Chapter IV: Part 4

I said above that I had saved the Academy from some deplorable choices; I will only cite a single instance, on which occasion I had the sorrow of finding myself in opposition to M. de Laplace. The illustrious geometer wished a vacant place in the astronomical section to be granted to M. Nicollet,--a man without talent, and, moreover, suspected of misdeeds which reflected on his honour in the most serious degree. At the close of a contest, which I maintained undisguisedly, notwithstanding the danger which might follow from thus braving the powerful protectors of M. Nicollet, the Academy proceeded to the ballot; the respected M. Damoiseau, whose election I had supported, obtained forty-five votes out of forty-eight. Thus M. Nicollet had collected but three.

"I see," said M. de Laplace to me, "that it is useless to struggle against young people; I acknowledge that the man who is called the _great elector_ of the Academy is more powerful than I am."

"No," replied I; "M. Arago can only succeed in counterbalancing the opinion justly preponderating for M. de Laplace, when the right is found to be without possible contradiction on his side."

A short time afterwards M. Nicollet had run away to America, and the Bureau of Longitude had a warrant passed to expel him ignominiously from its bosom.

I would warn those savans, who, having early entered the Academy, might be tempted to imitate my example, to expect nothing beyond the satisfaction of their conscience. I warn them, with a knowledge of the case, that gratitude will almost always be found wanting.

The elected academician, whose merits you have sometimes exalted beyond measure, pretends that you have done no more than justice to him; that you have only fulfilled a duty, and that he therefore owes you no thanks.

Delambre died the 19th August, 1822. After the necessary delay, they proceeded to fill his place. The situation of Perpetual Secretary is not one which can long be left vacant. The Academy named a commission to present it with candidates; it was composed of Messrs. de Laplace, Arago, Legendre, Rossel, Prony, and Lacroix. The list presented was composed of the names of Messrs. Biot, Fourier, and Arago. It is not necessary for me to say with what obstinacy I opposed the inscription of my name on this list; I was compelled to give way to the will of my colleagues, but I seized the first opportunity of declaring publicly that I had neither the expectation nor the wish to obtain a single vote; that, moreover, I had on my hands already as much work as I could get through; that in this respect M. Biot was in the same position; and that, in short, I should vote for the nomination of M. Fourier.

It was supposed, but I dare not flatter myself that it was the fact, that my declaration exercised a certain influence on the result of the ballot. The result was as follows: M. Fourier received thirty-eight votes, and M. Biot ten. In a case of this nature each man carefully conceals his vote, in order not to run the risk of future disagreement with him who may be invested with the authority which the Academy gives to the perpetual secretary. I do not know whether I shall be pardoned if I recount an incident which amused the Academy at the time.

M. de Laplace, at the moment of voting, took two plain pieces of paper; his neighbour was guilty of the indiscretion of looking, and saw distinctly that the illustrious geometer wrote the name of Fourier on both of them. After quietly folding them up, M. de Laplace put the papers into his hat, shook it, and said to this same curious neighbour: "You see, I have written two papers; I am going to tear up one, I shall put the other into the urn; I shall thus be myself ignorant for which of the two candidates I have voted."

All went on as the celebrated academician had said; only that every one knew with certainty that his vote had been for Fourier; and "the calculation of probabilities" was in no way necessary for arriving at this result.

After having fulfilled the duties of secretary with much distinction, but not without some feebleness and negligence in consequence of his bad health, Fourier died the 16th of May, 1830. I declined several times the honour which the Academy appeared willing to do me, in naming me to succeed him. I believed, without false modesty, that I had not the qualities necessary to fill this important place suitably. When thirty-nine out of forty-four voters had appointed me, it was quite time that I should give in to an opinion so flattering and so plainly expressed. On the 7th of June, 1830, I, therefore, became perpetual secretary of the Academy for the Mathematical Sciences; but, conformably to the plea of an accumulation of offices, which I had used as an argument to support, in November, 1822, the election of M. Fournier, I declared that I should give in my resignation of the Professorship in the Polytechnic School. Neither the solicitations of Marshal Soult, the Minister of War, nor those of the most eminent members of the Academy, could avail in persuading me to renounce this resolution.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] With such precocious heroism it is by no means so clear that the author might not have had a hand in the revolution, from which he endeavours above to exculpate himself.

[2] Méchain, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the Institute, was charged in 1792 with the prolongation of the measure of the arc of the meridian in Spain as far as Barcelona.

During his operations in the Pyrenees, in 1794, he had known my father, who was one of the administrators of the department of the Eastern Pyrenees. Later, in 1803, when the question was agitated as to the continuation of the measure of the meridian line as far as the Balearic Islands, M. Méchain went again to Perpignan, and came to pay my father a visit. As I was about setting off to undergo the examination for admission at the Polytechnic School, my father ventured to ask him whether he could not recommend me to M. Monge. "Willingly," answered he; "but, with the frankness which is my characteristic, I ought not to leave you unaware that it appears to me improbable that your son, left to himself, can have rendered himself completely master of the subjects of which the programme consists. If, however, he be admitted, let him be destined for the artillery, or for the engineers; the career of the sciences, of which you have talked to me, is really too difficult to go through, and unless he had a special calling for it, your son would only find it deceptive." Anticipating a little the order of dates, let us compare this advice with what occurred: I went to Toulouse, underwent the examination, and was admitted; one year and a half afterwards I filled the situation of secretary at the Observatory, which had become vacant by the resignation of M. Méchain's son; one year and a half later, that is to say, four years after the Perpignan "horoscope," associated with M. Biot, I filled the place, in Spain, of the celebrated academician who had died there, a victim to his labours.

