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. 



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, 

 &c., 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 / 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- 



