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Chapter 14 Scientific Paris at the End of the Century

1. Ros, "Scientist"; OED, 9: 221-23. [BACK]

2. Stimson, Scientist and Amateurs. [BACK]

3. Clair, Rohault, 59, citing Bourdelot, Conversations, 58-59. [BACK]

4. Rudwick, "Charles Darwin in London." See also Allen, "Natural History and Social History." [BACK]

5. AdS, dossier" l'abbé Jean Paul Bignon," assesses one of La Hire's memoirs in 1717 as not ready because "les recherches" were "trop fines et les experiences trop abstraites pour une assemblée publique," thereby indicating the Academy's view of its audience. [BACK]

6. Stimson, Scientists and Amateurs, 55; A. R. Hall, "Introduction," to Birch, History of the Royal Society, 1: xix. [BACK]

7. Dubarle, "The Proper Place of Science." [BACK]

8. See, for example, Martin, Livre, on vernacular and popular scientific treatises in seventeenth-century Paris and the holdings of private libraries; Millburn, Benjamin Martin, on lecture demonstrations and popular journals in eighteenth-century England; Marion, Recherches sur les bibliothèques privées à Paris; Kaufman, Borrowings, The Community Library, and Libraries and Their Users, on patterns of borrowing from eighteenth-century English libraries. [BACK]

9. Brunot, Histoire, 5: 21-24; 4, 1: 34n. 2; Nyrop, Grammaire historique, 1: 69, 72-74, 76, 77; Furetière, Recueil des factums, 1: 12, 15. For a complaint about words omitted from the dictionary of the Académie française, see BN MS. fr. 15189: 183r-v (1699). [BACK]

10. Brunot, Histoire, 4, 1: 431, 432, 438-39, 45-46; Nyrop, Grammaire historique, 1: 76, 85. [BACK]

11. AdS, Reg., 1: 30-38 (1667); previous hit Dodart next hit, Mémoire des plantes, 132-33; Tournefort, Élémens de botanique; Brunot, Histoire, 4, 1: 430n. 1, 428n. 1; Furetière, Recueil des factums, 2: 174, 233. [BACK]

12. Roberts, Boisguilbert, 104; Sedgwick, Jansenism, 141, 146, 154-55. [BACK]

13. Cipolla, Literacy, 53, 60; Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 248-53; Stone, "Literacy and Education"; Huppert, Public Schools, and Bourgeois Gentilshommes; Brockliss, French Higher Education. [BACK]

14. Burke, Popular Culture, 285; Ch. Perrault, Histoires, ou contes du temps passé; Daston and Park, "Unnatural Conceptions"; Thorndike, History of Magic, vol. 8; Kearns, Ideas, 23. [BACK]

15. Martin, Livre, 926-57. [BACK]

16. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 204-16, 150-53, 156-57. [BACK]

17. Martin, Livre, 926-57. The numbers of foreign language dictionaries suggest the greatest interest in Italian books, the least in English, making Mariotte's ability to translate Boyle's English treatises an uncommon asset: ibid., 938. [BACK]

18. BMHN MSS. 447 and 2253 contain catalogues of the libraries of Nicolas and Jean Marchant. [BACK]

19. Vauban estimated the number of houses in Paris in 1700: Avenel, Histoireéconomique de la propriété, 1: 476. On the air, see Colbert, Lettres, 5: 515; cf. Huygens, Oeuvres, 3: 398. For the description of Paris: Lister, Journey, 6-27, 232-34, 260n. 25; Scarron, Sonnet: "Un amas confus de maisons"; Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 241, 243-44; 2: 102-51, and passim for goods and services; Brice, Description; maps of Paris by de Fer and others point out the principal sites. On paving stones for Paris, see Locke, Travels, 269. Lister's book is a fairly reliable guide, for E. F. Geoffroy wrote to Lister that his book included "ce qui est de plus curieuse à Paris": Bodleian MS. Lister 2: 58. On Tournefort's death, see Nicéron, Hommes illustres, 4: 363-64. [BACK]

20. Locke, Travels, 280; Locke's parentheses removed. [BACK]

21. This simplified topography of scholarly Paris is based on: Bernard, Emerging City; Ranum, Paris; Hillairet, Dictionnaire des rues; Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal; Mémoires ... 1722, 139 (Fontenelle's eulogy of Varignon); Blegny, Livre commode; Brice, Description; Colletet, La ville de Paris; Michel, "Clergé et pastorale jansénistes"; Pedley, "The Map Trade in Paris"; Viguerie and Saive-Lever, "Essai pour une géographie socio-professionelle"; Ruestow, Physics at Leiden, 150n. 33. I am grateful to Armelle de Crépy for her assistance. [BACK]

