712 BIOGRAPHICAL 8KETCH OF HENRY MILNE-EDWARDS. 



wliicli for two centuries have sheltered generations animated by a very 

 different spirit, but equally devoted to the culture of the ideal. 



There Milne-Edwards enjoyed himself in the society of artists and 

 seemed destined to pass his life in an elegant dilletantism, but fate had 

 decreed otherwise, and the brilliant lover of art was to be tranformed 

 into a savant of the tirst order. As is usually the case, this was effected 

 by the pressure of necessity: Duris nrgens in, rebus egestas, the trans- 

 formation took place. In 1825, in consequence of family circumstances, 

 Henry's situation suddenly changed. He was obliged to give up an 

 iuheritance that constituted the principal part of his possessions, and 

 to labor for the necessary means of support for his family. The publi 

 cation of elementary works on medicine and materia medica seems to 

 have at tirst sufficed. At that time he met with help from the circle of 

 devoted friends he had so well known how to make when he connected 

 himself with distinguished young men like Dumas, Adolphe Brong- 

 niart, and Audouin, all of whom before very long became scientific lumi- 

 naries themselves. They all met later as fellow members in the bosom 

 of our Academy. The friendly aid given to Edwards numifested itself 

 in the line of original research and in his career of instructor. 



To speak first of this latter calling, it became to him a real vocation. 

 In 1832 Mdne-Edwards was appointed professor of hygiene and natural 

 history in the Central School of Arts and Manufactures, a school over 

 which Dumas, as one of the original founders, exerted a powerful 

 influence. Milne Edwards had declined the offer of a place in the 

 school system of Belgium during the preceding year, at the time of the 

 establishment of the new kingdom. 



For the last time he made a practical use of his medical knowledge 

 in taking care of the sick, through a sentiment of pure devotion, dur- 

 ing the great cholera epidemic of 1832. But from that time he turned 

 in another direction, displaying more and more his double talent of 

 IH'ofessor and writer. At one time he gave a course in natural history 

 at Henry IV College, but only to the junior class. From the close of 

 the year 1837 he no longer taught, as I can certify from my per- 

 sonal recollection as a pupil of that College; his merit and his work 

 called him to a higher sphere. In fact, on the 5th of November, 1838, 

 he was ap])ointed a member of the Academy of Sciences in the zoolog 

 ical section, to replace Frederick Cuvier, and in 1811 succeeded his 

 friend, Victor Audouin, in the chair of entomology at the museum, 

 which he exchanged in 1801 for that of mammology. In 1841 he added 

 to this the title of chairman of the '• Faculte des Sciences,'' whicli he 

 had filled as substitute since 1838, and his well-known spirit of order 

 and justice caused him to be chosen dean m 1810; he filled the double 

 offices of professor and dean at the Sorbonne u^) to the last day of his 

 life, having faithfully discharged his public and i)rivate duties with 

 great activity, without a break, and rarely ever so much as requiring 



