He was now elected a member of the celebrated Institute, a society composed of the most illustrious literary and scientific men in France. He eagerly accepted the invitation, and returned the following answer. "The suffrages of the distinguished men who compose the Institute honor me. I feel sensibly that before I can become their equal I must long be their pupil. The only true conquests--those which awaken no regret--are those obtained over ignorance. The most honorable, as the most useful pursuit of nations, is that which contributes to the extension of human intellect. The real greatness of the French Republic ought henceforth to consist in the acquisition of the whole sum of human knowledge, and in not allowing a single new idea to exist, which does not owe its birth to their exertions." He laid aside entirely the dress of a soldier, and, constantly attending the meetings of the Institute, as a philosopher and a scholar became one of its brightest ornaments. His comprehensive mind enabled him at once to grasp any subject to which he turned his attention. In one hour he would make himself master of the accumulated learning to which others had devoted the labor of years. He immediately, as a literary man, assumed almost as marked a pre-eminence among these distinguished scholars, as he had already acquired as a general on fields of blood. Apparently forgetting the renown he had already attained, with boundless ambition he pressed on to still greater achievements, deeming nothing accomplished while any thing remained to be done. Subsequently he referred to his course at this time and remarked, "Mankind are in the end always governed by superiority of intellectual qualities, and none are more sensible of this than the military profession. When, on my return from Italy, I assumed the dress of the Institute, and associated with men of science, I knew what I was doing, I was sure of not being misunderstood by the lowest drummer in the army."