212 BAILLY. 
too obscure, unless they were mad, to attempt to vie in 
public consideration and glory with the illustrious author 
of the History of Astronomy, with the philosopher, the 
writer, the erudite scholar who belonged to our three 
principal academies, an honour that Fontenelle alone had 
enjoyed before him. e 
Let us say it aloud, for such is our conviction, nothing 
personal excited the evil proceedings, the acts of insub- 
ordination with which Bailly had daily to reproach his 
numerous assistants. It is even presumable, that in his 
position, any one else would have had to register more 
numerous and more serious complaints. Let us be truth- 
ful: when the aristocracy of the ground-floor, according 
to the expression of one of the most illustrious members 
of the French Academy, was called by the revolutionary 
movements to replace the aristocracy of the first-floor, it 
became giddy. Have I not, it said, conducted the busi- 
ness of the warehouse, the workshop, the counting-house, 
&e., with probity and success; why then should I not 
equally succeed in the management of public affairs? And 
this swarm of new statesmen were in a hurry to com- 
mence work; hence all control was irksome to them, and 
each wished to be able to say on returning home, “I have 
framed such or such an act that will tie the hands of fac- 
tion for ever; I have repressed this or that riot; I have, 
in short, saved the country by proposing such or such a 
measure for the public good, and by having it adopted.” 
The pronoun J so agreeably tickles the ear of a man 
lately risen from obscurity. 
What the thorough-bred Eschevin, whether new or 
old, dreads above every thing else, is specialties. He has 
an insurmountable antipathy towards men, who have in 
the face of the world gained the honourable titles of his- 
