“’Have done with these trials:  they prove nothing.  I require you to tell me who you are.’

“’My foremost desire is to find an answer which will satisfy you.  I am the son of the innkeeper at Mataro.’

“‘I know that man:  you are not his son.’

“’You are right:  I told you that I should change my answers till I found one to suit you.  I am a marionette player from Lerida.’

“A huge laugh from the crowd which had listened to the interrogatory put an end to the questioning.”

Finally it was necessary for Arago to declare outright that he was French, and to prove it by his old servant Pablo.  To supply his immediate wants he sold his watch; and by a series of misadventures this watch subsequently fell into the hands of his family, and he was mourned in France as dead.

After months of captivity the vessel was released, and the prisoner set out for Marseilles.  A fearful tempest drove them to the harbor of Bougie, an African port a hundred miles east of Algiers.  Thence they made the perilous journey by land to their place of starting, and finally reached Marseilles eleven months after their voyage began.  Eleven months to make a journey of four days!

The intelligence of the safe arrival, after so many perils, of the young astronomer, with his packet of precious observations, soon reached Paris.  He was welcomed with effusion.  Soon afterward (at the age of twenty-three years) he was elected a member of the section of Astronomy of the Academy of Sciences, and from this time forth he led the peaceful life of a savant.  He was the Director of the Paris Observatory for many years; the friend of all European scientists; the ardent patron of young men of talent; a leading physicist; a strong Republican, though the friend of Napoleon; and finally the Perpetual Secretary of the Academy.

In the latter capacity it was part of his duty to prepare eloges of deceased Academicians.  Of his collected works in fourteen volumes, ‘Oeuvres de Francois Arago,’ published in Paris, 1865, three volumes are given to these ‘Notices Biographiques.’  Here may be found the biographies of Bailly, Sir William Herschel, Laplace, Joseph Fourier, Carnot, Malus, Fresnel, Thomas Young, and James Watt; which, translated rather carelessly into English, have been published under the title ‘Biographies of Distinguished Men,’ and can be found in the larger libraries.  The collected works contain biographies also of Ampere, Condoreet, Volta, Monge, Porson, Gay-Lussac, besides shorter sketches.  They are masterpieces of style and of clear scientific exposition, and full of generous appreciation of others’ work.  They present in a lucid and popular form the achievements of scientific men whose works have changed the accepted opinion of the world, and they give general views not found in the original writings themselves.  Scientific men are usually too much engrossed in advancing science to spare time for expounding it to popular audiences.  The talent for such exposition is itself a special one.  Arago possessed it to the full, and his own original contributions to astronomy and physics enabled him to speak as an expert, not merely as an expositor.