Bordeaux: A Road to Paris

Abstract

The failure for the second time in a year of the Ministry of Public Instruction to defray in advance the cost of his moving to another city,^l should have given Duhem second thoughts about Tannery’s telegram, but he was under no small illusion. As he supervised the movers carrying his furniture into his new residence in Bordeaux, he ordered them to uncrate only the essentials such as beds, chairs, kitchenware, writing desk, and books. Items that made life decorative and comfortable were left uncrated for months,² the time he needed to realize that his transfer to Bordeaux could mean a long stay, if not permanent exile there. Arriving in Bordeaux with his mind riveted on the idea of soon moving to Paris, he hardly reminisced on his flight, twenty-five years earlier, from Chateaudun to Bordeaux. Nor did he find, in such a state of mind, much time to think of a fact of which any teacher in his early thirties could be justly proud. The University of Bordeaux was eager to welcome a savant of Duhem’s stature. The Rapport gènèral de l’Universitè de Bordeaux for the academic year 1893—94 was not printed yet when Bordeaux learned of Duhem’s appointment there. To the lines recording the resignation of Pionchon as professor of physics the following line was added in obvious delight about his replacement: ‘Mr. Duhem comes to us with an established reputation, in full force and vigor.’³