Martyrs of Science

by S. Henry Berthoud

  “Leave for France!”

  “I have to, I tell you. It’s the price of glory and fortune for me.”

  “What need do you have or fortune and glory? Hasn’t God given you as much as any man could desire down here?”

  “All that’s nothing, Louise. It’s the shadow compared with the light, the cloud over the face of the sun. If I attain the secret I’m pursuing, the secret that I’ve touched with my finger without being able to grip, I’ll change the face of the world, take my place with Newton and Cuvier, those two great geniuses. What am I saying? I’ll rise above them, for they only divined and understood one of the Creator’s thoughts, while I’ll almost become a creator myself. Yes, Louise, nature will obey my voice, like that of its divine master...

  “Adieu—I’m leaving for France.”

  He took some gold and a few clothes, kissed his wife and children in haste, climbed into a carriage and set off for Paris, without offering any further explanation of the reasons for his journey, and, without paying any heed to the rigors of winter or the fatigue of the journey, and with no other traveling companion than his old domestic.

  When he arrived in Paris, without even booking into a hotel, and even though he was dying of cold and hunger, he went directly to the Rue des Lombards, to the Fidèle-Berger.

  Knebel spent about ten minutes in the shop of the famous confectioner. When he came out again to resume his place in the carriage, the old domestic Frantz did not observe, on his master’s visage, the discouragement and despair that he habitually read there. He even seemed to be calmer.

  “Rue de Cinq-Diamants!” he said to the postillion.

  At the name of that street it was he domestic who displayed emotion. Now, emotion, on that aged face, which resembled a mask of polished bronze, was a phenomenon sufficiently extraordinary for his master, the naturalist, to notice it. He did not, however, pay the slightest heed to such a great marvel. As usual, one sole thought, one sole sensation preoccupied him: to arrive at the unknown goal that he was pursuing.

  The Rue de Cinq-Diamants forms a long, narrow, airless corridor inhabited by poor manual workers, into which carriages cannot penetrate. Knebel leapt out of his post-chaise and ran to one of the house at the far end of the street. Frantz leaned out to follow him with his gaze, and seemed to be watching out or his return with a kind of troubled curiosity.

  Alas, the calm and confidence that seemed to have dissipated Knebel’s bleak misery a little while before when he came out of the Fidèle-Berger had disappeared, darkening his pale clean-shaven features more than ever.

  “Go and find fresh horses while I get some food,” he said to the postillion. “I have to leave for Berlin in two hours.”

  “For Berlin!” Frantz exclaimed, putting his hands together in surprise and raising his eyes to the heavens.

  To hear Frantz speak was equivalent to the miracle of Balaam’s ass, which worthy animal gave advice to prophets.

  In spite of his chagrins and disappointments, Knebel took note of it. “If you’re afraid of the fatigues of another journey—to which, I’m very much afraid, others might succeed—you’re at liberty to stay in Paris, Frantz,” he said, rudely.

  “Oh, sir! Can you have such an idea of an old and faithful servant? Surprise extracted the words that you heard from me, not the fear of fatigue. If you’ll permit me to tell you how and why...”

  “I have no need of advice,” Knebel interjected, who, reproaching himself bitterly for his obstinacy, imagined that Frantz was about to address observations to him in that regard. “You go into that restaurant; order dinner for me and for you, and leave me to my thoughts.”

  Twelve days later, the post-chaise arrived in Berlin, without Frantz having pronounced another syllable. However, when he heard his master indicate to the postillion a poor and solitary road in an outlying district, an involuntary “Mein Gott!” escaped his lips.

  “What’s the matter with you, Frantz?” Knebel demanded. “Are you ill? You’re very pale and agitated.”

  “My dear master, it’s necessary that I tell you the reason for this emotion. Surprise is the cause of it. For the two months we’ve been traveling, I’ve thought that I was dreaming. Yes, certainly, no dream ever had circumstances as strange. When you came out of the confectioner’s in Paris you went to the Rue des Cinq-Diamants, where I lived for several years. Now, you’ve stopped the carriage in Berlin opposite the very house where I loved for a long time with my poor master, Dr. Cornelius.”

