42 LOUIS AGASSrZ. [CHAP. in. 



him at once on a journey to the seashore of Normandy 

 in company with Alexander Braun, who had joined him 

 in Paris six weeks after his arrival, and Dinkel. They 

 walked all the way from Havre to Dieppe, enjoying 

 to the full the spectacle, so new to them, of living 

 sea-animals, bringing back from that too short visit 

 many new ideas, cheered and stimulated by " the 

 great phenomena presented by the ocean in its vast 

 expanse." 



A few weeks after his return from Normandy, Agassiz 

 sustained a great loss,- -a loss which affected the rest 

 of his life, in the death of his master, George Cuvier. 

 Since Carnival and during the whole spring cholera had 

 been raging fearfully in Paris, greatly increasing the 

 death rate ; some quarters, however, like the Jardin des 

 Plantes, had been almost free from the terrible scourge, 

 but there it at last made its appearance, and one of its 

 most illustrious victims was Cuvier. Sunday, the 6th 

 of May, 1832, Agassiz, as was his custom, worked all 

 the day until dinner time at five o'clock in Cuvier's 

 study. During a conversation, Cuvier, seeing how 

 intense Agassiz's application to work was, said to him : 

 " Soyez prudent, et rappelez vous que trop de travail 

 tue." On the next day Baron Cuvier, who, in 1831, 

 had been created by King Louis Philippe a peer of 

 France, when about to ascend the tribune in the Cham- 

 ber of Peers, at the Palace of the Luxembourg, to deliver 

 an address, suffered paralysis. He was carried home, 

 and rallied, but died on Sunday, May 13, 1832, the imme- 

 diate cause of his death being an attack of cholera. 



The unexpected and somewhat premature death of 



