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On the transformation of the Ecole Polytechnique archives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

I. Grattan-Guinnes
I. Grattan-Guinnes
Affiliation:
Middlesex Polytechnic at Enfield, Enfield, Middlesex EN3 4SF, U.K.
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Extract

The important role played by the Ecole Polytechnique in the resurgence of science in France after the French Revolution, and its progress ever since, has led to much historical work on its foundation and development. Some of these studies have brought historians to the school's archives; and there chaos has awaited them, for they found the main collections of documents sorted into containers which were nominally classified by calendar year but in fact could contain materials pertaining to various other times. In addition, very many other documents were stored without classification. Thus exhaustive study of the school's history has been difficult, not to say impossible.

Type
Collections XII
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 45 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1986

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References

I am indebted to the staff of the Bibliothéque Centrale, Ecole Polytechnique, led by the chief librarian Miss Carpentier, for their help during all my visits to the archives, in both the old and the new days. I am especially grateful to the Miss Billoux and Miss Bayle for reading a draft of this paper, which draws in part on their own report. Past visits to the school were made possible by receipt of British Academy Small Grants awards; the recent one occurred with the help of a Royal Society History of Science research grant.

1. ‘Polytechniciens’ would, of course, prefer the converse of the relation expressed.

2. Billoux, C. & Bayle, N.: ‘Le nouveau classement thematique des archives de l'Ecole Polytechnique’. Rev. d'Hist. Sci. (1958) 38, p. 73–82.Google Scholar

3. It is worth stressing that, unlike many other French educational institutions, the school has always kept (or as is now clear, lost at some time) the bulk of its archives. However, there are some materials at Vincennes, in the archives of the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (especially ms, 2094), and in the Archives Nationales (for use of the last, which also bear upon the schools archives, see Antoine, M.-E.: ‘Les archives de l'Ecole Polytechnique’. Bull. Hist. Econ. Sociale de la Rev. Franç. (1967), p. 51–62Google Scholar; and Bradley, M.: ‘An early science library and the provision of text books: the Ecole Poytechnique, 1794–1815’. Libri, (1976), 26, p. 165–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Some splendid complications arise here. Originally the course was of 3 years' duration, being reduced to 2 in 1799. From then until 1806 the first and second years were respectively the first and second ‘divisions’; but then for some reason the first and second divisions were switched round in name.

5. ‘Staff’ (‘personnel’) refers specifically to administrative employees: Paragraph Illa covers the employment of the part-time teachers, examiners and ‘correctors’ (for literary and linguistic courses), who almost always held concurrent posts elsewhere (the dreadful French cumul system).

6. In fact, for Lagrange there is a special box of materials in this paragraph, which the school has long held.

7. See my ‘Work for the workers: advances in engineering mechanics and instruction in France, 1800–1830’, Ann. Sci. (1984), 41, p. 1–33Google Scholar. Had the new Poncelet materials been available at the time of the preparation of this paper, I would have quoted at least two documents in it. The full collection is now being sorted: it may well have been given to the school by Poncelet's follower and posthumous editor X. Kretz (1850, just after Poncelet retired as ‘commandant’), for the archives also possesses various of Kretz's materials.