  “Dr. Cornelius?”

  “Yes, a knowledgeable physicist.”

  “What are you telling me, Frantz? My God, can you be the person who sold a parchment manuscript to the Fidèle-Berger?”

  “Yes, Monsieur.”

  “Into my arms, Frantz! Into my arms! It’s you that I’ve been searching for since my departure from Ilmenau!”

  “Me, who was by your side? Me, who has never left you?”

  “Yes, you Frantz. Do you know what became of that precious manuscript?”

  “As I’ve just told you, I sold part of it...”

  “And the rest?”

  “The rest, sir, wasn’t written on parchment, because my poor master, reduced to poverty, was obliged to finish it on paper.”

  “And what have you done with that paper? Speak—you’re holding my life and death in your hands.”

  “I used it one evening to light the fire.”

  “Wretch!” cried Knebel, beside himself. “Get out of my presence and never let me see you again! Go on! Get away! The sight of you is odious to me, unbearable! For having burned the library of Alexandria, Omar doesn’t merit half the execration that you deserve!”

  “If you knew the circumstances in which I burned the papers, sir, far from treating me so harshly, you’d forgive me—approve of me, even—I’m sure of it. It was a matter, alas, of warming up my poor master’s death-bed. My master…or, rather, my friend, sir, because, for twenty years, I shared the poverty and the endeavors of the savant Cornelius...”

  “You shared his endeavors! Do you know his secrets?” cried Knebel, throwing his arms around Frantz once again. “My good, my faithful servant, forgive me for the harsh words I spoke to you. I was wrong. Anger carried me away. Come, Frantz, we’re going to the best hotel in Berlin; you’re going to rest for a few hours. You mustn’t expose your precious health to further fatigue so soon. And tell me, Frantz, do you know what the book written on both vellum and paper contained? You see, chance procured me a fragment of it, and it’s to recover the rest that I’ve left my house, my wife, my children, everything that I love, everything that gives me joy and happiness.”

  “I can’t tell you what the manuscript contained, because it was the only secret that my master kept from me; in order to prevent my knowing it, he even wrote in Greek. However, perhaps I can give you, with regard to what you want to know, some incomplete documentation.”

  “Speak,” said Knebel, “speak, and if you enable me to recover Cornelius’ secret, I’ll reward you with the gift of a brilliant fortune, beyond all your hopes.”

  In the meantime, the post-chaise had arrived at the Black Eagle Hotel. The two travelers installed themselves by the fireplace and Frantz began to tell his story, like a man long condemned to silence who suddenly finds a listener eager to listen to him. He gave himself the innocent joy of talking to himself, and push munificence in his own regard so far as to place at the head of his narration a kind of exordium, or prolegomenon, as they say in German universities.

  “Destiny has its strange caprices,” he commenced. “My grandfather was a brave captain in the service of the Austrian government. Unfortunately, he was killed in battle and left his widow and son without resources. The latter had no other resource, to escape poverty, than the profession of artisan. Later, he married a seamstress, and had a dozen children, and left nothing by way of an inheritance to the youngest—me—but the compassion of an old scientist who was our neighbor. That was Dr. Cornelius.

  “Dr. Corn
elius was in great need of a faithful and intelligent servant to look after him incessantly. Always plunged in the abstractions of science, he had no time or thought to spare for material life. Although young, I understood the duties of my position and I introduced economy and order into my benefactor’s household, into which they had never entered. Cornelius possessed a fortune that, if well-regulated, could have procured us an easy and comfortable life, but he ruined himself in the fabrication of strange and bizarrely-formed machines. He was always in pursuit of an obsession whose objective he hid with great mystery. He lived in a laboratory infected by the most deleterious gazes, composed and decomposed substances, experimented on chemical agents and took no rest by day or by night. I can still see him, with his tall stature, his thin face, his huge bald brow and his eyes, flamboyant with a supernatural gleam. One morning, after leaning over a retort, reminiscent of a magician, Cornelius came out of his laboratory and embraced me with transports of joy, like those you showed me a little while ago.

