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  As to the findings themselves, Condorcet is right that they have mostly to do with barometric readings and magnetic intensities. For Lamanon does not write to Condorcet and Buffon about beans. No. To these stalwarts of the French Enlightenment he writes about his ascent of the Peak of Tenerife. He and eleven other members of the expedition made the trip. It was the eve of the feast of St. Louis when they reached the top, where they drank to the king’s health. “The highest elevation at which the feast day has ever been celebrated,” he writes. He goes on to say that he and his friend Father Mongez, the Boussole’s chaplain and assistant naturalist, then settled down to serious scientific endeavor, collecting rocks, measuring air pressure with one barometer, then another, taking compass readings, noting the degree of magnetic inclination, counting their own pulses, and sniffing ammonia to see if it retained its strength at altitude. He is particularly pleased to report a new, barometrically derived measurement for the peak’s height: 1,950 toises. He hopes this will be useful, as there has been little agreement on this subject among visitors to the island.

  He does not mention that ten of his colleagues left the peak as soon as they had toasted the king, bothered by the sulfurous fumes that swirled about the mountaintop. Or that at one point he sniffed the ammonia to keep from passing out. Nor does he mention that barometric determinations of altitude are notoriously unreliable. Presumably his correspondents know the method’s limitations and do not need to be reminded. He also does not write about how he and Mongez tried—and failed—to calculate the height of the mountain trigonometrically, a calculation that could have verified the barometric result. It was a discouraging setback. They had the views they needed—every landmark clear—and had just begun to set up the surveying equipment, when the hired guides refused to remain any longer on the mountain. Their mules were out of food and water, they said, and no amount of money would induce them to stay. So Lamanon and Mongez were obliged to pack up their tools and descend.

  The marquis and the count will not hear about these troubles. Nor will they learn about Lamanon’s altercation with Monsieur de Lapérouse right before the outing. How was Lamanon to know that the expedition would not cover the cost? He was taken aback when the commander informed him of this, especially as it was one half hour before the climbing party was scheduled to depart. Everything was in readiness—climbers assembled, guides present, mules packed with equipment, supplies, water, wine, bread, bean salad. A line from Candide sprang to Lamanon’s mind at Lapérouse’s announcement: “My friend,” he wanted to say, quoting Pangloss, “this is not right at all. You go against the universal reason, and your timing is very bad!” But he saw the commander’s round, unliterary face, blotchy with impatience, and thought better of it. “Sir, we were about to leave,” he said instead.

  “I am sorry for that,” Lapérouse said, though he did not look very sorry. “If only you had informed me of your plans in advance, Monsieur de Lamanon.”

  Lamanon sniffed. “I understood this to be a voyage of scientific exploration.”

  Lapérouse raised his eyebrows and asked what part of their scientific mission required six guides, twenty-five mules, and enough food and supplies for twenty people. “This could come to a hundred louis,” he said, and when Lamanon began to justify the expense (which, truth to tell, was somewhat more than that estimate), Lapérouse said, with quiet adamancy, “Monsieur de Lamanon, this island has been colonized for centuries, its every part mapped and explored. This excursion is an indulgence. You may not charge it to the king’s expense.”

  Lamanon shrugged. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll sell my own account of the trip when we return to France, and reimburse myself from the proceeds.”

  At this, the other members of the climbing party, who had been staring at the ground or up at the sky during the uncomfortable exchange, came suddenly to attention. It was customary, and at times a contractual obligation, for members of such expeditions to delay publishing their own accounts of a voyage until after the commander had published his “official” account, a process that could take years. Lamanon’s retort was very like a direct challenge to the commander’s authority.

  Lapérouse was not one to bristle over fine points of publishing protocol, however. He burst out laughing. “You won’t be the first author ruined by a book,” he said.

