The Épître d’un mathématicien à un poëte (A Mathematician’s Epistle to a Poet) is Cauchy’s principal poetic work. It was read at a public session of the five Académies, and according to the eulogy published by Joseph Bertrand in 1898, its respectable literary quality disconcerted everyone who had hoped to savor the malicious pleasure of seeing a great mathematician descend into ridicule.
Eternal questions
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Many mathematicians can recognize familiar concerns in Cauchy’s verse. One is the perennial question of the usefulness of mathematics:
You think me possessed by some evil spirit,
Alcippe, you complain of the strange obsession
