204 EULOGY OX ARTHUR AUGUSTE DE LA RIVE. 



who was to exercise so great an iuflnence upon the destinies of Italy, 

 were for a long time in perfect accord upon the ground of liberal ideas. 

 Surrounded by influences unfavorable to their convictions, they enjoyed 

 together the forbidden fruit ; and sometimes in the evening, in the par- 

 lor of Pr6singe, while their elders slept by the fireside, would scandalize 

 the feminine portion of the family circle by exaggerated expression of 

 their opinions, which their troubled audience dared not oppose for fear 

 of awakening those in whom these views would have excited the utmost 

 consternation. In later years this union of sentiment was gradually 

 dissolved, Cavour, through struggling with absolute governments, be- 

 came more and more a partisan of liberty, while De La Eive, disgusted 

 with the unreasonable demands of democracy, united himself more and 

 more closely with the conservative party. Their friendship, however, 

 was never disturjbed, and if the bust of the statesman occupied in the 

 parlor of our associate a place of distinction opposite that of the cele- 

 brated Eossi, on the other hand Cavour never could speak of the savant 

 except in terms of tender affection and profound respect. 



M. Auguste De La Rive was, to an unusual degree, favored in the cir- 

 cumstances of his life. The scion of an illustrious family, of a spotless 

 name, educated by a father of large heart and noble understanding, mas- 

 ter of a fortune which allowed free pursuit of his studies, and residing 

 in a country where he was appreciated at his proper vakie, he passed 

 his days in unbroken prosperity and in the quiet enjoyment of the pleas- 

 ures derived from a love for letters and the fine arts, the culture of 

 science, the practice of benevolence, devotion to his country, and the 

 joys of domestic life. When, after having long been a correspondent of 

 the French Academy, he was made a member, he wrote to me, "I have 

 nothing now to wish for ; my desires are more than satisfied." A portion 

 of the year he passed in his city residence, the remainder of the time in 

 the country at Presinge, and in both places he exercised a generous 

 hospitality. Favorable as destiny had been to him in life, his death 

 was followed by a series of distressing events. In one short month, his 

 brother, who was united to him by ties of the tenderest affection, his 

 relative and friend M. Jules Francois Pictet, one of the most eminent 

 naturalists of the day, two of his sons-in-law, and Madame Quetelet, who 

 in her sorrow survived him only a few days, had also passed away. As 

 we visit his deserted laboratories, the scene of so many interesting discov- 

 eries, and wander, in imagination, through his two abodes, so full of 

 happy memories; through the silent halls whose echoes might repeat 

 the noble words of one of the greatest philosophers of the century, the 

 heart is oppressed with grief. But we remember that the eminently 

 good man, the illustrious and venerated savant, whose presence we 

 seek in vain in these now melancholy abodes of sorrow, will live forever 

 in the incflaceable record of the past. Auguste De La Rive, far from 

 the belief that, on leaving this world, he would sink into nothing, as the 



