THE PASCAL FORGERIES. STATEMENT OF M. CHASLES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 8, 10 January 1870, Page 2

THE PASCAL FORGERIES. STATEMENT OF M. CHASLES.

0 For a long time past the world has beeu astonished at the absurd spectacle of ! the French Academy of Sciences wasting its time at innumerable meetings in discussing an endless supply of manuscripts produced by M. Chasles, and purporting ( to be writteu by Pascal, Galileo, and various other philosophers, but which were obviously forgeries, and in many cases copies of matter that had been printed in various books. M. Chasles thought his bundle of rubbish would suffice to deprive Newton of his great discovery, and show that he was only a fraudulent copier of Pascal, to whom, according to the manuscripts, all the credit was due. Proof after proof was adduced by the same portion of the Academy that the matter was fictitious, and whether it was compared with genuine documents in Italy or in England, the result was the same — fresh evidence of fraud. With a credulity curious, but perhaps not uncommon amongst mathematicians, M. Chasles was insensible to the folly of his position. He seemed to think that the quantity of his documents proved the excellence of their quality, and now that the cheat is discovered, it appears that the celebrated academician was incautious enough to make a long series of costly purchases without the slightest evidence of the authenticity of his supposed treasures. His own story is that in November, 1861, an individual calling himself a " paleographic archivist," whose special business was extracting genealogies, began to supply him with the peculiar documents. M. Chasles wanted to obtain the whole collection, but the " paleographic archivist " said that their owner had brought them from America in. 1791, took delight in looking thera over, and would only part with them at his conveuieuce. He would not tell where the treasures came from, lest others should outbid hira for whafc remained ; and he says " the great number ofthe documents, the names of their authors; the variety of matters — scientific, literary, and historical — on which they treated, and the perfect concordance which he recognised in them, left no doubt in his mind of the authenticity of their contents." He adds that the vendor always came to bim between eleven and twelve in the morning, or between half-past-five and six in the afternoon, that he never went to his house, or sent any one to him for auy document. The circumstances that awoke the mathematician out of his credulity was an investigation made at Florence into the authenticity of a pretended letter of Galileo, dated sth November, 1639, and which he had photographed for the purpose. When his faith was dissipated he had the " paleographic archivist " arrested by the Prefect of Police. At his abode some clean paper, some pens, one inkstand, and some fac-similies of isography were discovered, but no mass of documents, such as M. Chasles supposed him to possess. At first he refused to say where the collection was, and then he admitted that he manufactured thera. In reply to further questions he said that about sixty came from the Comte de Menou, in 1861, and some containing genealogies were obtained from the cabinet of M. Letellier about

' **'*** M *** M ""''*""*****™"**"** M| '"*'* M *' | 1860. He declared that since 1861 he \ had manufactured more lhan 20,000 pieces, which he sold to M. Chasles. Well may the deluded savant exclaim, " Can we admit that a single individual could compose such an enormous mass of docu- \ ments, on all sorts of subjects, especially i when no primitive materials of books or f fiagments were found in his possession." i M. Chasles went on to eay that the i documents with which he had occupied i the Academy were only a portion of what ! he received. Besides numerons series of Galileo, Pascal, Louis XIV., Labruyere, | Moliere, Montesquieu, Bouilliau, Mariotte, Robault, St. Evremonfc, Locke, Madame Sevign_, Rotru, Corneille, Lafoutaine, Etienne Pascal, Madame Perier and her sister Jacqueline, Maupertuis, Fontenelle, J. Bernouilli, etc.. there were 2000, letters, at least, of Rabelais, as many of Copernicus, Columbus, Cardan, Tartalea, Oronce Fine, Ramus, Budaeus, Grollier, Nostrodamus, Calvin, Melancthon, Luther, Scaliger, Dolet, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Sir Thomas Moore, Charles V., etc. There were also numerous letters and poems of Clement Marot, unpublished mysteries and poems of Margaret of Angouleme, together with letters of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, Guttenburg, etc., etc. Earlier dates were not forgotten by the archivist, who provided letters of Julius Caesar, and other Roman Emperors, of the Apostles, St. Augustine, Charlemagne, Alcuin, etc. Certainly a more marvellous collection was never brought together, and it would be most remarkable if they were all the work of one forger, who did not know Latin, nor Italian, nor mathematics, nor any other science. There is, as M. Chasles winds up, still " a mystery to penetrate ;" but can mystery be greater than his own preposterous credulity ? We wait for further information concerning this very singular affair. — From the Student. October, 1869. tm_\____________wmmmmmmmwßammmmm^^mm*^m^mm!^mmeaMi^^mß^mm*mmmnamm