read an unusual length. I solicit the kind sympathy of the assembly on
this point. I hope to obtain it, I acknowledge, when I consider that my
task is to analyze before you the scientific and literary claims of an
illustrious colleague, to depict the uniformly noble and patriotic
conduct of the first President of the National Assembly; to follow the
first Mayor of Paris in all the acts of an administration, the
difficulties of which appeared to be above human strength; to accompany
the virtuous magistrate to the very scaffold, to unroll the mournful
phases of the cruel martyrdom that he was made to undergo; to retrace,
in a word, some of the greatest, some of the most terrible events of the
French Revolution.




INFANCY OF BAILLY.--HIS YOUTH.--HIS LITERARY ESSAYS.--HIS MATHEMATICAL
STUDIES.

John Sylvain Bailly was born at Paris in 1736. His parents were James
Bailly and Cecilia Guichon.

The father of the future astronomer had charge of the king's pictures.
This post had continued in the obscure but honest family of Bailly for
upwards of a century.

Sylvain, while young, never quitted his paternal home. His mother would
not be separated from him; it was not that she could give him the
instruction required from masters in childhood, but a tenderness,
allowed to run to the utmost extreme, entirely blinded her. Bailly then
formed his own mind, under the eye of his parents. Nothing could be