possible; or that the First Consul accord a ten minutes' interview to
citizen Beauvais, who will communicate to him the secret, which is
so easy that the simple _expose_ of it would be equivalent to a
demonstration, and would take the place of an experiment.... If, as one
might be tempted to believe from a comparison with a bell arrangement,
the means adopted by the inventor consisted in wheels, movements,
and transmitting pieces, the invention would be none the less
astonishing.... If, on the contrary, as the Portier's account seems to
prove, the means of communication is a fluid, there would be the more
merit in his having mastered it to such a point as to produce so regular
and so infallible effects at such distances.... But citizen Beauvais
... desires principally to have the First Consul as a witness and
appreciator.... It is to be desired, then, that the First Consul shall
consent to hear him, and that he may find in the communication that will
be made to him reasons for giving the invention a good reception and for
properly rewarding the inventor."

But Bonaparte remained deaf, and Alexandre persisted in his silence, and
died at Angers, in 1832, in great poverty, without having revealed his
secret.

As, in 1802, Volta's pile was already invented, several authors have
supposed an application of it in Alexandre's apparatus. "Is it not
allowable to believe," exclaims one of these, "that the electric
telegraph was at that time discovered?" We do not hesitate to respond in
the negative. The pile had been invented for too short a time, and too
little was then known of the properties of the current, to allow a
man so destitute of scientific knowledge to so quickly invent all the
electrical parts necessary for the synchronic operation of the two
needles. In this _telegraphe intime_ we can only see an apparatus