FRAN-;OIS-AUGUSTE-ALEXIS MIGNET. 559 



from his bed, assisted by a devoted and accomplished daughter ; he 

 seldom left his house, except to pass the last two winters in tlie milder 

 climate of Italy. Last summer, having finished his Arctic Fossil Hora, 

 in the hope of recruiting his exhausted strength he was removed to the 

 most sheltered spot on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, but without 

 jenefit. He died at Lausanne, at his brother's house, on the 27th of 

 September, 1883. It has been well said of him, in a tribute which a 

 personal friend and fellow naturalist paid to his memory, that " a man 

 more lovable, more sympathetic, and a life more laborious and pure, 

 one could scarcely imagine." 



Heer was elected into the Academy in May, 1877. He is botani- 

 cally commemorated in a genus of beautiful Melastomaceous plants, 

 indigenous to Mexico. 



FRANCOIS-AUGUSTE-ALEXIS MIGNET. 



Francois-Auguste-Alexis Mignet, whose name was added to 

 our Foreign Honorary roll in 1876, died in Paris on the 24th of 

 March last, at eighty-eight years of age. He had lived to be the 

 senior member of the Institute of France, having been admitted to 

 the Academic Fran^aise in 1836, and to the Academy of Moral and 

 Political Sciences as early as 1832. Of this latter Academy he was, 

 at his death, the Honorary Perpetual Secretary, after more than forty 

 years of active service in that distinguished office. His discourses at 

 the annual meetings of this Academy, as published from year to year, 

 contain admirable sketches of the lives and characters of the eminent 

 members with whom he was associated, and who had died before him. 

 Talleyrand, De Tocqueville, Victor Cousin, and De Broglie, of France ; 

 Ancillon and Savigny, of Germany; Brougham and Macaulay, of 

 England ; and Edward Livingstone, of our own land, — were among 

 the subjects of his brilliant eloges. But he was the author of larger 

 and more substantial works of history and biography. In 1824 he 

 published a notable History of the great French Revolution of 1789, 

 and this was followed, from time to time, by many volumes relating 

 to " The Spanish Succession," " The Abdication of Charles V.," " The 

 Rivalry of Charles V.," and other topics of general historical interest. 

 A charming biography of Marie Stuart, and an excellent little Life 

 of Benjamin Franklin, were also among the productions of his pen. 

 He was a man of great accomplishments and many personal attrac- 

 tions, an eloquent speaker and a fine writer, and he will long be re- 

 membered as one of the most valuable and honored members of the 

 Institute of France. 



