HIS BIOGRAPHY OF LEIBNITZ. 109 
pointed out, in order to corroborate his remarks, that the 
knight to whom King John surrendered himself, Denys 
de Morbecque, was a French officer banished from Ar- 
tois ? 
Self-reliance on the field of battle is the first requisite 
for obtaining success; now, would not our self-reliance 
be shaken, if the men most likely to know the facts, and 
to appreciate them wisely, appeared to think that the 
Frank race were nationally inferior to other races who 
had peopled this or that region, either neighbouring or 
distant? This, let it be well remarked, is not a puerile 
susceptibility. Great events may, on a given day, de- 
pend on the opinion that the nation has formed of itself. 
Our neighbours on the other side of the Channel, afford 
examples on this subject that it would be well to imitate. 
In 1767, the Academy of Berlin proposed a prize for 
an éloge of Leibnitz. The public was somewhat sur- 
prised at it. It was generally supposed that Leibnitz 
had been admirably praised by Fontenelle, and that 
the subject was exhausted. But from the moment that 
Bailly’s essay, crowned in Prussia, was published, for- 
mer impressions were quite changed. Every one was 
anxiously asserting that Bailly’s appreciation of his sub- 
ject might be read with pleasure and benefit, even after 
Fontenelle’s. The éloge composed by the historian of 
Astronomy will not, certainly, make us forget that writ- 
ten by the first Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. 
The style is, perhaps, too stiff; perhaps it is also rather 
declamatory ; but the biography, and the analysis of his 
works, are more complete, especially if we consider the 
notes; the universal Leibnitz is exhibited under more 
varied points of view. 
In 1768, Bailly obtained the award of the prize of 
