Was it not quite natural that the geometer D’Alembert, having to pronounce his opinion between two honourable learned men, gave the preference to the candidate who seemed to him most imbued with the higher mathematics?  The eloges of Condorcet were, besides, by their style, much more in harmony with those that the Academy had approved during three quarters of a century.  Before the declaration of the vacancy on the 27th of February, 1773, D’Alembert said to Voltaire, relative to the recueil by Condorcet, “Some one asked me the other day what I thought of that work.  I answered by writing on the frontispiece, ’Justice, propriety, learning, clearness, precision, taste, elegance, and nobleness.’” And Voltaire wrote, on the 1st of March, “I have read, while dying, the little book by M. de Condorcet; it is as good in its departments as the eloges by Fontenelle.  There is a more noble and more modest philosophy in it, though bold.”

And excitement in words and action could not be legitimately reproached in a man who had felt himself supported by a conviction of such distinct and powerful influence.

Among the eloges by Bailly, there is one, that of the Abbe de Lacaille, which not having been written for a literary academy, shows no longer any trace of inflation or declamation, and might, it seems to me, compete with some of the best eloges by Condorcet.  Yet, it is curious, that this excellent biography contributed, perhaps as much as D’Alembert’s opposition, to make Bailly’s claims fail.  Vainly did the celebrated astronomer flatter himself in his exordium, “that M. de Fouchy, who, as Secretary of the Academy, had already paid his tribute to Lacaille, would not be displeased at his having followed him in the same career ... that he would not be blamed for repeating the praises due to an illustrious man.”

Bailly, in fact, was not blamed aloud; but when the hour for retreat had sounded in M. de Fouchy’s ear, without any fuss, without showing himself offended in his self-love, remaining apparently modest, this learned man, in asking for an assistant, selected one who had not undertaken to repeat his eloges; who had not found his biographies insufficient.  This preference ought not to be, and was not, uninfluential in the result of the competition.

Bailly, if Perpetual Secretary of the Academy, would have been obliged to reside constantly at Paris.  But Bailly, as member of the Astronomical Section, might retire to the country, and thus escape those thieves of time, as Byron called them, who especially abound in the metropolis.  Bailly settled at Chaillot.  It was at Chaillot that our fellow-academician composed his best works, those that will sail down the stream of time.