The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-02
The Pascal.NewtOn Controversy.
NEW EVIDENCE AGAINST NJ. oHAsLEs

NEW EVIDENCE AGAINST NJ. CHAsLEs.
The Paris correspondent of the London Star
says
"The public is sufficiently acquainted with
the monstrous forgery patronized by M.
Chasles, of the Institute, with view to rob
our immortal Newton of the merit of his great
discovery of universal attraction, and attri-
buting il to Pascal. M. Leverrier, the astrono-
mer; NJ Henri Martin, the historian, and all
high minded Frenchmen, have rejected the
idea with scorn, after adducing the strongest
possible scientific arguments against it; but
M. Chasles sticks to 1t with the tenacity of
shark, and in the teeth Of the clearest evil
dence. This accounts for the sensation created
by work which has just appeared, by M.
Faugere, entitled, Defense de B. Pascal, ct
Accessoirement de Newton, Galile, Monies
quieu, ETC., contre les Faux Documents, pre-
sentes par M. Chasles a pAcademie des
Sciences On perusing it, one is at loss to
conceive how M. Chasles can venture for
moment to resist the overwhelming evidence
brought against him, though there is little
doubt that, with his usual imperturbable bold
ness, he will stigmatize his ejversary's really
learned works as absurd, and hold up his own
trumpery to the world as the real Simon
Pure
I'M. Faugere, who holds a high position at
the Foreign Office, edited Pascal's Pensees' in
1874, from the original manuscript of the
Bibliotheque Imperial, and consequently
knows Pascaps handwriting as well as his
own. On that occasion, having accidentally
met with spurious signature, believed to be
Pascal's, he published a fac Simile of it by way
of comparison with the real one. This false
signature is the one appended to the forged
letters attributed to Pascal by M. Chasles and
there is consequently the strongest presump-
tiOn that these forgeries do not date further
back than 1874, so that all the suspicious
heaped upon Desmaiseaux, as having orgi-
mated them about 1740. falls to the ground.
Nj. Faugere does not content himself in his
present work with publishing fac simiLeS both
of forged documents and of authentic ones to
be compared with them (needless to add, there
is not even in the former an attempt at imta-
tiOn).
"After reminding the reader that NJ. Chasles
has constantly refused to say from whom he
got his forged trash, and that when NJ Faugere
proposed that the Academy OF Sciences should
have the handwriting examined by the direc-
tor of the Imperial Library and his colleagues,
M. Chasles fatty refused on the absurd plea
that those gentlemen were not competent
judges. M Faugere proceeds to show that
the man who committed the forgery not ouly
made up his documents, with scraps of letters
written by others, and published long ago, but
neither followed the photography of the time
nor even the style; and that he used many
words of recent growth. In short, there can
not be fuller refutation than this work CON
tains of M. Chasles' waste paper. Rumor
(perhaps inspired by himselD asserts that he
paid f4OO0 tor it, and that his present obsti-
macy is mainly owing TO his desire of keeping
up the marketable value of this gigantic mass
OF rubbish"