All I ask you, to complete the measure of your kindnesses, is to be kind enough to let everybody know that, if I am of so little use at the Academy of Medals, it is equally true that I do not and do not wish to obtain any pecuniary advantage from it." The Academy of Sciences had already for many years had sittings in one of the rooms of the king's library.

Like the French Academy, it had owed its origin to private meetings at which Descartes, Gassendi, and young Pascal were accustomed to be present.

"There are in the world scholars of two sorts," said a note sent to Colbert about the formation of the new Academy.

"One give themselves up to science because it is a pleasure to them: they are content, as the fruit of their labors, with the knowledge they acquire, and, if they are known, it is only amongst those with whom they converse unambitiously and for mutual instruction; these are _bona fide_ scholars, whom it is impossible to do without in a design so great as that of the _Academie royale_.

There are others who cultivate science only as a field which is to give them sustenance, and, as they see by experience that great rewards fall only to those who make the most noise in the world, they apply themselves especially, not to making new discoveries, for hitherto that has not been recompensed, but to whatever may bring them into notice; these are scholars of the fashionable world, and such as one knows best." Colbert had the true scholar's taste; he had brought Cassini from Italy to take the direction of the new Observatory; he had ordered surveys for a general map of France; he had founded the _Journal des Savants;_ literary men, whether Frenchmen or foreigners, enjoyed the king's bounties.