The Professor: Avignon 



Orange. Thus was my exodus from Avignon ef- 

 fected. 1 



After this we understand why it was that 

 Fabre cried: 



" It is all over; the downfall of my hopes 

 is complete !" 



But no, beloved master 1 All was not over. 

 The immortal work with which your name 

 is connected was as yet to be begun. This 

 ruin, this mortification, this grievous over- 

 throw of all your hopes in connection with 

 the University were even needed to lead you 

 back to the fields, to enable you to raise, 

 in all its amplitude and its exquisite original- 

 ity, the scientific edifice of which you may 

 say, with the ancient poet: Exegi monumen- 

 tum aere perennis. 2 



M. Edmond Perrier very judiciously re- 

 marked, in his speech at Serignan : " In Paris, 

 in a great city, you would have had great 

 difficulty in finding your beloved insects, and 

 entomology would have lost a great part of 

 those magnificent observations which are the 

 glory of French science." 



So it was, in reality, advantageous, as re- 

 gards his destiny, that Fabre suffered, at this 



1 Souvenirs, II., pp. 125-126. The Mason Bees, chap, v., 

 "The story of my Cats." 



2 Horace, Ode xxx., Bk. iii. 



197 



