. de Lamoignon, "I am persuaded, sir, from what I
know of your noble and modest character, that you are very sorry to have
caused this displeasure to a body which is after all very illustrious,
and that you will attempt to make it manifest to all the earth. I am
quite willing to believe that you had good reasons for acting as you have
done." The Academy from that moment regarded the title it conferred as
irrevocable: it did not fill up the place of the Abbe de St. Pierre when
it found itself obliged to exclude him from its sittings, by order of
Louis XV.; it did not fill up the place of Mgr. Dupanloup, when he
thought proper to send in his resignation. In spite of court intrigues,
it from that moment maintained its independence and its dignity.
"M. Despreaux," writes the banker Leverrier to the Duke of Noailles,
"represented to the Academy, with a great deal of heat, that all was rack
and ruin, since it was nothing more but a cabal of women that put
Academicians in the place of those who died. Then he read out loud some
verses by M. de St. Aulaire. . . . Thus M. Despreaux, before the eyes
of everybody, gave M. de St. Aulaire a black ball, and nominated, all by
himself, M. de Mimeure. Here, monseigneur, is proof that there are
Romans still in the world, and, for the future, I will trouble you to
call M. Despreaux no longer your dear poet, but your dear Cato."

With his extreme deafness, Boileau had great difficulty in fulfilling his
Academic duties. He was a member of the Academy of medals and
inscriptions, founded by Colbert in 1662, "in order to render the acts of
the king immortal, by deciding the legends of the medals struck in his
honor." Pontchartrain raised to forty the number of the members of the
_petite acadamie,_ extended its functions, and intrusted it thenceforth
with the charge of publishing curious documents relating to the history
of France. "We had read to us to-day a very learned work, but rather
tiresome," says Boileau to M. Pontchartrain, "and we were bored right
eruditely; but afterwards there was an examination of another which was
much more agreeable, and the reading of which attracted considerable
attention. As the reader was put quite close to me, I was in a position
to hear and to speak of it. All I ask you, to complete the measure of
your kindnesses, is to be kind enough to let everybody know that, if I am
of so little use at the Academy of Medals, it is equally true that I do
not