Science and Polity in France

Charles Coulston Gillispie is Dayton-Stockton Professor Emeritus of History at Princeton University, where he founded the program in History and Philosophy of Science in 1960. His books include "The Edge of Objectivity";" Lazare Carnot Savant"; "The Montgolfier Brothers and the Invention of Aviation";" Pierre-Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science"; and "Science and Polity in France: The End of the Old Regime" (all Princeton). He was also the editor of the "Dictionary of Scientific Biography" (16 volumes, Scribners, 1970-1980). In 1997 he was awarded the Balzan Prize in the History and Philosophy of Science.

"Gillispie is, clearly, thoroughly at home in the language and concepts of the sciences: of pure mathematics, chemistry, mathematical physics and astronomy, biology and natural history, not to mention engineering, mining, and agronomy. He is also a master of lucid explanation, so far as explanation to the ignorant can go, as well being the teller of some highly gripping tales; and he has an admirable, logically taut, often quietly witty, prose style."--P.N. Furbank, New York Review of Books "This volume can be read as either a saga of science or a series of short, loosely interconnected stories. The author is at his best when he is reporting colorful episodes, portraying a character, disentangling a plot or dissecting an institution."--Nature "This review cannot do justice to a magisterial work that illuminates a critical phase in the historical relationship between thought and action, the classical theme of humanism... As a work of synthesis and interpretation, it is written with the clarity, elegance, and insight the subject deserves."--Joseph W. Konvitz, American Historical Review "So thoroughly does Gillispie know his subject, that his account reads more like Thomas Carlyle's gripping The French Revolution: A History than a dry and bloodless effort of modern scholarship. Like Carlyle, Gillispie seems to feel what his subjects felt, to enter with them into the stresses, difficulties and challenges of the moment. And Gillispie's history, like Carlyle's, must be read as a journey through the period, with all its vicissitudes, and not as a linear narrative or as a monograph aiming to prove a point of interest to only a few specialists."--Jed Z. Buchwald, American Scientist "Gillispie's argument is simple and elegant ... the research is flawless, and every page exudes erudition... He has left few--if any--stones unturned in accomplishing this magisterial work."--Eric A. Arnold, Jr., History "[This] new book is a superbly researched, challenging and provocative reconstruction of the decades from 1770 to 1820 when, in Gillispie's words, France could boast 'a larger scientific population than the rest of Europe put together.'... Here ... is impeccable scholarship as well as clarity of style, footnotes opening up scores of research projects, and a few of the idiosyncrasies for which Gillispie is famous and which, it should be mentioned do not fall into an easy hero-worship mood... [T]he book offers the best account written so far of science during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic years."--Pietro Corsi, British Journal for the History of Science "This much anticipated, magisterial second volume of Gillispies's Science and Polity in France at the End of the Old Regime ... [is] a powerful chronicle of the social engagements of the natural sciences during the pivotal moment when they first took on modern political responsibilities."--Jessica Riskin, Modern History

• Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 Chapter I. Science and Politics under the Constituent Assembly 7 1.Science and Politics in 1789 7 2.Bailly and the Constituent Assembly 15 3.Lavoisier and the Arsenal 25 4.Vicq d'Azyr and the Reform of Medicine 36 5.Condorcet and Truth in Politics 56 6.Condorcet, Bailly, and the Governance of Paris 67 7.Political Economy 78 8.Varennes and the Champ-de-Mars 96 Chapter II. Education, Science, and Politics 101 1.Scientists in the Legislative Assembly 101 2.The Condorcet Plan for National Education 110 3.Talleyrand's Educational Proposal 124 4.The Educational Legacy of the Old Regime 129 5.The Political Setting 136 6.The Convention 140 7.Education and Science 146 Chapter III. The Museum of Natural History and the Academy of Science: Rise and Fall 165 1.Natural History and Theoretical Science 165 2.The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle 167 3.The Academy of Science in the Revolutionary Climate 184 4.Artisans and Inventors 195 5.The Last Year of the Academy 210 Chapter IV. The Metric System 223 1.Background 223 2.Proposals 235 3.Methods and Instruments 250 4.Operations in the Field 258 5.The Provisional Meter 278 Chapter V. Science and the Terror 286 1.Terror amd Expropriation 286 2.The Republican Calendar 293 3.The Observatory of Paris 298 4.The College de France 306 5.Individual Destinies 311 6.The Calvary of Condorcet 326 Chapter VI. Scientists at War 339 1.The Monge Connection 339 2.Weaponry 358 3.The Mobilization of Scientists 381 4.Munitions and Guns 397 5.Inventions 428 6.Natural History and Conquest 433 7.Effects of Wartime: Science and the State 444 Chapter VII. Thermidorean Convention and Directory 445 1.Institutionalization of French Science, 1794-1804 445 2.Institut de France, Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, and Bureau des Longitudes 446 3.Completion of the Metric System 458 4.The Ecole Normale de l'an III 494 5.The Ecole Polytechnique 520 6.The Ecole de Sante and Clinical Medicine 540 Chapter VIII. Bonaparte and the Scientific Community 551 1.Monge in Italy, 1796-1798 551 2.The Egyptian Expedition 557 3.The Ideologues and 18 Brumaire 600 4.The Consulate, 1799-1804 611 5.Napoleon and Science 640 Chapter IX. Positivist Science 652 1.Discipline Formation 652 2.Comparative Anatomy 655 3.Experimental Physiology 662 4.Mathematical Physics 675 5.Conclusion 694 Acknowledgments 697 Bibliography 699 2.Index 717