e learnt that day that the Bishop of Séez had just been elected a member of the Académie Française. Twenty years ago he had delivered a panegyric on St. Maclou, which was considered rather a good thing, and I am willing to believe that there were some excellent passages in it; for my good master, Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard, had put a hand to it before quitting the Bishop's palace with Madame de la Baillive's chambermaid. Monseigneur de Séez was descended from the best Norman aristocracy. His piety, his cellar, and his stable, were justly vaunted throughout the kingdom, and his own nephew dispensed the ecclesiastical patronage all over the country. His election surprised nobody. It was approved by all the world, save by the "grey-stockings" of the Café Procope, who are never content. They are grumblers.
My good master blamed them gently for their contradictory temper.
"Of what does Monsieur Duclos complain?" said he. "Since yesterday, he is the equal of Monseigneur de Séez, who has the handsomest clergy and the finest pack of hounds in the kingdom. For academicians are equal by virtue of the statutes.[9]
"It is true that it is the insolent equality of revellers, which ceases, when, the meeting over, my lord bishop steps into his chariot, leaving Monsieur Duclos to splash his woollen stockings in the gutter. But if he does not want thus to be put on a par with my lord Bishop of Séez, why does he rub shoulders with the badge bedecked. Why does he not hie him to a tub, like Diogenes, or like me, to a stall at the Innocents? It is only in a tub, or in a stall, that one can lord it over this earthly grandeur. It is only there that one is a real prince, and a real lord. Happy is he who has not fixed his hopes on the Academy! Happy is he who lives exempt from fears and desires, and who knows the emptiness of all things! Happy is he who knows that it is equally a vanity to be an Academician, or not to be one. Such a one leads, untroubled, a life obscure and unseen. Fair liberty follows him everywhere he goes. He celebrates in the shade the stilly offices of wisdom, and all the Muses smile on him as on one initiated into their service."
Thus spoke my good master, and I admired the pure enthusiasm which swelled his voice and shone in his eyes. But the restlessness of youth fermented in me. I wanted to take sides, to throw myself into the fight, to declare myself for or against the Academy.
"Monsieur l'Abbé," I asked. "Should not the Academy call to itself the best minds in the kingdom, rather than the uncle of the man who has the ecclesiastical patronage in his gift?"[10] I asked my good master.
"My son," he answered gently, "if Monseigneur de Séez appears austere in his ordinances, great and gallant in his life, and if he is in fact, a paragon among prelates, and pronounced that panegyric on St. Maclou, the exordium of which, relative to the healing of the King's evil by the King of France, seemed to be noble, do you want the Society to turn him out for the sole reason that he has a nephew as powerful as he is amiable? That would be showing a truly ferocious virtue, and punishing Monseigneur de Séez inhumanly for the grandeur of his family. The Academy wished to forget that. That alone, my son, is sufficiently magnanimous."
I was daring enough to make reply to this speech, so carried away was I by the fire of youth.
"Monsieur l'Abbé," said I, "allow my feelings to oppose your arguments. All the world knows that Monseigneur de Séez has only become considerable by the suppleness of his character and his manners, and what one admires in him is his skill in detaching himself from both parties.... We have seen him glide gently between the Jesuits and the Jansenists, tincting his pale prudence with the roses of Christian charity.... He thinks he has done enough when he has displeased no one, and all his care is to sustain his position. Thus it is not his great heart which has gained for him the suffrages of the King's illustrious protégés.[11] Neither is it his great mind. For, with the exception of this panegyric on St. Maclou, which he had (as all the world knows) but the trouble of reading, this peace-loving bishop has only let us hear the depressing instructions issued to his clergy.
"He recommends himself by the amenity of his language and the politeness of his conversation. Are these sufficient titles to immortality?"
"Tournebroche," answered Monsieur l'Abbé, civilly, "you reason with the simplicity given to you by Madame, your mother, at your birth, and I see that you will keep your natural candour for long enough. I congratulate you upon it. But innocence must not make you unjust; it is enough that it leaves you ignorant. The immortality that they have bestowed on Monseigneur de Séez does not call for the attainments of a Bossuet or a Belzunce; it is not graven in the heart of an astounded people—it is inscribed in a big book; and you can well understand that these paper laurels only suit the heads of such heroes.
"If, among the Forty, there are persons of more gentility than genius, what harm do you see in it? Mediocrity triumphs in the Academy. But where does it not? Do you see it less powerful in Parliament or in the royal Council, where doubtless it is less fitted to find place? Must one be an exceptional man to work at a dictionary which wishes to regulate custom, and can only follow it?
