Historical Eloge of M. VaiiqtieUn. 211 



paBsion. An apothecary named Cheradarae (for it is just to 

 preserve the name of the individual whose humanity procured 

 him the good fortune to preserve a Vauqueiin), aff'ected by his 

 destitute condition, received him into his Iiouse, and treated him 

 as a man ought to be treated. With the improvement of his 

 circumstances, his ardour for learning returned ; what he had 

 written in the papers torn by his master at Rouen was not ef» 

 faced from his memory ; to that he added the phenomena which 

 he had daily opportunities of witnessing, and even attempted to 

 make experiments with the few materials which he occasionally 

 found at his disposal. He was sometimes found in a kind of 

 ecstasy at observing the precipitations which he had produced : 

 he was already a chemist almost before he knew precisely what 

 chemistry was. But chemistry was not his sole occupation : he 

 felt that a knowledge of Latin was necessary to enable him to 

 continue his studies ; and to attain this more readily, he tore the 

 leaves from an old dictionary, and always held some of them 

 in his hand, when traversing the streets with medicines, or exe- 

 cuting other commissions, till he had learned the words by heart. 

 He likewise accompanied the young pupils when they went to 

 gather herbs, and surprised them by the facility with which he 

 retained the names and even the characters of plants. 



So much application and rapid advancement in a scholar pos- 

 sessing so few advantages, was often a subject of conversation 

 with M. Cheradame. He mentioned him to our late associate, 

 the celebrated M. Fourcroy, his relation, who having likewise 

 in his youth been oppressed with poverty, would naturally feel 

 sympathy for a youth whose situation bore so much resemblance 

 to his own. The modest offers which alone he was in a condi- 

 tion at that period to make, were joyfully accepted, and hence- 

 forth a career opened to M. Vauqueiin, as brilliant as it had 

 previously been the reverse. Become by degrees the assistant 

 and the pupil of Fourcroy, the assiduous companion of all hh 

 labours, and his intimate friend, their names are united in so 

 many memoirs of experiments and discoveries, that they will 

 remain inseparable in the history of science ; and what is per- 

 haps still more remarkable, and confers equal honour on them 

 bQth,,is the fact)J;hat,.^uring. upwards of tMentyr^Vii ycars} lio- 