  “‘Frantz!’ he cried, ‘I’ve completed my work! I hold the secret that I wanted o steal from nature. The name of Cornelius will take its place among the most glorious names; it will endure as long as the world, and will be blessed by generations to come.’

  “‘And what is this secret, my worthy master?’ I asked.

  “He leaned close to my ear, after looking around to make sure that no one could hear. ‘Swear to me,’ he said, ‘on your salvation, not to reveal a single word of this mystery before I permit you to. Swear that oath, and you shall know everything.’

  “I swore the oath that he was demanding of me.

  “‘Well,’ he said to me, ‘I’ve found the means of making myself the master of the weather...’”

  “That was the secret of which a part was written on the fragment of parchment!” Knebel interjected. “Speak, oh, speak!”

  The best way to hear me would be not to interrupt me, Frantz thought—but he resumed his story nevertheless.

  “‘I’m the master of the weather,’ Cornelius continued. ‘At my command, the rain will fall. When I wish, it will fold up its black wings and go throw itself into the sea that gave birth to it. I’ll be able to dissipate the clouds that veil the sun and prevent the crops from ripening. No more floods, no more famine, no more of those frightful disasters that bring desolation and destruction in their wake. I’m the master of the weather!’

  “‘My good master!’ I exclaimed, “Such power only belongs to God. In the name of Heaven, don’t mistake for reality utopias that are perhaps realizable in theory, but which practice can’t help but destroy.’

  “He looked at me, smiling, and said: ‘You doubt the power that my science has conquered. Well, I’ll give you proof of it. Do you see that cloud advancing toward us rapidly? Plant those rods that you can see in the ground in the form of a circle. Attach to the top of each of those supports these straw ropes that I wove yesterday. Now, stand close to me, inside the circle formed by the apparatus. Look! Here’s the cloud, which is breaking up, and the hail beginning to fall around us. Not one of those hailstones is falling in the circle. A mysterious force is drawing them outside the limits that I’ve traced for the storm.’

  “Indeed, Monsieur, the hail was obedient, following the direction that my master had imposed on it.”

  “I’m familiar with that magnetic phenomenon,” Knebel said. “I’ve experimented several times myself, and there isn’t a peasant in Germany today who doesn’t put it into practice—but I didn’t know that Cornelius was its inventor.”

  “After such a proof, I could no longer put my master’s power in doubt. I gave him ardent assistance in the construction of his machines, but it was necessary, in order to meet those expenses, to sell some of the property he possessed.

  “‘What does it matter?’ he said to me, when he saw my reluctance to let him take that resolution. ‘What does it matter? Should one hesitate to complete the seed that, when sowed, will fructify a hundredfold?’

  “After four years of sacrifices and hard work, Cornelius found himself reduced to absolute poverty, but nature had surrendered to him the entirety of the secret for which he had been searching for so long.

  “For a month thereafter, the village to which we’d retired in order to live more cheaply, and more especially so that nothing would disturb the scientist’s meditations, only experienced atmospheric variations at the command of the master of the weather. A few minutes were sufficient for Dr. Cornelius to cover the purest sky with somber clouds. In even less time, he could restore all its serenity to the celestial vault.

  “Storms rumbled with their thunder and lightning, the wind whistled and the snow fell in large white flakes—and then, all of a sudden, ardent sunlight succeeded rigorous cold. All the crops in the village were destroyed and all the peasants without exception, could only obtain from their fields the bare minimum to support their most imperious needs.

  “When I mentioned these misfortunes to my master, he smiled and replied: ‘I’ll be rich, and compensate them so generously for these losses that they’ll bless me instead of complaining, as they’re doing today.’

  “‘But why are you delaying revealing your secret? Master, our situation is scarcely more reassuring than that of the peasants who surround us.’

