RUPTURE WITH BUFFON. 125 



But what is much less so, is forgetting that a vote is a 

 decision, and that in this sense the academician, like the 

 magistrate, may say to the suitor, whether an academician 

 or not, " I give decrees, and not services." 



Unfortunately, considerations of this sort, notwithstand- 

 ing their justice, would make but little impression on the 

 haughty and positive mind of Buffon. That great natu- 

 ralist wished to have the Abbe Maury nominated ; his 

 associate Bailly thought he ought to vote for Sedaine. 

 Let us place ourselves in the ordinary course of things, 

 and it will appear difficult to see in this discordancy a 

 sufficient cause for a rupture between two superior men. 

 The Unforeseen Wager and The Unconscious Philosopher, 

 considerably balanced the, then very light, weight of 

 Maury. The comic poet had already reached his sixty- 

 sixth year ; the Abbe was young. The high character, 

 the irreproachable conduct of Sedaine, might, without 

 disparagement, be put in comparison with what the pub- 

 lic knew of the character of the official and the private 

 life of the future cardinal. Whence then had the illus- 

 trious naturalist derived such a great affection for Maury, 

 such violent antipathies against Sedaine ? It may be 

 surmised that they arose from aristocratic prejudices of 

 rank. Nor is it impossible but that M. le Comte de 

 Buffon instinctively foresaw, with some repugnance, his 

 approaching confraternity with a man formerly a lapi- 

 dary ; but was not Maury the son of a shoemaker ? 

 This very small incident of our literary history seemed 

 doomed to remain in obscurity; chance has, I believe, 

 given me the key to it. 



You remember, Gentlemen, that aphorism continually 

 quoted by Buffon, and of which he seemed very proud, 



" Style makes the man." 



