1831-32-] DEATH OF CUVIER. 43 



Cuvier at the age of sixty-three - - for his life might 

 have extended ten and perhaps fifteen years longer - 

 had a very serious effect, which cannot be overesti- 

 mated, on the future of Agassiz. Cuvier was the only 

 man who exerted a scientific and personal influence 

 over Agassiz; from him, and him alone, Agassiz would 

 accept advice, and be guided in his work. He recog- 

 nized in him his master, and the young charmer of 

 Switzerland found in him another more powerful 

 than himself, and especially more practical in his life 

 and work. At first the formal politeness of Cuvier 

 chilled him, and he says, " I would gladly go away 

 were I not held fast by the wealth of material of which 

 I can avail myself for instruction." But this first im- 

 pression soon passed away, and an unbounded admira- 

 tion replaced it. 



Some details are necessary to understand the course 

 taken by Agassiz, and the singular resolve to leave 

 Paris, at that time the Mecca of all naturalists and 

 savants, to settle as a professor, with a very small 

 salary, in a small town of less than six thousand 

 inhabitants, in a hybrid country, half Swiss, half 

 Prussian, lost in Central Europe. 



Cuvier, son of an officer of a Swiss regiment, in the 

 French service, and nephew of a Protestant clergyman 

 of talent, was called to Paris, after the revolution of 

 the Qth Thermidor, by young Geoffrey, - - celebrated 

 since as Etienne Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, - - and attached 

 to the Jardin des Plantes, as substitute for the professor 

 of comparative anatomy. The reading of some manu- 

 script papers on natural history, sent by Cuvier, had 



