CHARACTER OF BUFFON igg 



mainder of the year at Montbard, away from the dis- 

 tractions and dissipations of the capital. It is signifi- 

 cant that he wrote his great Histoire naturelle at 

 Montbard and not at Paris, where were the collections 

 of natural history. 



His biographer, Flourens, says : " What dominates 

 in the character of Buffon is elevation, force, the love 

 of greatness and glory ; he loved magnificence in 

 everything. His fine figure, his majestic air, seemed 

 to have some relation with the greatness of his genius ; 

 and nature had refused him none of those qualities 

 which could attract the attention of mankind. 



" Nothing is better known than the natveti of his 

 self-esteem ; he admired himself with perfect honesty, 

 frankly, but good-naturedly." 



He was once asked how many great men he could 

 really mention ; he answered: " Five — Newton, Bacon, 

 Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself." His admirable 

 style gained him immediate reputation and glory 

 throughout the world of letters. His famous epi- 

 gram, " Le style est Vhomme mime," is familiar to 

 every one. That his moral courage was scarcely of 

 a high order is proved by his little affair with the 

 theologians of the Sorbonne. Buffon was not of 

 the stuff of which martyrs are made. 



His forte was that of a brilliant writer and most 

 industrious compiler, a popularizer of science. He 

 was at times a bold thinker; but his prudence, not to 

 say timidity, in presenting in his ironical way his 

 thoughts on the origin of things, is annoying, for we 

 do not always understand what Buffon did really 

 believe about the mutability or the fixity of species. 



