THE CENTENNIAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 725 



occasions, arid one to work in. ISTo one seemed to see that being bound 

 to serve everybody they had no longer time to serve science. 



I do not wish to enumerate all. I shall, however, mention the sup- 

 pression of the perpetual secretaries who were replaced by two secre- 

 taries, elected semiannually. This was taking from the academies their 

 unity, their life. Chaptal, in 1801, speaking of the old academies, said : 

 "The same man followed all the details of the academy, became its his- 

 torian, and connected in a very peculiar manner the glory of his name 

 with that of the body, whose organ he was. There was more consist- 

 ency in the administration, greater celerity in the execution, and it 

 cannot be denied that the reestablishment of a perpetual secretary for 

 each class of the institute, by opening a career which presents so many 

 great men as models, would contribute to the glory of this body and to 

 the progress of science." And later, in 1803, he returned to the charge. 

 "The reestablishment of these places," he says, speaking of the per- 

 petual secretaryships, "will revive a branch of eloquence which has 

 been very much neglected for the last ten years, and will give to 

 academical labors that spirit of order, that combination of facts with 

 thoughts, which alone can precisely fix the dates of discoveries and 

 trace with accuracy the history of human knowledge." 



Although declaring that it renounced the academical past, the con- 

 vention, by the very force of circumstances, had preserved for its insti- 

 tute all the advantages which the old academies enjoyed. It retained 

 the recognition of the institute by the state, and the intervention of 

 the state in interior regulations. It left to the institute the home 

 of the academies, the library, the participation in the nomination of 

 professors in the great literary and scientific establishments. The 

 institute has carefully preserved this prerogative, and still presents 

 candidates for the College of France, the Museum, the Academy, the 

 schools of Eome and of Athens, the School of Maps, the School of Living 

 Oriental Languages, the Conservatory of Arts and Handicrafts, the 

 Observatory, the Polytechnic School. It has preserved the gratuitous 

 copies and the prizes known as prix du budget, to which are now added 

 certain prizes founded by private initiative, the annual amount of which 

 does not fall much short of 524,500 francs ! On the 29th Messidor, 

 year 4, the convention gave to each member of the institute an annual 

 indemnity of 750 myriagrams of wheat, and on the 19th Thermidor fol- 

 lowing it decided that out of this indemnity there should be kept back, 

 on account of each member, a sum equal to 150 myriagrams of wheat, 

 to be distributed among those who had been present at the meetings, 

 both general and special, in each class. 



In 1803, upon a report made by Chaptal, the members of this insti. 

 tute were permitted to belong to several academies at once, and in 

 consequence to combine several indemnities. " This gives us," said 

 Chaptal, "the means of opening to men of distinction many avenues 

 to glory and to comfort, and in consequence the means of multiplying 



