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. 