[3] This appears to be an oversight, as in a preceding page M. Arago described the fortunate release of Captain Krog from this captivity.

[4] On my return to Paris I hastened to the Jardin des Plantes to pay a visit to the lion, but he received me with a very unamiable gnashing of the teeth. Think then of the marvellous history of the Florentine lion, the subject of so many engravings, which is offered on the stall of every printseller to the eyes of the moved and astonished passers-by.

[5] An "_épileur_" is a person who removes superfluous hairs. We have been unable to ascertain what office of this kind is performed in Mohammedan funerals.

BAILLY.

BIOGRAPHY READ AT THE PUBLIC SITTING OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, THE 26TH OF FEBRUARY, 1844.

INTRODUCTION.

Gentlemen,--The learned man, illustrious in so many ways, whose life I am going to relate, was taken from France half a century ago. I hasten to make this remark, so as thoroughly to show that I have selected this subject without being deterred by complaints which I look upon as unjust and inapplicable. The glory of the members of the early Academy of Sciences is an inheritance for the present Academy. We must cherish it as we would the glory of later days; we must hallow it with the same respect, we must devote to it the same worship: the word _prescription_ would here be synonymous with ingratitude.

If it had happened, Gentlemen, that amongst the academicians who preceded us, a man, already illustrious by his labours, and, without personal ambition, yet thrown, despite himself, into the midst of a terrible revolution, exposed to a thousand unrestrained passions, had cruelly disappeared in the political effervescence--oh! then, any negligence, any delay in studying the facts would be inexcusable; the honourable contemporaries of the victim would soon be no longer there to shed the light of their honest and impartial memory on obscure events; an existence devoted to the cultivation of reason and of truth would come to be appreciated only from documents, on which, for my part, I would not blindly draw, until it shall be proved that, in revolutionary times, we can trust to the uprightness of parties.

I felt in duty bound, Gentlemen, to give you a sketch of the ideas that have led me to present to you a detailed account of the life and labours of a member of the early Academy of Sciences. The biographies which will soon follow this, will show that the studies I have undertaken respecting Carnot, Condorcet, and Bailly, have not prevented me from attending seriously to our illustrious contemporaries.

To render them a loyal and truthful homage, is the first duty of the secretaries of the Academy, and I will religiously fulfil it; without binding myself, however, to observe a strict chronological order, or to follow the civil registers step by step.

Eulogies, said an ancient authority, should be deferred until we have lost the true measure of the dead. Then we could make giants of them without any one opposing us. On the contrary, I am of opinion that biographers, especially those of academicians, ought to make all possible haste, so that every one may be represented according to his true measure, and that well-informed people may have the opportunity of rectifying the mistakes which, notwithstanding every care, almost inevitably slip into this sort of composition. I regret that our former secretaries did not adopt this rule. By deferring from year to year to analyze the scientific and political life of Bailly with their scruples, and with their usual talents, they allowed time for inconsiderateness, prejudice, and passions of every kind, to impregnate our minds with a multitude of serious errors, which have added considerably to the difficulty of my task. When I was led to form very different opinions from those that are found spread through some of the most celebrated works, on the events of the great revolution of 1789, in which our fellow-academician took an active part, I could not be so conceited as to expect to be believed on my own word. To propound my opinions then was insufficient; I had also to combat those of the historians with whom I differed. This necessity has given to the biography that I am going to read an unusual length. I solicit the kind sympathy of the assembly on this point. I hope to obtain it, I acknowledge, when I consider that my task is to analyze before you the scientific and literary claims of an illustrious colleague, to depict the uniformly noble and patriotic conduct of the first President of the National Assembly; to follow the first Mayor of Paris in all the acts of an administration, the difficulties of which appeared to be above human strength; to accompany the virtuous magistrate to the very scaffold, to unroll the mournful phases of the cruel martyrdom that he was made to undergo; to retrace, in a word, some of the greatest, some of the most terrible events of the French Revolution.

INFANCY OF BAILLY.--HIS YOUTH.--HIS LITERARY ESSAYS.--HIS MATHEMATICAL STUDIES.

John Sylvain Bailly was born at Paris in 1736. His parents were James Bailly and Cecilia Guichon.

The father of the future astronomer had charge of the king's pictures. This post had continued in the obscure but honest family of Bailly for upwards of a century.

Sylvain, while young, never quitted his paternal home. His mother would not be separated from him; it was not that she could give him the instruction required from masters in childhood, but a tenderness, allowed to run to the utmost extreme, entirely blinded her. Bailly then formed his own mind, under the eye of his parents. Nothing could be better, it seemed, than the boyhood of our brother academician, to verify the oft-repeated theory, touching the influence of imitation on the development of our faculties. Here, the result, attentively examined, would not by a great deal agree with the old hypothesis. I know not but, every thing considered, whether it would rather furnish powerful weapons to whoever would wish to maintain that, in its early habits, childhood rather seeks for contrasts.