"Academicians, or academists, were instituted, as you know, to fix the best usage in matters of speech, to purge the language of all archaisms and vulgar impurities, and to see that a second Rabelais, or a second Montaigne, does not arise, smelling of the rabble, of pedantry, or of the provinces. They assembled, to this end, gentlemen, who knew good usage and writers who were interested in knowing it. That gave rise to alarm lest the assembly should, tyrannically, reform the French language. But it was soon recognised that these fears were vain, and the academists, far from imposing custom, obeyed it. In spite of their veto we continue to say as before, 'I shut my door.'[12]
"The Assembly soon resigned itself to entombing the progress of usage in a big dictionary. It is the sole care of the Immortals.[13] When they are not sitting they find leisure for recreation with one another. For that they need pleasant companions, easy and affable, amiable colleagues, well-informed men, and men who know the world. This is not always the case with men of great talent. Genius is sometimes unsociable. An exceptional man is rarely a man of resource. The Academy could do without Descartes and Pascal. Who says that it could do well without Monsieur Godeau or Monsieur Conrart, or any other person of a supple, complacent, and circumspect turn of mind?"
"Alas!" I sighed, "then it is no senate of divine beings, or council of immortals, no august Areopagus of poetry and eloquence?"
"By no means, my son. It is a society which teaches manners, and which has gained a great reputation for that among foreign nations, and particularly among the Muscovites. You have no idea what admiration the Académie Française inspires among German barons, colonels of the Russian Army and English milords. Europeans rate nothing higher than our Academicians and our dancers. I knew a Sarmatian princess of great beauty who, passing through Paris, impatiently sought for an academician, whoever he might be, to make him a present of her virtue."
"If it be thus," I cried, "why do the academicians risk compromising their good reputation by these unfortunate selections which are so universally blamed?"
"Stop, Tournebroche, my son, do not say anything evil of unfortunate selections," replied my master. "To begin with, in all human undertakings one must take into consideration the part played by chance, which is, upon the whole, the part played by God on earth, and the only occasion where Divine Providence manifests itself clearly in this world. For you well understand, my son, that what we call the absurdity of chance and the caprice of fortune, are, in reality, but the revenge taken in sport by Divine justice on the counsels of the would-be wise. In the second place, it is suitable in assemblies to give some play to caprice and fancy. A perfectly reasonable society would be a perfectly unbearable one. It would languish under the cold rule of justice. It would not have any belief in its own power or freedom if it did not taste, from time to time, the delicious pleasure of braving public opinion and good sense. It is the darling sin of the powers of this world to be taken with bizarre caprices. Why should not the Academy indulge in whims just as much as the Grand Turk or a pretty woman?
"Many opposite passions unite to inspire these unfortunate selections which vex simple souls. It is a pleasure for good people to take an unfortunate mortal and make an academician of him. Thus the God of the psalmist takes the poor man from his dunghill. Erigens de stercore pauperem, ut collocet eum cum principibus, cum principibus populi sui. These are strokes which astonish the nations and those who deal them must think themselves armed with a mysterious force and terrible power. And what pleasure to drag the poor soul from his dunghill, while leaving, meanwhile, some intellectual despot in the shade! It is to quaff, at a draught, a rare and delicious mixture of charity fulfilled and jealousy satisfied. It is enjoyment in every sense and content for the whole man. And you want the academicians to resist the sweetness of such a philtre!
"We must take into consideration again, that in procuring for themselves this very sophisticated pleasure, the academicians act for the best in their own interests. A society formed exclusively of great men would not be numerous, and would appear rather depressing.
"Great men cannot endure one another, and they have little wit. It is good to let them mix with smaller fry. It amuses them. The small fry benefit by their neighbourhood, the great by the comparison with the small, and there is profit for both one and the other. Let us admire by what skilful play, what ingenious contrivance, the Académie Française passes on to some of its members the importance it gains from others. It is a collection of suns and planets, where all shine with their own or with a borrowed effulgence.
"I go even further. Unfortunate selections are necessary to the existence of this society. If, in the elections, the Academy did not take the side of weakness and error, if it did not have the air of choosing haphazardly at times, it would make itself so hated by all that it could no longer continue to exist. In the republic of letters it would be as a tribunal set in the midst of condemned men. Infallible, it would appear odious. What an affront for those who were not chosen, were the elected one always the best! The daughter of Richelieu must seem a little volatile, so as not to appear too insolent. What saves her is that she takes fancies. Her injustice proves her innocence. It is because we know her capricious that she can reject us without wounding us. It is sometimes so advantageous to her to deceive herself that I am tempted to believe, notwithstanding appearances, that she does it on purpose. She has admirable ruses for dealing tactfully with the self-love of the candidates she sets aside. An election of such a kind disarms envy. It is in her apparent faults that you must admire her true wisdom."