [15 September 1798].

  “I will not change”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 4 jour comp. VI [20 September 1798].

  “In the springtime”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 19 fructidor VI [5 September 1798].

  “seek his fortune”: Méchain to Rolland, 19 fructidor VI [5 September 1798], in Dougados, “Lettres de Méchain,” 83.

  “reproaches” and “I will not expose”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 4 jour comp. VI [20 September 1798].

  “burdened as I am”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 11 vendémiaire VII [2 October 1798].

  He showed Méchain a letter: For the offer of the directorship of the Observatory, see Delambre, “Méchain,” Astronomie au dix-huitième, 763.

  Tomorrow they would be: Though Lalande expected their arrival on November 15, they did not in fact arrive in Paris until November 17; see BL “Procès-verbaux,” 24 brumaire VI, [14 November 1798].

  NINE: THE EMPIRE OF SCIENCE

  “The most magnificent”: Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Satires contre les astronomes (Paris: Terrelonge, XI, 1803), 16–17. “On réserve sur-tout des cadeaux magnifiques / Pour ceux qui s’embrouillent dans les mathématiques, / Aux triangles liés avec d’énormes frais, / Qu’ils soient faux ou trompeurs, ne renoncent jamais. . . . / Qu’ont fait les nouveaux poids, les nouvelles mesures? / A tous nos bons vieillards apporter des tortures. / Pour boire une chopine, auner un long ruban, / Ou réduire et changer les heures d’un cadran, / L’arc du méridien était-il nécessaire? / On peut très-bien auner sans mesurer la terre; / Et si ce haut calcul n’est point exempt d’erreur, / Briser longue habitude est mauvaise rigueur.”

  “which they presumed” and “a demonstration”: Méchain to Rolland, 6 frimaire VII [26 November 1798], in Dougados, “Lettres de Méchain,” 90, 88. The President of the Directory was the nation’s chief executive.

  “The first days”: Méchain to Rolland, 6 frimaire VII [26 November 1798], in Dougados, “Lettres de Méchain,” 90.

  After months of delay: For the claim to be the first international scientific meeting, see Maurice Crosland, “The Congress on Definitive Metric Standards, 1798–1799: The First International Scientific Conference?” Isis 60 (1969): 226–31. The best account of the meeting is by Thomas Bugge, published in Danish and translated immediately into German under his direction as Reise nach Paris in den Jahren 1798 und 1799, Johann Nicolaus Tilemann, trans. (Copenhagen: Brummer, 1801). An English version appeared soon after, with the sections on the metric system excised, as Travels in the French Republic, John Jones, trans. (London, Phillips, 1801). A recent re-edition of this translation has been issued, with some of the metric material reinserted, as Science in France in the Revolutionary Era, Maurice Crosland, ed. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969).

  any lingering “jealousies”: CUS, Laplace to [Delambre], 5 pluviôse VI [24 January 1798].

  a “mere formality”: Laplace to Delambre, 10 pluviôse VI [29 January 1798], in Yves Laissus, “Deux lettres de Laplace,” Revue d’histoire des sciences 14 (1961): 285–96. For oblique references to the debate over the proposition of Laplace and the objections of Borda, see ASPV 1 (1, 5 pluviôse VI [20, 24 January 1798]): 334–35.

  “at heart not only”: Talleyrand to Cisalpine Republic [Piedmont], 5 July 1798, in Kula, Measures and Men, 271.

  Laplace’s other ally: For Napoleon’s election to the Academy on 25 December 1797, see M. E. Maindron, “Bonaparte, Membre de l’Institut National,” Revue scientifique de la France 1 (1881–82): 321–38. For Napoleon and science, see the excellent study by Joachim Fischer, Napoleon und die Naturwissenschaften (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1988).

  “I am indeed, and will dine”: Clef du Cabinet, 3 floréal VI [22 April 1798], in François-Alphonse Aulard, ed., Paris pendant la réaction thermidorienne et sous le Directoire (Paris: Cerf, 1898–1902), 4:596.

  “My dear General”: Narrateur universel, 24 frimaire IV [14 December 1797], in Aulard, Thermidorienne, 4:490–91.

