From The Edinburgh Review. The highest qualities – THE TWO AMPERES.* those of the heart - they held in common; in intellectual A SAYING is current among Roman endowment each more than supplied what Catholics that there is no purgatory for the other lacked; along most paths of France; the French being either too good mental supremacy they walked proudly for the need, or too bad for the efficacy, of and lovingly hand in hand; in those the purifying fires. Plenty of contrasting where they parted company each had the examples in point will immediately start culture and sympathy to appreciate the up from history to confirm this proverb, aim of the other. In temperament they and, if we judge our neighbours correctly, were much alike-sensitive, ardent, and the readiness with which they will en- devoted; with the tenderness of women, dorse it may be taken as a further proof the guilelessness of children, the naiveté of its truth. But, in sober earnest, there of genius. From earliest years both had is nothing more difficult than for one na- the same insatiable cravings for light and tion fairly to judge of another. What lies truth; the father, the great physiologist on the surface will ever be only super- and mathematician, elaborating the most ficially judged; the deeper strata are sel- subtle laws of nature and the abstrusest dom laid bare to investigation or compre- problems in mathematics; the son, with hension. As a rule it may be admitted the poetic faculty highly developed, dealthat the distinguishing merits of the ing with the problems of ancient lanFrench and English races—like the dis-guages, history, and literature, and, in tinguishing beauties of the sister arts lie in their very differences; and hence are the less amenable to mutual sympathy and intelligence. We puzzle our French brethren in one way; they us in another. We chill them by the undemonstrativeness of our social habits; they, in some measure, shock us by the laxity of theirs. Our home strictness is, or has been, our national pride; their warmth of friendship their national charm. Accordingly, by a natural inversion, all true pictures of French inner life, by the strength and fidelity of the friendships they record, are singularly calculated to touch and even reprove us. And in no instance have these feelings been more winningly and pathetically exhibited, and at so small an expense of our more rigid notions, than in the biographies of the distinguished father and son now before us. André-Marie Ampère and Jean-Jacques, his son- both of them still fresh in the memory of many yet living-were men who may be said to have divided between them a large area of nature's richest gifts. 1. Journal et Correspondence de André-Marie Ampère. Publiés par Mme. H. C. Paris: 1872. 2. André-Marie Ampère et Jean-Jacques Ampère. Correspondance et Souvenirs (de 1805 à 1864). Recueillis par Mme. H. C. Paris: 1875. 3. Madame Récamier; with a Sketch of the History of Society in France. By Mme. M. don: 1862. Lon works of imagination, with the phenomena of the human heart. Each was equally irresistible and inexhaustible in charm of conversation; each equally generous, impulsive, and blundering in matters of business; and each loved the other, if not with the deeper warmth, yet with far greater effusion than our repressive habits between fathers and sons ever exhibit. These volumes under every view are a well of the deepest interest. The first of the three, which appeared in 1872, consisting like the rest in letters and journals, gave the earlier years of the father's history; comprising his gifted and darkened boyhood, the idyllic period of his love and marriage, and that bereavement which at twenty-nine years of age left him writhing under the stroke of widowhood. This earlier volume may not be sufficiently fresh in the memory of the reader for us to dispense with a slight outline of its contents. André-Marie Ampère, the only son of respectable citizen parents, was born at Lyons in 1775. The south of France, and notably the city of Lyons, has sent forth a large percentage of the most eminent Frenchmen of later times, and the young boy, by his thirst for knowledge, soon gave evidence of his birthright in this respect. Mathematics and geometry took the lead in the keen and almost uni versal appetite of the infantine-mind. He thought, reasoned, and calculated while other children were at play. For such a mind there was small question of instruction from others, nor could any power have arrested the instinct by which he instructed himself. He simply devoured every scientific book on which he could lay his little hands- the "Encyclopédie" from beginning to end; and when recovering from failure of strength, easy to have predicted, and tenderly denied the materials for undue application, he managed to work his problems with no other appliance than little bits of biscuit. The father, a man of no ordinary type, unable to check, did his best to guide. Finding that his son cared less for classic than for scientific studies, he suffered him to follow his own bent. And when the boy, then eleven years old, raised a cry of pas-ings of the great physicist, edited by his sionate despair on finding that the works of Euler were in a language to which he had not the key, the father interpreted them for him. created, was at the same time one of the unwisest and least self-asserting. Unguarded