370 BUFFON 



All the honours that can be bestowed upon a success- 

 ful author were showered down upon BufFon. He was 

 ennobled by the King ; in 1753 he was admitted to the 

 Academic Fran9aise without a canvass. Naturalists, 

 with eyes focussed upon the details of their science, 

 might perhaps withhold their approval, but some of 

 the most eminent men in Europe, famous writers and 

 members of learned academies, helped to spread his 

 praise. 



He died on April 16th, 1788. On the 11th of 

 December there was a solemn meeting of the Academy, 

 when Vicq d'Azyr was chosen in his room, and delivered 

 an eloge which was thought worthy of the great natu- 

 ralist. This was almost the last occasion on which an 

 orator dared to speak of the king of France as the head 

 of an enlightened people, the benefactor and restorer of 

 the State. Six months later the Bastille was stormed, 

 and some five years afterwards the orator himself lay on 

 his death-bed, fancying in his delirium that he saw 

 Bailly and Lavoisier summoning him to mount the 

 scaffold. Buffon was at least spared the horrors of 

 the Revolution and the execution of his only son as 

 an aristocrat. 



Buffon on System^ 



At the outset of his undertaking Buffon made a par- 

 ticularly grave mistake. He attacked, needlessly and 

 ignorantly, two naturalists whom he ought to have 

 conciliated, for each, in a way of his own, was labouring 

 diligently and successfully to promote Buffon's cause. 

 They were not men to be trampled upon with impunity ; 

 the one who had most ground of complaint was Linnaeus ; 

 the other, who is dismissed with a few contemptuous 



1 Premier Diseours. De la maniere d'etudier et de traiter I'Histoire 

 Naturelle. 



