For a number of years a mot passed quietly about in the learned world of Paris—fortunately without ever committing the indiscretion of finding its way into print—to the effect that Gaston Paris ought to be elected to the French Academy in order that there might be in that august body at least one member who was an authority on the French language. Another and more piquant form of this much appreciated pleasantry, was that the one man who, as a matter of course, could not expect to be elected to the Academy, happened to be the greatest living authority on the subject of its labors.