[1] The occasion was the _Fête de l’Intellectualité Brésilenne_, celebrated on April 3, 1909, at the Sorbonne in the Richelieu amphitheatre. Anatole France delivered a short, characteristic speech upon _Le Génie Latin_, emphasizing his disbelief in the idea of race. “Je dis le génie latin, je dis les peuples latins, parce que l’idée de race n’est le plus souvent qu’une vision de l’orgueil et de l’erreur, et parce que la civilization hellénique et romaine, comme la Jérusalem nouvelle, a vu venir de toutes parts à elle des enfants qu’elle n’avait point portés dans son sein. Et c’est sa gloire de gagner l’univers.… Latins des deux mondes, soyons fiers de notre commun heritage. Mais sachons le partager avec l’univers entier; sachons que la beauté antique, l’éternelle Hélène, plus auguste, plus chaste d’enlèvement en enlèvement, a pour destinée de se donner à des ravisseurs étrangers, et d’enfanter dans toutes les races, sous tous les climats, de nouveaux Euphorions, toujours plus savants et plus beaux.” [2] “I do not like tears,” he says, in his last novel, _Memorial de Ayres_, “even in the eyes of women, whether or not they be pretty; they are confessions of weakness, and I was born with an abhorrence for the weak.” [3] It was a blue fly, with wings of gold and carmine, daughter of China or of Hindustan, who was born on a certain summer’s night amid the petals of a red, red rose. And she buzzed and flew, and flew and buzzed, glittering in the light of the sun and the moon--brighter than a gem of the Grand Mogul. A humble toiler saw her, and was struck with amazement and sadness. A humble toiler, asking: “Fly, this glitter that seems rather a dream, say, who taught it to you?” Then she, flying around and about, replied: “I am life, I am the flower of grace, the paragon of earthly youth,--I am glory, I am love.” And he stood there, contemplating her, wrapt like a fakir, like one utterly dazed beyond power of comparison or reflection. Between the wings of the insect, as she flew in space, appeared something that rose with all the splendour of a palace, and he beheld a face that was his own. It was he,--he was a king,--the king of Cashmire, who wore upon his bare neck a huge necklace of opals, and a sapphire taken from the body of Vishnu. One hundred radiant women, a hundred exquisite _nayras_, smilingly display their rare graces at his feet upon the polished floor, and all the love they have they give to him. Mute, gravely on foot, a hundred ugly Ethiopians, with large ostrich fans, refresh their perfumed breasts, voluptuously nude. Then came glory,--forty conquered kings, and at last the triumphal tribute of three hundred nations, and the united felicitations of western crowns. But best of all is, that in the open face of the women and the men, as in water that shows the clear bottom, he saw into their hearts. Then he, extending his callous, rough hand that was accustomed only to carpentry, seized the glittering fly, curious to examine it.