The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



homage. Who to-day would dare to contest 

 their right to become his pupils, to seek with 

 him " the freshest honey and the most poeti- 

 cal observations of the insects that people 

 the boughs and the flowers," to enter with 

 him into the secret of all these little lives, 

 " which are, like ourselves," they said, 

 " creatures of the good God " ? 



And serious personages ^ from the pre- 

 cincts of the Academie and the Universite de 

 France lent voice and gesture to the Ingenu- 

 ous utterance of radiant youth, which de- 

 lightfully made amends for the past. 



There was another official authority, the 

 highest of all, to which Fabre had not much 

 reason to be grateful. Long and brilliant 

 services in the cause of public instruction, 

 scientific works of the highest order, need 

 of leisure and resources for his investiga- 

 tions, family responsibilities, and the struggle 

 for life — what claims did not these represent 

 to distinction and to the generosity of the 

 public authorities ! But what part or lot had 

 he in these in reality? One might almost 

 say none. One day, as though by chance, the 

 perspicacity of a Minister of the Empire had 

 all but rescued him from poverty and ob- 

 livion. A mere accident without sequence: 



* Jules Clar^tie, Jean Richepin, Adolphe Brisson, etc. 



368 



