A. D. 1625.
The biography of Salomon de Caus and the account of his labours and his discoveries were scarcely known until the year 1828, when a learned French scholar, Arago, published for the first time in L’Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes, a remarkable article upon the history of the steam-engine.
In it he cites the work of Salomon de Caus entitled Les raisons des forces mouvantes avec diverses machines, &c., which was first published at Frankfort in 1615 and reprinted at Paris in 1624. M. Arago draws from it the conclusion that De Caus was the original inventor of the steam-engine. Six years later there appeared in the Musée des Familles, a letter from the celebrated Marion Delorme, supposed to have been written on the 3rd February 1641 to her lover Cinq-Mars. It is as follows:
“My dear d’Effiat,[36] Whilst you are forgetting me at Narbonne and giving yourself up to the pleasures of the court and the delight of thwarting the cardinal, I, pursuant to the wishes you have expressed, am doing the honours to your English lord, the Marquis of Worcester, and I am taking him, or rather he is taking me, from sight to sight, always choosing the dullest and the saddest; speaking little, listening with great attention, and fixing upon those whom he questions two large blue eyes which seem to penetrate to the very depths of their understanding. Moreover, he is never satisfied with the explanations that are given him, and scarcely ever sees things from the point of view in which they are represented. As an instance of this I will mention the visit we made together to Bicêtre, where he thinks he has discovered in a maniac a man of genius. If the man were not raging mad I really believe that your Marquis would have demanded his freedom, that he might take him with him to London and listen to his ravings from morning till night.
“As we were crossing the court-yard of the asylum, I more dead than alive from fright, a hideous face appeared behind the large grating and began to call out in a crazy voice. ‘I am not mad; I have made a great discovery that will enrich any country that will carry it out.’ ‘What is this discovery?’ said I to the person who was shewing us over the asylum. ‘Ah!’ said he, shrugging his shoulders, ‘it is something very simple, but you would never guess it. It is the employment of the steam of boiling water.’ At this I burst out laughing. ‘This man,’ resumed the warder, ‘is called Salomon de Caus. He came from Normandy four years ago to present a memoir to the king upon the marvellous effects that might be produced from his invention. To listen to him, you might make use of steam to move a theatre, to propel carriages, and in fact to perform endless miracles.’ The Cardinal dismissed this fool without giving him a hearing. Salomon de Caus, not at all discouraged, took upon himself to follow my lord cardinal everywhere, who, tired of finding him incessantly at his heels, and importuned by his follies, ordered him to Bicêtre, where he has been confined for three years and a half, and where, as you have just heard, he cries out to every visitor, that he is not mad, and that he has made a wonderful discovery. He has even written a book on this subject which is in my possession.’
“My Lord Worcester, who all this time appeared to be in deep thought, asked to see the book, and after having read a few pages, said, ‘This man is not mad, and in my country, instead of being shut up in a lunatic asylum he would be laden with wealth. Take me to him, I wish to question him. He was conducted to his cell, but came back looking grave and sad. ‘Now he is quite mad,’ said he, ‘it is you who have made him so; misfortune and confinement have completely destroyed his reason; but when you put him into that cell you enclosed in it the greatest genius of your epoch.’ Thereupon we took our leave, and since then he speaks of no one but Salomon de Caus.[37] Adieu my dear and loyal Henry; return soon, and do not be so happy where you are, as to forget that a little love must be left for me. Marion Delorme.”
The success obtained by this fictitious letter was immense and lasting. The anecdote became very popular, and was copied into standard works, represented in engravings, chased on silver goblets, &c. At length some incredulous critics examined more closely into the matter, and found that not only had Salomon de Caus never been confined in a lunatic asylum, but that he had held the appointment of engineer and architect to Louis XIII. up to the time of his death, in 1630, while Marion Delorme is asserted to have visited Bicêtre in 1641!!
