366 BUFFON 



des Plantes, and continued to study, write, and lecture 

 with unwearied diligence until he died in extreme old' 

 age. Gudnau de Montb^liard and his wife were also: 

 employed upon the Histoire Naturelle. Gu^nau was 

 thought to have caught the trick of his master s style, 

 and some of his descriptions, such as the peacock and 

 the swan, were greatly admired as the work of BufFon 

 himself. After Gu^nau the Abb^ Bexon became a prin- 

 cipal contributor to the Birds. Barth^lemy Fauj as- 

 Saint-Fond (1741-1819) had travelled and written on 

 extinct volcanoes, and to him the minerals were en- 

 trusted. 



BUFFON AT WORK 



There have been accounts of BufFon's mode of work at 

 Montbard which have caught the fancy of the public. 

 Everyone has heard, for instance, how he dressed himself 

 as if for a visit of ceremony before sitting down to write. 

 Buffon himself tells us of his " voute antique," a vaulted 

 room in a tower at Montbard, which was approached by 

 a succession of garden terraces. Standing at a desk in a 

 nearly empty room he meditated and wrote. He also 

 worked in a more comfortable room in the chateau. His 

 daily allowance of literary labour was eight or nine hours. 

 He made a point of destroying his notes and extracts 

 as soon as they were done with, for fear of becoming 

 buried beneath his papers (a dangerous practice !). Order 

 and temperance were the rule of his life.^ Mallet du 

 Pan, who had seen him at Montbard in his later years, 

 gives his own impression. " BufFon vit absolument en 

 philosophe ; il est juste sans etre g^nereux, et toute sa 

 conduite est calquee sur la raison ; il aime Vordre, il en 

 met partout." ^ fll 



BufFon took no notice of criticism. " II faut laisser la 



1 Humbert, Memoir es, p. 27. 



