Eloge of Baro7i Cuvier, 340: 



raising himself to the first rank ; and the events of the year 

 1814, which led to the overthrow of the imperial power, did 

 not retard his further advancement. In the month of Septem- 

 ber, in the same year, he became a Counsellor of State ; and 

 soon after had the offer of a situation which he repeatedly de- 

 clined, that of Superintendent of the Jardin du Roi, an office 

 on which Buffon had conferred much celebrity. He believed 

 that the plan which vested the management in the Professors 

 was preferable to that previously followed, and would not 

 therefore permit any attempt to be made, at least in his favour, 

 to supersede it. In the month of February following, the Uni- 

 versity having been remodelled on a new plan, a place was as- 

 signed him in it, under the name of Counsellor, in the Royal 

 Council of Public Instruction. But the new revolution oc- 

 casioned by the return of Napoleon, prevented him from con- 

 tinuing a member of the Council of State : he was retained, 

 however, in the Imperial University, where the absence of his 

 name would have caused too great a void. Four months after- 

 wards, when it became necessary to re-estabhsh what the hurri- 

 cane of a hundred days had laid in ruins, it was found that 

 neither the system of the Imperial University, nor that of the 

 Royal University, as ordained in February, could be carried 

 into effect to their full extent ; and a provisionary arrangement 

 having been judged necessary, a commission of Public Instruc- 

 tion was created, to exercise the powers which had been previ- 

 ously vested in a Grand Master, a Council, a Chancellor, and a 

 Treasurer. M. Cuvier was a member, and the duties of Chan- 

 cellor devolved on him from the first. He took a very active 

 part in the labours of this commission, the important services 

 of which can neither be misunderstood nor forgotten, since it 

 maintained, under very difficult circumstances, the laws of the 

 University, and enabled it to enforce its rights, in opposition to 

 inveterate prejudices, and sometimes the most determined oppo- 

 sition. M. Cuvier acted as president on two occasions, each of 

 them of more than a year's duration, but always provisionally, 

 as the religion he professed disqualified him for being regularly 

 appointed to that office. In 1818, he travelled into England, 

 and learned, on his arrival in London, that he had been nomi- 

 nated a member of the French Academy. This was an im- 



