168 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.
and last quarrel, and in a manner truly worthy of LaFontaine. This authentic fact goes a great way inestablishing the credit of other anecdotes deemed untrueor exaggerated from their improbability. The French academy was at this time engaged in its great under-taking of a dictionary which should fix the French language. The abbe Furetiere , then a popular writer,and one of “ the forty,” announced a dictionary ofthe French language in his own name. He was im-mediately charged with pirating the common stock. Aferment was excited in the academy, and throughoutthe republic of letters in France. Furetiere , publiclyarraigned, defended himself with keen and virulentpersonalities, and, after several discussions, was expelled.La Fontaine was one of the minority in his favour,and meant to give him his vote; but unluckily, in one ofhis usual distractions, dropped his ball, by mistake, inthe rejecting compartment of the balloting-box. Fure-tiere would not pardon the blunder, and attacked himbitterly. After an exchange of epigrams, which didcredit to neither, La Fontaine thought of the affair nomore; but was never reconciled.
Furetiere , in his vengeance, revealed the secrets of thelearned assembly. If his account may be relied on, theprocess by which the academy proposed its famousdictionary was truly laughable. “ He only is right,”says Furetiere , “ who talks loudest: one makes a longspeech upon some trifle; another echoes the nonsenseof his predecessor; sometimes three or four talk at thesame time. When five or six are in close committee,one reads, another delivers his opinion, two are chattingtogether, a fifth looks over some dictionary which mayhappen to be on the table, and the sixth is sleeping.”The treachery of the disclosure was condemned, butits truth generally admitted; and the private sittingsof the academy were the theme of public ridicule andamusement, like the consultations of physicians, sopleasantly treated by Moliere .