ASSOCIATED WITH LACAILLE IN HIS LABOURS. 97 



first comedies of Moliere, The three rival Doctors and 

 The Schoolmaster, are no longer known but by their 

 titles. Let us recall to mind that reflection of Voltaire's : 

 " It is very difficult to succeed before the age of thirty in 

 a branch of literature that requires a knowledge of the 

 world and of the human heart." 



A happy chance showed that the sciences might open 

 an honourable and glorious path to the discouraged poet. 

 M. de Moncaville offered to teach him mathematics, in 

 exchange for drawing-lessons that his son received from 

 the warder of the king's pictures. The proposal being 

 accepted, the progress of Sylvain Bailly in these studies 

 was rapid and brilliant. 



BAILLY BECOMES THE PUPIL OF LACAILLE. HE IS 



ASSOCIATED WITH HIM IN HIS ASTRONOMICAL 

 LABOURS. 



The mathematical student soon after had one of those 

 providential meetings which decide a young man's future 

 fate. Mademoiselle Lejeuneux cultivated painting. It 

 was at the house of this female artist, known afterwards 

 as Madame La Chenaye, that Lacaille saw Bailly. The 

 attentive, serious, and modest demeanour of the student 

 charmed the great astronomer. He showed it in a most 

 unequivocal manner, by offering, though so avaricious of 

 his time, to become the guide of the future observer, and 

 also to put him in communication with Clairaut. 



It is said that from his first intercourse with Lacaille, 

 Bailly showed a decided vocation for astronomy. This 

 fact appears to me incontestable. At his first appear- 

 ance in this line, I find him associated in the most labori- 

 ous, difficult, and tiresome investigations of that great 



observer. 



5 