by the usual egotisms; unamenable to the usual cautions; incapable alike of husbanding for worldly use the most arduously earned discoveries, experience, or money; and true to himself in all these respects from childhood to grey hairs, André-Marie was an object of perpetual wonder, admiration, and respectful compassion to all competent to understand him. In these facts, doubtless, may be found the cause, otherwise inexplicable, why the fame of such a mind has not spread more widely in proportion to its depth. Upon this sensitive and unprotected nature there fell in his early youth a blow so crucial in intensity as to overthrow its balance. M. Barthélemy de St. Hilaire has given to the world the posthumous writ son, under the title of "Les deux Ampère." But it is to Madame Henriette Cheuvreux - one of those devoted friends whom Frenchmen are so fortunate as to attach-to whom we are indebted for a short notice of the grandfather, who properly heads the touching group of "Les trois Ampère.” But if André-Marie Ampère ranks on the same level with the great thinkers and explorers of natural phenomena who preceded and were contemporary with him, he differed from them in one important The life of that good man fell upon the respect. Such men as Newton, La Place, evil times of the great Revolution. In the Cuvier, Davy, retained in the ordinary af-year 1793 he filled the post of juge de fairs of life the common sense of com- paix in Lyons, and during the excesses moner men. They knew the material which distracted that city, stood cour value of the travail of their brains, were ageously forth on the side of order. When becomingly jealous of its offspring, and the revolutionary bands entered the city naturally ambitious of its prizes. But after the siege, he became one of the first Ampère had none of those lower qualities victims to their revenge. Some of his letwhich direct and protect the higher gifts. ters addressed to his wife from his prison, Every pursuit with him was in turn an ob- signed "Jean-Jacques Ampère, époux, ject of headlong ardour, before which, till père, ami, et citoyen fidèle,” have been prehe had followed it to the utmost limits of served. A passage about his son shows the human capacity, all other things had his paternal foresight: “Quant à mon fils, to give way. What some men's lower il n'y a rien que je n'attende de lui." A passions are to them, Ampère's brain was few hours after this was penned he mountto him he knew not how to restrain its ed the scaffold. This judicial murder of impetuous desires. But when the mental the father well-nigh killed the son, then chase had fairly run down and captured only just eighteen. A dormant state of what he coveted, he had no idea of hoard- the brain ensued, which probably saved ing the prize. Any one might rifle the his life. For fully a year he existed in a contents of the precious 'bag." In semi-idiotic condition, spending his time French phraseology he was "un puits out of doors, listlessly scraping together ouvert." His nature, accordingly, while little heaps of earth. The first thing that one of the noblest and most unselfish ever | roused him effectually was that which not 66 up"). The chief incidents, indeed, are the frequent shuttings-up inflicted on a shy young lover, sighing like furnace, who never knows when to take leave, and sometimes has to be told twice. But in due time the reward of patience falls to his share. In short, it becomes necessary to consider the state of life in which André-Marie could hope to maintain a wife. Julie and her family had not the remotest conception of the order of mind with which they were dealing, their only idea of appropriately utilizing a great mathematical genius being that he should engage in the business of an agent de change. It is true the lessons he gave, or was ready to give, in chemistry, mathe. matics, Latin, Italian, what not? — were not so remunerative as le commerce, while Julie's health, after the birth of her child, unseldom has been the recreation of the profoundest minds—namely, the study of botany. Rousseau's letters had fallen into his hands, and he threw himself into the pursuit with the ardour and exactness which in all things characterized him. Next came a fit of classic enthusiasm, inspired by the Latin poets. The language was soon mastered, and the heart-stricken lad wandered about the country, with his hands full of wild flowers, murmuring verses from Horace. The passion for the classics now kindled the poetic spark in himself. Between 1795 and '97 he threw out an exuberance of poetical creation tragedies, songs, madrigals, an epic on Columbus; all showing, as might have been expected, more facility and fertility than sense of art. He also mastered Greek and modern languages, studied physiology, chemistry, philosophy-thus began to require more than those devices laying those foundations on which twenty years later he based a new classification of the whole cycle of sciences. At the same time, while teaching himself he earned his own and his mother's bread by teaching others. could supply. On this account Ampère accepted the professorship of physics at Bourg, twelve leagues from Lyons, even though it involved the separation of the tenderly attached young couple; for Julie's health forbade her accompanying him. This separation gave rise to a correspondence more sane than the journal, and