1-152-893 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Jean Sylvain Bailly (1736-1793) French astronomer, writer and politician. Bailly was a member of all the three great French academies, the Academie des Sciences, the Academie Francaise and the Academie des Inscriptions, a feat that had only been achieved once before. After the French Revolution, Bailly was elected President of the Third Estate in the Estates-General and acted as Mayor of Paris in 1789-1791. He was guillotined on the orders of the French Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris in November 1793.