186 Heilbron
to classical literature by detailing a hydraulic system by which Hercules
could have cleaned the Augean stables. He wrote a journey to the center
of Earth in which, in only fi ve volumes, his adventurers explained the
natural philosophy of the Enlightenment to intelligent kobolds.^34 Like
Casanova, however, they talked more than they performed.
A good living could be made by preparing people to talk well about
nature. The highest ranking of these philosophical elocutionists by vir-
tue of the status of his clients was the abbé Jean- Antoine Nollet. These
included duchesses by the carriageful, the royal children, and the royal
artillery. Nollet was no mere entertainer. He added to his income by mak-
ing instruments, writing books, and collecting his salary as a member of
the Paris Academy. His paler counterpart in England, Jean Théophile De-
saguliers, the son of Huguenot refugees, began as curator of experiments
at the Royal Society, of which he was a Fellow, demonstrated the Newto-
nian philosophy to visiting dignitaries, spread it among his fellow ma-
sons, and lectured to London audiences who could afford the guinea per
course. Several other members of the royal societies of Paris and London
made a living lecturing in the metropolises and also, in England, on the
road. Benjamin Martin, who aspired to but did not achieve membership
in the Royal Society, was one of these entrepreneurs. His description of a
tour in the country suggests adventures of almost Casanovan quality as
well as the philosophical attainments of the English countryside. “There
are many places I’ve been so barbarously ignorant, that they have taken
me for a Magician; yea, some have threaten’d my life, for raising Storms
and Hurricanes: Nor would I show my face in some Towns, but in com-
pany with the Clergy and Gentry, who were of the Course.” One intrepid
lecturer made it all the way to Philadelphia, where his show awakened
Franklin’s interest in electricity.^35
Further down the scale of purveyors of natural philosophy were the
buskers and jugglers who made “agréable” and “curieuse” synonyms for
“physique.” The Almanach dauphin for 1777 lists four “physiciens.” One was
and another was to become a member of the Paris Academy; a third op-
erated a cabinet of curiosities, and the fourth, “known for his extreme
sleight of hand,” gave magical shows. After the Seven Years’ War, which
depressed the business of the natural philosophical lecturer, some demon-
strators rose to the summit previously reached only by Nollet, and, in the
unhappy case of Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier, even higher. Proprietor
of a musée in Paris with seven hundred subscribers, Pilâtre de Rozier saw
the promise of the new montgolfi ères whose launchings brought crowds to
Paris in the early 1780s. He attempted to cross the English Channel in a
basket hanging from a balloon suspended from a large bag of hydrogen.