MEMOIR OF HAUY. 391 



who dispose, commonly for so short a time, of the lots of others, forget 

 so often that acts like these will find a more enduring place in history 

 than all the ephemeral details of their administration? 



Nor was this the only trial that Haiiy had to encounter. A short 

 time afterwards the regulations of finance caused him the loss of his 

 pension, as heing incompatible with a salary for actual services; while 

 his brother, who had been attracted to Russia with a view to the in- 

 struction of the blind, returned without the fulfillment of the promises 

 held, out to him, and with health so shattered as to be thrown entirely 

 on his family for support. 



Thus it was that, towards the end of his life, Haiiy saw himself sud- 

 denly reduced to the strictly needful, of which he had before had expe- 

 rience. It would have required all his pious resignation to support 

 this reverse, but for the care used by his young relatives to dissemble 

 their own concern for his misfortunes. They redoubled their attentions 

 as his means of acknowledgment diminished, and in recompense might 

 find consolation in the devotion manifested by his pupils and the respect 

 borne him by all Europe. Enlightened men, of whatever rank, arriving 

 at Paris, hastened to tender him their homage; even the day before 

 his death the heir of a great kingdom was to be seen sitting by his 

 pillow and evincing his interest by expressions of the most touching 

 sympathy. But to Haiiy it was a more solid ground of support that, 

 in the midst of his honors and prosperity, he had quitted none of the 

 habits of his college, or even of his native village. His hours of repast, 

 as well as of rising and lying down, were the same; each day he took 

 nearly the same exercise, and in the same places, and while doing so 

 still contrived to manifest his kindliness by conducting strangers who 

 were at a loss, or by giving them tickets of admission to the collections. 

 Many have received these little attentions who never suspected from 

 whom they proceeded. His old-fashioned attire, his simple air, his 

 language, (always of an excessive modesty,) were not likely to cause 

 his recognition. His former townsmen, when he visited the place of 

 his birth, could little divine from his deportment how considerable a 

 personage he had become at Paris. It may be mentioned, as charac- 

 teristic, that on one occasion, having met two old soldiers who were 

 going out for a fight, he inquired into the subject of their quarrel, 

 brought about a reconciliation, and, to make sure that the dispute 

 would not revive, went with them to seal the peace after military 

 fashion — at the ale-house. 



The extreme simplicity of his habits would have probably prolonged 

 his life, notwithstanding the frailty of his constitution,- had not an 

 accident accelerated the fatal event. A fall which he met with in his 

 chamber fractured the neck of his thigh, and an abscess forming in 

 the articulation rendered the injury incurable, During the long suf- 

 ferings which preceded his death, he ceased not to exhibit the same 

 gentleness, the, same pious submission to the decrees of Providence, the 

 same ardor for science, which had characterized his life. His time was 

 divided between prayer, the superintendence of a new edition of his 

 book, and a zealous solicitude for the future welfare of the students 

 who had assisted him in its preparation. 