22. Lister, Journey, 23-24. Colletet's Journal d'avis was short-lived. [BACK]

23. Martin, Livre, 670, 673-75, 720-27, 907-21. [BACK]

24. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 187-91. Shops that sold periodicals expected readers to browse and pitched their prices accordingly: a mail-order customer who wanted the journal posted on Wednesday paid more than a customer who waited until Saturday and thereby guaranteed the bookseller a larger stock for browsers: ibid., 1: 193n. 2. [BACK]

25. Ibid., 1: 189, 190-91, and 2: 177; Neveu, "Vie," 501; Martin, Livre, 673-74. La Londe was "employé aux véerifications des toisés" at 2,000 lv. a year in 1685 and 1687 and died in 1688: CdB, 2: 955, 1271; Blanchard, Ingénieurs, 318. [BACK]

26. Martin, Livre, 856-83. The printers included O. de Varennes, L. d'Houry, Sébastien Mabre Cramoisy, E. Michallet, J. Cusson, F. Léonard, Coignard, T. Moette, F. Le Cointe and D. Hortemels, Jacques Langlois, P. Rocolet, Jacques d'Allin, Barbin, and E. Martin. Publishers in Dijon, Geneva, Amsterdam, Leiden, London, Oxford, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Ulm, and Milan also printed academicians' works in French, Latin, and English. [BACK]

27. Pedley, "The Map Trade in Paris"; Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 149; plate 5 reproduces part of de Fer's eighth map in the Traité de la police. [BACK]

28. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 148. Butterfield, an emigrant from England, had become uncomfortable in his native language. He had not always been located so competitively on the quai de l'Horloge; Locke visited him in August 1677 in the rue neuve des Fossés of the faubourg Saint Germain, where his sign was "an Roy d'Angleterre": Butterfield's letters in Bodleian MS. Lister 2; Locke, Travels, 161-62. [BACK]

29. AN O1 1678A, no. 6: 2v, and no. 14; AN O1 1678, no. 9. [BACK]

30. Blegny, Livre commode, 2: 363. [BACK]

31. Brunot, Histoire, 4, 1: 407-8, lists several private observatories. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 78, 282; 2: 73-74; Locke, Travels, 167; sundials, moondials, and a new pump were also for sale at rue Saint Pierre. [BACK]

32. Hubin also sold glass eyes, as did Le Quin on rue Dauphine. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 242; 2: 75; Mariotte, De la nature des couleurs, 316-17; Huygens, Oeuvres, 7: 261-62; Histoire, 1: 321-22; Stroup, "Christiaan Huygens." In 1674 and 1675 Hubin worked on a "machine des Fables d'Esope": CdB, 1: 804, 875; see also 934, 1010. [BACK]

33. Blegny, Livre commode, 2: 76. La Hire wrote about Dalesme's "machine qui consume la fumée": JdS (1 Apr. 1686); Nicéron, Hommes illustres, 10: 180. [BACK]

34. Blegny, Livre commode, 2: 75. [BACK]

35. Locke, Travels, 161-62, 167. [BACK]

36. Clair, Rohault, 45; McLaughlin and Picolet, "La bibliothèque et les instruments scientifiques du physicien Jacques Rohault"; Stroup, "Christiaan Huygens." [BACK]

37. Ultee, Abbey, 17. [BACK]

38. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 241. Serious savants like Huygens enjoyed magic lanterns, and they also provided entertainment at soirées, for example at the hôtel de Liancourt. [BACK]

39. Lister, Journey, 182-83. Louis Racine was frightened by an elephant at a fair: Racine, Oeuvres, 7: 294. Locke, Travels, 153. [BACK]

40. Lister, Journey, 185-86, 190-98, 219-21, quotations on pp. 198, 220; Locke, Travels, 272-73; Òtat de la France (1694), 1: 339; (1699), 330; CdB, 2: 1272, and passim (Beaulieu). Scudéry, Entretiens, 1: 265-336. In the eighteenth century Réaumur, casting about for sources of income for worthy savants and hoping to revitalize the pépinerie, suggested that its director be one of the Academy's botanists: Bertrand, L'Académie et les académicians, 91-93. [BACK]

41. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 278-82. [BACK]

42. previous hit Dodart next hit, Mémoires des plantes, 139. La Quintinie's Instructions pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers appeared posthumously in 1690 and offered a calendar of monthly chores, advice about and pictures of gardening tools, methods of pruning trees, with illustrations, and information about cultivating orange trees. Ch. Perrault, Hommes illustres, 2: 83-84, gives a brief biographical notice. Davy de Virville, Histoire, puts La Quintinie into context. [BACK]

