'I made it a rule,' he used to say, 'to always fix upon the noblest expressions.'" It was in this dignified and studious retirement that Buffon quietly passed his long life.

"I dedicated," he says, " twelve, nay, fourteen, hours to study; it was my whole pleasure.

In truth, I devoted myself to it far more than I troubled myself about fame; fame comes afterwards, if it may, and it nearly always does." Buffon did not lack fame; on the appearance of the first three volumes of his "Histoire naturelle," published in 1749, the breadth of his views, the beauty of his language, and the strength of his mind excited general curiosity and admiration.

The Sorbonne was in a flutter at certain bold propositions; Buffon, without being disconcerted, took pains to avoid condemnation.

"I took the liberty," he says in a letter to M.Leblant, "of writing to the Duke of Nivernais (then ambassador at Rome), who has replied to me in the most polite and most obliging way in the world; I hope, therefore, that my book will not be put in the Index, and, in truth, I have done all I could not to deserve it and to avoid theological squabbles, which I fear far more than I do the criticisms of physicists and geometricians." "Out of a hundred and twenty assembled doctors," he adds before long, "I had a hundred and fifteen, and their resolution even contains eulogies which I did not expect." Despite certain boldnesses which had caused anxiety, the Sorbonne had reason to compliment the great naturalist.