Unfortunately, the glory of science was not unsullied: the Laplaces, the Lagranges, the Monges, the Chaptals, the Berthollets, all of these prodigies, once proud democrats, became Napoleon’s most obsequious servants. Let it be said, to the honor of letters, that the new literature was free where science was servile. Character was no match for genius, and these men whose research had soared to the loftiest heavens could not raise their souls above Bonaparte’s boots. They pretended to have no need of God, and that is why they had need of a tyrant.[1]
Chateaubriand,
Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, c.
1802
[1] François-René de
Chateaubriand, Memoirs from Beyond the
Grave, 1800-1815, tr. Alex Andriesse (New York: New York Review of Books, 2022), p. 45.
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