Biography

 

When Miguel Angel de Quevedo entered École des Ponts et Chaussées in 1884, he was admitted by ministerial decision as a Mexican civil servant.However, it would seem that he came to Paris to study astronomy with Camillle Flammarion in his Institute.

École des Ponts et Chaussées must have seemed more reasonable for a 22-year-old foreigner.

Although Miguel Angel de Quevedo is recorded in the register of foreign students at École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées for the session 1884-1885 as a third-class external student, his entry to the School was difficult to say the least.

It is true that it is stated in the School Inspector’s register that he followed the preparatory classes in 1883. And that he failed.Very quickly, in fact. Registered under record 1793 on October 11, 1883 in that register, in the heading on:“Entrance examination for the admission of students into preparatory classes”, Miguel Angel de Quevedo is referred to as follows:“The examination of these compositions [written, analytical algebra and geometry; graphs, wash drawings and working drawings] prompted the jury [Gariel, Haag, Pillet and Collignon] immediately to exclude[…] de Quevedo who had resolved none of the questions asked and had produced completely worthless compositions”.

However, he was apparently “exceptionally” permitted to follow the classes as an observer, as mentioned in the same register, at his request for exemption from the entry examination, recorded under number 1835. Collignon moreover added “treat M. de Quevedo with special kindness because of the private reasons he previously explained to us”.Although we know nothing more of these reasons, we sense a complicity with the desire to be an engineer, which probably exists in few students.

Apropos of this preparatory training which prepared future engineering students and external students for the entrance examination, it was introduced in 1875. On the basis of a year of examinations, students could sit the entrance examination as external students.In 1883, there were 13 students receiving theoretical classes in analysis, mechanics, physics and chemistry, and finally in descriptive geometry with stereotomy and architecture.

Through the good offices of a minister in Mexico whose title we don’t know, since the introductory letter has not so far been found, Miguel Angel de Quevedo sent a request for exemption from the entrance examination of 1884 under the Order of February 14, 1852, which exempted students recommended by their government from the examination.The reply by Edouard Collignon, numbered 1835 in the Inspector’s register, was very clear:no.

He refused first on principle, since Miguel Angel de Quevedo does not really seem to have been a civil servant at that time, or at least not explicitly:“Should it be inferred from the terms of the letter sent to us by the Minister of Foreign Affairs that M. De Quevedo has the right to the title of civil servant in his government?This would appear doubtful, since it would have been simpler to say so explicitly, as the applicant is not unaware of this reason for exemption.”

He also refused because, in his view, Miguel Angel de Quevedo did not have the necessary capacities to enter the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.After all, he was no more than a bachelor of sciences:“We would add that the recently acquired degree of bachelor of sciences […] is far from sufficient for access to our external classes, since the programme required for entry to the classes is much more extensive than that […] of the baccalaureate.”

He further refused because he had allowed Miguel Angel de Quevedo to follow the oral sessions of the preparatory classes after his failure in 1883. Of course, he could not have taken the examinations, but he would have had the necessary preparation for the entrance exam in October 1884:“we believe that it is even in his interest to take this examination.”

Collignon’s involvement gives us a better understanding of Miguel Angel de Quevedo’s student career:he was at lycée in Bordeaux.

Bordeaux was France’s third biggest city, drawing its wealth from its maritime and colonial trade, in particular sugarcane, cod and groundnuts, from its access to the Latin American countries, and finally from the export of timber from the Landes.Like Paris, this city gradually acquired wide boulevards, theatres, a railway line to Paris, a sewage system and street lighting in 1860. After 1875, the city erected a series of monumental statues to the glory of its historical figures, along with fountains.

To return to Miguel Angel de Quevedo and his somewhat bizarre entry to École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, it would seem that he had sufficient connections to be able to benefit from a ministerial decision dated October 30, 1884, allowing him to avoid the entrance examination.Yet this decision is not referred to anywhere on the records held by École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.The only mention appeared late on, and without comment, in record No. 6 of the deliberations of the École des Ponts et Chaussées Council (1878-1896), in three lines in the minutes of the School Council session of February 13, 1885:“a ministerial decision […] authorising M. de Quevedo to follow the courses at École des Ponts et Chaussées as an external student.”

It is quite remarkable to find nothing added by the Inspector on the subject, and in the absence of the original letters regarding this affair, nothing more can be said.

So Miguel Angel de Quevedo entered a class of 17 students, 10 of them French, 3 Romanian, 2 Greek, 1 Brazilian, 1 Colombian and 2 Mexican.Manuel de Arrigunaga, the other Mexico and in the class of 1884-1887, remained very close to École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, since he was one of the founders of the Association of Civil Engineers, former students of École des Ponts et Chaussées.He also wrote a pamphlet on conic perspective in French.

During Miguel Angel de Quevedo’s time at the school, 2 French students stood out:Desroches and Lambert, both conductors of the Ponts et Chaussées, to whom success probably came more easily firstly because they had already taken the entrance examinations to the corps, and also because of the existence of manuals to which only they had access, published by Dunod and Vicq, two major Parisian scientific and technical publishers (cf. “Library of public works managers”).

The first foreigner to complete his third year studies behind the above two conductors was Brazilian, Lucio Freitas d’Amaral, who was the engineer who built the train line from Recife to Caruaru in the state of Céara (Brazil).

Miguel Angel de Quevedo and de Arrigunaga where average student who, given their results, would seem only to have been interested in leaving the school with a degree.

The classes ran from November to April in the following year, with the month of May being set aside for end of year exams which determined promotion to the class above, or the award of a final degree.

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