  Thus forced to pay for the outing himself, Lamanon waved away two of the guides and half the mules. The rigors and delights of the ascent soon put the unpleasantness with the commander out of Lamanon’s mind, although he was reminded of it three days later, when the guides insisted on leaving. The discomforts of the return trip did not afford Lamanon enough mental freedom to reflect that he was the one who had summarily dismissed the very mules carrying the extra food and water. As he and Mongez huffed their way down the mountain, he blamed Lapérouse for their misery. “My dear Mongez,” he said at one point, “I could wish for a commander more sympathetic to the demands of science.” Mongez panted back in reply, and they proceeded in silence, for it had grown hot and their water flasks were empty.

  But in this, as in everything, Lamanon was not vexed for long. By the time he is back in his cabin on the Boussole, caught up in the demands of scientific correspondence, he has all but forgotten the dressing-down he received from Monsieur de Lapérouse, a dressing-down that would have mortified any other member of the expedition. He is immune to mortification, our Lamanon. He is happy to make his report and repeat the sentiment about the expedition being a happy family with Lapérouse as their head. He does not know that at this very moment, the “father” in question is scrawling a note to his own friend, the Count de Fleurieu, complaining about Lamanon. “As ignorant as a Capuchin!” Lapérouse writes. He regrets very much that one of their astronomers has been laid so low by seasickness that he is being sent home from Tenerife. “Oh, that it were Lamanon instead!” he says.

  Lapérouse’s frustration with him is understandable, but can we blame Lamanon for going through with his costly trip to the peak? Indulgent it may have been, but it was also a kind of test for the more difficult work ahead, and addressed many questions: What equipment does he need for excursions off the ship? How quickly can he pack? Do his knees hold up under the rigors of walking long distances over difficult terrain? Can he accurately detect the oscillations of a compass needle? How about the inclinations, declinations, and other “-ations” he is charged with recording? Can he take proper readings from a barometer? And most important: Which of the two barometers in his possession works better?

  The matter of the barometers is not simply an academic question for Lamanon. His future reputation may stand or fall by his barometrical work on the expedition. Over the years, a number of scientists, including Newton and Laplace, have hypothesized the existence of atmospheric or barometric “tides” that respond to the same gravitational forces that create our oceanic tides. The academy has asked Lamanon to help settle this question by noting variations in barometric pressure over the course of twenty-four-hour periods. This work is best done at the equator, where the amplitude of any such variations, should they exist, is believed to be greatest. At Tenerife, the expedition is still twenty-eight degrees north of and a one-month sail from the equator. But Lamanon does not want to fail in the execution of his duties for lack of practice, and during the climb to the peak, he consulted his barometers as often as possible.

  Nor does he wish to fail for having used the wrong barometer. He has two and has been taking readings from them every day since leaving Brest. To his great frustration, there is no agreement between them, ever, when they are at sea. An unhappy suspicion has formed in his mind that the English barometer is superior to the French one. The English instrument was purchased in London by the expedition’s chief engineer, Paul de Monneron, a man more comfortable with objects than ideas, but competent enough for all that. The French barometer was made by Fortin and procured for the expedition by Monsieur de Lavoisier, the famous chemist. Lamanon knows he should rely on whichever bar
ometer works best at sea, for it is extremely unlikely that they will be anywhere near land when they cross the line. He knows that the English barometer, made by Nairne, is similar to one used by Captain Cook, and that if it served Cook, it ought to serve him. But he has a prejudice in favor of Lavoisier’s barometer, a prejudice that is entirely romantic.

