TO-DAY IN HISTORY

Southland Times, Issue 20770, 10 May 1929, Page 6

TO-DAY IN HISTORY

MAY 10 Born: A. R. J. Turgot, French Minister of Finance, Paris, 1727. Died: Mareschal de Marillac, beheaded at Paris, 1632: La Bruyere, author, 1696, Barton Boqth, comedian, Cowley, 1733: Louis XV., King of France, 1774: Caroline Matilda Queen of Denmark, Zelle, 1775: Gen eral De Dampierre, killed at Tamars. 1793. LOUIS XV. Louis XV., though his private life was immoral, and his public conduct deficient in firmness and energy, was not without some of those merits which are always so much appreciated when they occur in high places. He has the credit of having been a liberal encourager of the useful arts. In connection with this feature of his character a strang story, is told. A native of Dauphiny, named Dupre, who had passed his life in making experiments in chemistry, professed to have invented a kind of fire so rapid and devouring, that it could neither be evaded nor quenched, water only giving it a fresh activity. On the canal of Versailles, in presence of the king, in the court of the 'arsenal of Paris, and in other places, Dupre made experiments the results of which astounded the beholders. When it fully appeared that a man possessing this secret could burn a fleet or destroy a town in spite of all resistance, Louis forbade that the invention should be made public. Though he was then embarrassed with a war with England, whose fleet it was most important that he should destroy, he declined to avail himself of an invention, the suppression of which he deemed in the general interests of humanity. Dupre died some time after, carrying the secret with him to the grave. One naturally listens to all such stories with a certain degree of incredulity; yet it does not seem beyond the hopes of science to invent a fire which would, by the very tremendousness of its effects, make war an absurdity, and so force on the day when a general policy of nations will prevent any one from entering on hostilities afflicting to itself and others.