156 BAILLY. 



tance in the literary world. How is it that you did not 

 remark, that by despoiling Bailly (and very arbitrarily) 

 of the knowledge of Latin, you showed the inutility of 

 studying that language to become both one of your best 

 writers, and one of the most illustrious philosophers of 

 the age ? 



The Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, far 

 from participating in these puerile rancours, in the blind 

 prejudices of some lost children of erudition, called Bailly 

 to its bosom in 1785. Till then, Fontenelle alone had 

 had the honour of belonging to the three great Acade- 

 mies of France. Bailly always showed himself very 

 proud of a distinction which associated his name in an 

 unusual manner with that of the illustrious writer, whose 

 eulogies contributed so powerfully to make science and 

 scientific men known and respected. 



Independently of this special consideration, Bailly, as 

 member of the French Academy, could all the better 

 appreciate the suffrages of the Academy of Inscriptions, 

 since there existed at that time between those two illus- 

 trious Societies a strong and inexplicable feeling of rival- 

 ry. This had even proceeded so far, that by a most 

 solemn deliberation of the Academy of Inscriptions, any 

 of its members would have ceased to belong to it, would 

 have been irrevocably expelled, if they had even only 

 endeavoured to be received into the French Academy ; 

 and the king having annulled this deliberation, fifteen 

 academicians bound themselves by oath to observe all 

 its stipulations notwithstanding; furthermore, in 1783, 

 Choiseul Gouffier, who was accused of having adhered 

 to the principles of the fifteen confederates, and then of 

 having allowed himself to be nominated by the rival 

 Academy, was summoned by Anquetil to appear before 



