THE FRENCH INSTITUTE. 9 i 



for twenty-one years as one of the fermiers-generaux. "When the 

 Academy of Sciences was suppressed in 1793, Lavoisier wrote to 

 Lakanal, President of the Committee on Public Instruction, that 

 the members of the Academy had formed a private society to con- 

 tinue their labors, and asked permission to use the Academy 

 rooms. But even this privilege was denied them. 



On the 2d of May, 1794, a general indictment was made in the 

 National Assembly against the fermiers-generaux for conspiring 

 against the Government, on the ground that they caused an adul- 

 teration of tobacco by the addition of water. Absurd as this 

 charge appears to us of saner days, these men, including as they 

 did some of the noblest of France, were actually tried, May 6th, 

 and condemned to death, the entire body of twenty-eight being 

 guillotined on the 8th of May, 1794. 



After two years and a half of suppression the academies were 

 revived by an act of the Convention of October, 1795, under the 

 title of the " Institute/' principally through the influence of Car- 

 not, grandfather of the present President of France, who was at 

 that time President of the Directory, and of Lakanal and Daunou. 

 Instead of academies the Institute was divided into three classes, 

 the first class for sciences physiques et maihematiques, the second 

 class for sciences morales et politiques, and the third class for 

 litterature et beaux-arts. The whirlwind of the Revolution swept 

 away Directories and set up others. Carnot was obliged to fly 

 for safety into Germany. 



The seat in the class of mechanics of the Institute made vacant 

 by the flight of Carnot was filled in 1797 by the election of a young 

 artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, just returned from his Ital- 

 ian campaign covered with glory. The First Consul paid much 

 favorable attention to the Institute, and it continues to this day 

 very much as it left his hands in the new constitution which he 

 gave it in 1806. He exhibited his admiration for the pure sciences, 

 and his dislike to the speculative sciences, philosophy and ethics, 

 by the expansion of the Convention's first class and the entire sup- 

 pression of the second class, thus creating four classes : Sciences 

 physiques et maihematiques, la langue et la litterature frangaises, 

 histoire et litterature anciennes, and beaux-arts. It was Louis 

 XVIII who, in 1816, restored the old names of the academies to 

 the four classes of Napoleon. 



Napoleon was fond of the society of scientists, and rewarded 

 with prizes and honors the most noteworthy of scientific discov- 

 eries. Although at war with " perfide Albion," as he was wont to 

 call England, he drew the line at scientists, and pardoned English 

 prisoners at the simple request of Joseph Priestley, after all other 

 means had been exhausted, and acceded to the award of three 

 thousand francs by the first class of the Institute to Davy for his 



