Unfortunately, considerations of this sort, notwithstanding their justice, would make but little impression on the haughty and positive mind of Buffon.  That great naturalist 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 public knew of the character of the official and the private life of the future cardinal.  Whence then had the illustrious 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 lapidary; 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.”

I have discovered that Sedaine made a counterpart of it.  The author of Richard Coeur de Lion and of The Deserter said,—­

     “Style is nothing, or next to it!”

Place this heresy, in imagination, under the eyes of the immortal writer, whose days and nights were passed in polishing his style, and if you then ask me why he detested Sedaine, I shall have a right to answer:  You do not know the human heart.

Bailly firmly resisted the imperious solicitations of his former patron, and refused even to absent himself from the Academy on the day of the nomination.  He did not hesitate to sacrifice the attractions and advantages of an illustrious friendship to the performance of a duty; he answered to him who wanted to be master, “I will be free.”  Honour be to him!

The example of Bailly warns timid men never to listen to mere entreaties, whatever may be their source; not to yield but to good arguments.  Those who have thought so little of their own tranquillity as to do any more in academical elections than to give a silent and secret vote, will see on their part, in the noble and painful resistance of an honest man, how culpable they become in trying to substitute authority for persuasion, in wishing to subject conscience to gratitude.