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.