90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



curious neighbour : " You see, I have written two papers ; 

 I am going to tear up one, I shall put the other into the 

 urn; I shall thus be myself ignorant for which of the 

 two candidates I have voted." 



All went on as the celebrated academician had said ; 

 only that every one knew with certainty that his vote had 

 been for Fourier ; and " the calculation of probabilities " 

 was in no way necessary for arriving at this result. 



After having fulfilled the duties of secretary with much 

 distinction, but not without some feebleness and negli- 

 gence in consequence of his bad health, Fourier died the 

 16th of May, 1830. I declined several times the honour 

 which the Academy appeared willing to do me, in nam- 

 ing me to succeed him. I believed, without false mod- 

 esty, that I had not the qualities necessary to fill this 

 important place suitably. When thirty-nine out of forty- 

 four voters had appointed me, it was quite time that I 

 should give in to an opinion so flattering and so plainly 

 expressed. On the 7th of June, 1830, I, therefore, be- 

 came perpetual secretary of the Academy for the Math- , 

 ematical Sciences ; but, conformably to the plea of an 

 accumulation of offices, which I had used as an argument 

 to support, in November, 1822, the election of M. Four- 

 nier, I declared that I should give in my resignation of 

 the Professorship in the Polytechnic School. Neither 

 the solicitations of Marshal Soult, the Minister of War, 

 nor those of the most eminent members of the Academy, 

 could avail in persuading me to renounce this resolution. 



