with him who may be invested with the authority which the Academy gives
to the perpetual secretary. I do not know whether I shall be pardoned if
I recount an incident which amused the Academy at the time.

M. de Laplace, at the moment of voting, took two plain pieces of paper;
his neighbour was guilty of the indiscretion of looking, and saw
distinctly that the illustrious geometer wrote the name of Fourier on
both of them. After quietly folding them up, M. de Laplace put the
papers into his hat, shook it, and said to this same curious neighbour:
"You see, I have written two papers; I am going to tear up one, I shall
put the other into the urn; I shall thus be myself ignorant for which of
the two candidates I have voted."

All went on as the celebrated academician had said; only that every one
knew with certainty that his vote had been for Fourier; and "the
calculation of probabilities" was in no way necessary for arriving at
this result.

After having fulfilled the duties of secretary with much distinction,
but not without some feebleness and negligence in consequence of his bad
health, Fourier died the 16th of May, 1830. I declined several times the
honour which the Academy appeared willing to do me, in naming me to
succeed him. I believed, without false modesty, that I had not the
qualities necessary to fill this important place suitably. When
thirty-nine out of forty-four voters had appointed me, it was quite time
that I should give in to an opinion so flattering and so plainly
expressed. On the 7th of June, 1830, I, therefore, became perpetual
secretary of the Academy for the Mathematical Sciences; but, conformably
to the plea of an accumulation of offices, which I had used as an
argument to support, in November, 1822, the election of M. Fournier, I