92 BAILLY. 



negligence, any delay in studying the facts would be^n- 

 excusable ; the honourable contemporaries of the victim 

 would soon be no longer there to shed the light of their 

 honest and impartial memory on obscure events ; an ex- 

 istence devoted to the cultivation of reason and of truth 

 would come to be appreciated only from documents, on 

 which, for my part, I would not blindly draw, until it 

 sha]M>e proved that, in revolutionary times, we can trust 

 to me uprightness of parties. 



I felt in duty bound, Gentlemen, to give you a sketch 

 of the ideas that have led me to present to you a detailed 

 account of the life and labours of a member of the early 

 Academy of Sciences. The biographies which will soon 

 follow this, will show that the studies I have undertaken 

 respecting Carnot, Condorcet, and Bailly, have not pre- 

 vented me from attending seriously to our illustrious 

 contemporaries. 



To render them a loyal and truthful homage, is the 

 first duty of the secretaries of the Academy, and I will 

 religiously fulfil it ; without binding myself, however, to 

 observe a strict chronological order, or to follow the civil 

 registers step by step. 



Eulogies, said an ancient authority, should be deferred 

 until we have lost the true measure of the dead. Then 

 we could make giants of them without any one opposing 

 us. On the contrary, I am of opinion that biographers, 

 especially those of academicians, ought to make all pos- 

 sible haste, so that every one may be represented accord- 

 ing to his true measure, and that well-informed people 

 may have the opportunity of rectifying the mistakes 

 which, notwithstanding every care, almost inevitably slip 

 into this sort of composition. I regret that our former 

 secretaries did not adopt this rule. By deferring from 



