The Arcades Project - Operi

Poly technique. The student would descend the flight of stairs leading out from the
Hotel de Ville. Before reaching the bottom step he would address the crowd,
which had become attentive; he would simply pronounce the words, "Two hundred
men, able and willing!" Then he would complete his descent and turn alone
into the street. At that very instant, one could see stepping forth from the walls
and marching behind him-some with rifles, others just with swords-one man,
two men, twenty men, and then one hundred, four hundred, five hundred men;
more than twice the number needed. '" G. Pinet, Histoire de l'Ecole poly technique
(Paris, 1887), pp. 156-157. [The two passages cited are from Vaulahelle,
Histoire des deux restaurations, vol. 8, p. 291, and a letter of M. Mauguin to La
Presse, Saumur, March 8, 1853.] [1'2,1]
The students of the Ecole Poly technique organize a relief fund to make it easier for
La Tribune to pay a fine. (Pinet, p. 220.) [1'2,2]
Lamartine in Destinees de Ia poesie, as cited in Michiels: ··M. Lamartine, who has
seen with his own eyes the intellectual servitude of the Empire, describes it. . .. ,It
was a universal confederacy of the mathematical forms of study, in opposition to
thinking and poetry. Number alone was permitted, was honored, protected, and
paid. Since number does not think for itself, the military chief of that era had need
of no other . . . henchman. m Alfred Michiels, Histoire des idees litteraires en
France au XIX' siecle (Paris, 1863), vol. 2, p. 94. [r2,3]
Pinet