From Napoleon, history usually retains the great battles, the daring
strategies, the glorious marshals, the terrible defeats, the flight of the
Eagle's return from Elba Island, the romantic end of St. Helena. As a matter of
fact, what was Napoleon reading at Longwood, Sainte-Hélène ? Among other
things, the astronomy of Delambre, and also the course of Crystallography and cosmogony of
Haüy, the chemistry course of Fourcroy, the course of mathematics of Lacroix,
books that were written by the greatest scientists of his Empire to become
classic teaching manuals to be used in the Lycées founded by him, books that he
annotated from his hand. Napoleon, from the start and up to the end of his
life, had a passion for science and followed its latest developments; and it is
no coincidence that, during his reign, France became the dominant scientific
power.
So I am here referring to another Napoleon, the Napoleon
who made France the greatest scientific and industrial power of its time; and,
despite the amazing number of books that are devoted to him (it is said that,
since his death, one has been published every day), very few deal with this
subject.
Napoleon built a veritable empire of science
because, under his reign, the French domination on science became insolent:
Laplace reigned on astronomy and mathematical physics with its Mécanique
Céleste, who did explain how Newton's laws govern our solar system, with its
subtle use of approximations and probabilities; he was in good company with
Lagrange, Lalande, Biot, Arago. The chemical Revolution of Lavoisier continued
with Thenard, Berthollet, Chaptal, Fourcroy, Vauquelin, Gay-Lussac. Chemistry was
still for a time a French science, they explored all routes: study of the
chemical reaction for Berthollet, medicinal chemistry for Fourcroy, industrial
chemistry for Chaptal and Gay-Lussac. The Napoleonic prefect Fourier, a
prominent member of the Expedition in Egypt, invented a new type of
mathematical analysis which earned him a huge celebrity and the abbé Haüy
continued what he started under the former Monarchy and even at the worst
moments of terror: he breaked and classified crystals, buildind the basis of
modern crystallography. In natural sciences, Daubenton and Lacépède continued
Buffon work; Cuvier, in the words of Balzac, “rebuilt worlds with bleached bones”, Lamarck and
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire elaborated a first theory of evolution. Corvisart,
Pinel, Bichat, Fourcroy make Paris the location where “modern medicine was born" - clinical
medicine – according to the American historian Richard Shryock.
England, at the same time, only had one professional
searcher paid by the State, the astronomer royal, successor of Newton, and also
Davy, thanks to the Foundation created by the original count Rumford…who
finally sought refuge and devoted his agitated life to science in Napoleonic
France. Le Moniteur, official journal
of the Empire where appeared stories of victories of the Napoleonic armies,
and, less often, defeats, was also put at the service of scientific ambition.
In full competition with Davy for the discovery of new chemical elements,
Gay-Lussac could use it for accelerated publications; Davy, envious, commented:
"this journal was that of science as well as war, and this incongruous mix
was well in the style of the individual (Napoleon) who directed it.
French hegemony is well revealed by a significant
anecdote. Mary Sommerville, the Laplace English translator, visiting the french
scientists after the fall of Napoleon, wrote: "I felt some difficulties to
follow the general conversation, but, when there was talk of science, it was
much easier because all my books of science were in french.”
Empire of science, also, because scientists never were so honored,
ennobled, rich and powerful, and mingled with political power. Chaptal,
Minister of the Interior, put in place the modern France administrative
organisation, created Prefets and national statistics, instruments of a rational,
informed, effective government, installed
Chambers of Commerce and Industry, reorganized the hospitals with nurses
and midwives now professional and well trained and creates the still existing Pharmacie
Centrale, mobilized its prefects to combat smallpox and dropping the perinatal
mortality, invented the cultural decentralization by creating a dense network
of provincial museums and marked the landscape of France by the cultivation of
beet and the law on cemeteries. Fourcroy, another great chemist, one of the
main disciples of Lavoisier, after how many efforts and sacrifices !, invented
the education system as we know it today, created the baccalaureate and great
schools of engineers typical of the french system – such a Ecole Polytechnique,
invented even the term and the concept of "Corps Enseignant”, organized
professional teachers, formed by the State, with well-defined programs to teach
and a career.
This is the story I wanted to tell… among many
other things
Eric Sartori, l’Empire des
Sciences, Napoléon et ses savants, Ellipses 2014 (reedited)
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