Physicist; b. at Broglie near Bernay, Normandy, 10 May, 1788; d.
at Ville d'Avray, near Paris, 14 July, 1827. His early progress
in letters was slow though he showed while still young an
aptitude for physical science. In his seventeenth year he
entered the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris where he attracted the
attention of Legendre. After spending some time at the Ecole des
Ponts et Chaussées he was assigned to the engineering corps and
served successively in the departments of Vendée, Drôme, and
Ille-et-Vilaine. He lost his appointment through politics on the
return of Napoleon from Elba. In 1819 he was made a member of
the Lighthouse Commission, becoming its secretary in 1824, and
was an examiner at the Ecole Polytechnique from 1821 to 1824.
Shortly afterward his health, which had never been robust,
became so weakened that he was obliged to give up nearly all
active work. He was unanimously elected a member of the Académie
des Sciences in 1823, and in 1825 was made an associate of the
London Royal Society, rec