I have just heard M. Viennet say: "I think in bronze."

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December 29, 1848. Friday.

Yesterday, Thursday, I had two duties to attend to at
one and the same time, the Assembly and the Academy;
the salt question on the one hand, on the other the much
smaller question of two vacant seats. Yet I gave the
preference to the latter. This is why: At the Palais
Bourbon the Cavaignac party had to be prevented from
killing the new Cabinet; at the Palais Mazarin the
Academy had to be prevented from offending the memory
of Chateaubriand. There are cases in which the dead
count for more than the living; I went to the Academy.

The Academy last Thursday had suddenly decided, at
the opening of the session, at a time when nobody had yet
put in an appearance, when there were only four or five
round the green table, that on January 11 (that is to say,
in three weeks) it would fill the two seats left vacant by
MM. de Chateaubriand and Vatout. This strange
alliance, I do not say of names, but of words,--"replace
MM. de Chateaubriand and Vatout,"--did not stop it for
one minute. The Academy is thus made; its wit and
that wisdom which produces so many follies, are composed
of extreme lightness combined with extreme heaviness.