ACADEMY OP SCIENCES OF PARIS. 355 



petitor ; but the acrimony excited on this occasion was such as it is to be 

 hoped may seldom be allowed to enter the halls consecrated to science and hu- 

 man improvement. 



Eclitii doctrinii sapicutuni, teiiipla sercna. 



For some weeks, says Arago, the Academy presented the aspect of two 

 hostile camps, and the asj^erity of the contest may be conceived when we learn 

 that to the illustrious name of d'Alembert was. applied the stigma of having 

 proved " equally faithless to friendship, to honor, and the first principles of 

 honesty." The charge rested on the fact that d'Alembert, looking to an early 

 vacancy of the oflice, had first held out encouragements to Bailly to qualify 

 himself for its discharge, and six years afterwards had offered similar induce- 

 ments to Condorcet. The only injury to the two young aspirants would seem 

 to have been to engage them to devote a portion of their time to the composition 

 and publication of probationary Elogcs, Avhich brought their r(\spcctive merits 

 before the public eye and crowned them with the applause of the most judi- 

 cious critics. " It is seldom," continues Arago, " that abstract principl(;s im- 

 passion men to such a degree as on this occasion, while to the outward world 

 the question clearly put seemed only to be, shall the successor of Fontenclh; 

 be called Bailly or Condorcet?" The choice of the Academy fell upon Con- 

 dorcet. 



It is to the period here reviewed, we must presume, that the words of the compi- 

 ler of the article " Royal Academy of Sciences" in the Encyclopedia Britannica 

 were designed to apply : "Through the intrigues or intervention of the court 

 for the admission of unworthy members or the exclusion of the meritorious, the 

 Academy had gradually sunk in public estimation until admission not only 

 ceased to bo an honor, but even became a subject of contempt and derision. 

 Hence the following humorous and well-known epitaph : 



' Ci-git Piron, qui ne fut ricn, 

 Pas meme academien.' " 



Here there is a manifest confusion of objects. Such names as those of La 

 Lande, Reaumur, Maraldi, De la Caille, Daubentou, d'Alembert, Condamiuc, 

 Adanson, Daniel Beruouilli, Borda, Fontaine, Ilaller, Lavoisidfe, and others, 

 ihickly strewn through the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences of that time, 

 satisfactorily refute any presumption that it had ceased to merit or maintain its 

 hold upon public respect or its title to the lasting admiration and gratitude of 

 mankind. The writer of the «r;'/<:7e might have quoted other sarcasms directed 

 to the same object with the epitajih. Tims, when Voltaire was asked in Eng- 

 land respecting the Memoirs of the Academy, he replied : *' It writes no me- 

 moirs, but it has published sixty or eighty volumes of compliments." And 

 the above-named Piron had said that a discours de reception at the Academy 

 ought never to exceed three words ; " that the recipiendary should say, ' Many 

 thanks, sirs;' and the director shovdd reply, ' Sir, there is no occasion for any.' " 

 But all these taunts were aimed at a different academy from the above ; at what 

 Voltaire termed the " academie de paroles," as he styled the other the "acad- 

 emic de choses." Yet the petulance of satire can scarcely lead us to believe 

 that even the Academie Francaise, which still numbered among its members 

 a d'Alembert, a Bufifon, a Voltaire, had sunk so low as to render admission 

 into its ranks " a subject of contempt and derision." True enough that the 

 vices of its regimen, as exhibited by Arago, had done much to reduce it to a 

 stiite of servility and imbecility. " Until I75S, the subjects for prizes proposed 

 by this Academy exclusively related to questions of devotion and morality. 

 The eloquence of the competitors was thus called upon to exercise itself suc- 

 cessively on the science of salvation, on the merit and dignity of martyrdom, 

 on purity of mind and body, on the dangers which lurk amidst seeming secu- 

 rity, &c. The Are Maria even was paraphrased. Each discourse was to be 



