ome leading questions of public
and private instruction, obtained for me the notice of literary men.[2]
With gratuitous kindness, M. de Fontanes, Grand Master of the
University, appointed me Assistant Professor to the Chair of History,
occupied by M. de Lacretelle, in the Faculty of Letters in the Academy
of Paris. In a very short time, and before I had commenced my class, as
if he thought he had not done enough to evince his esteem and to attach
me strongly to the University, he divided the Chair, and named me
Titular Professor of Modern History, with a dispensation on account of
age, as I had not yet completed my twenty-fifth year. I began my
lectures at the College of Plessis, in presence of the pupils of the
Normal School, and of a public audience few in number but anxious for
instruction, and with whom modern history, traced up to its remote
sources, the barbarous conquerors of the Roman Empire, presented itself
with an urgent and almost contemporaneous interest. In his conduct
towards me, M. de Fontanes was not entirely actuated by some pages of
mine he had read, or by a few friendly opinions he had heard expressed.
This learned Epicurean, become powerful, and the intellectual favourite
of the most potent Sovereign in Europe, loved literature for itself with
a sincere and disinterested attachment. The truly beautiful touched him
as sensibly as in the days of his early youth and poetical inspirations.
What was still more extraordinary, this refined courtier of a despot,
this official orator, who felt satisfied when he had embellished
flattery with noble eloquence, never failed to acknowledge, and render
due homage to independence. Soon after my appointment, he invited me to
dinner at his country-house at Courbevoie. Seated near him at table, we
talked of studies, of the different modes of teaching, of ancient and
modern classics, with the freedom of old acquaintances, and almost with
the association of fellow-labourers. The conversation turned upon the
Latin poets and their commentators. I spoke with warm praise of the
great edition of Virgil by Heyne, the celebrated professor of the
University of Goettingen, and of the merit of his annotations.
M. de Fontanes fiercely attacked the German scholars. According to him,
they had neither discovered nor added anything to the earlier
commentaries, and Heyne was no better acquainted with Virgil and the
ancients than Pere La Rue. He fulminated against German literature in
th