appear difficult to see in this discordancy a sufficient cause for a
rupture between two superior men. _The Unforeseen Wager_ and _The
Unconscious Philosopher_, considerably balanced the, then very light,
weight of Maury. The comic poet had already reached his sixty-sixth
year; the Abbé was young. The high character, the irreproachable conduct
of Sedaine, might, without disparagement, be put in comparison with what
the public knew of the character of the official and the private life of
the future cardinal. Whence then had the illustrious naturalist derived
such a great affection for Maury, such violent antipathies against
Sedaine? It may be surmised that they arose from aristocratic prejudices
of rank. Nor is it impossible but that M. le Comte de Buffon
instinctively foresaw, with some repugnance, his approaching
confraternity with a man formerly a lapidary; but was not Maury the son
of a shoemaker? This very small incident of our literary history seemed
doomed to remain in obscurity; chance has, I believe, given me the key
to it.

You remember, Gentlemen, that aphorism continually quoted by Buffon, and
of which he seemed very proud,--

"Style makes the man."

I have discovered that Sedaine made a counterpart of it. The author of
_Richard Coeur de Lion_ and of _The Deserter_ said,--

"Style is nothing, or next to it!"

Place this heresy, in imagination, under the eyes of the immortal
writer, whose days and nights were passed in polishing his style, and if
you then ask me why he detested Sedaine, I shall have a right to answer: