ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF PARIS. 357 



orders of tlie clay as "■mcmhcr of the Institute, commauding-in-cliicf" the army 

 of tlie East."* (Arago; Eloge de Fourier.) 



Upon the Restoration a royal ordinance of March 21, ISIG, again conferred 

 on the classes of the Institnte their ancient title of Academies. The first class 

 once more became the Academy of Sciences; the second, the Academic fran- 

 caisc; the third, the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres; the fonrth, 

 the Academy of Fine Arts. Finally, in 1832, Louis Philippe reinstated the 

 proscribed class under the title of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, 

 and to the five sections, of which this was at first composed, the present Em- 

 pen)r has added a sixth, devoted to politics, administration, and finance. The 

 Institute, it is stated, now consists of 223 members, 31 associates, 228 corre- 

 spondents, 7 secretaries, and 35 free academicians. 



The commemoration of deceased members by a notice apart, formed, as has 

 been seen, an early, and has remained a constant part ofxtlie academic obser- 

 vances. Of these notices it is said, by one of those most distinguished for their 

 composition, that, equally Avith the memoirs of the Academy, "they were de- 

 signed to have truth for their basis and their object." And although, as Cuvier 

 remarks, it be difficult to observe the cold impartiality of history, Av^hen the 

 hand is resting, as it were, on the funeral urn of an instructor or friend, yet the 

 general candor with which they are written, the equity with which merit is 

 assigned even if censure is softened or evaded,, cannot in most instances fail to 

 secure the confidence of the reader. There is but little, perhaps, in English 

 literature which resembles them, for it has been often complained that the bio- 

 graphical notices of literary and scientific men are here but too frequently 

 either limited to dry catalogues of writings and discoveries, or spread through 

 such wastes of commentary and circumstance that the traits of individuality 

 lose their distinctness and vivacity. "It seems," says an English reviewer, 

 "to have been an established tradition in our literature that the 'life' of a man 

 of letters must necessarily be a dull book." However this may be, the Avriters 

 of the Eloges, from Fontenelle to Arago, have certainly contrived for the most 

 part to fill the comparatively narrow outline to Avhich they are limited with 

 such sharp and Avell-defined features of personality as to maintain an ever- 

 varying interest in the subjects themselves as well as in their labors. There 

 is here no gallery of scientific masks, but a succession of distinct and animated, 

 if reduced, portraitures. The scientific value of the Eloges, on the other hand, 

 seems to be assured as well by the ability ' of the distinguished savants to 

 whom we owe them, as the character of the body to Avhich they were addressed ; 

 and as the series extends from the middle of the seventeenth century to the 

 present day, they are well calculated to show the successive steps and "devious 

 paths" by which experimental philosophy has advanced to the "bright emi- 

 .nence" from which it now challenges the confidence and admiration of the 

 v/orld. — Translator. 



" "I can understand and appreciate the gronnds of your refusal," said Napoleon one day 

 to a member of the Institute wlio had just declined a proiiered office. "You wish to devote 

 yourself entirely to your pursuits. Well, I myself, had not fortune called me to preside over 

 the destinies of a great people, think you that I would have haunted the bureaus and 

 saloons in quest of official favor from any c^uarter as minister or ambassador? No; I would 

 have thrown myself into the study of the exact sciences. I would have advanced in the 

 path of the Galileos and the Newtous. And since I have constantly succeeded in all great 

 enterprises, I should have highly distinguished myself by my scientific labors. I should have 

 left the memory of noble discoveries. No other glory could have tempted my ambition." 

 {Arago; Eloge de Thomas Young.) 



