glorious path to the discouraged poet. M. de Moncaville offered to teach
him mathematics, in exchange for drawing-lessons that his son received
from the warder of the king's pictures. The proposal being accepted, the
progress of Sylvain Bailly in these studies was rapid and brilliant.




BAILLY BECOMES THE PUPIL OF LACAILLE.--HE IS ASSOCIATED WITH HIM IN HIS
ASTRONOMICAL LABOURS.

The mathematical student soon after had one of those providential
meetings which decide a young man's future fate. Mademoiselle Lejeuneux
cultivated painting. It was at the house of this female artist, known
afterwards as Madame La Chenaye, that Lacaille saw Bailly. The
attentive, serious, and modest demeanour of the student charmed the
great astronomer. He showed it in a most unequivocal manner, by
offering, though so avaricious of his time, to become the guide of the
future observer, and also to put him in communication with Clairaut.

It is said that from his first intercourse with Lacaille, Bailly showed
a decided vocation for astronomy. This fact appears to me incontestable.
At his first appearance in this line, I find him associated in the most
laborious, difficult, and tiresome investigations of that great
observer.

These epithets may perhaps appear extraordinary; but they will be so
only to those who have learnt the science of the stars in ancient poems,
either in verse or in prose.