Thursday, May 5, 2016

Bourbaki and Felix Klein

A colleague just sent me Xerox copies of a few pages of a 1899 biography of the général Bourbaki. Its author, François Bournand, was the private secretary of Édouard Drumont, an antisemitic writer and journalist. The book would probably not be worth much being mentioned here without its dedication:

À l'abbé Félix Klein
de l'Institut catholique
Hommage respectueux de son dévoué en N.-S.
François Bournand
Professeur d'histoire de l'art à l'École professionnelle catholique



Abbé is abbot, in this context, a catholic priest without a parish; the French initials N.-S. mean Notre Seigneur, Our Lord. It appears that this Félix Klein (note the accent on the e) also has a Wikipedia page.