Camille
Flammarion was born in
Montigny-Le-Roy, today known as
Haute-Marne , France , on February
26th, 1842 . He disincarnated in
Juvissy , France , on June 4th,
1925.
Flammarion was
a man whose works enlightened the
XIX century. He was the oldest of
a family of four children, and at
a very young age revealed
exceptional qualities. He usually
complained that time did not allow
him to accomplish a tenth of that
which he had planned. At four he
already knew how to read, at four
and a half knew how to write, and
at five already dominated the
rudiments of grammar and
arithmetic. He turned out to have
the highest grades at the school
that he attended.
In order to be
able to follow the ecclesiastical
career, he was enrolled with Vicar
Lassalle to learn Latin. Through
him Flammarion was introduced to
the New Testament and Oratory. In
a short time he was reading the
speeches of Massilon and Bonsuet.
Priest Mirbel spoke about the
beauty of science and of the
greatness of Astronomy and little
did he know that one of his
students was literally drinking up
his words. That student was
Camille Flammarion, the one that
would illustrate and demonstrate
the letter and the Gaelic-Roman
significance of his name -
Flammarion: “The one who carries
the light ".
In the
religious classes he was taught
that only one thing is essential:
"the salvation of the soul," and
his teachers said: "Of what use
can it be to man to conquer the
Universe if he ends up losing his
soul?"
The life of
the Flammarion family was a very
difficult one, and Camille
understood his father's merit when
he decided to delegate everything
he possessed to the creditors. He
recognized in him, the most
beautiful example of energy and
work; however, that situation led
him to live with few resources.
After a long
search, Camille finally found a
job as an engraver’s apprentice,
and received room and board as
part of his payment. He had very
little to eat and not of good
quality. He slept on a hard bed,
with the barest of comforts. The
work was rough and his employer
was very demanding, as he desired
everything to be accomplished
quickly. Flammarion intended to
complete his studies, particularly
mathematics, the English language
and Latin. He desired to obtain a
bachelor degree, and in order to
achieve this he was obliged to
study at night by himself. He went
to bed late and not always had a
candle. He usually wrote under the
moonlight, yet he considered
himself to be a very happy person.
In spite of studying at night, he
worked a 15 to16 hours day. He
entered the School of Drawing of
the Friars of São Roque's Church,
which he attended every Thursdays.
Naturally, his Sundays were free
and he managed to find a way to
occupy himself. On this day he
attended the conferences given by
the abbot on Astronomy. Soon
thereafter he was diffusing the
association of the drawing
students of São Roque's Friars,
all of the apprentices resided in
the neighborhoods. His objective
was to dedicate himself to the
sciences, literature and drawing,
which was quite an ambitious
program.
At 16 years of
age, Camille Flammarion was
elected president of the Academy,
and when it was inaugurated,
Flammarion’s opening speech was
“The Marvels of Nature." At that
same time he wrote “Universal
Cosmogony,” a book of five hundred
pages. His brother, who was very
close to him, and he became his
bookseller and publisher. Also, at
16 years of age, he wrote his
first work called "The World
Before the Appearance of
Humankind.” He liked Astronomy
more than Geology. To summarize
his life one could say: to pass
with difficulty, to study
excessively, and to work in
exaggeration.
One Sunday he
fainted during mass, but in fact
it turned out to be a providential
fainting. Doctor Edouvard Fornié
went to see the patient. Next to
his bed there was a manuscript of
the book "Universal Cosmology.”
After seeing the work, Dr. Fornié
thought that Camille deserved a
better position, and promised, to
place him in the Observatory, as a
student of Astronomy. Upon
entering the Observatory of Paris,
which at the time was managed by
Levèrrier, he suffered excessively
due to the impertinences of the
director's persecutions. Levèrrier
could not conceive of the idea of
such a young man actually being
able to understand studies of such
a transcendental order.
Leaving the
Observatory of Paris, in 1862, he
continued to pursue his studies
more freely, thus being able to
delegate to Humanity his most
beautiful teachings on the silent
areas of the Infinite. Free from
the suffocating atmosphere of the
Observatory, he published the
"Plurality of the Inhabited
Worlds,” that same year,
attracting the attention of all
scholars. In order to understand
the direction of the aerial
currents, in 1868, he researched
about aerostatic ascension.
For the
publication of his "Popular
Astronomy,” in 1880 he received
the Montyon prize from the French
Academy , in 1880, In 1870 he
wrote and published a study about
the rotation of the celestial
bodies, through which he
demonstrated that the movement in
the rotation of the planets, is an
application of the gravity to its
respective densities. He became a
convicted spiritist, and a
personal and dedicated friend of
Allan Kardec. He was the speaker
designated to give the last rites
at the grave of the Codifier of
Spiritism, whom he denominated "the
reason incarnated.”
His works, in
a general way, rotate around the
spiritist postulates of the
plurality of the inhabited worlds.
They are the following: "The
Imaginary Worlds and the Real
Worlds,” “The Celestial Marvels,”
“God in Nature,” “Scientific
Contemplations,” "Studies and
Reading on Astronomy,” “Atmosphere,”
“Popular Astronomy,” “ General
Description of the Sky,” "The
World Before the Appearance of
Humankind,” "The Comets,” "The
Haunted Houses,” "Narrations of
the Infinite,” “Stellar Dream,”
“Urânia,” “Estella,” "The Unknown,”
"Death and its Mystery,” “Psychic
Problems,” "The End of the World,”
and others.
According to Gabriel Delanne,
Camille Flammarion was a
philosopher crafted in a wise
person, possessing the art of
the science and the science of
the art. Flammarion--" poet of
the Skies,” as he was
denominated by Michelet—“became
an exponent of Spiritism,
because, he was always coherent
had unshakable convictions, a
true and innovative idealist. |