XIII. 



THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 



MDE LESSEPS, having been elected by the 

 French Academy to the chair left vacant by 

 the death of Henri Martin, took his seat for the first 

 time on the 23rd of April, 1885, and delivered the 

 following address : 



" In admitting me among you, you have both con- 

 ferred upon me a great satisfaction and placed me in a 

 position of great embarrassment. To form part of the 

 French Academy, this distinguished assembly, this 

 elective aristocracy of letters, is an honour of which 

 the proudest is entitled to be proud; but to speak 

 before it is a task which may make even a clever 

 writer hesitate, and I am, unfortunately, neither the 

 one nor the other. The reception speech was there- 

 fore doubly formidable, both for me and for you. This 

 is why I am anxious at the outset to reassure you. 

 You are not about to hear a piece of oratory. I 

 would not subject either my inexperience or your 

 forbearance to so rude an ordeal. Unable to do well, 

 I have done better I have studied brevity. 



"Your ancestors had the habit of summoning to 

 the Academy of Letters, not merely men of letters, 



