INFANCY OF BAILLY. 93 
year to year to analyze the scientific and political life of 
Bailly with their scruples, and with their usual talents, 
they allowed time for inconsiderateness, prejudice, and 
passions of every kind, to impregnate our minds with a 
multitude of serious errors, which have added consider- 
ably to the difficulty of my task. When I was led to 
form very different opinions from those that are found 
spread through some of the most celebrated works, on 
the events of the great revolution of 1789, in which our 
fellow-academician took an active part, I could not be so 
conceited as to expect to be believed on my own word. 
To propound my opinions then was insufficient; I had 
also to combat those of the historians with whom I dif- 
fered. This necessity has given to the biography that I 
am going to read an unusual length. I solicit the kind 
sympathy of the assembly on this point. I hope to obtain 
it, I acknowledge, when I consider that my task is to 
analyze before you the scientific and literary claims of an 
illustrious colleague, to depict the uniformly noble and 
patriotic conduct of the first President of the National 
Assembly ; to follow the first Mayor of Paris in all the 
acts of an administration, the difficulties of which ap- 
peared to be above human strength; to accompany the 
virtuous magistrate to the very scaffold, to unroll the 
mournful phases of the cruel martyrdom that he was 
made to undergo; to retrace, in a word; some of the 
greatest, some of the most terrible events of the French 
Revolution. 
INFANCY OF BAILLY.—HIS YOUTH.—HIS LITERARY 
ESSAYS.—HIS MATHEMATICAL STUDIES. 
John Sylvain Bailly was born at Paris in 1736. His 
parents were James Bailly and Cecilia Guichon. 