James Bailly had an idle and light character; whilst young Sylvain from the beginning showed strong reasoning powers, and a passion for study.

The grown man felt in his own element while in noisy gayety.

But the boy loved retirement.

To the father, solitude would have been fatal; for to him life consisted in motion, sallies, witty conversations, free and easy parties, the little gay suppers of those days.

The son, on the contrary, would remain alone and quite silent for whole days. His mind sufficed to itself; he never sought the fellowship of companions of his own age. Extreme steadiness was at once his habit and his taste.

The warder of the king's pictures drew remarkably well, but did not appear to have troubled himself much with the principles of art.

His son Sylvain studied those principles deeply, and to some purpose; he became a theoretic artist of the first class, but he never could either draw or paint even moderately well.

There are few young people who would not, at some time or other, have wished to escape from the scrutinizing eyes of their parents. The contrary was the case in Bailly's family, for James used sometimes to say to his friends or to his servants, "Do not mention this peccadillo to my son. Sylvain is worth more than I am; his morals are very strict. Under the most respectful exterior, I should perceive in his manner a censure which would grieve me. I wish to avoid his tacit reproaches, even when he does not say a word."

The two characters resembled each other only in one point--in their taste for poetry, or perhaps we ought to say versification, but even here we shall perceive differences.

The father composed songs, little interludes, and farces that were acted at the _Italian Comedy_; but the son commenced at the age of sixteen by a serious work of time,--a tragedy.

This tragedy was entitled _Clothaire_. The subject, drawn from the early centuries of the French History, had led Bailly by a curious and touching coincidence to relate the tortures inflicted on a Mayor of Paris by a deluded and barbarous multitude. The work was modestly submitted to the actor Lanoue, who, although he bestowed flattering encouragement on Bailly, dissuaded him frankly from exposing _Clothaire_ to the risk of a public representation. On the advice of the comedian-author, the young poet took _Iphygenia in Tauris_ for the subject of his second composition. Such was his ardour, that by the end of three months, he had already written the last line of the fifth act of his new tragedy, and hastened to Passy, to solicit the opinion of the author of _Mahomet II_. This time Lanoue thought he perceived that his confiding young friend was not intended by nature for the drama, and he declared it to him without disguise. Bailly heard the fatal sentence with more resignation than could have been expected from a youth whose budding self-esteem received so violent a shock. He even threw his two tragedies immediately into the fire. Under similar circumstances, Fontenelle showed less docility in his youth. If the tragedy of _Aspar_ also disappeared in the flames, it was not only in consequence of the criticism of a friend; for the author went so far as to call forth the noisy judgment of the pit.

Certainly no astronomer will regret that any opinions either off-hand or well digested, on the first literary productions of Bailly, contributed to throw him into the pursuit of science. Still, for the sake of principle, it seems just to protest against the praises given to the foresight of Lanoue, to the sureness of his judgment, to the excellence of his advice. What was it in fact? A lad of sixteen or seventeen years of age, composes two tolerable tragedies, and these essays are made irrevocably to decide on his future fate. We have then forgotten that Racine had already reached the age of twenty-two, when he first appeared, producing _Theagenes and Charicles_, and the _Inimical Brothers_; that Crébillon was nearly forty years of age when he composed a tragedy on _The Death of the Sons of Brutus_, of which not a single verse has been preserved; finally, that the two first comedies of Molière, _The three rival Doctors_ and _The Schoolmaster_, are no longer known but by their titles. Let us recall to mind that reflection of Voltaire's: "It is very difficult to succeed before the age of thirty in a branch of literature that requires a knowledge of the world and of the human heart."

A happy chance showed that the sciences might open an honourable and glorious path to the discouraged poet. M. de Moncaville offered to teach him mathematics, in exchange for drawing-lessons that his son received from the warder of the king's pictures. The proposal being accepted, the progress of Sylvain Bailly in these studies was rapid and brilliant.

BAILLY BECOMES THE PUPIL OF LACAILLE.--HE IS ASSOCIATED WITH HIM IN HIS ASTRONOMICAL LABOURS.

The mathematical student soon after had one of those providential meetings which decide a young man's future fate. Mademoiselle Lejeuneux cultivated painting. It was at the house of this female artist, known afterwards as Madame La Chenaye, that Lacaille saw Bailly. The attentive, serious, and modest demeanour of the student charmed the great astronomer. He showed it in a most unequivocal manner, by offering, though so avaricious of his time, to become the guide of the future observer, and also to put him in communication with Clairaut.

It is said that from his first intercourse with Lacaille, Bailly showed a decided vocation for astronomy. This fact appears to me incontestable. At his first appearance in this line, I find him associated in the most laborious, difficult, and tiresome investigations of that great observer.

These epithets may perhaps appear extraordinary; but they will be so only to those who have learnt the science of the stars in ancient poems, either in verse or in prose.

The Chaldæans, luxuriously reclining on the perfumed terraced roofs of their houses in Babylon, under a constantly azure sky, followed with their eyes the general and majestic movements of the starry sphere; they ascertained the respective displacements of the planets, the moon, the sun; they noted the date and hour of eclipses; they sought out whether simple periods would not enable them to foretell these magnificent phenomena a long time beforehand. Thus the Chaldæans created, if I may be allowed the expression, _Contemplative Astronomy_. Their observations were neither numerous nor exact; they both made and discussed them without labour and without trouble.

