Life
He was born in Havré (a small city near Mons), then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, later in Belgium. From 1842, he worked as a voluntary assistant at the Brussels Observatory and began writing papers. He eventually became the observatory's director. He travelled a lot during his career, to Paris, the United Kingdom, United States, Mexico and Jamaica.
The scientist moved to New Orleans after being removed from the Belgian Royal Observatory for "outspoken political views". In Texas by 1858, he first worked as a surveyor, then moved to Uvalde and organized early scientific expeditions.
He believed in the abolition of slavery and so aided the escape of some notable unionists from San Antonio. He soon had to flee, disguised as a Mexican laborer, into Mexico.
Later in New Orleans, when the city had been taken by Federal forces, he ran a Union newspaper, the bilingual New Orleans Tribune - La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans, then for eight years lived in Jamaica. Finally, having kept his European contacts, he was reinstated as director of the Royal Observatory in Brussels.
In December 1882, however, Houzeau made a return trip to Texas. He led a scientific expedition to San Antonio to observe a locally visible transit of Venus across the face of the sun—in those days a method of measuring time and gravity.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Charles Houzeau
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—Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Mr. Frisbee III (Eric Idle)
“If it is the mark of the artist to love art before everything, to renounce everything for its sake, to think all the sweet human things of life well lost if only he may attain something, do some good, great work—then I was never an artist.”
—Ellen Terry (1847–1928)
“In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can’t long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)