But this new pursuit did not prevent Morveau from continuing to cultivate literature with success. He wrote an _Eloge_ of Charles V. of France, surnamed _the Wise_, which had been given out as the subject of a prize, by the academy. A few months afterwards, at the opening of the session of parliament, he delivered a discourse on the actual state of jurisprudence; on which subject, three years after, he composed a more extensive and complete work. No code of laws demanded reform more urgently than those of France, and none saw more clearly the necessity of such a reformation. About this time a young gentleman of Dijon had taken into his house an adept, who offered, upon being furnished with the requisite materials, to produce gold in abundance; but, after six months of expensive and tedious operations (during which period the roguish pretender had secretly distilled many oils, &c., which he disposed of for his own profit), the gentleman beginning to doubt the sincerity of his instructer, dismissed him from his service and sold the whole of his apparatus and materials to Morveau for a trifling sum. Soon after he repaired to Paris, to visit the scientific establishments of that metropolis, and to purchase preparations and apparatus which he still wanted to enable him to pursue with effect his favourite study. For this purpose he applied to Beaumé, then one of the most conspicuous of the French chemists. Pleased with his ardour, Beaumé inquired what courses of chemistry he had attended. "None," was the answer.--"How then could you have learned to make experiments, and above all, how could you have acquired the requisite dexterity?"--"Practice," replied the young chemist, "has been my master; melted crucibles and broken retorts my tutors."--"In that case," said Beaumé, "you have not learned, you have invented." About this time Dr. Chardenon read a paper before the Dijon Academy on the causes of the augmentation of weight which metals experience when calcined. He combated the different explanations which had been already advanced, and then proceeded to show that it might be accounted for in a satisfactory manner by the _abstraction_ of phlogiston. This drew the attention of Morveau to the subject: he made a set of experiments a few months afterwards, and read a paper on the _phenomena of the air during combustion_. It was soon after that he made a set of experiments on the time taken by different substances to absorb or emit a given quantity of heat. These experiments, if properly followed out, would have led to the discovery of _specific heat_; but in his hands they seem to have been unproductive. In the year 1772 he published a collection of scientific essays under the title of "Digressions Académiques." The memoirs on _phlogiston_, _crystallization_, and _solution_, found in this book deserve particular attention, and show the superiority of Morveau over most of the chemists of the time.