156 BAILLY. 
tance in the literary world. How is it that you did not 
remark, that by despoiling Bailly (and very arbitrarily) 
of the knowledge of Latin, you showed the inutility of 
studying that language to become both one of your best 
writers, and one of the most illustrious philosophers of 
the age? 
The Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, far 
from participating in these puerile rancours, in the blind 
prejudices of some lost children of erudition, called Bailly 
to its bosom in 1785. ‘Till then, Fontenelle alone had 
had the honour of belonging to the three great Acade- 
mies of France. Bailly always showed himself very 
proud of a distinction which associated his name in an 
unusual manner with that of the illustrious writer, whose 
eulogies contributed so powerfully to make science and 
scientific men known and respected. 
Independently of this special consideration, Bailly, as 
member of the French Academy, could all the better 
appreciate the suffrages of the Academy of Inscriptions, 
since there existed at that time between those two illus- 
trious Societies a strong and inexplicable feeling of rival- 
ry. This had even proceeded so far, that by a most 
solemn deliberation of the Academy of Inscriptions, any 
of its members would have ceased to belong to it, would 
have been irrevocably expelled, if they had even only 
endeavoured to be received into the French Academy ; 
and the king having annulled this deliberation, fifteen 
academicians bound themselves by oath to observe all 
its stipulations notwithstanding; furthermore, in 1783, 
Choiseul Gouffier, who was accused of having adhered 
to the principles of the fifteen confederates, and then of 
having allowed himself to be nominated by the rival 
Academy, was summoned by Anquetil to appear before 
pets. 
