AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 191 



grandest triangulatiou wliicli bad ever been acbieved, to prolong the 

 meridian line from France as far as the Island of Formentera. 



M. de Laplace, without denying the importance and utility of these 

 Iab;)rs and tliese researches, saw in them nothing more than indications 

 of promise ; M. Lagrange then said to him exj)iicit!y : 



" \i on yon, M. de Lap'ace, when you entered the Academy, bad done 

 nothing brillifwit; you only gave promise. Your grand discoveries did 

 not come till afterward." 



Lagrange was the only man in Europe who could with authority 

 address such an observation to him. 



^L de Laplace did not reply upon the ground of the personal question, 

 but he added, "I maintain that it is useful to young savans to hold 

 out the i)osition of member of the Institute as a future recompense, to 

 excite their zeal." 



"You resemble," replied M. Halle, "the driver of the hackney coach, 

 who, to excite his horses to a gallop, tied a bundle of hay at the end of 

 his carriage i)ole; the poor horses redoubled their efforts, and the bundle 

 of hay always flew on before them. After all, his plan nuule them iall 

 off, and soon after brought on their death." 



Delambre, Legendre, Biot, insisted on the devotion, and what they 

 teriiied the courage, with which I had combated arduous difficulties, 

 wh''tlier in carrying on the observations, or in saving the instruments 

 and the results already obtained. They drew an animated picture of 

 the dangers I had undergone. M. de Laplace ended by yielding when 

 he saw that all the most eminent men of the Academy had taken mo 

 under their patronage, and on the day of the election ho gave me his 

 \oto. It would be, I must own, a subject of regret with me even to 

 this day, aiter a lapse of forty-two years, if I had become member of the 

 Institute without having obtained the vote of the author of the Jlevaiiique 

 Celeste. 



The members of the Institute were always i)resented to the Emperor 

 after he had confirmed their nominations. On the appointed day, in 

 co:n[)aMy with the presidents, with the secretaries of the four classes, 

 and with the academicians who had special publications to offer to the 

 Chief of the State, they assembled in one of the saloons of the Tuileries. 

 When the Emi>eror returned from mass, he held a kind of review of 

 these savans, these artists, these literary- men, in green uniform. 



I nuist own that the spectacle which I witnessed on the day of my 

 presentation did ik t edify me. I even experienced real displeasure iu 

 seeing the anxiety evinced by members of the Institute to be noticed. 



"You are very young," said Napoleon to me on coining near me; and 

 wirhuut waiting for a flattering reply, which it woukl not have been 

 difiicuit to find, he added, "What is your name?" Aiul my neighbor 

 on the right, not leaving me time to answer the simple enough question 

 just addressed to me, hastened to say : 



"iZii- name is Arago." 



