I ran at once to the library, and there, for the first time, I read the programme of the knowledge required in the candidates.

From this moment I abandoned the classes of the central school, where I was taught to admire Corneille, Racine, La Fontaine, Moliere, and attended only the mathematical course.  This course was entrusted to a retired ecclesiastic, the Abbe Verdier, a very respectable man, but whose knowledge went no further than the elementary course of La Caille.  I saw at a glance that M. Verdier’s lessons would not be sufficient to secure my admission to the Polytechnic School; I therefore decided on studying by myself the newest works, which I sent for from Paris.  These were those of Legendre, Lacroix, and Garnier.  In going through these works I often met with difficulties which exceeded my powers; happily, strange though it be, and perhaps without example in all the rest of France, there was a proprietor at Estagel, M. Raynal, who made the study of the higher mathematics his recreation.  It was in his kitchen, whilst giving orders to numerous domestics for the labours of the next day, that M. Raynal read with advantage the “Hydraulic Architecture” of Prony, the “Mecanique Analytique,” and the “Mecanique Celeste.”  This excellent man often gave me useful advice; but I must say that I found my real master in the cover of M. Garnier’s “Treatise on Algebra.”  This cover consisted of a printed leaf, on the outside of which blue paper was pasted.  The reading of the page not covered made me desirous to know what the blue paper hid from me.  I took off this paper carefully, having first damped it, and was able to read underneath it the advice given by d’Alembert to a young man who communicated to him the difficulties which he met with in his studies:  “Go on, sir, go on, and conviction will come to you.”

This gave me a gleam of light; instead of persisting in attempts to comprehend at first sight the propositions before me, I admitted their truth provisionally; I went on further, and was quite surprised, on the morrow, that I comprehended perfectly what overnight appeared to me to be encompassed with thick clouds.

I thus made myself master, in a year and a half, of all the subjects contained in the programme for admission, and I went to Montpellier to undergo the examination.  I was then sixteen years of age.  M. Monge, junior, the examiner, was detained at Toulouse by indisposition, and wrote to the candidates assembled at Montpellier that he would examine them in Paris.  I was myself too unwell to undertake so long a journey, and I returned to Perpignan.