548 JEAN-BAPTISTE-ANDR^ DUMAS. 



establi^shed at the Polytechnic School, was removed to the Rue Cuvier 

 in 1839, wliere it remained until broken up by the Revolution of 1848. 

 The laboratory was small, and Dumas would receive only a few ad- 

 vanced students, and these on terms wholly gratuitous. Among 

 these students were Piria, Stas, Melsens, Leblanc, Lalande, and 

 Lewy, with whose aid he carried on many of his important investi- 

 gations. By the Revolution of 1848 Dumas's activities were for a 

 time diverted into political channels ; but under the Second Empire 

 his laboratory was re-established at the Sorbonne, and in 1868 was 

 removed to the Ecole Centrale. 



The political episode of Dumas's life was the natural result of an 

 active mind with wide sympathies, which recognizes in the pressing 

 demands of society its highest duty. The political and social upheaval 

 of 1848 seemed at the time to endanger the stability in France of 

 everything which a cultivated and learned man holds most dear ; and 

 Dumas was not one to consider his own preferences when he felt he 

 could aid in averting the calamities which threatened his country. Im- 

 mediately after the Revolution of February, he accepted a seat in the 

 Legislative Assembly offered him by the electors of the Arrondissement 

 of Valenciennes. Shortly afterwards the President of the Republic 

 called him to fill the office of Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. 

 During the Second Empire he was elevated to the rank of Senator, 

 and shortly after his entrance into the Senate he became Vice-Presi- 

 dent of the High Council of Education. In order to reform the abuses 

 into which many of the higher educational institutions of Paris had 

 fallen, he accepted a place in the Municipal Council of Paris, over 

 which he subsequently presided from 1859 to 1870. 



In 1868 Dumas was appointed Master of the Mint of France, but 

 he retained the office only during a short time, for with the fall of the 

 Second Emi)ire, in 1870, his political career came to an abrupt termi- 

 nation. The Senate had ceased to exist, and in the stormy days which 

 followed, the Municipal Council had naturally changed its complexion ; 

 and even at the Mint, the man who had held such a conspicuous 

 position under the Imperial government was obliged to vacate his place. 

 Some years previously he had resigned his professorships because his 

 official positions were incompatible with his relations as teacher, and 

 now, at the age of seventy, he found himself for the first time relieved 

 from the daily routine of official duties, and free to devote his leisure 

 to the noble work of encouraging research, and thus promoting the 

 advancement of science. He had reached an age when active investi- 

 gation was almost an impossibility, but his commanding position gave 



