Biographical Memoir ofM. HaUy. 213 



It was not very easy to persuade M. Haiiy to do so. The Aca- 

 demy and the Louvre were to the good regent of the College of 

 the Cardinal Lemoine a sort of foreign country which alarmed 

 his timidity. The customs were so little known to him, that, at 

 his first readings, he went there with the long dress which the old 

 canons of the church, it is said, prescribe, but which ecclesias- 

 tics who were not in office had long ceased to wear in 

 society. At this period of levity, some friends dreaded that 

 this dress would prevent his being admitted ; but before he 

 could be made to relinquish it (and this is another trait in 

 his character), it was necessary that their advice should be sup- 

 ported by the opinion of a doctor of the Sorbonnc. " The old 

 canons of the church,*" said this sage person, " are very respec- 

 table, but at this moment your business is to look after the Aca- 

 demy."" It is to be presumed, however, that this was a super- 

 fluous precaution, and from the haste which the Academy 

 shewed to acquire him, it may easily be seen that they would 

 have taken him, whatever dress he wore. They did not even 

 wait until a place in physics or mineralogy was vacant, and 

 some arrangements having made one in botany disposable *, it 

 was given to him almost with one voice, and in preference to 

 several learned botanists f. 



He received a still more flattering testimony of the esteem of 

 his new colleagues. Several of the most distinguished among 

 them besought him to give them oral explanations and demon- 



hended the nature of the discovery. This memoir is printed by extract in 

 the Journal de Physique of 1782, t. i. p. 3CC. 



The second memoir, in which he confines himself to the calcareous spars, 

 was read on the 22d August 1781» and its report was made by the same com- 

 missioners on the 22d December. This time they perfectly apprehended the 

 author's ideas and their importance. The memoir is printed in the Journal 

 de Physique of 1782, t. ii. p. 33. 



• It was the adjunct place in the botanical class, left vacant by the pro- 

 motion of M. de Jussieu to that of associate. M. HaUy's election was on the 

 12th, and M. Amelot's letter announcing the confirmation of the king on the 

 15th February 1783. 



f MM. Desfontaines and Tessier, who had the second voices, and MM. 

 X)ombey and Beauvois. Dombey died before being admittetl to the Academy. 

 Beauvois only entered it in 1803. In 1788, M. Haiiy jiassed as associate to 

 the class of natural history and mineralogy. 



