of Edinburgh, Session 1877 - 78 . 497 
Every battle went against the French ; their smaller armies were 
annihilated, their fairest provinces rent away : their revenues 
sacked, their people (even innocent and peaceable men, women, 
and children) starved to the very bone, their capital city taken. 
And then, after all these destructions from without, poor Paris 
fell into the hands of her own revolutionary Communists ; who, 
when at length attacked in their turn, by the recovered forces of 
the nation, — most provokingly insisted on making the very Obser- 
vatoire of Astronomical Science, one of their chief strategic points 
of defence; drawing down thereby on the grand old building, 
from loyal French guns too, an amount of cannon shot that rid- 
dled the Equatorial Domes through and through, and ruined much 
of the substantial masonry below. 
But the chief part of the daily service of the Observatory was not 
impeded thereby. For, with remarkable prevision of coming events, 
Delaunay had removed a division of the working staff, long before 
the siege of Paris began, to a Southern Department. There they 
gathered up the telegraphic communications again, there they 
carried on their collections of all European, with a few Asiatic and 
some African Meteorological observations, and there also, without 
the cessation of a day, they issued their daily lithographed Bulletin ; 
contriving still to give to all nations, and by a free book-post, the 
earliest information of every scientific event and Natural change 
and thus to keep up their beloved France (though bleeding from 
unnumbered wounds) an intellectual centre, a heralder of the way, 
for all the learned world. 
That grand result, however, came about mainly because it was 
Delaunay who directed, or rather bound together with cords of 
love, all the broken and scattered elements of the scientific service 
of France. Under his sympathetic lead, every one put forth his 
utmost powers, and with a will and a devotion which, in immediate 
presence of death, w r as almost sublime. And when at length peace 
returned, and the reorganisation of the Observatory of Paris had to 
be undertaken, every report which M. Delaunay addressed to the 
Minister of the Interior was as surprising for its pellucid clearness, 
as for its ably comprehensive character : alike too for including 
every department of science, as for insuring the distinct recognition 
of every good worker therein. A true and happy model Republic 
