92 BAILLY. 
negligence, any delay in studying the facts would be in- 
excusable ; the honourable contemporaries of the victim 
would soon be no longer there to shed the light of their 
honest and impartial memory on obscure events ; an ex- 
istence devoted to the cultivation of reason and of truth 
would come to be appreciated only from documents, on 
which, for my part, I would not blindly draw, until it 
shall be proved that, in revolutionary times, we can trust 
to the uprightness of parties. 
I felt in duty bound, Gentlemen, to give you a sketch 
of the ideas that have led me to present to you a detailed 
account of the life and labours of a member of the early 
Academy of Sciences. The biographies which will soon 
follow this, will show that the studies I have undertaken 
respecting Carnot, Condorcet, and Bailly, have not pre- 
vented me from attending seriously to our illustrious 
contemporaries. 
To render them a loyal and truthful homage, is the 
first duty of the secretaries of the Academy, and I will 
religiously fulfil it; without binding myself, however, to 
observe a strict chronological order, or to follow the civil 
registers step by step. 
EKulogies, said an ancient authority, should be deferred 
until we have lost the true measure of the dead. Then 
we could make giants of them without any one opposing 
us. On the contrary, I am of opinion that biographers, 
especially those of academicians, ought to make all pos- 
sible haste, so that every one may be represented accord- 
ing to his true measure, and that well-informed people 
may have the opportunity of rectifying the mistakes 
which, notwithstanding every care, almost inevitably slip 
into this sort of composition. I regret that our former 
secretaries did not adopt this rule. By deferring from 
