treatise of 950 pages, large octavo, was written and published after he was eighty years old. Up to his last day he maintained an active correspondence with his numerous friends and admirers in France, as well as abroad.
"Few men in France have been so much in the public eye as Laussedat. He counted among his friends almost every Frenchman who had become prominent either as a scientist, a literateur, an artist or otherwise. An optimist and an enthusiast, he was one of those few fortunate beings who can see only the bright side of human nature; to hear him, his friends were perfection, and all that he knew of them was to their advantage.
"A staunch Republican, like most of the graduates of the Ecole Polytechnique, he was so shocked by the coup d'etat when Napoleon III. forcibly dissolved parliament and seized the throne, that he tendered his resignation to his friend. Marshal Vaillant, one of the new emperor's minister. Vaillant knew Laussedat and appreciated his immense talent: he dissuaded him from this rash step.
"In September, 1852, he married a Miss Bruel. The coming clash between Austria and the allied armies of France and Italy was already foreseen. Of a practical turn of mind, Laussedat thought that this was a capital opportunity of combining business and pleasure by selecting for the wedding trip the probable scene of the struggle, the Austrian province of Venetia. It so happened that in their rambles the couple came to the neighborhood of fortifications; the unfeeling Austrian police pretended that their behaviour was suspicious and rudely interrupted the honeymoon by clapping them in jail. How, before being searched, Laussedat managed to get rid of his surveying instruments and how he demonstrated that he and his wife were just innocent tourists, is another story. They were eventually released, but not without a gentle hint to clear out before the authorities had time to change their mind. The
