Zola's earliest Academical patrons were his friends, François Coppée and Ludovic Halévy. Dumas _fils_ likewise supported him, as mentioned in a previous chapter. So did Jules Claretie, to the very end. Over a term of years he presented himself nearly a score of times, and on each occasion the votes cast for him dwindled, until at last only Claretie's was left. His other friends shrewdly regarded the struggle as hopeless. Some people have thought that if Zola had lived a few years longer he might have proved successful, but the writer does not share that view. For the last thirty years--to go back no farther--the Academy has been essentially conservative in its political and social views. To preserve a kind of reputation for fairness it has elected, now and again, a man of more or less advanced opinions; but the majority has always remained much the same, the "liberal" members never being more than ten or twelve in number. On consulting the list for 1903 one can only find nine who by some possibility might have combined together to vote for a man like Zola. On the other hand, it is not unlikely that time will bring certain revenges. Comparatively few years ago the Academy, which had repeatedly closed its doors to the author of "La Comédie Humaine," selected the "Eulogy of Honoré de Balzac" as the subject of its "Prize for Eloquence"; and at some future date the "Eulogy of Émile Zola" may be similarly chosen. Zola was in nowise cast down when, at his first attempt to gain admittance (1890), M. Charles de Freycinet, a clever man, who did some good work during the war of 1870, but who afterwards degenerated into one of the hack politicians of the Third Republic, was chosen in preference to himself.[13] He had anticipated it, but he was resolved to offer himself for election at each fresh opportunity "I am making history, literary history," he would say after one and another rebuff. "So much the worse for the Academy! Our grandnephews will learn that it refused me admittance twenty or thirty times in succession."