428 MEMOIR OF LOUIS-CLAUDE-MARIE RICHARD. 



the most eminent European Sfavans, the justice awarded to 

 his talents, and perhaps the cahning influence of age, at length 

 restored to his mind that peace to which in Ids earlier years 

 he had been a stranger, and he found no difficulty in renewing 

 his intercourse with those who had ever deplored his depar- 

 ture from them, and who had constantly acknowledged his 

 high merit. He was elected to fill the chair of Botany in the 

 School of Medicine; some years after, he was chosen a mem- 

 ber of the First Class in the Institute, in the Section of 

 Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. The Royal Society of 

 London also admitted him of the number of its corresponding 

 members, and he was nominated a member of the Legion of 

 Honour. 



The Professorship of Botany in the School of Medicine 

 rendering it obligatory on him to deliver an annual course 

 of lectures on Botany, he acquitted himself most satisfactorily 

 of this task. Not satisfied with merely defining the elements of 

 the science and the characters of Genera, he also gave lessons 

 of analysis, and with the different specimens in his hand, he 

 expounded in the simplest terms their structure, and the 

 modifications and connexion of the various organs. So valu- 

 able were these demonstrations felt to be, that botanists, al- 

 ready of much experience, did not scorn to rank themselves 

 among the students of this illustrious Professor. Every 

 Sunday Richard made herborizing excursions into the coun- 

 try. Surrounded with a class of 200 or 300 pupils, who 

 eagerly pressed around him, he no sooner thought he could 

 show them an interesting plant, than he was the first 

 to plunge into a morass, to clear hedge and ditch, and 

 make for himself a path through brushwood, while, for- 

 getting his infirmities, he seemed to have regained all the 

 vigour of early youth. It was only during the very last years 

 of his life, and while suffering from a protracted illness, that 

 he confided the care of his students to his son Achilles Rich- 

 ard, whom he liad himself educated, and who, by the works 

 he has since publislied, has proved himself worthy to replace 

 his illustrious father. 



