VET. 37.] THE INSTITUTE. 115 



tion, so soon after the Eestoration, with the West 

 India party, all zealous royalists, and forming a great 

 proportion of that body on whose support Louis XVIII. 

 mainly relied in his struggles against the Eepublicans 

 and Bonapartists. The Duke was amused with an 

 interview which I had at Monsieur Gallois' (a friend 

 of Eomilly and Dumont) with De Molina (whom I 

 had seen in the chair of the Chamber of Deputies), and 

 who began with me upon the subject of the slave- 

 trade.' 5 ' 5 ' After a little discussion I said, "Mais, monsieur, 

 vous ne me donnez que des arguments des colons." 

 "C'est que je suis colon," he replied. "Alois," I 

 added, " tout est expliqueY' In fact, he was a planter. 

 I attended one or two sittings of the Institute, of 

 which I was not then a member, not having been 

 elected till fifteen or sixteen years after. I there saw 

 all the great men La Place at their head; unfor- 

 tunately not La Grange, whom I reckoned the first in 

 one respect, and whose public character had not been 

 so much lowered by his conduct as La Place's, both 

 as to capacity and independence. He might have 

 been as incapable of taking a great political office, for 

 which he showed himself utterly unfit, but certainly 

 would have been incapable of showing base ingrati- 

 tude for the favours he had received from Napoleon, 

 and suppressing his dedication of gross flattery be- 

 cause the Emperor had abdicated between the print- 

 ing and the publication of the ' Mecanique Celeste/ 

 But La Grange had died the year before, and I did 

 not make La Place's acquaintance. I heard him read 

 the report (which he had drawn up) of a commission 



* Jean Antoine Gauvin Gallois, born 1755, died 1829. Poet ; author 

 on jurisprudence and politics. 



