The Academy pronounced its judgment gravely, without inflicting a word of ridicule; for example, it did not speak of harlequin; but it did not therefore remain the less established that the pretended experiments, intended, it was said, to upset Newton’s, on the unequal refrangibility of variously coloured rays, and the explanation of the rainbow, &c., had absolutely no scientific value.

Still the author would not allow himself to have been beaten.  He even conceived the possibility of retaliation; and, availing himself of his intimacy with the Duke de Villeroy, governor of the second city in the kingdom, he got the Academy of Lyons to propose for competition all the questions in optics, which for several years past had been the subjects of its disquisitions; he even furnished the amount of the prize out of his own pocket, under an assumed name.

The prize so longed for, and so singularly proposed, was not obtained, however, by the Duke de Villeroy’s candidate, but by the astronomer Flaugergues.  From that instant, the pseudo-physicist became the bitter enemy of the scientific bodies of the whole universe, of whoever bore the title of an academician.  Putting aside all shame, he no longer made himself known in the field of natural philosophy, merely by imaginary experiments, or by juggleries; he had recourse to contemptible practices, with the object of throwing doubt upon the clearest and best proved principles of science; for example, the metallic needles discovered by the academician Charles, and which the foreign doctor had adroitly concealed in a cake of resin, in order to contradict the common opinion of the electric non-conductibility of that substance.

These details were necessary.  I could not avoid characterizing the journalist who by his daily calumnies contributed most to undermine the popularity of Bailly.  It was requisite besides, once for all, to strip him in this circle of the epithet of philosopher, with which men of the world, and even some historians, inconsiderately gratified him.  When a man reveals himself by some brilliant and intelligent works, the public is pleased to find them united with good qualities of the heart.  Nor should its joy be less hearty on discovering the absence of all intellectual merit in a man who had before shown himself despicable by his passions, or his vices, or even only by serious blemishes of character.

If I have not yet named the enemy of our colleague, if I have contented myself with recounting his actions, it is in order to avoid as much as I can the painful feeling that his name must raise here.  Judge, Gentlemen, weigh, my scruples:  the furious persecutor of Bailly, of whom I have been talking to you for some minutes, was Marat.

The revolution of ’89 just occurred in time to relieve the abortive author, physiologist, and physicist from the intolerable position into which he had been thrown by his inability and his quackery.