A GREAT PREPARATION
The title which we have given this chapter is that which M. Perrier,
the eminent Director of the Museum of Natural History, lately inscribed
at the head of a remarkable article in the Revue hebdomadaire. In this
the author showed how just and how far inferior to his deserts are the
honours so tardily accorded to the man whose life and labours we have
sketched.
We assuredly cannot say that Fabre’s name and his work have until
lately remained unknown or even undervalued. At an early period he was
honoured by the admiration and friendship of such men as Dufour and
Duruy. On several occasions his works have been crowned by the highest
awards of the Institute. Not content with belonging to the Zoological
Society and the Entomological Society of France, and with being elected
in 1887 corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, he has also
been granted, as though in emulation, the title of honorary member by
the most famous foreign academies, the Scientific Societies of
Brussels, Geneva, etc., and the Entomological Societies of London,
Stockholm, and St. Petersburg.
If it is true, as some one has said, that posterity begins at the
frontier, these numerous and flattering distinctions, coming from all
points of the horizon, are full of promise for the immortality of his
work. It is undoubtedly the case that foreigners benefit by a degree of
remoteness which is favourable to sane judgment. For that matter, as
far as Fabre is concerned, the favourable verdict of his peers is
surrounded by hardly fewer guarantees of impartiality in France than
abroad, for this worthy son of the Rouergue has never been of those who
seek to obtain honours by any of the means that achieve success through
intrigue or influence, and we may without paradox say that it is
farther from his village to Paris than from Paris to London; from
obscurity in his village to fame in Paris than from fame in Paris to
fame in London and other capitals.
Nevertheless, legitimately acquired and well founded though it might
be, Fabre’s great scientific reputation had hardly extended beyond the
limits of the academies and the somewhat restricted circle of
professional biologists and naturalists, or that of a few amateurs who
were better informed than their fellows, or more perspicacious in the
choice of their reading.
Was it not just to exhibit, beyond this circle of initiates,
achievements that belonged to all and had all the qualities requisite
for popularity? Was it not right to draw this great man out of the
obscurity in which he had so long shut himself up, and at last to place
this distinguished figure on the magnificent pedestal built up by half
a century’s work of the highest value, and the greater part of a
century of a poor and laborious life? So thought the friends and
admirers of the hermit of Sérignan, who organised, last year, the
celebration of his jubilee, and, in the Press, cited him in the order
of the day.
These celebrations took place in the familiar rustic setting so dear to
the aged scientist. It was a morning of April, in the little village of
Vaucluse which we need not name, at the edge of the enclosure where for
more than forty years he has kept rendezvous with his insects, on the
threshold of the house that shelters his studious retirement. The
venerable naturalist was there, surrounded by the members of his
beloved family, his constant collaborators, with whose names he loved
to sprinkle the pages of his books. To greet him came the worthy folk
of Sérignan, justly proud of him, his friends from far and near, and
the delegates of the learned societies of France and foreign countries,
with whom the representatives of the State, the Sub-prefect of Orange
and the Prefect of Avignon, had the good taste to associate themselves.
At the moment when an unexpected ray of sunlight filtered through the
clouds like a caress and a benediction from Heaven upon the head of the
old scientist, ever faithful to the call of the Power on high, France
and Sweden, to mention only the most eager, joined in crowning him with
laurels; France offering him a magnificent gold plaque in the name of
the Academy of Sciences, and Sweden the Linnæan Medal in the name of
the Royal Academy of Stockholm. France—or rather, the Académie
Française—has since then offered a further evidence of her admiration
by granting him the largest of its money prizes and unanimously
recommending him to the jury entrusted with the award of the Nobel
Prize.
There are seldom fêtes without banquets or banquets without speeches.
