It is stated in the notes to Cousin's éloge, and has been repeated, that Fourier was placed at the head of a bureau de statistique by the prefect of the Seine, the Comte de Chabrol. But there is hardly any authentication. Anything done in the subject by Joseph Fourier, the most powerful working member of the Egyptian commission, the originator of mathematical results of the first order of genius, novelty, and utility, and an experienced public man, must be worthy of attention. But so little is his statistical career known, that the Biographie Universelle (Michaud, 1856) only ventures its mention of the connexion of Fourier with the volumes presently described as suivant plusieurs personnes bien instruits.