CHARACTER OF BUFFON 199 
mainder of the year at Montbard, away from the dis- 
tractions and dissipations of the capital. It is signifi- 
cant that he wrote his great HAfzstotre naturelle at 
Montbard and not at Paris, where were the collections 
of natural history. 
His biographer, Flourens, says: “ What dominates 
in the character of Buffon is elevation, force, the love 
of greatness and glory; he loved magnificence in 
everything. His fine figure, his majestic air, seemed 
to have some relation with the greatness of his genius; 
and nature had refused him none of those qualities 
which could attract the attention of mankind. 
“ Nothing is better known than the xatveté of his 
self-esteem ; he admired himself with perfect honesty, 
frankly, but good-naturedly.” 
He was once asked how many great men he could 
really mention; he answered: ‘‘ Five—Newton, Bacon, 
Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself.” His admirable 
style gained him immediate reputation and glory 
throughout the world of letters. His famous epi- 
gram, “Le style est l’homme méme,” is familiar to 
every one. That his moral courage was scarcely of 
a high order is proved by his little affair with the 
theologians of the Sorbonne. Buffon was not of 
the stuff of which martyrs are made. 
His forte was that of a brilliant writer and most 
industrious compiler, a popularizer of science. He 
was at times a bold thinker; but his prudence, not to 
say timidity, in presenting in his ironical way his 
thoughts on the origin of things, is annoying, for we 
do not always understand what Buffon did really 
believe about the mutability or the fixity of species, 