Among the speeches delivered at Sérignan at the banquet of April 3rd,
we must at least mention M. Perrier’s, from which we give an extract on
the first page of this book. It may be found in extenso in the Revue
scientifique for the 7th of May, 1910. The series of toasts was
followed by the reading of numerous telegrams of congratulation, the
most loudly applauded of these being that of M. Edmond Rostand, which
ran as follows:
Prevented from being in your midst, I am nevertheless in spirit
with those who are to-day honouring a man worthy of all admiration,
one of the purest glories of France, the great scientist whose work
I admire, the profound and racy poet, the Virgil of the insects,
who has brought us to our knees in the grass, the hermit whose life
is the most wonderful example of wisdom, the noble figure that,
under its black felt hat, makes Sérignan the complement of
Maillane.
It must be recorded that Maillane had cordially united with Sérignan,
and that poetry and science were at one in celebrating the fame of the
man who has justly been called the poet of entomology.
Such, in its most salient features, was the festival which consecrated,
a little late in the day, one of our purest national glories.
This homage had not the ephemeral character of most jubilees, even
scientific ones. It found more than one echo, and had an aftermath
throughout the country. We will not insist further upon the eager,
enthusiastic interest extended by the public to the new edition of the
Souvenirs, and the publication of La Vie des Insectes and Les Mœurs des
Insectes, which are volumes of selected extracts from the Souvenirs,
nor even on the decoration of the Legion of Honour which so justly
raised to the rank of officer him who had been a simple chevalier for
forty years.
But we must refer at somewhat greater length to the three proofs of
admiration which must have found their way most surely to his heart.
The first, to which we have already alluded, came from the highest
literary authority of France, and, we might say, of the world. In his
report on the literary prizes awarded by the Académie Française, M.
Thureau-Dangui devoted the following passage to our friend:
I have reserved to the last the largest of our direct prizes, the
Neé prize, awarded to the author of the Souvenirs entomologiques,
M. Jean-Henri Fabre. He cannot, at all events, be accused of
indiscreet solicitation. In his hermitage at Sérignan, where he has
pursued a long life of toil, a life so modest that despite the most
wonderful discoveries it was for a long time a life of obscurity,
M. Fabre gave not a thought to the Académie Française, which is all
the better pleased to show that it was thinking of him.
M. Fabre has, indeed, too clear a vision and too sane a mind not to
perceive the problems of a philosophical order which arise from the
wonderful data of his discoveries. At every step, in the mysterious
domain of instinct, reason cannot fail to divine, beyond the little
kingdom explored by observation, the unfathomable secrets of
creation.
To all, even to those who believe themselves least interested in
matters of natural history, I cannot refrain from saying: “Read
these narratives; you will appreciate their charm, their geniality,
their simplicity, their life; you will fall in love with this
delightful science, which is pursued day after day in the beautiful
summer weather, “to the song of the Cicadæ;” this science which is
truly Latin, Virgilian at times, which goes hand in hand with
poetry, which is so imbued with love that it sometimes seems as
though there arose, from these humble entomological souvenirs, a
strophe of the canticle of created things.” [196]
A mark of homage, which, indeed, adds nothing to the fame of the
celebrated laureate of the Institute and so many other learned
Academies, but which deserves mention here because it certainly touched
a fibre of the old scientist’s heart which all the rest might have
failed to stir, is that which was accorded him by the little Society
which gathers about the belfry of Rodez the intellectual élite of his
own country-side.
The records of the Société des lettres, sciences et arts de l’Aveyron
contain, in the minutes of the session of the 27th October 1910, a
communication from the president of the Society which closes with the
words:
In order to associate ourselves in some fashion with the unanimous
bestowal of honours and eulogy of which this venerable old man is
at present the recipient, we propose to accord him the title of
honorary member. It is the highest distinction at our disposal, and
we think he will accept it with sympathy.
Needless to say that the whole assembly accepted their president’s
proposal with enthusiasm and by acclamation. Some time later the famous
naturalist wrote to the Society, through his present biographer, a
touching letter of thanks, in which he said, among other things, that,
coming from his own country, this distinction had been very precious to
him. The delicate feeling expressed in these words gives us to hope
that the contribution to the work of reparation which we have sought to
make will not be without some value in his eyes.