  He had gone in person to Lavoisier’s residence to pick up the barometer. It was early May, about three months before the expedition left, and raining very hard. Lavoisier was not at home, but Madame de Lavoisier allowed him to wait in the laboratory while she herself sat nearby, quietly working at her own table. She wore a simple white dress, and her facial features were more pleasing than beautiful, but this effect of serenity was challenged by a mane of wildly curly hair that bounced with every movement she made and framed her head like an unruly helmet. Longer strands of hair fell over her shoulders and down her back, and Lamanon saw that she was actually sitting on the longest locks. Could she not feel that as she leaned over her work, he wondered, the pull at her scalp of hair pinned beneath her buttocks? But then the great chemist himself strode in, and before he noticed Lamanon, before his wife could warn him they had a visitor, he said, “Marie-Anne, come out in the garden with me. I want to see you soaked with rain.” It was impossible to remain serious after that. The three of them gathered around the carrying case of the barometer and tittered while they examined the instrument—first Madame de Lavoisier, turning away to hide her mirth, then her husband, and finally Lamanon, all struck by the hilarity of the long, mercury-filled glass tube, snug in its velvet-lined cavity.

  Lamanon has not stopped thinking of the Lavoisiers since. He dreams of them sometimes, of himself with them, of the three of them together, of the effect of rain on that white dress and the outrageous curls. But they are not just the subject of a lonely savant’s fantasies. Antoine and Marie-Anne de Lavoisier held out for Lamanon the prospect of something he had not even known he was missing till that day in May—not so much marriage between equals, although that did seem true of them, or even marriage based on love, although that was obviously the case as well, but the happy union of science and humanity within an individual, and the joy that was possible when one person, so self-integrated, encountered another such person.

  So he is loath to abandon the barometer that has for him such pleasurable associations. Yet now that he has taken both barometers to the peak and back, the verdict is clear. Lavoisier’s barometer is fine for work on land, but will never do at sea. He is sorry, but also glad that he has been able to make such good use of the barometer at Tenerife. He feels he has discharged a debt of gratitude to the barometer, to its maker, to the generous chemist who obtained it for him, and to the chemist’s wife who blushed and laughed when she saw it. It can now be left safely and without obligation in its case, where it will remain until they land someplace where an observatory can be established. Lamanon would like to write to the Lavoisiers now, to tell them how well the barometer performed in Tenerife, to remind them of that afternoon in May. But the ship’s bell has rung at least twice since he began. He has time for just one short letter, and it will be to his mother.

  * * *

  What if, some two years, three months, and fifteen days after this afternoon of letter writing, instead of joining the men who leave the ships to collect water and stretch their legs at an unknown cove in Samoa, Lamanon were to remain safely aboard the Boussole? And what if, instead of foundering in a storm in the Solomon Islands the following spring, the Boussole, at least, were to make it back to France?

  Two surmises come to mind: first, regarding Lamanon’s scientific legacy, and second, suggesting a different sort of ending for him. As for his legacy, all that messing about with barometers and compasses during the voyage will yield two discoveries that properly belong to him. For the suppositions of Newton and Laplace were correct: there are atmospheric tides. And Lamanon, working round the clock with the English barometer every time the expedition crosses the equator (this will happen three times), will be the first to observe its twelve-hour cycles. Then there are his meticulous compass readings, which will lead to another discovery, this one establishing a correlation between magnetic intensity and latitude (intensity increasing with latitude, as one moves away from the equator and toward the poles). He will write up his findings with great care and send them to Condorcet, and we have already followed their fate there.

  But now, imagine Lamanon’s triumphant return to France. The Academy of Sciences will invite him to join their august body, of course. He will readily accept, and there will be ample time, before the National Convention abolishes all of the academies, for Lamanon to make several personal appearances to discuss his part in the great Lapérouse voyage. There will be time too, amid the social and political upheavals, to see to the formal publication of his own journals and letters. Will he do so ahead of Lapérouse, without the approval of the ministry, as he threatened to do at Tenerife? Probably. The revolutionary mood that greets him on his return will encourage the antiauthoritarian streak we have already seen in him. Indeed, when his friend Mongez remonstrates with him about this, and asks if Lamanon does not owe Lapérouse some consideration in this matter, Lamanon will retort with a quote from Rousseau: “My dear Mongez,” he will say, “the family is the most ancient of societies, and the only one that is natural. But even there the children remain attached to the father only so long as they need him for their preservation.”