  They had been delighted: For Jefferson’s switch of latitude preference, see Jefferson to William Short, 26 July, 26 September 1790, in Jefferson, Papers, 17:281, 528. For the early French optimism regarding Jefferson and American participation, see Loi relative à l’établissement de nouvelles mesures pour les grains (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1790), 9. For Jefferson’s views on the British-French coordination, see Jefferson to Rittenhouse, 20, 30 June 1790, in Jefferson, Papers, 16:542–43, 587–88. For the U.S. Senate, see Committee on Weights and Measures, 5 April, 18 December 1792, in Joseph Gales, ed., Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1834–56), 3:117–18, 621–22. As time went on, Jefferson became even more convinced that the French had acted selfishly in choosing the meridian. See Jefferson to Doctor Patterson, 11 September, 10 November 1811, in Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington, ed. (New York: Derby and Jackson, 1859), 6:11; 13:95–108.

  Soon after the passage: For Dombey’s mission, see PVCIP 3 (11, 13, 21, 29 frimaire, 5 nivôse II [1, 3, 11, 19, 25 December 1793]): 54, 64, 136, 197, 211. RACSP 9 (21, 26 frimaire II [11, 16 December 1793]): 321, 436–37. Yves Laissus, “Note sur le deuxième voyage et la mort de Joseph Dombey,” Comptes rendus du 94e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes, Histoire des sciences (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1970), 61–79.

  “an enlightened and free people”: [Joseph Fauchet], Joseph Fauchet, Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Republic near the United States to Mr. Randolph, Secretary of the United States, 15 Thermidor 2nd year of the French Republic (2d August 1794, Old Style) (Philadelphia: Fenno, [1794]). See also APS, Fauchet to Rittenhouse, 10 September 1794.

  “cement the political”: Fauchet to Randolph, 15 thermidor II [2 August 1794], in 3rd Congress, 2nd Session, 8 January 1795, no. 60, in Walter Lowrie and Walter S. Franklin, eds., American State Papers: Documents (Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1834), 1:115–16. For public accounts in the U.S., see Anon., “Foreign Literature, France,” American Monthly Review (February 1795): 195–98.

  “Would it not make”: Fauchet to Commissaire du Dépt. des Relations Extérieures, 26 nivôse II [15 January 1795], in Annual Report of the American Historical Association 2 (1903): 544–46. For Washington’s addresses, see Washington to Congress, 8 January 1790 and 25 October 1791, in Gales, Congress of the United States, 1:968–72; 3:11–16. For Washington’s actions in favor of Fauchet’s proposals, see Washington to Congress, 8 January 1795, in Gales, Congress of the United States, 4:809.

  This time, it was: For the end of the Congressional debate, see Harrison, “Weights and Measures,” House of Representatives, 14, 19 May 1796, in Gales, Congress of the United States, 5:1376–83, 1405. For Fauchet’s views, see “Mémoire sur les Etats-Unis d’Amérique,” 24 frimaire IV [15 December 1795], in Annual Report of the American Historical Association 1 (1936): 85–131; John J. Reardon, Edmund Randolph: A Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 307–15.

  The United States Congress: On Jefferson’s
deference to Congress on this matter, see Jefferson to John Rutherford, 25 December 1792, in Jefferson, Papers, 24:783.

  “no Dictionary”: Miller, 6 February 1790, Speeches, 17–18. See the long list of British attempts at measurement standardization between 1200 and 1730 appended to Miller, Speeches, 29–40. For one eighteenth-century attempt, see House of Commons, A Report from the Committee Appointed to Enquire into the Original Standards of Weights and Measures in This Kingdom (London: Whiston, 1758). For Scotland, see Lord John Swinton, A Proposal for Uniformity of Weights and Measures in Scotland (Edinburgh: Elliot, 1779). For other complaints about fraud, see Hubert Hall and Freida Nichols, Select Tracts and Tables: Books Relating to English Weights and Measures, 1100–1742 (London: Offices of the Society, 1929), 47–51. For an overview of the history of English weights and measures, see R. D. Connor, The Weights and Measures of England (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1987).

  “cabal, delay, fraud”: Cuthbert Clarke, A New Complete System of Weights and Measures (Edinburgh: Author, 1789), 6.

  “Knaves and cheats”: Miller, 6 February 1790, Speeches, 17–18.

  such as a new “yard”: For the pendulum “yard,” see John Whitehurst, “An Attempt Toward Obtaining Invariable Measures,” n.d., in The Works of John Whitehurst (London: Dent, 1792), iv. For an economist, see James Stueart, “A Plan for Introducing an Uniformity of Measures over the World” [written c. 1760, first printed in 1790], in Stueart, Works (London: Cadell, 1805), 5:379–415.

  “Una fides”: Renerus Budelius, De Monetis (1591), quoted in Miller, Speeches, 52. At Miller’s request, Talleyrand inserted language allowing for “a location to be determined” into the law passed by the National Assembly; see Miller, Speeches, xiv–xv.