equally pretty. At once a reflex of tender hopes and fears, of petty economical details, and lofty intellectual aspirations, both husband and wife are seen in it as in a mirror. Ampère ever blundering, confessing, musing, divining-always working; Julie gently chiding, reminding, guiding, and managing. He using part of the linen she had carefully mended, for stoppers for his chemical instruments; unsewing the lining of his coat for unheard-of purposes; or destroying his blue stockings and new pantalons with what Julie calls "ce maudit acide qui brûle tout." She ever anxious that he should go tidily dressed, and not forget to eat his meals, or lock up his bureau. But through all these domestic trifles there rise from time to time the earnest and dignified accents of such profound thought as few minds have been capable of sustaining:— We now approach the sweet May-time of his chequered life. His mother lived in the country, at Polémieux, near Lyons, and at the end of his laborious week he would spend the Sunday with her. There, in the vicinity, he fell in with a family of the now better-known name of Carron; the youngest of whom was a daughter, Julie by name. This young girl, calm, modest, and beautiful, with simple good sense and not a spark of romance, was predestined to attract and to suit a young man of Ampère's stamp. She had already committed havoc in that way with certain Lyonese savants, but no one had yet prevailed with her to leave her family. The coast was therefore clear, and AndréMarie entered the lists with his usual impetuosity and awkwardness. From this time he kept a journal - far too foolish and pretty to be literally quoted in these pages, on the fly-leaf of which the word "amorum," superfluously plural, was inscribed. This tells how he first saw Julie; Seven years ago, my Julie, a problem of my how she lent him a book; how he found own invention occurred to me, which I was her in the garden and tried to speak, but not able to solve in a direct manner. Acci was sternly" rembourré" (Anglicè, "shut- | dentally I hit upon its solution, and was con vinced of its accuracy, without being able to demonstrate it. This haunted my mind, and twenty times did I seek to see my way, but with out success. For the last few days the idea has haunted me everywhere; and, at last, I know not how, I have found the solution, and with it a crowd of novel and curious suggestions, bearing on the theory of probabilities. As I believe that there are few mathematicians in France who could work the problem in less time, I cannot doubt that its publication in the form of a brochure of some twenty pages will be a good way of helping me to a chair of mathematics. This small work of pure algebra will be ready the day after to-morrow. And again: 'I made an important discovery yesterday regarding the theory of play. I am preparing to insert it in the same work, which it will not greatly increase. I am pretty sure it will give me a place in the Lycée, for, in the present state of things, there is no mathemati cian in France (I repeat it) capable of such a work. I tell you all this just as I think, but you must tell it to no one. Ampère had now reached the summit of his wishes-a more lucrative appointment, and that with his wife at his side. But Julie had sad presentiments: she was, as it were, behind the scenes. One of her last letters gently prepares him: "The problem of regaining health is not one for us to solve. No wishes of ours can obtain that, if the Master of our being has decreed otherwise. Mon ami, we were made for each other, and, if I were well, we should be too happy." The end was not far off. The journal takes up the narrative of a period of intense anxiety. "J'espère en Vous, O mon Dieu! mais je serai soumis à votre arrêt, quelqu'il And then finally, "O Seigneur, Dieu de Mais j'eusse préféré la mort." miséricorde, daignez me réunir dans le ciel à celle que vous m'avez permis d'aimer sur la terre." Julie Ampère died in July 1804. soit. Thus arose his work entitled "Considérations sur la Théorie du Feu" - a subject attempted by Buffon and others, but Ampère is next found in Paris, where never, it is acknowledged, so solved before. he accepted an appointment at l'Ecole It cost him infinite anxiety lest the idea Polytechnique, and subseqently became should have been in any way forestalled. inspector-general of the university. The But he was soon satisfied on that point. history of his mind is here continued by a One of the official examiners, feeling for correspondence with his Lyonese friends. others as ignorant as himself, urged his Foremost among these was the printer, bringing it within the reach of a larger Simon Ballanche, a name of high moral number of readers, by putting his alge- and intellectual import of whom we shall braic formula in the shape of figures. hear more. Ampère sought to drown his This the young author, who, with all his sorrow in work. But mathematics and readiness to part with his ideas, did not geometry had no balm for such a wound. want to see them ill treated, stoutly re- He was lonely and miserable, for Parissisted. "I will give a few examples, but I ian manners at that time offered no coninsist on printing my work as it is. Such genial society for a bereaved and virtuous examples as he proposes would give it the young man. He writes to his friends: look of a schoolboy's performance." It