  The book will not be the financial success Lamanon hopes; but then, books rarely are. His scientific legacy, however, will be secure. Because the first publication on barometric tides will not now be authored by some Englishman called Horsburgh in 1805. Nor will it be the great Prussian naturalist and explorer, Alexander von Humboldt, a man with more than enough distinctions already, who first publishes the law of magnetic intensity and latitudes. It will be Lamanon, publishing in 1789 or ’90 or ’91. It will be Lamanon, no longer the unfortunate naturalist from the Lapérouse expedition killed by natives in Samoa.

  Which brings us to our second surmise: a different death. Consider what happens to Lamanon’s associates. Buffon will have died of natural causes in 1788, at the advanced age of eighty, thereby missing alike the thrills and the perils of revolution. By 1790, Madame Necker and her husband will flee to their native Switzerland. The Marshal de Castries, recipient of Lamanon’s beans, his wigs and medals grown suspect, will join them shortly thereafter. The rest remain in Paris, caught up in the grand project of rebuilding society. But one by one they too will fall under suspicion. The Duke de La Rochefoucauld, Lamanon supporter and president of the academy, will be assassinated in Gisors in September of 1792. A year and a half later, it will be Condorcet, on the run from a trumped-up charge of treason but arrested in Clamart, those distinctive eyebrows giving him away. He will be found dead in his prison cell two days later, his body and the cause of death subsequently lost to a mass grave. And then it will be Lavoisier himself, tried, convicted, and guillotined on May 8, 1794—nine years after Lamanon’s visit to pick up the barometer.

  What would Lamanon make of such a future? It is tempting to imagine him asking Lavoisier’s widow to marry him. But quite apart from the likelihood that she would refuse him (for she will remember that rainy afternoon only as an occasion when her dear Antoine embarrassed her in front of a guest whose name and purpose she cannot recall), there is the greater likelihood that Lamanon himself will end up branded an enemy of the republic. He might return to Salon-de-Provence to flee the unrest, but he will not be safe there. His brother, Auguste, will be arrested in 1793 and languish in prison for over a year before finally being released. Robert, with his closer association with the likes of Condorcet and Lavoisier, is likely to fare worse. Which leaves us to meditate on a question: Which is worse—violent death at the hands of natives whose language and anger you do not understand, or violent death at the hands of fellow citizens whose language and anger you thought you shared?

  * * *


  Lamanon’s letter to his mother is brief and affectionate. He tells her that he is healthy, that he has friends, that his work is going well, that he thinks of her often, that he will write again from South America, that he will come home to her. He repeats that he and his shipmates are one big family, that Monsieur de Lapérouse is like their father. She will like that. She has felt, since the death of her husband ten years earlier, that her younger child has lost his bearings. He has reverted to his boyhood ways, wandering about collecting things; only now he wanders so very far and for so very long. It will cheer her to know there is a father figure on board, someone whose responsibility it is to steer her son homeward.

  Lamanon decides to send her some of the white beans. “Have Jerôme plant them against the south-facing wall in the potager,” he writes. “They are delicious. Think of me when you eat them.” He signs the letter “Robert,” opens the sack meant for the new mayor by way of the minister of marine, and counts out twenty beans. They make a dry, scattering sound as he drops them onto the paper.

  His letters complete, he makes his way back up on deck (going up not nearly as painful as coming down) and delivers them—and the beans—to the officer in charge. Then he goes to the rail and gazes south through his spyglass. He is looking for the Tropic of Cancer. Some of the seamen, put off by his airs and amused by his gullibility, have told him the tropic is visible from here. “Like a green line straight across the sea, sir,” they tell him. “It’s a sight a scientifical gentleman such as yourself ought not miss.” Lapérouse witnesses this from the quarterdeck and is tempted to disabuse him of the notion. He does not like to see his chief naturalist made a fool of. But he is still resentful about Lamanon’s insolence over the excursion to the peak, so he leaves him be.