Buffon's memory was razed to the ground. Such was the wanton recklessness of the revolutionists—even the dead were not safe in their graves! The despicable meanness of the mob in rifling the grave of "the aristocrat Buffon" was to steal the leaden coffin in which he was buried. With this exception, however, the tomb was restored by admirers of the great man.
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Buffon was a naturalist of the highest order; indefatigable in his work, independent in his ideas, and although rich and the friend of kings, idleness was unknown to him. "He opposed the extreme systematizers, who seemed to think it the end of science, not so much to know about an object, as to be able to make it and fit it into their system," Huxley, writing in 1894, said that "we do not possess, at this moment, a history of even the little group of British mammals up to the level of the work of Buffon and Daubenton, now nearly a century and a half old." Huxley said in appreciation of Buffon: "I am not likely to take a low view of Darwin's position in the history of science, but I am disposed to think that Buffon and Lamarck would run him hard both in genius and fertility. In breadth of view and extent of knowledge these two men were giants, though we are apt to forget their services."
Saint-Hilaire said of Linnæus and Buffon: "Linné, un de ces types de la perfection de l'intelligence humaine
