MEMOIR 



OF 



DUCROTAY DE BLAINYILLE, 



BY M. FLOUEENS, 

 PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY OP SCIENCES. 



[translated for the SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION BY C. A. ALEXANDER.] 



" There is no pursuit in the world so toilsome," says La Bruyere, " as that of 

 making for one's self a name." Undeterred by this reflection, and stimulated 

 by the charm of satire. La Bruyere braved the annoyances of which he spoke, 

 and made for himself a very considerable one. The member of the academy 

 whose memory I am about to recall had too much energy to be daunted by such 

 a saying as the above, and seems in no small degree to have been stimulated in 

 his arduous labors by the spirit of contradiction. Having by persevering eflbrts 

 thrown light on some of the highest points of the science of organized beings, 

 he also enjoyed the success which seldom fails to attend criticism and attracted 

 the fervid interest which opposition constantly excites, even when its attacks 

 are directed against genius. 



Born at Arques, February 17, 1777, son of Pierre Ducrotay and Catharine 

 Pauger, Marie-Henri de Blainville was fond of recounting that, although his 

 family was not numbered among the most illustrious of the province, it ascended, 

 nevertheless, to the fourteenth century ; that it was the issue of a Scotch gentle- 

 man who, holding nothing except by the tenure of cloak and sword, had received 

 from the place of his landing the name of Ducrotay. Having thus sheltered the 

 nobility of his family under the osgis of Scottish loyalty, he would add that, un- 

 der Francis I, the government of the castle of Arques, which its position then 

 rendered an important post, was confided to one Robert Ducrotay ; that the 

 fortunes of the family had been still further enhanced through a descendant of 

 the latter, who had the address to secure the favor of five successive monarchs, 

 had received particular marks of esteem from Henry III, and the confirmation 

 of his titles and franchises from Henry IV, to whom he had rendered valuable 

 service at the battle of Arques. It was in the bosom, therefore, of a family 

 proud of its historical recollections and jealous of its privileges that the first 

 moral impressions of the young Ducrotay de Blainville were formed. 



He was the youngest son, and had the misfortune • to lose his father at an 

 early age. For the rudiments of education he was indebted to a neighboring 

 curate, and was transferred at a later period to the military school of Beaumont 

 en Auge, which was under the direction of the Benedictine monks of Saint 

 Maur, and of which it is eulogy enough to say that it had the honor of counting 

 Laplace among its pupils. 



The revolutionary tempest, in dispersing the religious congregations, closed too 

 soon for the young De Blainville this excellent source of instruction. He was 

 scarcely fifteen when he returned to a mother, weak and broken in spirits, whose 

 blind afiection could maintain no adequate restraint over a youth of wayward 

 disposition. All that depends on the life of a father — all that avails the experi- 



