The modest family library soon proved utterly insufficient to occupy the mind of this young, enthusiastic student; and his father, sympathetic to his ardent curiosity, took him to Lyons from time to time, where he might have the opportunity to consult volumes of various kinds that might catch his fancy. At this time, his old mathematical tendency reasserted itself. He wished to learn something about the higher mathematics. He found in a library in Lyons the works of Bernoulli and of Euler. When the delicate-looking boy, whom the librarian considered little more than a child, put in his request to the town library for these serious mathematical works, the old gentleman said to him: "The works of Bernoulli and Euler! What are you thinking of, my little friend? These works figure among the most difficult writings that ever came from the mind of man." "I hope to be able to understand them," replied the boy. "I suppose you know," said the librarian, "that they are written in Latin." This was a disagreeable surprise for young Ampère. As yet he had not studied Latin. He went home, resolved, however, to remove this hindrance to his study of the higher mathematics. At the end of the month, owing to his assiduity, the obstacle had entirely disappeared; and though he could read only mathematical Latin and had later to study the language from another standpoint, in order to understand the classics, he was now able to pursue the study of mathematics in Latin to his heart's content. The even tenor of the boy's life, deeply engaged as he was in studies of every description, was destined to be very seriously disturbed. When he was but fourteen, in 1789, the Revolution came, with its glorious promise and then its awful consummation. Ampère's father was seriously alarmed at the revolutionary course things were taking in France, and had the fatal inspiration to leave his country home and betake himself to the city of Lyons. For a time, he occupied a position as magistrate. After the siege of Lyons, the revolutionary tribunal established there took up the project of making the Lyonnese patriotic, as they called it, by properly punishing the citizens for their failure to sympathize at first with the revolutionary government, and soon a series of horrible massacres began. New victims were claimed every day, and Ampère's father was one of those who had to suffer. The real reason for his condemnation was that he had accepted a position under the old government, though the pretext stated on the warrant for his arrest was that he was an aristocrat. This is the only evidence we have that the Ampère family was in any way connected with the nobility. The day on which he was sentenced to die, Jean Jacques Ampère wrote to his wife a letter of sublime simplicity, in which his Christian resignation of spirit, his lofty courage, yet thoroughly practical commonsense, are manifest. He warned his wife to say nothing about his fate to their daughter