The
rich and splendid library of electrical works which he is forming, has
been munificently presented to the Institution of Electrical Engineers.
VII. COUNT DU MONCEL.
Theodose-Achille-Louis, Comte du Moncel, was born at Paris on March 6,
1821. His father was a peer of France, one of the old nobility, and a
General of Engineers. He possessed a model farm near Cherbourg, and had
set his heart on training his son to carry on this pet project; but
young Du Moncel, under the combined influence of a desire for travel, a
love of archaeology, and a rare talent for drawing, went off to Greece,
and filled his portfolio with views of the Parthenon and many other
pictures of that classic region. His father avenged himself by
declining to send him any money; but the artist sold his sketches and
relied solely on his pencil. On returning to Paris he supported
himself by his art, but at the same time gratified his taste for science
in a discursive manner. A beautiful and accomplished lady of the Court,
Mademoiselle Camille Clementine Adelaide Bachasson de Montalivet,
belonging to a noble and distinguished family, had plighted her troth
with him, and, as we have been told, descended one day from her
carriage, and wedded the man of her heart, in the humble room of a flat
not far from the Grand Opera House.
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