A life in science

Michel Edmond’s vocation appeared very early, in 1824 it seems. His diary gives an account of the observations he carried out; from 1841 to 1846, we thus find at the end of each month the ephemeris of the birds and insects he had caught sight of; subsequently such observations are found in the form of a note, but the substance of his observations and conclusions must be read not in his diary but in his scientific writings. On a scientific level the journal’s interest is to be found elsewhere: he shows how to conduct science in a precise domain, in a provincial town but one which was endowed with a university which was rapidly developing.

The reader thus discovers the functioning of the networks which established themselves outside of the scholarly societies and the Academy. Michel Edmond invited to his home Liège scientists, for working lunches we would today say, above all those attached to the faculties of science and medicine, thus offering them the possibility to exchange their ideas outside the academic framework. One can also follow in his Journal the development of zoological research, but in a purely factual manner, one would be tempted to write. ‘It can be surprising,’ note the Journal’s two editors, ‘that he never mentions the theories of Darwin, for example. They nonetheless touched very closely on his scientific activities and it was a subject debated in his day. We do not know what he thought of evolutionism.’ Over the course of these pages we can see Michel Edmond’s reputation grow: foreign learned societies reserved a place for him, he was often called beyond our borders to order and classify insect collections. He himself owned a magnificent collection of birds and insects (today in the Brussels Royal Natural History Museum), which foreign researchers came to study.

The liberal man

The Journal clearly shows that Michel Edmond de Selys’ political activity was not the past time of a rich man who practiced it in a dilettante fashion. His commitment to the Waremme commune, the Province of Liège, to the Senate and to the Liberal Party is real. His is a constant presence at meetings; he speaks up to defend his local district and scientific research. Contrary to what the reader today might think, his election did not always go without saying. Even if he was a well known and wealthy notable, and the vote during this epoch was on a censal basis, he often had to fight to be elected. His diary bears witness to his election campaigns, which one is tempted to describe as ‘American style campaigns’! He had to go door to door accompanied by a local member of the party, to convince each voter. But, as is the case for his scientific life, the author almost never allows himself to pass comment. He recounts the facts, with a sometimes exasperating precision (‘took the train at such an hour to go to X; the journey took X hours...’ is a notation which one comes across often!), lists the speeches, the members of the assemblies, the subjects broached, etc but we almost every time know nothing about what he thinks about the major questions of the day. One exception: on the independence of Belgium, the young Michel Edmond, a Francophile immersed in the ideals of the Enlightenment, was not very favourable to the establishment of the Saxe-Cobourg monarchy. But if we know that he rushed to Paris in 1848 to sniff the air of revolution, he says nothing about what he really thinks of it!