Such is not, by a great deal, the position of modern astronomers. Science has felt the necessity of the celestial motions being studied in their minutest details. Theories must explain these details; it is their touchstone; it is by details that theories become confirmed or fall to the ground. Besides, in Astronomy, the most important truths, the most astonishing results, are based on the measurement of quantities of extreme minuteness. Such measures, the present bases of the science, require very fatiguing attention, infinite care, to which no learned man would bind himself, were he not sustained, and encouraged by the hope of attaining some capital determination, through an ardent and decided devotion to the subject.

The modern astronomer, really worthy of the name, must renounce the distractions of society, and even the refreshment of uninterrupted sleep. In our climates during the inclement season, the sky is almost constantly overspread by a thick curtain of clouds. Under pain of postponing by some centuries the verification of this or that theoretic point, we must watch the least clearing off, and avail ourselves of it without delay.

A favourable wind arises and dissipates the vapours in the very direction where some important phenomenon will manifest itself, and is to last only a few seconds. The astronomer, exposed to all the transitions of weather, (it is one of the conditions of accuracy,) the body painfully bent, directs the telescope of a great graduated circle in haste upon the star that he impatiently awaits. His lines for measuring are a spider's threads. If in looking he makes a mistake of half the thickness of one of these threads, the observation is good for nothing; judge what his uneasiness must be; at the critical moment, a puff of wind occasioning a vibration in the artificial light adapted to his telescope, the threads become almost invisible; the star itself, whose rays reach the eye through atmospheric strata of various density, temperature, and refrangibility, will appear to oscillate so much as to render the true position of it almost unassignable; at the very moment when extremely good definition of the object becomes indispensable to insure correctness of measures, all becomes confused, either because the eye-piece gets steamed with vapour, or that the vicinity of the very cold metal occasions an abundant secretion of tears in the eye applied to the telescope; the poor observer is then exposed to the alternative of abandoning to some other more fortunate person than himself, the ascertaining a phenomenon that will not recur during his lifetime, or introducing into the science results of problematical correctness. Finally, to complete the observation, he must read off the microscopical divisions of the graduated circle, and for what opticians call _indolent vision_ (the only sort that the ancients ever required) must substitute _strained vision_, which in a few years brings on blindness.[6]

When he has scarcely escaped from this physical and moral torture, and the astronomer wishes to know what degree of utility is deducible from his labours, he is obliged to plunge into numerical calculations of repelling length and intricacy. Some observations that have been made in less than a minute, require a whole day's work in order to be compared with the tables.

Such was the view that Lacaille, without any softening, exhibited to his young friend; such was the profession into which the adolescent poet plunged with great ardour, and without having been at all prepared for the transition.

A useful calculation constituted the first claim of our tyro to the attention of the learned world.

The year 1759 had been marked by one of those great events, the memory of which is religiously preserved in scientific history. A comet, that of 1682, had returned at the epoch foretold by Clairaut, and very nearly in the region that mathematical analysis had indicated to him. This reappearance raised comets out of the category of sublunary meteors; it gave them definitely closed curves as orbits, instead of parabolas, or even mere straight lines; attraction confined them within its immense domain; in short, these bodies ceased for ever to be liable to superstition regarding them as prognostics.

The stringency, the importance of these results, would naturally increase in proportion as the resemblance between the announced orbit and the real orbit became more evident.

This was the motive that determined so many astronomers to calculate the orbit of the comet minutely, from the observations made in 1759, throughout Europe. Bailly was one of those zealous calculators. In the present day, such a labour would scarcely deserve special mention; but we must remark that the methods at the close of the eighteenth century were far from being so perfect as those that are now in use, and that they greatly depended on the personal ability of the individual who undertook them.

Bailly resided in the Louvre. Being determined to make the theory and practice of astronomy advance together, he had an observatory established from the year 1760, at one of the windows in the upper story of the south gallery. Perhaps I may occasion surprise by giving the pompous name of _Observatory_ to the space occupied by a window, and the small number of instruments that it could contain. I admit this feeling, provided it be extended to the Royal Observatory of the epoch, to the old imposing and severe mass of stone that attracts the attention of the promenaders in the great walk of the Luxembourg. There also, the astronomers were obliged to stand in the hollow of the windows; there also they said, like Bailly: I cannot verify my quadrants either by the horizon or by the zenith, for I can neither see the horizon nor the zenith. This ought to be known, even if it should disturb the wild reveries of two or three writers, who have no scientific authority: France did not possess an observatory worthy of her, nor worthy of the science, and capable of rivalling the other observatories of Europe, until within these ten or twelve years.

The earliest observations made by Bailly, from one of the windows in the upper story of the Louvre gallery that looks out on the Pont des Arts, are dated in the beginning of 1760. The pupil of Lacaille was not yet twenty-four years old. Those observations relate to an opposition of the planet Mars. In the same year he determined the oppositions of Jupiter and of Saturn, and compared the results of his own determinations with the tables.

The subsequent year I see him associated with Lacaille in observing the transit of Venus over the sun's disk. It was an extraordinary piece of good fortune, Gentlemen, at the very commencement of his scientific life, to witness in succession two of the most interesting astronomical events: the first predicted and well established return of a comet; and one of those partial eclipses of the sun by Venus, that do not recur till after the lapse of a hundred and ten years, and from which science has deduced the indirect but exact method, without which we should still be ignorant of the fact that the sun's mean distance from our earth is thirty-eight millions of leagues.

