He placed himself at the head of a body of metallurgists, mechanics and chemists, and directed night and day the manufacture of arms and explosives. Bells were turned into cannon, old iron hardened into steel, and saltpetre extracted from the simplest materials. An immense quantity of powder filled the magazines, and cannons and other weapons were cast or forged in enormous quantities. These great efforts ended, Mouge determined to open, at his own expense, a house where he might entertain and instruct a number of young men destined for the artillery of engineers. This establishment was the nucleus from which the _École Polytechnique_ sprang. In 1792, when Mouge was Minister of Marine, he received with kindness a young artillery officer who was out of employment. This same artillery officer, four years later, became the conqueror of Italy. Mouge received an order to proceed to Italy to value, collect, and attempt to preserve, those works of Italian art it was proposed to remove to France. He received the warmest greeting from Bonaparte, who gave him every token of friendship. Mouge was despatched by Bonaparte in 1797 to Rome--when the Pope was forced to fly and the Roman Republic established--with the order to bring statues and pictures from the Vatican to Paris. He accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, together with many other men of science, to bring back the spoils of that country, in the same way they had removed those of ancient Rome. While the French occupation of Egypt continued, Mouge made many discoveries there, and explored the Temples of the Nile, travelling as far as the Second Cataract. He followed Bonaparte to Syria, and was his constant companion during that disastrous expedition. When Napoleon quitted Egypt surreptitiously for France, August 22, 1799, Mouge was one of the passengers on board the small frigate which carried General Bonaparte and his destiny. On his return to France, Mouge continued his scientific work. After the establishment of the Empire, he was appointed Governor and Director of the _École Polytechnique_, Senator, and given the title of Comte de Peluse. He retained these honours until the second Restoration, when Louis XVIII. erased his name from the list of the Institute, besides depriving him of the Directorship of the _Polytechnique_, which he (Mouge) had founded. Mouge felt this deprivation deeply, and the last three years of his life were passed in melancholy depression and regret. He died in 1818, at the age of seventy-two. MOITTE, PIERRE-ETIENNE. Born, 1722; died, 1780. A celebrated French engraver. His works are now of high commercial value. NECKER, SUZANNE CURCHOD. Born at Crassier in the Canton of Vaud, 1739; died at Lauzanne, 1794.