272 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. xi. 



of classification of the echinoderms. It is constantly 

 quoted, and will continue to be quoted, just as the 

 " Animaux sans vertebres ' of Lamarck is ; and it 

 is one of the great services rendered by Agassiz to 

 zoology. 



Agassiz was the recipient of all sorts of attention dur- 

 ing his stay in Paris. He met many old friends, not only 

 Parisians, but even men from the provinces and from 

 foreign countries, who came to bid him farewell. M. 

 Esprit Requien, the celebrated director of the museum 

 at Avignon, who had communicated all his magnificent 

 collection of fossil fishes, more especially those from the 

 celebrated locality of Aix-en-Provence, for Agassiz's 

 great monograph on the " Poissons fossiles," took 

 lodging at the same hotel, the " Jardin du Roi," in 

 order to see as much of Agassiz as possible. Requien 

 was a rare type of savant : being an archaeologist, a 

 numismatologist, and a botanist and zoologist, and a 

 friend to every one with whom he came in contact, from 

 Stendhal (Beyle), Prosper Merimee, Adolphe Thiers, 

 De Candolle, and Alcide d'Orbigny, to Agassiz. He 

 possessed that exuberance of word and gesture so char- 

 acteristic of the Provencal people and so well portrayed 

 by one of their own writers, Alphonse Daudet. Agassiz 

 much enjoyed his visit. There was another Provengal, 

 Adolphe Thiers, who also was much attracted by the 

 charm of Agassiz's society. They had previously met ; 

 but it was during Agassiz's present stay in Paris that a 

 true friendship ripened between the two men, and their 

 later correspondence showed many points of resem- 

 blance and common interest; both having an unbounded. 



