Eloge of Baron Cuvier. 17S 



whole appearance presented marks of the deepest grief which a 

 father can feel, and so poignant had been his sufferings, that, as 

 he himself confessed to me, he had come to seek, in the most as- 

 siduous labour which he could impose on himself, the means of dis- 

 tracting his attention, and rendering his sorrow more tolerable. 



I can scarcely persuade myself but that I see him still, in 

 that noble gallery, surrounded with monuments of human skill, 

 and the wonders of nature, seeking to avoid the image of his 

 beloved child, and perseveringly demanding of science, not to 

 administer consolation, but to absorb his thoughts. Pascal at- 

 tempted by energetic application to overcome only physical 

 pain ; but I had before me a struggle between the heart and the 

 genius of man, between the powerful wish of the one, and the 

 deepest suffering to which the other could be subjected. M. 

 Cuvier could never be consoled, but he continued, notwithstand- 

 ing, to prosecute with equal vigour of intellect, the various pur- 

 suits in which he never ceased to be engaged to the end of his 

 life. 



We now approach, gentlemen, the fatal moment to which I am 

 to direct your thoughts. The scourge (Cholera) which afflicted 

 our great city, and which made so many victims, had interrupted 

 none of M. Cuvier's labours; it may even be imagined that it 

 had incited him to additional exertion, for he is found to have 

 written nearly two volumes of his Comparative Anatomy, a 

 work which, as I have already mentioned, he wished entirely to 

 remodel. Could he regard so great a calamity as a warning 

 to terminate speedily all the undertakings which he had begun ? 



On the 18th of May he opened, in the College of France, the 

 Course which he had continued for three years with so much 

 success, on the History of the Natural Sciences. Those who 

 were present at the last lecture of this great master, retain an 

 impression which can never be imparted to such as have not ex- 

 perienced it, and of which I can convey but a very feeble no- 

 tion. Seldom had he risen to such an elevation ; but his auditors 

 were particularly struck with the last phrases which he used, to 

 express his intention of taking a view of the actual state of the 

 study of creation — that sublime study, which, while it enlightens 

 and strengthens the human mind, ought to preserve it from the 

 deceptive habit of regarding things apart from their relation to 