I shall have completed the enumeration of Bailly's astronomical labours performed before he became an academician, when I have added, from observations of the comet of 1762, the calculation of its parabolic orbit; the discussion of forty-two observations of the moon by La Hire, a detailed labour destined to serve as a starting point for any person occupying himself with the lunar theory; finally, also the reduction of 515 zodiacal stars, observed by Lacaille in 1760 and 1761.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] This long list of supposed difficulties in making an exact observation is hardly worthy of a zealous astronomer. Our author shows no enthusiasm for his subject here, and ends by ascribing the whole jeremiad to Lacaille, a man of very great practical perseverance. It is to be regretted that Arago never refers to observations of his own, but constantly quotes from others, nor does he always select the best. --_Translator's Note_.

BAILLY A MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.--HIS RESEARCHES ON JUPITER'S SATELLITES.

Bailly was named member of the Academy of Sciences the 29th January, 1763. From that moment his astronomical zeal no longer knew any bounds. The laborious life of our fellow-academician might, on occasion, be set up against a line, more fanciful than true, by which an ill-natured poet stigmatized academical honours. Certainly no one would say of Bailly, that after his election,

"Il s'endormit et ne fit qu'un somme."

"He fell asleep and made but one nap (or sum)."

On the contrary, we cannot but be surprised at the multitude of literary and scientific labours that he accomplished in a few years.

Bailly's earliest researches on Jupiter's satellites began in 1763.

The subject was happily chosen. Studying it in all its generalities, he showed himself both an indefatigable computer, a clear-sighted geometer, and an industrious and able observer. Bailly's researches on the satellites of Jupiter, will always be his first and chief claim to scientific glory. Before him, the Maraldis, the Bradleys, the Wargentins had discovered empirically some of the principal perturbations that those bodies undergo, in their revolving motions around the powerful planet that rules them; but they had not been traced up to the principles of universal attraction. The initiative honour in this respect belongs to Bailly. Nor is this honour decreased by the ulterior and considerable improvements that the science has since received; even the discoveries of Lagrange and of Laplace have left this honour intact.

The knowledge of the satellitic motions rests almost entirely on the observation of the precise moment when each of those bodies disappears, by entering into the conical shadow, which the immense opaque globe of Jupiter projects on the opposite side from the sun. In the course of discussing a multitude of these eclipses, Bailly was not long in perceiving that the computers of the Satellitic Tables worked on numerical data that were not at all comparable with each other. This seemed of little consequence previous to the birth of the theory; but, after the analytical discovery of the perturbations, it became desirable to estimate the possible errors of observation, and to suggest means for remedying them. This was the object of the very considerable work that Bailly presented to the Academy in 1771.

In this beautiful memoir, the illustrious astronomer developes the series of experiments, by the aid of which each observation may give the instant of the real disappearance of a satellite, distinguished from the instant of the apparent disappearance, whatever be the power of the telescope used, whatever be the altitude of the eclipsed body above the horizon, and consequently, whatever be the transparency of the atmospheric strata through which the phenomenon is observed, also whatever be the distance from that body to the sun, or to the planet; finally, whatever be the sensibility of the observer's sight, all which circumstances considerably influence the time of apparent disappearance. The same series of ingenious and delicate observations led the author, very curiously, to the determination of the true diameters of the satellites, that is to say, of small luminous points, which, with the telescopes then in use, showed no perceptible diameter.

I will rest contented with these general considerations; only remarking, in addition, that the diaphragms used by Bailly were not intended only to diminish the quantity of light contributing to the formation of the images, but that they considerably increase the diameter, and in a variable way, at least in the instance of stars.

Under this new aspect, it will be requisite to submit the question to a new examination.

Any geometers and astronomers who wish to know all the extent of Bailly's labours, must not content themselves with consulting the collections in the Academy of Sciences; for he published, at the beginning of 1766, a separate work under the modest title of _Essay on the Theory of Jupiter's Satellites_.

The author commences with the _Astronomical History of the Satellites_. This history contains an almost complete analysis of the discoveries by Maraldi, by Bradley, by Wargentin. The labours of Galileo and his contemporaries are given with less detail and exactness. I have thought that I ought to fill up the lacunæ, by availing myself of some very precious documents published a few years since, and which were unknown to Bailly.

But this I will do in a separate notice, free from all preconceived ideas, and free from all party spirit; I will not forget that an honest man ought not to calumniate any one, not even the agents of the Inquisition.

BAILLY'S LITERARY WORKS.--HIS BIOGRAPHIES OF CHARLES V.--OF LEIBNITZ--OF PETER CORNEILLE--OF MOLIÈRE.

When Bailly entered the Academy of Sciences, the perpetual secretary was Grandjean de Fouchy. The bad health of this estimable scholar occasioned an early vacancy to be foreseen. D'Alembert cast his views on Bailly, hinted to him the survivorship to Fouchy, and proposed to him, by way of preparing the way, to write some biographies. Bailly followed the advice of the illustrious geometer, and chose as the subject of his studies, the éloges proposed by several academies, though principally by the French Academy.