43. Blegny, Livre commode, 2: 77, 97; Locke, Travels, 160n. 6. 327 [BACK]

44. Seneca, Letter 27; Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 216-36. [BACK]

45. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 227, 152n. 3; Huygens, Oeuvres, 4: 620. [BACK]

46. Lister, Journey, 47-53, 94-96, 59-61; quotation on p. 60. In 1675 Locke saw Servière's museum in Lyon, which contained carved ivory, clocks, models of machines, a microscope, and other curiosities: Locke, Travels, 5-6. [BACK]

47. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 134n. 2 and 135n. 2; Fontenelle, "Éloge du P. Sébastien Truchet"; Lery, "Le P Sébastien Truchet"; membre." [BACK]

48. On the Academy's collection see: Wolf, Observatoire, 96-97, 129; Stroup, Royal Funding, 55-56. Huygens's apartment is described in his correspondence; for Tournefort, see chap. 2, n. 24, above. On Morin's museum, see Locke, Travels, 132. On Blondel, see Brice, Description, 2: 196-201. [BACK]

49. Ultee, Abbey, 79-80; Saisselin, Literary Enterprise, 40. [BACK]

50. Lister, Journey, 108. [BACK]

51. Barthélemy d'Herbelot was renowned for the meetings of savants in his library, so that foreign visitors made a point of visiting him; sometimes he took them off to a coffee shop in the rue Mazarine, but finally stopped his meetings altogether after a series of thefts: Neveu, "Vie," 479. [BACK]

52. Blegny Livre commode, 1: 136n. 1, and refs. in n. 47, above; the library of the monastery of Saint Victor, where Louis Morin cloistered himself, was said by a French traveler to be small but excellent in 1733: Saisselin, Literary Enterprise, 40. [BACK]

53. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 137. [BACK]

54. By 1733 the Bibliothèque du roi was "considered as holding first rank in Europe, especially for manuscripts": Saisselin, Literary Enterprise, 40. During the 1680s a recurring expense of the Bibliothèque du roi was the transport of books and manuscripts between it and other scholarly collections; see BN Archives de l'ancien régime 1. [BACK]

55. Martin, Livre, 657-58; Clair, Rohault, 42-44, 59-60; Bigourdan, "Les premières réunions savantes," and "Les premières sociétés scientifiques." Bourdelot's Academy first met in the Hôtel de Condé and was occasionally attended during the 1640s by the two princes de Condé; later Bourdelot moved it to his own house, first on the rue de Rounon, later on rue Guénégaud; Bourdelot was widely mocked, Guy Patin and others derided him, the Condés beat him, and he was the buffoon of Queen Christina: Peumery, "Conversations médico-scientifiques," 130, 133. Denis's conférences began in 1664 and were held when the Academy met, on Saturday (later Wednesday) afternoons: Denis, Recueil, 156, 216, 240. [BACK]

56. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 123-24, 129, 227n. 1. [BACK]

57. Roger, Sciences de la vie, 170-71. At least thirteen academicians — Auzout, Borelly, Carcavi, Cassini, previous hit Dodart next hit, Du Verney, Gallois, Huygens, Homberg, Mariotte, Pecquet, Roberval, and Sauveur — attended private scientific academies: Bourdelot, Conversations; Mémoires ... 1731, 93; Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 165-66n. 2; Stroup, Royal Funding, 57-60; Clair, Robault, 42-60. [BACK]

58. Sedgwick, Jansenism 85-87, quotation from p. 86. [BACK]

59. Dainville, L'éducation des jésuites, pt. 3. [BACK]

60. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 248-63. [BACK]

61. Colletet, Journal. [BACK]

62. Brockliss, French Higher Education. [BACK]

63. Clair, Rohault, 25-26; Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 147-48; 2: 71, 342; most persons taught from their homes. [BACK]

64. Blegny, Livre commode, 1: 146-47. [BACK]

65. Blegny, Livre commode, 1:142; the Collège royal was also outstanding for its teaching of oriental languages. [BACK]

66. Ibid., 1:124; seeCdB, for the pensions paid to members of this Académie. [BACK]

67. Contant, L'enseignement; Crestois, L'enseignement; Howard, "Medical Politics"; Lister, Journey. See catalogues of the Jardin royal prepared by Tournefort and Jean Marchant: BMHN MSS.1556-62. The frontispiece to the Élémens de botanique symbolized the Jardin royal: Académie des Sciences, Troisième centenaire, 2: 133-34. [BACK]


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