  “emancipated from”: John Rotheram, Observations on the Proposed Plan for an Universal Standard of Weights and Measures in a Letter to Sir John Sinclair, M.P. (Edinburgh: Creech, 1791), 10. In the same fashion, the British expected the Americans to follow their lead in measurement standards; see Rotheram, Observations, 35–36. George Skene Keith, Tracts on Weights, Measures, and Coins (London: Murray, 1791).

  Charles Blagden: For Blagden, see BLL Add MS33272, ff. 97–98, Charles Blagden to Joseph Banks, 8 September 1791. For British mockery, see “New System of Weights and Measures,” The Times (London), 1 October 1798. For the parliamentary debate, see T. C. Hansard, ed., The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, vol. 28 (1789–91), col. 297, 315–323, 874–75, 876–79.

  Besides, the German savants: For a German skeptical of the reform, see Friederich Johann Lorenz Meyer, Fragmente aus Paris (Hamburg: Bohn, 1798); 2:265–83. The CPM sent sample meter sticks to German commercial cities like Hamburg so that they might draw up conversion tables; see p. 279. On the German savants’ objections to the meridian project, see pp. 268–69.

  And the left bank: For Delambre’s recommendation of Tranchot for the German map project, see CUS, Delambre to [Prony?], 7 fructidor IX [25 August 1801]. Within days, Tranchot had the job and was on his way; SHAT 3M401, Tranchot to Gen. Andeossy (Dépôt de la Guerre), 8 fructidor IX [15 September 1801].

  “Now that the use”: Delambre, Rapport historique, 9, 77–78.

  Among the savants was: For Jérôme-Isaac Méchain’s role as aide to Nicolas-Auguste Nouet, the former monk who had served as Cassini IV’s assistant under the Ancien Régime, see Jean-Joseph Marcel et al., Histoire scientifique et militaire de l’expédition française en Egypte (Paris: Dénain, 1830–36), 4:57. For P.-F.-A. Méchain’s connection to Nouet, see KBD NKS1304, Méchain to Bugge, 1 vendémiaire X [23 September 1801]. For the geographic aspect of the expedition, see Anne Godlewska, “The Napoleonic Survey of Egypt: A Masterpiece of Cartographic Compilation and Early Nineteenth-Century Fieldwork,” Cartographia 25 (1988): i–xiii, 1–171, especially 17–22. Anne Godlewska, “Map, Text, and Image: The Mentality of Enlightened Conquerors: A New Look at the Description de l’Egypte,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 20 (1995): 5–28; Ghislain Alleaume, “Entre l’inventaire du territoire et la construction de la mémoire: L’oeuvre cartographique de l’expédition d’Egypte,” in L’expédition d’Egypte, Une entreprise des lumières, 1798–1801, Patrice Bret, ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1998), 279–94; Antoine Tramoni, “Du plan terrier de la Corse à la carte de l’Egypte: La géographie des militaires,” in Bonaparte et les îles méditerranéennes et l’appel de l’Orient, Actes du Colloque d’Ajaccio, 29–30 May 1998, Cahiers de la Méditerranée 57 (1998): 87–99; Yves Laissus, L’Egypte, Une aventure savante (Paris: Fayard, 1998); Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Il y a 200 ans, Les savants en Egypte (Paris: NATHAN, 1998).

  “its proximity”: Fourier, in E. F. Jomard, “Description de Syène et des ses cataractes,” Description de l’Egypte 1 (Paris, 1821), 121. See also Nouet, “Observations . . . haute Egypte,” Décade égyptienne 3 (IX [1800–01]): 15–16.

  “R. F. [République française]”: Marcel, Expédition française en Egypte, 5:53. For Nouet’s reports, see “Rapport . . . Alexandrie,” “Mémoire . . . du Kaire, 11 messidor VII [29 June 1799],” “Rapport . . . styles, 21 messidor VII [9 July 1799],” “Position . . . points de l’Egypte,” “Observations . . . haute Egypte,” “Position . . . des pyramides,” Décade égyptienne 1 (VII [1798–99]): 165–82; 2 (VIII [1799–1800]), 129–58, 226–31, 267–71; 3 (IX [1800–1801]), 7–27, 101–10.

