Fabre's Writings 



About 1866 and 1867, at the Normal College of 

 Rodez, one of our professors used to read to us 

 and teach us to admire certain little books by our 

 as yet but little known compatriot, J. H. Fabre, 

 who was born at Saint-Leons, so he told us, and 

 had graduated from the Normal College of Avig- 

 non. 



Such is the information recently given us 

 by M. Frangois Fabie, as " a detail that 

 might perhaps give us pleasure, and which 

 proves, in any case, that not all the inhab- 

 itants of the Rouergue, as was mistakenly 

 said of late, were ignorant of the name, 

 origin, and talent of J. H. Fabre." x 



1 Our eminent compatriot will forgive the writer for 

 quoting the following passage from a letter of his, which 

 so fully expresses both his admiration for our hero and 

 his profound affection for the land of our fathers: "For 

 the second time, on reading in the Journal d'Aveyron your 

 comprehensive and loving study of the life and work 

 of your illustrious namesake, I was agreeably surprised 

 to see that you compared our characters and our work. 

 This comparison is extremely flattering to me, and I 

 thank you from the bottom of my heart. ... It is in- 

 deed a somewhat curious thing that two Rouergats should 

 have conceived the idea of celebrating the Animals; that 

 both should have been led by their destiny to Provence; 

 that both should have had the course of their lives af- 

 fected by the intervention of Duruy, etc. It is true that 

 one must not push these analogies too far. Duruy merely 

 advanced me from the Normal College of Rodez to that 

 of Cluny; and in so doing, alas! he uprooted me. . . . 

 As for the Animals, what are the poetic fancies which 

 I have dedicated to them beside the masterly essays of 

 the man who has been called ' the Homer of the in- 

 sects!'" M. Fabie does not dispute, any more than we 

 ourselves, that Fabre's fame qune legitimately belongs 

 301 



