Abstract
What immediately strikes the reader when reading Entomological Memories and other works is the unexpected style for a scientist, which worked like that of a writer. Like a writer elsewhere, Fabre is aware of his approach, which he clearly explains in the form of a short manifesto, in a text more autobiographical than scientific, entitled, in Provençal dialect, L'Harmas (small piece of uncultivated land, moor, in Provence). Others have criticized me for my language, which lacks the solemnity, or better said, academic dryness. They fear that a page that can be read without fatigue is not always the expression of the truth. If I believed them, one is only deep if one is obscure. Come here, all of you, you sting bearers and you armoured elytra, take my defence and testify in my favour. Tell how intimately I live with you, with what patience I observe you, with what scrupulousness I record your actions. Your testimony is unanimous: yes, my pages, not bristling with empty formulas, with learned lucubrations, are the exact narration of the observed facts, nothing more, nothing less, and whoever wants to question you, in turn, will obtain the same answers.