It was supposed, but I dare not flatter myself that it was the fact, that my declaration exercised a certain influence on the result of the ballot. The result was as follows: M. Fourier received thirty-eight votes, and M. Biot ten. In a case of this nature each man carefully conceals his vote, in order not to run the risk of future disagreement 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 declared that I should give in my resignation of the Professorship in the Polytechnic School. Neither the solicitations of Marshal Soult, the Minister of War, nor those of the most eminent members of the Academy, could avail in persuading me to renounce this resolution. FOOTNOTES: [1] With such precocious heroism it is by no means so clear that the author might not have had a hand in the revolution, from which he endeavours above to exculpate himself. [2] Mechain, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the Institute, was charged in 1792 with the prolongation of the measure of the arc of the meridian in Spain as far as Barcelona.