The Savant and the State: Science and Cultural Politics in Nineteenth-Century France

Image Plates

Figure 1. Eugène Péligot, professor of applied chemistry from 1841 to 1889, lecturing at the Conservatoire des arts et métiers, in the amphitheatre inaugurated in 1822. In this image, dating from about 1850, Péligot is performing an experiment on the synthesis of water. Courtesy of the Département médiathèque, Musée des arts et métiers, Paris. Figure 2. Cartoon of a banquet during the Congrès scientifique in Strasbourg in 1842. Conviviality was essential to Arcisse de Caumont’s conception of his annual congresses, and outings and banquets became something of a public spectacle. On occasions, as at the Douai congress of 1835, members of the public were even invited to walk about the room and observe the diners. The cartoon appeared in the satirical magazine Le Charivari soon after an article ridiculing the congress’s intellectual pretensions (see chapter 2). The mention , in the caption, of toasts to such causes as the elimination of weevils, independence for beetroot, and the promotion of candles without wicks and the diners’ concluding cries of “Long live Strasbourg pâté” conveyed the air of absurdity. From Le Charivari, 11e année, 22 October 1842. © British Library Board (BL F.15) Figure 3. Menu card for a banquet of the Société zoologique de France, 1894. The society held the first of its annual banquets in this year, when the event honored Alphonse Milne-Edwards, director of the Muséum d’histoire naturelle. The banquets were normally held on the occasion of the society’s annual general meeting and were seen as occasions for marking the achievement of a major contributor to the discipline and the work of the society. They also served the important function of maintaining the bonds between the society’s senior academic members and its substantial membership among amateur enthusiasts. Courtesy of the Société zoologique de France. Figure 4. The chemist Michel-Eugène Chevreul in the study of his house in the grounds of the Muséum d’histoire naturelle, where he continued to work regularly until the early 1880s, when he was 96. A pupil of Vauquelin, he made important contributions to dyeing and color chemistry at the Gobelins textile factory and was professor of organic chemistry at the museum from 1830 until his death. As the museum’s director from 1863 to 1879, Chevreul consistently championed its autonomy. During the Second Empire he resisted attempts to reform the institution’s administrative structure, based since its foundation in 1793 on the principle of an independent community administered by its professors. This image was published, from a photograph by Nadar, on the occasion of Chevreul’s death at the age of 102. Published in La Nature 17, no. 1 (1889): 321. Figure 5. The thirteenth month of Auguste Comte’s positivist calendar. This final month in the Comtean year, the month of “modern science,” was named for Xavier Bichat, whose work in anatomy and physiology Comte admired for its positivist approach. Each of the month’s twenty-eight days was associated with the name of an historical figure commemorated on that day, often with a supplementary name to be used as an alternative once every three years. Each week ended on a Sunday, when a figure of special importance for the week’s commemorations, was designated. For the month of Bichat, Comte singled out Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, and Gall in this way. From Comte, Système de politique positive ou Traité de sociologie, instituant la Religion de l’humanité, 4 vols. (Paris, 1851–54), vol. 4, facing page 402. Figure 6. Floor plan of an ideal temple of humanity, drawn by Georges Audiffrent from a sketch by Comte now in the archives of the Maison d’Auguste Comte. Most of the area of 320 meters by 160 meters was to be occupied by a wooded cemetery with space for five thousand tombs. The temple itself, aligned in the direction of Paris, would accommodate five thousand men and (separately, in the sanctuary, with its all-important female figure representing humanity) a thousand women. The side chapels were destined for representations of the historical figures associated with the thirteen months of the year, the fourteenth chapel being dedicated to Héloise, representing the Comtean category of “holy women.” The positivist school and library occupied a characteristically prominent place, close...