Quite  obviously Raphaël Bischoffsheim wished his foundation to become everlasting one after his death. He was persuaded that the only means  to ensure the continuity, was to donate it at the Paris University. The deed  was signed on November 15th, 1899. The University would  benefit only after  giver's death (1906), who reserved to him  its  usufruct in the meantime.
 
      To maintain the institution after his death, the banker bequeathed to the University a capital of two and a half millions of francs. He hoped that the State, in recognition of the service given to French science would not hesitate to add to it a grant,  if necessary.
 
      The Scientific Management and the financial control of the Observatory was entrusted to an  Executive committee, the eleven members of which, except Bischoffsheim,  were elected for their life. All of them belonged to the University of Paris and to the Academy of  Sciences.
 
      The director of the Observatory sat in it as an adviser, and had  only the right  to appoint and revoke the staff  after " having referred to the Executive Committee".
 
      In 1904, after  Perrotin's death, General  Bassot, Director of the Geographic Service of the Army,  was appointed to occupy the office of director. It  was essentially  an enlightened  and competent administrator that was requested. Bassot would keep  this office to the satisfaction of all, almost until his death.   
 
      He wanted  to create a service of physical astronomy. Next year, in 1905, Henri Chrétien, a 26-year-old optician,  Deslandres' assistant at the Meudon Observatory, arrived in Nice to assume this responsibility and build instruments appropriate to this type of researches
 
      General Bassot sent him, in mission in the largest and  best equipped Observatories of the time, in the United States and in Russia.
 
      At  Mount Wilson, in California, where he worked during almost one year to learn about the methods used by the astronomers, Chrétien produced numerous optical devices, and began with Ritchey, the study of a new telescope that was  later named "Ritchey-Chrétien telescope".

    Back  to Nice in 1910, he set up the service of physical astronomy, and settled his spectroheliograph (1913). Henri Chrétien, a creative genius combining science and technique,  rather badly ignored  today, is the inventor of these wide-spread devices all over the world, the cataphots, as well as the hypergonar, a precursor of Cinemascope.

      Besides Chrétien,  General Bassot appointed at  the same time new astronomers, namely : Philippe Lagrula, who  returned  to  France after  having managed the Observatory of Quito, and who assisted Chrétien for the settling of a photo-visual comparator to improve the observations; and René Baillaud,  a son of the director of Paris Observatory, Benjamin Baillaud.
 
      In 1911, General Bassot gave Gaston Fayet, an astronomer at  the Paris Observatory the management of the  Nice staff  dedicated to  the observations of the intermediate stars, situated in the zone of the sky in the declination range -15 ° to + 15 °, and in the implementation of the  associated catalog, the  contribution  of the Observatory to the mundial  enterprise of the Carte du Ciel. This work was executed with René Baillaud's assistance at the Brunner's meridian circle.
 
     The coordinates of the Observatory, (longitude and  latitude), had been determined at its foundation, but the precision of the results was contested. In 1912, Bassot decided to resume the operation, by the most modern methods. Gaston Fayet participated in the measures in connection with the Time Service of the Paris Observatory.
 
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