THE CENTENNIAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 



By Jules Simon. 



Gentlemen: When General Bonaparte took command of the Army 

 of Egypt, he immediately signed his proclamations and orders : " Bona- 

 parte, General in Chief, Member of the Institute of Frence," "which 

 would be sure," said he, "to be understood by the lowest drummer." 



The institute was then not three years old. It has since that time 

 made some noise in the world. I may not natter myself, therefore, that 

 I can teach anyone its short and glorious history for the first time. I 

 shall sum it up in a few words, in order that we may rejoice together 

 over its achievements, but by no means that we may learn to know them. 



The great assemblies which at the end of the eighteenth century 

 took the fate of France into their hands had from the beginning revo- 

 lutionary instincts. The end they had in view was not to preserve 

 existing institutions by improving them and by purging them of their 

 abuses. They simply swept away all they found to exist, and, when 

 they had overthrown everything, they felt at liberty to go to work and 

 reconstruct it all. 



The academies had aided largely in bringing on the revolution. 

 Hardly had they passed from theory to action when they perceived that 

 they were going too fast. They had wished to reform, but all around 

 them people thought only of destroying. The revolution, on its side, 

 as is the way with all revolutions, forgot what had been given to it, 

 and became exasperated over what was refused. 



It confined itself at first to unfriendly measures. The Constituent 

 Assembly voted with hesitation and only provisionally, for one year, 

 the appropriations which the finance committee demanded for the 

 literary associations, 2 accompanying, moreover, the vote with sharp 

 reproaches. The convention struck some heavy blows. In the first 



1 Discourse by M. Jules Simon, president of the Institut de France, at the centen- 

 nial anniversary, at the Sorbonne, Paris. Translated from Nature, vol. 52, No. 1357, 

 October 31, 1895. 



2 For the French Academy 25,217 livres, besides 1,200 livres for a prize to be 

 offered; for the Academy of Belles-Lettres, 43,906 livres; for the Academy of 

 Sciences, 93,458 livres; these two academies were also to offer a prize of 1,200 livres 

 each. 



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