The Arcades Project - Operi

went on to invent as well. Imagine the spectacle of a Lagrange who suddenly
stopped short in the middle of his lecture and was lost in thought. The room waited
in silence. Finally he awoke and told t.hem of his glowing new discovery harely
formed in his mind . ... What a decline after t.hose days! . . . After the reports
made to the Convention read those of Fourcroy and }l'ontanes; you sink . .. from
manhood to old age." J. Michelet, Le Peuple (Paris, 1846), PI'. 336-338.' [1'2a,l]
Parnassus of the triangle and the hypotcnuse"-this is what Paul-Ernest de
Ratticr ? in Paris n'existe pas (Paris, 1857), calls the Ecole Poly technique (p. 19).
(r2a,2]
Ch. F. Vie!, as an adversary of engineering constmction, no less than as a royal­
ist, was necessarily also an adversary of the Ecole Poly technique. He laments the
decline of architecture as art -a decline "that began with that terrible period when
the throne of our king was toppled;' Charles-Franois Vie!, De la Clzute im.m.inente
de la science de la construction des bdtirnens en France, vol. 1 (paris, 1818), p. 53. The
study of architecture as art is, according to him, more difficult than the mathe­
matical theory of construction; as proof, he cites the many prizes won in tlus field
by students of the Ecole Poly technique. The author speaks contemptuously of
the new educational arrangements-"these new institutions professing everything
with everything e!se"-and he writes on the same page: "Let us pay homage here
to the govermnent that has judged so well of the difference between mathematics
and arclutecture, and which has preserved the special school in Paris for the
teaching of this art, and recreated the private boarding school of Rome;' Charles­
Franois Vie!, De 11rnpuissance des rnatlzimatiques pour assurer la soliditl des biltimens
(paris, 1805), p. 63. Vie! emphasizes (ibid., pp. 31-32) the irrational element
in tl1e genuine study of arclutect1lre: "The forms preexist the constmction and
constitute essentially the theory of the art of building;' In 1819 (De la Clzute . .. ,
vol. 2, p. 120), he is still denouncing "the attitude of the century toward the fine
arts in general, which it puts in a class with the industrial arts." [r2a,3]
From the tme of Napoleon I, tile Ecole Polytechluque was subject to continual
reproach for providing practical training with an overly broad theoretical founda­
tion. These criticisms led, in 1855, to proposals for refoml, against which Arago
took a most determined stand. At tl1e same tme, he disnlissed the charge tl1at the
school had become a breeding ground of revolutionary animus: "I have been
told of a reproam directed against poly technical instruction, and according to
which tile matllematical disciplines-the study of differential calculus and of
integral calculus, for example-would have the effect of transfornling their stu­
dents into socialists of the worst stamp . ... How has it escaped the author of such
a reproach that its immediate consequence is nothing less than to range the likes
of a Huygens, a Newton, a Leibniz, a Eulel; a Lagrange, a Laplace among the
most hot-headed of demagogues? It is tmly shameful that someone was led to
make comparisons of this kind;' Arago, Sur l'ancienne Ecole poi:yteclznique
(Paris, 1853), p. 42. [r3,1]