inclination to be a member of the Royal Society, is immediately

elected into it. But in France it is not enough that a man who

aspires to the honour of being a member of the Academy, and of

receiving the royal stipend, has a love for the sciences; he must at

the same time be deeply skilled in them; and is obliged to dispute

the seat with competitors who are so much the more formidable as

they are fired by a principle of glory, by interest, by the

difficulty itself; and by that inflexibility of mind which is