New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-03-23
THE FRENCH ACADEMICIANS.
THEIR OPPOSITION TO NJ OLLIyIER's RE-
CEPTION.

REcEPTIoN-soME RESULTS OF IHE ACTION OF
THE ACADEMY.
IRON THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF HE TRIBUNEb
PARIS. March G.-When, four years ago, by tho
rarely equaled majority of ~ out Of Is voices, tho
Academicians chose Emile Olivier to be OF their
number, they paid him pleasing compii-
ment. In refusing now to let INN Wits
his reception discourse, they render MN
solid service and tighten his heart OF Dur
deDsome gratitude for either benefit. They met
him in the day of his success. offering green aoa-
demIc palms in addition TO the highest honors WIN
which he had been invested by bis Imperial master.
They seemed almost 10 borrow while they gave
luster, SO brilliant then was his prosperity.
HIS strictly literary claims to succeed to Lamartines
armchair were nothing whatever; his oratoreal
talent really considerable but far inferior to that o.
Favre was but pretext for his electors. who chose
him to be of them chiefly because he had become
Prime Minister of the Empire, which was to DO
made liberal. And now. chiefly because he has in
serted and refuses TO blot out from long eulogy OK
Lamartiae one short eulogstc paragraph to the adj
dress of his feow-fallen master and friend, they
close their doors in cold abstraction the poor NOR
tai and bid him wait indefinitely for his academic
immortality.
The passage in his intended speech (which observe,
by the way, despite this passage passed on aud
formally approved as worthy by the Committee
to whom it had been regularly submitted for ap-
proval or reection which is chiefly offensive to NJ.
Guizot and others, is where, after speaking OF
Lamartne's non-acceptance of the coup dttdf OF
which the orator has been making partially allu-
sive apology, NJ. Olivier says: incapable, how
ever of willful blindness he did not persistently
cling to preiudices against the prncely heir OF tho
name and power of Napoleon More than once he
uar1o apfs
letting himself lose sight of the general
worth of that lofty character. After
conversation followed By many others under
grave conditions, he writes, in his Political Memo
ries L found him to be, without any exception tho
strongest and most solid statesman ever knew IN
my long life among statesmen III he had come
closer to him. if he had come by experience to know
his large heart ms combined grace and purity OF in
telligence the sweetness of his quiet majesty II he
had become the cOnidant of his thoughts, that were
intent only on the public good and the relief of those
who suffering; if he had been witness OF the 10y
atty with which he founded and put IN practice tho
freest institutions country has yet known; II no
had contemplated him, modest III prosperity, august
in misfortune he would have done better than do
him justice-he would have loved him."
say this il the chief stone OF otase in the col
umns now set mp in print of Over's intended
i Il
Guizot, and half "A dozen other fallen academical
ex-Binisters of the July Monarchy and Republic TO
say nothing of the regning Minister de Broglie by
the fallen Minister of the late Empire To
praise Napoleon Ill. TO them. with their late
war wounds hardly healed, was bad for tho light
hearted war-declarer to praise him was worse
but to set him above all the academicans
for statemanship. was ntoerably worse and not Ia
be endured But 10 VI. GUizot whose passion go6
so strangely the better OF his courtesy and later MEM
cries, aud others. especially his fcllow-Orlcansis,
who stumbling over this stone TO their own buDg-
ling downfall have managed To make of il pc
destal for the late fallen Olivier 10 sit upon. there
were other as painful passages in the discourse,
strewn with irritatingly allnsiye comparisons be-
tween the ways by which Louis Philippe and Louis
Napoleon reached a throne, not eminenty favorable
TO the rump parliamentary ways oil Louis Phibppss
progress
A meeting Of the Academy was called for last
Wednesday finally discuss and decide on the pIo-
priefy of letting Olivier speak his piece next Oil
vier declined to he present. His speech had once
been subjected to all the regulated fomalities of
trial and been regularly formally accepted ~ wor-
thy of the Academy and 1T 10 be spoken. lie would
take mol part IN an atter-discusson of its fitness,
which, besides being exraordnart aud Illcgtimate,
would again expose him to insults which the age of
their utterer disarmed him from repeiling as they
deserved. NJ. Guiz0t prevented by the great
family affection which had just befallen him III tho
death of bis daughter from being present at tho
meeting. The immediate result was vote
of ID to or that 81. Ollivier's re-
ception should be indefinitely postponed.
The next following results are varouS-qu,te
too numerous to mention. / can but touch on %
choice few of them. The condemned discourse
of Olivier which was to have been spoken yester-
day afternoon was printed in full in the Figaro yes
terday morning and has been reprinted since in
many thousand more copies and been more dii-
gently read by many thousand more readers than
any other academician's speech since RichelIehs
time. Competent Frenchmen of literary tastes tell
me that on the rhetorical and even on the gram
matical side it does anything but honor to tho
author and to the judgment nearly unanimous four
wears ago, of the academcians who deemed him
the then iittest man IN France for academical hon-
ors. The foreigner can but be struck with tho
marked contrast to 0lliyier's lamentabe disadNan-
tage, between it and the response also now pub
lshed) of Emile Angler, delicate but not ,ble
exousitely chaste specimen of academical literary
exhibition work.
The thorough going Bonapartsts are severer on
Olivier than Orleanists or Republicans The at-
tacks upon that innocent in two of their best authors
lied organs for the last few days. Out-Herod tho
fiercest Royalist Red onslaughts. Paul Graner in
lie Pays, has surpassed Veuillot in gloss and witty
abusiveness. somewhat more sober leading Jour-
nast Of the same party insists in more decenb
phrase on the essentially same points, of which
the chief, frankly pressed. is this 1.-The En-
pire went down because You, the representative Of
principles most hostile to it, permitted to per-
vert its principle and very essence The Empire and
Liberalism are but contradictory terms" 1t laugh-
ably notable and gravely amusing toobserve in pass
ing how the bndly logical zeaory of these fanatical