MEMOIR OF CUVIER. 137 



attention to bo bcncatli tliem, and they liavo therein rendered a service to the 

 history of tlie sciences. Tliese (he continues) are respectahle examples, and 

 whicli I may oppose to those wlio sliall tax me on tliis point with a trifling vanity.'*' 



He did not foresee that the details of his life were d(;stined to become so popuhir 

 that he who should have the honor of pronouncing" his eulogy would scarcely 

 dare to reproduce them. 



George Cuvier* was born August 23, 1769, at Montbeliard, a city then belong- 

 ing to the duchy of Wnrteraberg, but which has since been reunited to France. 

 His family was originally from a village of the Jura which still bears the name 

 of Cuvier. At the era of the lleformation it had established itself in the little 

 principality of JMontbeliard, where some of its members have filled distinguished 

 places. The grandfather of M. Cuvier was of one of the poorer branches ; he 

 was town clerk. Of two sons whom he had, the second entered a Swiss regiment 

 in the service of France, and having become, through good conduct and braver}', 

 an officer and chevalier of the order of merit, married, at the age of fifty years, 

 a woman still quite young, and whose memory should be dear to posterity, for 

 she was the mother of Cuvier, and, moreover, his first preceptor. 



A woman of superior mind, a mother full of tenderness, the instruction of her son 

 soon became her whole occupation. Although she did not know Latin, she made 

 him repeat his lessons ; execute his drawings under her eyes ; read to her many 

 books of histor}- and literature ; and it was thus that she developed, that she 

 nourished in her young pupil that pastyou for reading, and that curiosity about 

 all tilings, which, as M. Cuvi(!r himself says in the memoirs intrusted to me, had 

 formed the mainspring of his life. 



At an early age there was seen in this child that prodigious aptitude for all, 

 mental labor, which still later formed one of the distinctive traits of his genius. 

 Everything aroused, everything excited his activity. A copy of Bnfl'on, which 

 he finds by chance in the library of one of his relations, suddenly kindles his 

 taste for natural history. He immediately sets about copying the figures and 

 Cftloring them from the descriptions — a labor which, at so early an age", certainly 

 denoted a sagacity of observation of a high order. 



The residence of theyoung Cuvier at the academy' of Stuttgard is too well known 

 to be long dwelt upon. The sovereign of a small state, Charles, duke of Wiu'- 

 temberg, seemed to have proposed to show to the greatest nations what they 

 might do for the instruction of youth. There were here collected in a magnifi- 

 cent establishment more than 400 pupils, who received' the lessons of more than 

 80 masters. Here were trained, at the same time, painters, sculpiors, musicians, 

 diplomatists, jurists, physicians, soldiers, j)rofessors in all the sciences. Of the 

 higher faculties there were five : law, medicine, administration, military art, and 

 commerce. The course of philosophy finished, the pupils passed into one of 

 these faculties. Cuvier chose that of administration, and the motive he assigns 

 for it should be reported : " It was," he says, " because in this faculty there was 

 much to do with natural history, and, consequently, frequent opportunities of 

 herborizing and of visiting the cabinets." 



Everything in the life of a great man interests us, but doubly so whatever 

 serves to throw light on the ])rocess of his labors. We would gladly follow him 

 through the whole coin'se which he has traversed in changing the lace of the 

 sciences, and even from his earliest steps would divine something of the direction 

 and character of his thoughts. It has just been seen that our naturalist, yet a 

 child, at sight of the first figin'es of n;vtural histcny which fall into his hands, at 

 once c(jnceives the idea of coloring them after the descrii»lions. While still at 

 Stuttgard one of the professors, whose lectures he had translated into French, 

 makes liim a present of Linnieus. It was the tenth edition of the Siislhnc de 

 .la nature, and this book forms, for ten years, his whole library of natural history. 

 But, in default of books, he had the objects ; and this direct, exclusive study 



* His name in full was Georges L6opold Chretien Frederic Dugobert. 



