Note 73 — Chapter III · THE STEAM ENGINE
Reading edition
A well-known story, quoted at length in the Memoirs of Sir John Barrow, connected de Caus with the Marquis of Worcester in dramatic fashion. The Marquis was being conducted through the prison of the Bicêtre in Paris when his attention was attracted by the screams of an old madman who had made a wonderful discovery of the power of steam, and who had so importuned Cardinal Richelieu that he had been incarcerated as a nuisance.
“This person,” said the insolvent Lord Worcester after conversing with him, “is no madman; and in my country, instead of shutting him up, they would heap riches upon him. In this prison you have buried the greatest genius of your age.”
The fable, and its exposure by a French writer, M. Figuier, are described in Dirck’s book.