246 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. x. 



Bible, turning into ridicule all religious beliefs and 

 practices. Mrs. Agassiz, being a religious woman and 

 bred in a totally different atmosphere in her own home 

 at Carlsruhe, was very sensitive to these sarcasms. 

 Finally expenses and difficulties reached such a climax 

 that a crisis became inevitable. Mrs. Agassiz' s health 

 was poor; and the announcement, by newspaper, all 

 over Germany, of a royal gift by the king of Prussia to 

 allow Agassiz to make a journey \o Arherica, was 

 hailed as a proper moment to join her own family at 

 Carlsruhe. 



In a letter, dated Carlsruhe, i6th of March, 1845, her 

 devoted brother, Alexander Braun, wrote that all was 

 ready at his home to receive her. (Alexander Braun's 

 " Leben," pp. 378, 379.) Taking her children with her, 

 first on a visit to the excellent mother of Agassiz at 

 Cudrefin, at the old Dr. Mayor's house, Mrs. Agassiz 

 then left Neuchatel early in May. It is the most pain- 

 ful incident in the life of the great naturalist That 

 misunderstandings and difficulties developed mainly by 

 extravagance in the interest of natural history should 

 have had such a final result, is most pitiable and to be 

 regretted. These explanations are not meant to excuse 

 the faults committed by Agassiz at this time of his life ; 

 they show, however, how he fell into errors, and how 

 he might easily have avoided them. They have been 

 rendered necessary by what has been said, rather 

 bitterly, by the biographer of Desor (" Edward Desor : 

 Lebensbild eines Naturforschers," von Karl Vogt, 

 Breslau, 1882). 



