THWARTED PLANS. 233 



tings of the National Institute, of which he is a member.' 

 'Bonaparte,' he writes further, on April 20, 1798, 1 'always calls 

 me his grandpapa, because he is a pupil of D'Agelet, who again 

 was a pupil of mine. I have begged him to use his influence 

 with the Directory to obtain the removal of the Opera House, 

 which in case of fire is dangerously near the Library. I also 

 suggested the purchase of Paulmy's admirable library, con- 

 sisting of 100,000 volumes, and recommended that some new 

 instruments and an increase of salary be granted to Thulis at 

 Marseilles all of which has been accomplished.' Burckhardt 

 also writes about this time : 2 ' There is something very inte- 

 resting in witnessing the modest and unaffected demeanour 

 preserved by Bonaparte in the midst of the universal applause 

 with which he is greeted. I often enjoy this pleasure at the 

 National Institute.' 



At this period there was gathered in Paris a remarkable 

 assemblage of distinguished men ; among mathematicians the 

 great Lagrange, the amiable and powerful writer of the ' Ana- 

 lytical Mechanics ' and the ' Theory of Analytical Functions ; ' 

 Montucla, author of the ' History of Mathematics ; ' and 

 Delambre, compiler of the ' History of Astronomy ; ' while in 

 other fields of science laboured Borda, Monge, Fourier, Ber- 

 thollet, Greoffroy de St.-Hilaire, Larrey, Lalande, the mineralo- 

 gists Hau'y and Brongniard, and Cuvier, who, born at Mont- 

 beliard, at that time belonging to Wurtemberg, in the same 

 year as Humboldt, was fellow-student with Schiller at the Aca- 

 demia Carolina in Stuttgart. 



The mere record of these names is of itself a testimony to the 

 advancement of science ; but should further proof be needed, we 

 have but to pass in review the giant strides made at this epoch in 

 its various branches. In theoretic astronomy, the theory of the 

 moon's motion and of the perturbations of the planets had been 

 established by D'Alembert and Clairaut ; the cause of the 

 precession of the equinoxes had been ascertained ; the figure of 

 the earth had been more accurately determined through the 

 measurement of the meridian line ; nutation and the aberration 

 of light had been discovered and elucidated by Bradley ; 



1 ' Allgemeine geographische Ephemeriden,' vol. i. p. 679. 



2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 852; also p. 227. 