From the year 1671 to the year 1758, the prize subjects proposed by the French Academy related to questions of religion and morality. The eloquence of the candidates had therefore had to exercise itself successively on the knowledge of salvation; on the merit and dignity of martyrdom; on the purity of the soul and of the body; on the danger there is in certain paths that appear safe, &c. &c. It had even to paraphrase the _Ave Maria_. According to the literal intentions of the founder, (Balzac,) each discourse was ended by a short prayer. Duclos thought in 1758, that five or six volumes of similar sermons must have exhausted the matter, and on his proposal the Academy decided that, in future, it would give as the subject of the eloquence prize, the eulogiums of the great men of the nation. Marshal Saxe, Duguay Trouin, Sully, D'Aguesseau, Descartes, figured first on this list. Later, the Academy felt itself authorized to propose the éloge of kings themselves; it entered on this new branch at the beginning of 1767, by asking for the éloge of Charles V.

Bailly entered the lists, but his essay obtained only an honourable mention.

Nothing is more instructive than to search out at what epoch originated the principles and opinions of persons who have acted an important part on the political scene, and how those opinions developed themselves. By a fatality much to be regretted, the elements of these investigations are rarely numerous or faithful. We shall not have to express these regrets relative to Bailly. Each composition shows us the serene, candid, and virtuous mind of the illustrious writer, in a new and true point of view. The éloge of Charles V. was the starting point, followed by a long series of works, and it ought to arrest our attention for a while.

The writings, crowned with the approbation of the French Academy, did not reach the public eye till they had been submitted to the severe censure of four Doctors in Theology. A special and digested approbation by the high dignitaries of the Church, whom the illustrious assembly always possessed among her members, was not a sufficient substitute for the humbling formality. If we are sure that we possess the éloge of Charles V. such as it flowed from the author's pen; if we have not reason to fear that the thoughts have undergone some mutilation, we owe it to the little favour that the discourse of Bailly enjoyed in the sitting of the Academy in 1767. Those thoughts, however, would have defied the most squeamish mind, the most shadowy susceptibility. The panegyrist unrolls with emotion the frightful misfortunes that assailed France during the reign of King John. The temerity, the improvidence of that monarch; the disgraceful passions of the King of Navarre; his treacheries; the barbarous avidity of the nobility; the seditious disposition of the people; the sanguinary depredations of the great companies; the ever recurring insolence of England; all this is expressed without disguise, yet with extreme moderation. No trait reveals, no fact even foreshadows in the author, the future President of a reforming National Assembly, still less the Mayor of Paris, during a revolutionary effervescence. The author may make Charles V. say that he will discard favour, and will call in renown to select his representatives; it will appear to him that taxes ought to be laid on riches and spared on poverty; he may even exclaim that oppression awakens ideas of equality. His temerity will not overleap this boundary. Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue, made the Chair resound with bold words of another description.

I am far from blaming this scrupulous reserve; when moderation is united to firmness, it becomes power. In a word, however, Bailly's patriotism might, I was about to say ought to, have shown itself more susceptible, more ardent, prouder. When in the elegant prosopopoeia which closes the éloge, the King of England has recalled with arrogance the fatal day of Poitiers, ought he not instantly to have restrained that pride within just limits? ought he not to have cast a hasty glance on the components of the Black Prince's army? to examine whether a body of troops, starting from Bordeaux, recruiting in Guienne, did not contain more Gascons than English? whether France, now bounded by its natural limits, in its magnificent unity, would not have a right, every thing being examined, to consider that battle almost as an event of civil war? ought he not, in short, to have pointed out, in order to corroborate his remarks, that the knight to whom King John surrendered himself, Denys de Morbecque, was a French officer banished from Artois?

Self-reliance on the field of battle is the first requisite for obtaining success; now, would not our self-reliance be shaken, if the men most likely to know the facts, and to appreciate them wisely, appeared to think that the Frank race were nationally inferior to other races who had peopled this or that region, either neighbouring or distant? This, let it be well remarked, is not a puerile susceptibility. Great events may, on a given day, depend on the opinion that the nation has formed of itself. Our neighbours on the other side of the Channel, afford examples on this subject that it would be well to imitate.

In 1767, the Academy of Berlin proposed a prize for an éloge of Leibnitz. The public was somewhat surprised at it. It was generally supposed that Leibnitz had been admirably praised by Fontenelle, and that the subject was exhausted. But from the moment that Bailly's essay, crowned in Prussia, was published, former impressions were quite changed. Every one was anxiously asserting that Bailly's appreciation of his subject might be read with pleasure and benefit, even after Fontenelle's. The éloge composed by the historian of Astronomy will not, certainly, make us forget that written by the first Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. The style is, perhaps, too stiff; perhaps it is also rather declamatory; but the biography, and the analysis of his works, are more complete, especially if we consider the notes; the _universal_ Leibnitz is exhibited under more varied points of view.

In 1768, Bailly obtained the award of the prize of eloquence proposed by the Academy of Rouen. The subject was the éloge of Peter Corneille. In reading this work of our fellow-academician, we may be somewhat surprised at the immense distance that the modest, the timid, the sensitive Bailly puts between the great Corneille, his special favourite, and Racine.

