~~ es. Sa 
é.- 
186 7 BAILLY. 
thing to fear from the liberal thinker of Ferney? He 
had only forgotten that the patriarch was above all a 
man of good taste, and that the book on the body and 
soul offended all the proprieties of life. Voltaire’s article 
appeared. He began with this severe and just lesson— 
“We should not be prodigal of contempt towards others, 
and of esteem for ourselves, to such a degree as will be 
revolting to our readers.” The end was still more over- 
whelming. “We see harlequin everywhere cutting 
capers to amuse the pit.” 
Harlequin had received a sufficient dose. Not having 
succeeded in literature, he threw himself upon the 
sciences. 
On betaking himself to this new career, the doctor of 
Neufchatel attacked Newton. But unluckily his criti- 
cisms were directed precisely to those points wherein 
optics may vie in evidence with geometry itself. This 
time the patron was M. de Maillebois, and the tribunal 
the Academy of Sciences. 
The Academy pronounced its judgment gravely, with- 
out inflicting a word of ridicule; for example, it did not 
speak of harlequin ; but it did not therefore remain the 
less established that the pretended experiments, intended, 
it was said, to upset Newton’s, on the unequal refrangi- 
bility of variously coloured rays, and the explanation of 
the rainbow, &c., had absolutely no scientific value. 
Still the author would not allow himself to have been 
beaten. He even conceived the possibility of retaliation ; 
and, availing himself of his intimacy with the Duke de 
Villeroy, governor of the second city in the kingdom, he 
got the Academy of Lyons to propose for competition all 
the questions in optics, which for several years past had 
been the subjects of its disquisitions; he even furnished 