  “‘Listen to me,’ he said. “Napoléon will arrive in Schoenbrun in a few days’ time. It’s to Napoléon alone that I’ll reveal my secret; as the master of the world he alone merits such a communication, and he alone can reward it worthily. But Napoléon didn’t understand Fulton, because the latter explained steam navigation with written theories, not with proofs. While he’s reviewing his troops, I’ll make the atmosphere pass through all the changes that I can impose upon it at will. Convinced by such proofs, nothing will impede the admiration of the great genius. His imperial mouth will proclaim me to be a superior man, before the entire world; we’ll deal with one another as equals.’

  “When the day of the review arrived, the doctor gave me the responsibility of supervising the most important items of apparatus, disposed seven or eight hundred meters from Schoenbrun. Full of hope for a triumph, he went to position himself in the crowd, in such a way as to be able, nevertheless, to direct the experiment with certainty, to the success of which he’d sacrificed his fortune and twenty years of his life.

  “Heart palpitating with anticipation ad emotion, sitting at the foot of a great machine that rose some four or five meters above the ground, I soon heard the acclamations of the army saluting Napoléon. At the same moment, the sky, which my master had maintained somber and melancholy until then, opened majestically and unleashed floods of sunlight.

  “On tenterhooks, I expected further atmospheric changes, but not ensued.

  “I began to far that my master’s science might have deceived and disappointed his power when soldiers fell upon me, dragged me away and threw me into a cell.

  “I spent three months there, interrogated about my complicity in a crime about which I knew nothing and bombarded with questions that I didn’t understand. I was confronted with a young man that I’d never seen before, who declared that he had never met me. Finally, I was introduced into my master’s presence. Alas, he was a prisoner like me, and his reason had not been able to bear the destruction of his hopes; he had succumbed to dolor and was no longer able to make Napoléon understand the supernatural power that his science had conquered. He saw me without recognizing me, stammered inconsequential words, and only responded to my caresses by raising his emaciated hands to the heavens.

  “In the end, our innocence was recognized, and we were set free. It was only then that I discovered the crime of which we had been accused. The machines disposed by my master for his magnificent atmospheric experiments had been mistaken for telegraphic signals and means of correspondence between the accomplices of the assassin Friedrich Staps.30

  “Poverty awaited us on our emergence from prison. My master had no resources left, and fate had left him without any
mans of combating the most frightful deprivation. My efforts could not restore him to rationality. Crouched night and day in a corner of the hovel into which we had been welcomed out of pity, he kept his eyes fixed on the ground and repeated incessantly, in a quavering voice: ‘To Paris, the master of the weather! To Paris, the master of the weather!’

  “A physician in the neighborhood, who treated my master gratuitously, declared that if any hope remained of returning the invalid to sanity, that hope had to be placed in a journey to Paris. The accomplishment of an imperious desire, the movement of the journey, and the change of location and air, might bring about the prodigy. Without counting on the success of the prescribed means, I resolved to try them out. Anyway, poverty in Germany or poverty in France was all the same to me.

  “One morning, therefore, I went to the master and said: ‘We’re leaving for Paris, Master.’

  “At those words, the idiot who had not understood anything I had said to him for a long time got up resolutely and leaned on my arm, and we set forth.

  “The journey was long, for we had to make it on foot, begging from door to door for bread and the straw on which we were sometimes permitted to obtain a little repose. My master didn’t seem to be suffering from, or even to perceive, the fatigue and misery. He walked with the force and resolution of youth. Silent and plunged in meditation, if he saw me succumb to discouragement, he pointed at the sky, took me by the hand, and repeated enthusiastically the only words of which his mind retained the memory: ‘To Paris, the master of the weather!’

  “Finally, we arrived at the goal of our journey. We took up residence in a miserable attic in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants, and a manufacturer of playing-cards took me into his service. I toiled from morning till dusk in his workshop, and then took thirty sous back to our dwelling. Thank God, it was enough to prevent us from dying of starvation, and we weren’t required to resort to the humiliating resource of alms.

  “My master’s reason, without recovering all of its original energy, seemed nevertheless to be less weak and confused. I surprised him one day tracing geometrical figures and mechanical diagrams on the wall of the room with a pencil. He erased it all as soon as he saw me come in, as if he were afraid that I might rob him some important discovery.