When the French Academy, in 1768, proposed an éloge of Molière for competition, our candidate was vanquished only by Chamfort. And yet, if people had not since that time treated of the author of "Tartufe" to satiety, perhaps I would venture to maintain, notwithstanding some inferiority of style, that Bailly's discourse offered a neater, truer, and more philosophic appreciation of the principal pieces of that immortal poet.

DEBATES RELATIVE TO THE POST OF PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.

We have seen D'Alembert, ever since the year 1763, encouraging Bailly to exercise himself in a style of literary composition then much liked, the style of éloge, and holding out to him in prospect the situation of Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. Six years after, the illustrious geometer gave the same advice, and perhaps held out the same hopes, to the young Marquis de Condorcet. This candidate, docile to the voice of his protector, rapidly composed and published the éloges of the early founders of the Academy, of Huyghens, of Mariotte, of Roëmer, &c.

At the beginning of 1773, the Perpetual Secretary, Grandjean de Fouchy, requested that Condorcet should be nominated his successor, provided he survived him. D'Alembert strongly supported this candidateship. Buffon supported Bailly with equal energy; the Academy presented for some weeks the aspect of two hostile camps. There was at last a strongly disputed electoral battle; the result was the nomination of Condorcet.

I should regret if we had to judge of the sentiments of Bailly, after this defeat, by those of his adherents. Their anger found vent in terms of unpardonable asperity. They said that D'Alembert had "basely betrayed friendship, honour, and the first principles of probity."

They here alluded to a promise of protection, support, coöperation, dating ten years back. But was his promise absolute? Engaging himself personally to Bailly for a situation that might not become vacant for ten or fifteen years, had D'Alembert, contrary to his duty as an academician, declared beforehand, that any other candidate, whatever might be his talents, would be to him as not existing?

This is what ought to have been ascertained, before giving themselves up to such violent and odious imputations.

Was it not quite natural that the geometer D'Alembert, having to pronounce his opinion between two honourable learned men, gave the preference to the candidate who seemed to him most imbued with the higher mathematics? The éloges of Condorcet were, besides, by their style, much more in harmony with those that the Academy had approved during three quarters of a century. Before the declaration of the vacancy on the 27th of February, 1773, D'Alembert said to Voltaire, relative to the recueil by Condorcet, "Some one asked me the other day what I thought of that work. I answered by writing on the frontispiece, 'Justice, propriety, learning, clearness, precision, taste, elegance, and nobleness.'" And Voltaire wrote, on the 1st of March, "I have read, while dying, the little book by M. de Condorcet; it is as good in its departments as the éloges by Fontenelle. There is a more noble and more modest philosophy in it, though bold."

And excitement in words and action could not be legitimately reproached in a man who had felt himself supported by a conviction of such distinct and powerful influence.

Among the éloges by Bailly, there is one, that of the Abbé de Lacaille, which not having been written for a literary academy, shows no longer any trace of inflation or declamation, and might, it seems to me, compete with some of the best éloges by Condorcet. Yet, it is curious, that this excellent biography contributed, perhaps as much as D'Alembert's opposition, to make Bailly's claims fail. Vainly did the celebrated astronomer flatter himself in his exordium, "that M. de Fouchy, who, as Secretary of the Academy, had already paid his tribute to Lacaille, would not be displeased at his having followed him in the same career ... that he would not be blamed for repeating the praises due to an illustrious man."

Bailly, in fact, was not blamed aloud; but when the hour for retreat had sounded in M. de Fouchy's ear, without any fuss, without showing himself offended in his self-love, remaining apparently modest, this learned man, in asking for an assistant, selected one who had not undertaken to repeat his éloges; who had not found his biographies insufficient. This preference ought not to be, and was not, uninfluential in the result of the competition.

Bailly, if Perpetual Secretary of the Academy, would have been obliged to reside constantly at Paris. But Bailly, as member of the Astronomical Section, might retire to the country, and thus escape those thieves of time, as Byron called them, who especially abound in the metropolis. Bailly settled at Chaillot. It was at Chaillot that our fellow-academician composed his best works, those that will sail down the stream of time.

Nature had endowed Bailly with the most happy memory. He did not write his discourses till he had completed them in his head. His first copy was always a clean copy. Every morning Bailly started early from his humble residence at Chaillot; he went to the Bois de Boulogne, and there, walking for many hours at a time, his powerful mind elaborated, coördinated, and robed in all the pomps of language, those high conceptions destined to charm successive generations. Biographers inform us that Crébillon composed in a similar way. And this was, according to several critics, the cause of the incorrectness, of the asperity of style, which disfigure several pieces by that tragic poet. The works of Bailly, and especially the discourses that complete the _History of Astronomy_, invalidate this explanation. I could also appeal to the elegant and pure productions of that poet whom France has just lost and weeps for. No one indeed can be ignorant of his works; Casimir Delavigne, like Bailly, never committed his verses to paper until he had worked them up in his mind to that harmonious perfection which procured for them the unanimous suffrages of all people of taste. Gentlemen, pardon this reminiscence. The heart loves to connect such names as those of Bailly and of Delavigne; those rare and glorious symbols, in whom we find united talent, virtue, and an invariable patriotism.

HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY.--LETTERS ON THE ATLANTIS OF PLATO AND ON THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF ASIA.