  Built into the embankment: For the Nilometer, see Girard to Le Père, 30 thermidor VII [17 August 1799], in Courier de l’Egypte 37 (29 fructidor VII [15 September 1799]): 3; Pierre-Simon Girard, “Résumé des deux mémoires sur le nilomètre de l’Ile d’Eléphantine et l’ancien coudée des égyptiens,” Mémoires de l’Institut des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 7 vendémiaire X [29 September 1801], 63–74. Marcel, Expédition française en Egypte, 4:494–97. For the Ancien Régime suppositions about a connection between the pyramids and measures, see Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne (Paris: De Bure, 1781), 77–85, 167–76; also Paucton, Métrologie, 6–7; and Paucton, Explication de l’hiéroglyphie du grand principe de la nature consacré dans les pyramides d’Egypte (Paris: Desaint, 1781), 345–47. Laplace himself had endorsed the idea; see Laplace, “Mathématiques,” Ecoles Normales, 5:203. For renewed speculations about the connection based on data gathered 1798–1801, see E. Jomard, Mémoire sur le système métrique des anciens égyptiens (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1817).

  “where they say trickery”: AN Colonies C8A 59, Thomassin de Farret, “Projet pour le commerce des colonies,” 1752. See also AN Colonies A23, Conseil Supérieur de Louisiane, 1 April 1715; Arrêté du Conseil Supérieur, 19 July 1725; Arrêté du Conseil d’Etat du Roy, 1 March 1744. Also AN Colonies C88 12, Jean-François Pierre, “Mémoires pour l’établissement d’un poids public,” 1767.

  Between 1785 and 1788: For La Pérouse, see La Pérouse, Voyage de La Pérouse, 286–87; Fleurieu, ed., Voyage autour du monde, 4:iii–viii, 1–130. For the Borda circle on the Entrecasteaux expedition, see Elisabeth-Paul-Edouard Rossel, ed., Voyage d’Entrecasteaux (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1808), 1:33, 594–99; and volume 2.

  “authentic proof”: Méchain to Rolland, 6 frimaire VII [26 November 1798], in Dougados, “Lettres de Méchain,” 90.

  The great dome: On the Panthéon at that date, see [W. F. Blagdon], Paris as It Was and as It Is (London: Baldwin, 1803), 2:140; also Meyer, Fragmente aus Paris, 1:166–82.

  “learned . . . , but not pedantic”: Warmé, Delambre, 29.

  “much intelligence”: AOP E2-8, Delambre, “Méridienne, Partie du nord, Observations,” [1798–99]. Delambre tried (and failed) to hire young Pomar [sic] as an assistant at the Observatory on 23 April 1798; see Bigourdan, “Bureau des Longitudes,” (1928): A17–18. Delambre to Humboldt, 22 January 1801, in Humboldt, Briefe aus Amerika, 120.

  “renounce it all”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Delambre, 6 nivôse VII [26 December 1798]. Méchain believed that the Paris latitude measurements should belong
to him alone, to compensate him for Delambre’s greater contributions elsewhere. But Delambre quietly insisted on conducting observations in parallel; see Delambre, Grandeur, 222.

  “Delambre obtains results”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Borda, 7 nivôse VII [27 December 1798].

  “the hidden defect”: AOP E2-19, Méchain to Borda, 7 nivôse VII [27 December 1798].

  He skipped meetings: On Méchain’s avoidance of his colleagues, see Delambre, “Méchain,” Astronomie au dix-huitième, 762.

  “a charlatanism of Borda”: Danish State Archives F6 1087, Bugge to Danish Secretary of State, 17 November 1798; translation from the Danish by Arne Hessenbruch. This letter was written the day before Delambre and Méchain returned to Paris. Bugge also considered Lalande the greatest egotist and charlatan in all astronomy; see BLL Add MS8099, Bugge to Banks, 19 November 1798. Bugge was a longtime correspondent of Méchain, and respected him. He was also impressed by the precision of the repeating circle, when Méchain finally demonstrated its use to him. Bugge, Science in France, 205–6. The Academy noted the arrival of the foreign savants, but did not meet with them in formal session until 28 November 1798, two weeks after Delambre and Méchain returned; ASPV 1 (16 vendémiaire, 6 frimaire VII [7 October, 26 November 1798]): 476, 496–97. For the Academy’s ban on publication, see ASPV 1 (16 prairial VI [4 June 1798]): 403.

  “the scandal” and “worthless”: Zach to Lalande, 28 May 1799, in Bigourdan, Système métrique, 240–41.

  “These shameful aspects”: Zach to Lalande, 3 December 1798, in Bigourdan, Système métrique, 240.

  “zeal and skill”: AAS Dossier Delambre, Margelay (Montheçon, dépt. de l’Allier) to Delambre, 18 floréal VII [7 May 1799].

  “ridiculing”: Décade philosophique 15 (30 pluviôse VII [18 February 1799]), 372.