498 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
was the Observatoire thus becoming under this rare Savaut’s en- 
lightened rule, tending to the American perhaps in its almost over 
abundance of personal liberty, but to the Athenian in its perfection 
of work and glorious ideals of still higher things to come, — when, 
on a day, — alack the day ! — one most gusty, stormy, tempestuous 
day ; when poor Delaunay, who had gone down to the sea-side 
merely for a short visit, essaying to cross the harbour of Cherbourg 
in an open boat, a squall came on, the boat capsized in deep water, 
and France’s first, best, rising, genius was lost for ever. 
All political and scientific society stood aghast. There was no 
second Delaunay to be had anywhere ; and even those persons who 
had been most active in bringing him forward only two years 
before, — could do nothing now but tacitly consent, in their utter 
dismay, to Le Yerrier returning to power again. 
Le Yerrier returned accordingly to the Observatoire in 1&72, and 
then began a third distinctly featured period of his career. 
No longer the cheerful-looking Anglo-Saxon man of his earlier 
days ; nor the tall, stern, conquering figure of his middle career ; 
but now, bent and feeble, with a dark, jaundiced hue overspreading 
his countenance (symptomatic of the disorder of the liver under 
which he finally sank), and with the muscles of his face half 
withered and shrunk down to the bone, so as to show the real osseous 
foundation of the countenance and prove him a born Gaul, after 
all, — Le Yerrier in his third stage pleased both friends and foes less 
than ever. 
With the latter he did not attempt any actual open war, but there 
was underground work going on all the time ; mining and counter- 
mining ; torpedo fighting of a very bad kind. He chafed in spirit 
that he was returned to power only by the accidental death of his 
grand, faultless, adversary ; and they were vexed that their whole 
ranks contained not another man capable of openly meeting Le 
Verrier. He , dominating at the Parisian Centre, obtained from the 
Minister (who was now frightened to interfere with him) power to 
revise and curtail as he chose almost all the other scientific Obser- 
vatories of the country ; and their Directors were furious, that when 
France was, as then, a Bepublic, they, the scientist portion thereof, 
should have to live under the sway of a more than Emperor, a Czar ) 
