Quotes:Bailly Jean Sylvain

Zirkoff, Boris

Bailly Jean Sylvain. French astronomer, statesman and historian, b. in Paris, Sept. 15, 1736; d. there Nov. 12, 1793. Educated at home in the art of painting; later devoted himself to poetry and belles-lettres, until his acquaintance with Father Nicolas Lacaille, when he became an ardent student of astronomy. Calculated an orbit for the comet of 1759 (Halley’s); published, 1766, his Essai sur la théorie des satellites de Jupiter, followed in 1771 by another treatise on the light of the satellites. Admitted to the Academy of Sciences, 1763, to the French Academy, 1783, and to the Académie des Inscriptions, 1784. His remarkable astronomical works are: Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne. Paris: Frères Debuire, 1775; 2nd ed., 1781. 4to.—Histoire de l’astronomie moderne. Paris, 1785. 3 vols.—*Traité de l’astronomie indienne et orientale. Paris: Debuire l’aîné, 1787, cixxx, 227 pp., 4to. These works contain many intuitive and independent theories.

Bailly espoused the democratic cause in the Revolution. He was elected, 1789, first deputy from Paris to the tiers état, and became president of the National Assembly. He was the mayor of Paris during 26 months packed with dangerous events and trying circumstances (July 15, 1789—Nov. 16, 1791). The dispersal by the National Guard, under his orders, of the riotous assembly in the Champ de Mars, July 17, 1791, lost him his popularity, and he retired to Nantes where he wrote his Mémoires d’un témoin oculaire, etc. (publ. posthumously by Berville and Barrière, 1821-22), an incomplete narrative of the events of the Revolution. In 1793, Bailly left Nantes to join his friend Pierre Simon Laplace at Melun; he was recognized, arrested and brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal at Paris. On Nov. 12, 1793, he was guillotined.

At one time in his life he was connected with Franklin, and made an adverse report on Mesmer and his work. Though not an orator, he was an impressive speaker, acted with dignity and moderation, but was not appreciated at a time when mob violence was the order of the day.

420 His other works are: Lettres sur l’origine des sciences, 1777.—Lettres sur l’Atlantide de Platon, London, 1779.—Essai sur les fables, et sur leur histoire, posthumously publ. in Paris, 1799.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 8, pp. 419-420