On tracing this hoax to its source, we find that M. Henri Berthoud, a literary man of some repute and a constant contributor to the Musée des Familles, confesses that the letter imputed to Marion, was in fact written by himself. The editor of this journal had requested Gavarni to furnish him with a drawing for a tale in which a madman was introduced looking through the bars of his cell. The drawing was executed and engraved, but arrived too late; and the tale, which could not wait, appeared without the illustration. However, as the wood-engraving was effective, and moreover was paid for, the editor was unwilling that it should be useless. Berthoud was therefore commissioned to look for a subject and to invent a story to which the engraving might be applied.
Strangely enough, the world refused to believe in M. Berthoud’s confession, so great a hold had the anecdote taken on the public mind; and a Paris newspaper went so far even as to declare that the original autograph of this letter was to be seen in a library in Normandy! M. Berthoud wrote again denying its existence, and offered a million of francs to any one who would produce the said letter.
From that time the affair was no more spoken of, and Salomon de Caus was allowed to remain in undisputed possession of his fame as having been the first to point out the use of steam in his work Les raisons des forces mouvantes. He had previously been employed as engineer to Henry Prince of Wales,[38] son of James I., and he published in London a folio volume, “La perspective, avec les raisons des ombres et miroirs.”
In his dedication of another work to the queen of England in 1614, we find some allusion made to the construction of hydraulic machines. On his return to France he, as we said before, was appointed engineer to Louis XIII., and was doubtless encouraged by Cardinal Richelieu, that great patron of arts and letters.
In the castle of Heidelberg we find another instance of the difficulty that exists in uprooting an historical error. There is in the Galerie des Antiquités of this castle a portrait on wood of Salomon de Caus. Above this portrait is exhibited a folio volume of this author, the Hortus Palatinus, Francofurti 1620, apud Joh. Theod. de Bry, with plates. A manuscript note that accompanies this volume, mentions that the letter of Marion Delorme describing the madman of Bicêtre was extracted from the Gazette de France of 3rd March 1834.
Is it not singular that Heidelberg still remains in ignorance of the truth respecting this absurd story, and that the extract from the Gazette de France is still permitted to mislead the public?
As recently also as the 30th September 1865, at a banquet given at Limoges, M. le Vicomte de la Guéronnière, a senator and a man of letters, who presided, made a speech which was reproduced in the Moniteur and in which he repeats the anecdote of Salomon de Caus and Bicêtre. The newspaper L’Intermédiaire, in its 45th number, of the 10th November 1865, designates this persistence in error as inept and stupid.
The works of de Caus were held in high estimation among learned men during the whole of the 17th century. He had however been anticipated in the discovery of the application of the power of steam for propelling large bodies.
On the 17th of April 1543, the Spaniard Don Blasco de Garay, launched a steam-vessel at Barcelona in the presence of the Emperor Charles V. It was an old ship of 200 tons called La sanctissima Trinidada, which had been fitted up for the experiment, and which moved at the rate of ten miles an hour. The inventor of this first steam-vessel was looked upon as a mere enthusiast whose imagination had run wild, and his only encouragement was a donation of 200,000 marevedis from his sovereign. The Emperor Charles no more dreamt of using a discovery which at that time would have placed the whole of Europe at his feet, than did Napoleon I., three centuries later, when the ingenious Fulton suggested to him the application of steam to navigation. It is well known that Fulton was not even permitted to make an essay of this new propelling force in presence of the French Emperor.
So then we must date the fact of the introduction of steam navigation as far back as 1543; anterior to Salomon de Caus in 1615, to the Marquis of Worcester in 1663, to captain Savary in 1693, to Dr. Papin in 1696, and to Fulton and others, who all lay claim to the original idea.
But we may be wrong after all in denying originality to these men, for we have no proof that either of them had any knowledge of the discoveries of his predecessors.
It was not until the 18th of March 1816, that the first steam-vessel appeared in France, making her entrance into the seaport of Havre. She was the Eliza, which had left Newhaven in England on the previous day.