3 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



expressly for the occasion by M. Alcan, entitled "Hommage a M. 

 Chevreul," written by Berthelot, who also presented a copy to the 

 Academy, Charles Richet, Pouchet, Griraaux, E. Gautier, Diijardin 

 Beaumetz, and Demarcay. The inhabitants of the Rue Chevreul sent 

 him a fine nosegay. Another deputation presented him with a nose- 

 gay which, according to M. H. deVarigny's description in "Science," 

 "was a masterpiece of art in the choice and distribution of colors. 

 >."<> more delicate allusion could be made to the venerable master's 

 theory of complementary colors ; and it was understood by the whole 

 Crowd, being exemplified in an unparalleled manner." 



M. Gaston Tissandie'r has published in "La Nature" some inci- 

 dents relating to M. Chevreul's career, additional to those which we 

 gave in our sketch of him in August, 1885, or which throw a fuller 

 light upon the facts presented in that article. 



The life of the old philosopher has been up to this time spent be- 

 tween the Museum of Natural History, the Gobelins, and the Insti- 

 tute of France, and he has very seldom failed to be present at the 

 Monday meetings of the Academy of Sciences. The memoirs which 

 he has presented to his colleagues can hardly be counted. Among 

 them may be mentioned one which he published in 1832 on the divin- 

 ing-rod, and another in 1853 on the tipping-tables, in which he scat- 

 tered as with a breath all that was mysterious about the manifesta- 

 tions ; and he rendered to science the service of demonstrating how 

 the operator is the dupe of a charlatanism of which he is often the 

 involuntary accomplice. 



Although M. Chevreul had no taste for politics, he has been a man 

 among his fellow-men, and a true patriot. During the Franco-Prus- 

 sian War, when he was eighty-six years old, he remained in Paris 

 through all the privations of the siege, and even stuck to the museum 

 while more than eighty Prussian bombs were whizzing through it, 

 making rubbish of the galleries and breaking up the glass cases. 

 More than one of these projectiles burst close to the laboratory in 

 which tin brave old man was engaged in his work. He filed an indig- 

 nant declaration of protest respecting this outrage, in the minutes of 

 tlu Academy of the 9th of January, 1871, which runs as follows : 



" The Garden of Medicinal Plants, founded in Paris by the edict 

 of King Louis XIII, in the month of January, 1626 — become the Mu- 

 seum of Natural History by decree of the Convention, on the 10th of 

 rune, 1793 — was bombarded, in the reign of William I, King of Prus- 

 sia, the Count of Bismarck being Chancellor, by the Prussian army, 

 on the nighl of the 8th and 9th of January, 1871. Till then, it had 

 been respected by all parties and by all powers, national and foreign. 



" E. Ciieykkil, Director." 



It was on the occasion of this declaration that M. Chevreul wrote 

 to the Alil>e Lamazon a letter in which he designated himself the dean 