In 1775, Bailly published a quarto volume, entitled _History of Ancient Astronomy, from its Origin up to the Establishment of the Alexandrian School_. An analogous work for the lapse of time, comprised between the Alexandrian School and 1730, appeared in 1779, in two volumes. An additional volume appeared three years later, entitled the _History of Modern Astronomy up to the Epoch of 1782_. The fifth part of this immense composition, the _History of Indian Astronomy_, was published in 1787.

When Bailly undertook this general history of Astronomy, the science possessed nothing of the sort. Erudition had seized upon some special questions, some detailed points, but no commanding view had presided over these investigations.

Weidler's book, published in 1741, was a mere simple nomenclature of the astronomers of every age, and of every country; the dates of their birth and death; the titles of their works. The utility of this precise enumeration of dates and titles did not alter the character of the book.

Bailly sketches the plan of his work with a masterly hand in a few lines; he says, "It is interesting to transport one's self back to the times when Astronomy began; to observe how discoveries were connected together, how errors have got mixed up with truth, have delayed the knowledge of it, and retarded its progress; and, after having followed the various epochs and traversed every climate, finally to contemplate the edifice founded on the labours of successive centuries and of various nations."

This vast plan essentially led to the minute discussion and comparison of a multitude of passages both ancient and modern. If the author had mixed up these discussions with the body of the work, he would have laboured for astronomers only. If he had suppressed all discussions, the book would have interested amateurs only. To avoid this double rock, Bailly decided on writing a connected narrative with the quintessence of the facts, and to place the proofs and the discussions of the merely conjectural parts, under the appellation of explanations in separate chapters. Bailly's History, without forfeiting the character of a serious and erudite work, became accessible to the public in general, and contributed to disseminate accurate notions of Astronomy both among literary men and among general society.

When Bailly declared, in the beginning of his book, that he would go back to the very commencement of Astronomy, the reader might expect some pages of pure imagination. I know not, however, whether any body would have expected a chapter of the first volume to be entitled, _Of Antediluvian Astronomy_.

The principal conclusion to which Bailly comes, after an attentive examination of all the positive ideas that antiquity has bequeathed to us is, that we find rather the ruins than the elements of a science in the most ancient Astronomy of Chaldæa, of India, and of China.

After treating of certain ideas of Pluche, Bailly says, "The country of possibilities is immense, and although truth is contained therein, it is not often easy to distinguish it."

Words so reasonable would authorize me to inquire whether the calculations of our fellow-labourer, intended to establish the immense antiquity of the Indian Tables, are beyond all criticism. But the question has been sufficiently discussed in a passage of _The Exposition of the System of the World_, on which it would be useless to insist here. Whatever came from the pen of M. de Laplace was always marked by the stamp of reason and of evidence. In the first lines of his magnificent work, after having remarked that "the history of Astronomy forms an essential part of the history of the human mind," Bailly observes, "that it is perhaps the true measure of man's intelligence, and a proof of what he can do with time and genius." I shall allow myself to add, that no study offers to reflecting minds more striking or more curious relations.

When by measurements, in which the evidence of the method advances equally with the precision of the results, the volume of the earth is reduced to the millionth part of the volume of the sun; when the sun himself, transported to the region of the stars, takes up a very modest place among the thousands of millions of those bodies that the telescope has revealed to us; when the 38,000,000 of leagues which separate the earth from the sun, have become, by reason of their comparative smallness, a base totally insufficient for ascertaining the dimensions of the visible universe; when even the swiftness of the luminous rays (77,000 leagues per second) barely suffices for the common valuations of science; when, in short, by a chain of irresistible proofs, certain stars have retired to distances that light could not traverse in less than a million of years; we feel as if annihilated by such immensities. In assigning to man, and to the planet that he inhabits, so small a position in the material world, Astronomy seems really to have made progress only to humble us.

But if, on the other hand, we regard the subject from the opposite point of view, and reflect on the extreme feebleness of the natural means by the help of which so many great problems have been attacked and solved; if we consider that to obtain and measure the greater part of the quantities now forming the basis of astronomical computation, man has had greatly to improve the most delicate of his organs, to add immensely to the power of his eye; if we remark that it was not less requisite for him to discover methods adapted to measuring very long intervals of time, up to the precision of tenths of seconds; to combat against the most microscopic effects that constant variations of temperature produce in metals, and therefore in all instruments; to guard against the innumerable illusions that a cold or hot atmosphere, dry or humid, tranquil or agitated, impresses on the medium through which the observations have inevitably to be made; the feeble being resumes all his advantage; by the side of such wonderful labours of the mind, what signifies the weakness, the fragility of our body; what signify the dimensions of the planet, our residence, the grain of sand on which it has happened to us to appear for a few moments!

The thousands of questions on which Astronomy has thrown its dazzling light belong to two entirely distinct categories; some offered themselves naturally to the mind, and man had only to seek the means for solving them; others, according to the beautiful expression of Pliny, were enveloped in the majesty of nature! When Bailly lays down in his book these two kinds of problems, it is with the firmness, the depth, of a consummate astronomer; and when he shows their importance, their immensity, it is always with the talent of a writer of the highest order; it is sometimes with a bewitching eloquence. If in the beautiful work we are alluding to, Astronomy unavoidably assigns to man an imperceptible place in the material world, she assigns him, on the other hand, a vast share in the intellectual world. The writings which, supported by the invincible deductions of science, thus elevate man in his own eyes, will find grateful readers in all climes and times.