176 MEMOIR OF M. ADRIEN DE JUSSIEU. 
good man. Among his domestie friends, the most intimate were M. 
J. J. Ampère and Dr. Roulin, with whom he gave free scope to the 
benignity of his disposition and his affectionate heart, 
: A cousin, to whom he was fondly attached, and with whom he had 
passed many of his early childish years, became the object of his ma- 
tured preference. She was Mademoiselle Félicie de Jussieu, and on 
the estate of an uncle, M. de Senneviers, among the mountains of the 
Lyonnais, their intimacy had ripened. He married her in September, 
1827, and their mutual happiness was increased by two children; when 
alas! very shortly after the birth of the second, M. de Jussieu be- 
came suddenly widowed. There are griefs which cannot be described, 
and afflictions which are never overgot. Such was M. de Jussieu’s 
case: he was supported by that well-founded hope of a reunion with 
his lost partner in a better world which can alone impart strength to 
endure the trial aright. His parents had, by precept and example, iu- 
stilled religious principles into him, and he had profited by their teach- 
ing; but he never sought to make a second marriage: to the welfare 
of his offspring, two daughters, he henceforth devoted himself, and he 
had hardly seen them settled in life when he was taken from them. 
. Nature had endowed him with those qualities which give grace to 
superior abilities, and deprive them of the tendency to excite envy: 
his disposition was benevolent and gentle, yet firm; his heart was 
warm, and his affections susceptible. In general appearance he was 
far from striking, and his rather peculiar countenance was less engaging 
than might have been expected, owing to the smallness of his eyes; 
while his own timidity prevented others from feeling, at first, quite at 
ease in his society. But he no sooner began to speak than this im- 
pression vanished: his animated, witty, full and kindly conversation, 
graced with striking and appropriate anecdotes, quickly did the speaker 
justice, and.conveyed such an impression as was never erased from the 
hearers’ minds. 
M. de Jussieu was singularly devoid of ambition: he cultivated 
_ botany with great success, and to his own unfading honour; true, but 
he did so for its own sake, because he loved the science, and because 
— his fathers had loved it before him. Fame and high office came to him 
: unsought. The desire for notoriety, which rarely repays the anxiety it 
occasions, never agitated him; he belonged to that body of learned 
men who confine their activity and their desires t i 
o th of 
edet labours. e promotion 
