BUPFON 369 



Though Buffon often dined with Diderot, D'Alembert 

 and Helv^tius in Quesnay's rooms at Versailles, he took 

 care not to be reckoned in what he called " I'escadron 

 encyclop^dique." ^ 



Descartes, Voltaire and Buffon had all been educated 

 by the Jesuits — a proof that early education may be 

 powerless to restrain speculation. 



BUPFON'S LAST YEARS 



After his sixtieth year was passed Buffon's life was 

 marked by sorrows such as commonly befall those to 

 whom, in Juvenal's phrase, the over-indulgent gods 

 have granted length of days. He married late (at forty- 

 five), but twenty years before his own death he lost his 

 wife, to whom he had been deeply attached. From 

 about this time a painful and hopeless disease embittered 

 his existence. His son, " Buffonet," having been dis- 

 appointed of the succession to the Jardin du Roi, entered 

 the army, and served under the Duke of Orleans, after- 

 wards PhUippe Egalit^. The duke corrupted Buffonet's 

 young wife, who became notorious to all France. Even 

 the Histoire Naturelle brought many anxieties ; col- 

 laborators often failed to satisfy him ; the labour of 

 correspondence became oppressive ; and Buffon was 

 gradually forced to admit that his great work was 

 destined to remain a gigantic fragment. The endless 

 detail of the animal kingdom surprised and disheartened 

 him. In 1780 he complains to the Abb6 Bexon of " ces 

 tristes oiseaux d'eau, dont on ne sait que dire, et dont la 

 multitude est accablante." He found only one remedy 

 — to toil on. His last piece of writing was the account 

 of the magnet, which he had specially reserved for his 

 own pen, and on which he bestowed great pains. 



* Marmontel, Mimoires, liv. v. 

 2a 



