Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/48

26 a notice concerning him in the Revue encyclopédique, t. lv.

The events of 1815 brought General Carnot back into politics during the "Cent Jours" which ended in a fresh catastrophe.

This gave Sadi a glimpse of human nature of which he could not speak without disgust. His little sub-lieutenant's room was visited by certain superior officers who did not disdain to mount to the third floor to pay their respects to the son of the new minister.

Waterloo put an end to their attentions. The Bourbons re-established on the throne, Carnot was proscribed and Sadi sent successively into many trying places to pursue his vocation of engineer, to count bricks, to repair walls, and to draw plans destined to be hidden in portfolios. He performed these duties conscientiously and without hope of recompense, for his name, which not long before had brought him so many flatteries, was henceforth the cause of his advancement being long delayed.

In 1818 there came an unlooked-for royal ordinance, authorizing the officers of all branches of the service to present themselves at the examinations for the new corps of the staff. Sadi was well aware that favor had much more to do with