"Genius is but a greater aptitude for perseverance," he used to say, himself justifying his definition by the assiduity of his studies.

"I had come to the sixteenth volume of my work on natural history," he writes with bitter regret, "when a serious and long illness interrupted for nearly two years the course of my labors.
This shortening of my life, already far advanced, caused one in my works.
I might, in the two years I have lost, have produced two or three volumes of the history of birds, without abandoning for that my plan of a history of minerals, on which I have been engaged for several years." In 1753 Buffon had been nominated a member of the French Academy.

He had begged his friends to vote for his compatriot, Piron, author of the celebrated comedy _Metromanie,_ at that time an old man and still poor.
"I can wait," said Buffon.

"Two days before that fixed for the election," writes Grimm, "the king sent for President Montesquieu, to whose lot it had fallen to be director of the Academy on that occasion, and told him that, understanding that the Academy had cast their eyes upon M.Piron, and knowing that he was the author of several licentious works, he desired the Academy to choose some one else to fill the vacant place.

His Majesty at the same time told him that he would not have any member belonging to the order of advocates." Buffon was elected, and on the 25th of August, 1754, St.Louis' day, he was formally received by the Academy; Grimm describes the session.
"M.