18 MEMOIR OP 



whilst it was universally acknowledged that he was 

 as obliging as he was polished, and that he did not 

 more indulge in compliment than in rendering 

 important services, and in bestowing substantial 

 favours. His father superintended his education 

 with great care, and received valuable assistance 

 from M. de Chabannes, the Bishop of Agen ; and 

 it was remarked that during his younger years the 

 idea of a bad author or of a wicked man scarcely 

 presented itself to his mind. When twelve years of 

 age, as he himself stated, he imagined that all poets 

 resembled Corneille and Racine, that all historians 

 were like Bossuet, and all moralists like Fenelon. 

 He had thus from his earliest years a great leaning 

 to optimism, and would scarcely believe that any one 

 was actuated by bad feelings or intentions, or that 

 any one wished to deceive ; and this prepossession 

 had great influence over his conduct and writings, 

 as well as on his social habits. 



Buffon's Natural History was one of those books 

 which was early put into his hands, and it instantly 

 became a favourite; it was the companion of his 

 walks, and that in one of the finest countries of the 

 world. It was on the beautiful banks of the lovely 

 valley of the Garonne, in the neighbourhood of those 

 smiling hills which are so majestically terminated by 

 the peaks of the Pyrenees that he studied the elo- 

 quent pictures of this great writer : his passion for 

 the beauties of Nature thus originated at the same 

 time with his admiration for that great painter who 

 pointed them out to his contemplation, and these 



