Thus, during the first years after its foundation the Polytechnic grew and flourished in the general dearth of public teaching, being indeed not merely the only great school, but, until the Institute was founded, the only scientific body in France. Working on its first idea of high professorial lectures, practically applied and explained by _répétiteurs_, its success in its own purely scientific line was, and has continued to be, astonishing. Out of its sixteen earliest professors, ten still retain an European name. Lagrange, Monge, Fourcroy, La Place, Guyton de Morveau were connected with it. Malus, Hauy, Biot, Poisson, and De Barante, were among its earliest pupils. Arago, Cauchy, Cavaignac, Lamoricière, with many more modern names, came later. All the great engineers and artillerymen of the empire belonged to it, and the long pages in its calendar of distinguished men are the measure of its influence on the civil and military services of France. In fact its pupils, at a time of enormous demands, supplied all the scientific offices of the army, and directed all the chief public works, fortresses, arsenals, the improvement of cities, the great lines of roads, shipbuilding, mining--carried out, in a word, most of the great improvements of Napoleon. He knew the value of his school, “the hen” as he called it, “that laid him golden eggs”--and perhaps its young pupils were not improved by the excessive official patronage bestowed by him upon “the envy of Europe,” “the first school in the world.” It can not, however, be matter of surprise, that its vigor and success should have caused Frenchmen, even those who criticise its influence severely, to regard it with pride as an institution unrivaled for scientific purposes.