He looked as if
he were about to destroy his adversary with lightning, but in reality he
retained the most imperturbable sang-froid. He stood like a marble
statue, but it was easy to divine the storm raging within...."[10]
[Footnote 10: Unpublished notes by Abbe Chesnais.]
His tendency, after taking his bachelor's degree, was towards science;
he was ambitious to enter the Ecole polytechnique, and joined the
special mathematics class. Even when very young he had shown particular
aptitude for mechanics, and a gift for invention which we have seen
exercised in his practical jokes as a student. When he was only four or
five years old he constructed a bed out of paper, which he raised by
means of cords and pulleys.
"He passed whole hours," says his Stanislas classmate, Lieutenant
Constantin, "in trying to solve a mathematical problem, or studying some
question which had interested him, without knowing what went on around
him; but as soon as he had solved his problem, or learned something new,
he was satisfied and returned to the present. He was particularly
interested in everything connected with the sciences.
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