is" Pray for me, that I may continue to feel true the little folío did not sell, and no one who has seen it can be surprised at that. Meanwhile the French republic, in other words Buonaparte, had offered a reward of sixty thousand francs for a discovery in electricity and galvanism, comparable to those made by Volta and Franklin. Ampère longed to enter into competition, but, while labouring all day in and out of school, had no leisure to develop that which lay embryonic in his mind. Our own Davy, three years his junior, gained the prize. Still, the fruits of his labour did not fail; his "Theorie du Feu" had made its way to the Institute, where it was unanimously pronounced the work "d'une tête forte." The inspector of unhappy rather than become like too many I see here." He had been piously brought up in the communion of Rome, and, with the friends alluded to, had taken an active part in a society for the purpose of scientifically studying the grounds of the Christian religion, in opposition to the scepticism and sensuality of the day. But these foundations threatened now to crumble under his feet. He was not the first mourner to find that the usual religious formulas are apt to melt away before the fury of that furnace; or to have experienced that minds of a certain calibre need a strength of conviction not so much intended to be the present support as the final fruit of intense mental anguish. It was not so much his own sufferings, as the revela -- tion they gave him of what the human before. The young woman did not await mind could suffer, which shook his faith. the birth of her child to seek a judicial Ampère's happiness was ever dependent separation from its father. The courts on that of his fellow-creatures. It was decided unhesitatingly in Ampère's favour, said of him what can be said of few men: and a letter of dignified kindness calling “Pour lui, le MOI n'est rien." A mind upon her to return to him and to “notre so constituted and so tried turned natu- enfant". whose birth meanwhile had rally upon itself. He plunged accordingly only been communicated to him by the for a time with feverish eagerness into the porter of the Ecole-gives a sufficient study of metaphysics, and could discuss measure of their respective characters. and think on no other subject. The good Madame Ampère declined her husband's people at Lyons took alarm for his ortho- invitation-the little Albine was claimed doxy. Ballanche, one of the few French and welcomed by the father with a "tenmystics who has left his mark on modern dresse de mère," while the mother herself French literature - who had himself never inquired for or saw her child again. learned "the secret of sorrow," and en- No one conversant with the property of dorsed that knowledge with the following genius will ask whether these reverses significant words: "We should be far less affected any change in the mind of this surprised to suffer, if we knew how much gifted and artless man. It is not in the better sorrow is adapted to our nature nature of genius to change. It is one of than pleasure"-Ballanche, at that time those elementary essences which is incaso out of suits with happiness as to med-pable of transmutation. Things the most itate embracing a monastic life - he, ever diverse have sometimes the same characpatient where Ampère was ever impetu- teristics; and genius, like folly, takes no ous-now wisely admonishes his friend lesson from experience. Ampère returned not to apply the sounding-lead too auda- to Lyons, chiefly to entreat his mother to ciously to his own mind. But the wisdom leave her residence and form her home, of the advice went no further. The with the little Jean-Jacques and Albine, remedy proposed by anxious friends, and under his roof in Paris. On this occasion even by Ballanche, was more dangerous the journal of an old friend has bequeathed than the evil. Perceiving the loneliness a sketch of Ampère too vivid to be of the young widower, and forgetting that omitted here:there were unions worse than any solitude, the only specific they could urge was the speedy choice of a second Madame Ampère ! We here enter that conventional atmosphere, ever repugnant to the English mind, which in France too often envelops all the antecedents of the closest tie in life. How deeply these conventions are rooted in French private life is sufficiently obvious by the fact that Ampère himself should have believed and acquiesced in the plan. In this instance alone he descends from his rightful pedestal; not by a second marriage, but by the cold-blooded process by which Julie was replaced. A young lady, chosen by the usual interposition of friends, ignorant of the exceptional nature of the man she married, and incapable of honouring it; with a mother true to M. Mohl's definition of "la férocité des mères françaises; soon revenged the slight put on poor Julie's memory. To such women the simplicities and blunders, as well as the soaring aspirations of genius were a continual offence, and one interpreted as being especially levelled at themselves; and Ampère soon found himself sent to Coventry with a far more intolerable solitude than he ever endured Ampère met me with a troubled look, but He threw him his sufferings have not changed him. There But though his friends shook, as he expresses it, the dust from off their feet against his favourite "idéologie," Ampère |