Laplace’s personality seems to have been less attractive than that of Lagrange. He was vain of his reputation as a mathematician and not always generous to rival discoverers. To Lagrange, however, he was always friendly, and he was also kind in helping young mathematicians of promise. While he was perfectly honest and courageous in upholding his scientific and philosophical opinions, his politics bore an undoubted resemblance to those of the Vicar of Bray, and were professed by him with great success. He was appointed a member of the Commission for Weights and Measures, and afterwards of the Bureau des Longitudes, and was made professor at the École Normale when it was founded. When Napoleon became First Consul, Laplace asked for and obtained the post of Home Secretary, but—fortunately for science—was considered quite incompetent, and had to retire after six weeks (1799)[145]; as a compensation he was made a member of the newly created Senate. The third volume of the _Mécanique Céleste_, published in 1802, contained a dedication to the “Heroic Pacificator of Europe,” at whose hand he subsequently received various other distinctions, and by whom he was created a Count when the Empire was formed. On the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814 he tendered his services to them, and was subsequently made a Marquis. In 1816 he also received a very unusual honour for a mathematician (shared, however, by D’Alembert) by being elected one of the Forty “Immortals” of the _Académie Française_; this distinction he seems to have owed in great part to the literary excellence of the _Système du Monde_. Notwithstanding these distractions he worked steadily at mathematics and astronomy, and even after the completion of the _Mécanique Céleste_ wrote a supplement to it which was published after his death (1827). His last words, “_Ce que nous connaissons est peu de chose, ce que nous ignorons est immense_,” coming as they did from one who had added so much to knowledge, shew his character in a pleasanter aspect than it sometimes presented during his career. 239. With the exception of Lagrange’s paper on libration, nearly all his and Laplace’s important contributions to astronomy were made when Clairaut’s and D’Alembert’s work was nearly finished, though Euler’s activity continued for nearly 20 years more. Lagrange, however, survived him by 30 years and Laplace by more than 40; and together they carried astronomical science to a far higher stage of development than their three predecessors.