1856-58.] AGASSM'X REFUSAL. 73 



most important works in America ; and it was not 

 until Agassiz's personal visit to him at Paris, .in July, 

 1859, during which the Secretary of Public Instructions 

 explained to him that the chair of palaeontology was 

 only a pretext to bring him to France, that he accepted 

 his decision as final. He intimated to him that he 

 would have the directorship of the Museum of Natural 

 History, an office to be created, very likely another 

 chair at the College de France, as Cuvier had, and 

 finally a senatorship, with salaries amounting to not far 

 from fifteen thousand dollars, an offer brilliant, both 

 as to rank and remuneration. 



But it was all in vain. Agassiz's refusal was final. The 

 French government behaved nobly, taking the refusal 

 in good part, and continuing to consult him on ques- 

 tions of acclimatization of marine animals, and sending 

 him, in succession, the cross of a Knight of the Legion 

 of Honour and of an officer of the same order. In brief, 

 it may be said that Agassiz received from France more 

 tangible proofs of the great esteem in which he was 

 held than from any other European country. He was 

 first elected correspondent, 1 afterward foreign associate 

 fellow (Membre associe etranger) of the Academy of 

 Science of the Institute, a rare and much-valued distinc- 

 tion. He received a Monthyon prize of Physiology and 

 the Cuvier prize from the same academy, was offered 

 officially the chair of palaeontology at the Jardin des 



1 Agassiz was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sci- 

 ence of France as far back as April, 1839, when he was barely thirty-two 

 years old. His concurrent was Prince Canino, the son of Lucien Bonaparte, 

 and the election was very close. 



