16 Biographical Memoir of M. Dauhenton. 



breed with more rapidity than Daubentoa could do with rams 

 only ; but he has still the merit of having awakened attention 

 to the subject, and of having done all that his means rendered 

 possible. 



By these labours he had acquired a sort of popular reputa- 

 tion, which was very useful to him in a season of danger. In 

 1793, a period already fortunately remote from us, when, by a 

 derangement of ideas which will long be memorable in history, 

 the most ignorant portion of the people had to pronounce upon 

 the fate of the most accomplished and the most generous, Dau- 

 benton, now eighty years of age, required, in order to retain the 

 office which he had honoured for fifty-two years, by his talents 

 and virtues, to request from an assembly, which was named the 

 Section sans Culottes, a paper, the equally extraordinary name 

 of which was a Certificat cle Civisme. A professor, or an aca- 

 demician, would scarcely have obtained it. Some prudent indi- 

 vidual who had mingled with the outrageous mob, in the hope of 

 keeping them within bounds, presented him under the character 

 of a shepherd ; and it was the Shepherd Dauhenton that obtain- 

 ed the certificate necessary for the Director of the National Mu- 

 seum of Natural History. This certificate still exists ; it will 

 be a useful document, not only as connected with the life of 

 Dauhenton, but also as throwing light upon the history of that 

 fatal period *. 



These numerous labours would have exhausted an ardent ac- 



• CopiE tigure'e du certificat de civisme Die Dauhenton. 

 Section des Sans Culotte, 



" Copie de TExtrait des deliberations de I'Assemblee Generale dela Seance 

 du cinq de la premiere decade du troisieme mois de la seconde annee de la Re- 

 publique Franyoise une et indivisible. 



" Appert que d'apres le Rapport faite de la Societe fraternelle de la section des 

 sans culotte sur le bon civisme et faits d'humanite qu'a tujour temoignes JLe 

 Berger Daubenton, I'Assemblee Generale arrete unanimement qu'il lui sera 

 accorde un certificat de Civisme, et le President suivie de plusieurs membre 

 de la dite assemble lui donne lacolade avec toutes les acclamation dues a un 

 vraie modile d'humanite, ce qui a et6 t6moigne par plusieures reprise. 



Sign6 " R. G. Dardel, President. 



" Pour extrait conforme, 



Sign< " DdMOKT, 5'.'«<»"" 



