394 MEMOIR OF M. ISIDORE GEOFFEOY SAINT HILAIRE. 



all sides, the occupations which presented themselves to him, and found time 

 for all. He felt, indeed, that his life was at stake in this struggle of grief 

 against labor. " Can the bow Be always bent and not break?"* said he; and 

 at that moment he doubtless felt the attacks of the malady which was to carry 

 him off, but he did not thp less continue this consuming strife. 



He tells us himself that from the-.month of November, 1860, he had felt his 

 head much fatigued, and had sometimes been obliged entirely to suspend his 

 labors. These symptoms returned in the course of the summer of 18G1 in a 

 more threatening manner. By the advice of his physicians he set out for Swit- 

 zerland, in the course of September, in the hope of regaining the strength which 

 seemed failing him, and he even went as far as Italy, lleturuing about the 

 middle of October, he thought himself able to resume his studies, but his weak- 

 ness soon reappeared. Some uncertain periodical symptoms having given the 

 idea of an influence of malaria, he Avas advised change of air, and went to 

 Neuilly.t He remained there scarcely a fortnight, when, his condition be- 



coming worse, he was taken back to Paris, only to lay himself upon a bed from 

 which he never rose again ; and in that house, in the museum which, for sixty 

 years, had attracted the most distinguished men of all countries, there remained 

 only a Avidowed mother mourniiig over all that she had loved. May the vene- 

 ration with which she is regarded, and that which is attached to the memory 

 of those who were so dear to her — may the affectionate attentions of the young 

 family which has gathered around her mitigate her sorrows.^ 



* These cxprcssious occur in a letter of Isidore Geoffroy quotutl by M. Drouyu de I'Huys. 



tM. Albeit Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, first director of tbe Jarclin Zoologiquc cV AccUmatation, 

 displays, in dcvelopiug and carrying on this establishrueut, the same intelligence and filial 

 devotion which animated his father, where, at about the same age, he labored in the menagerie 

 of the museum. 



X Madame Geoffroy Saint Hilaire still occupies the home where she has lived since 1804. 

 The ministerial decision which assigns it to her has only ratified the universal wish of the 

 former colleagues of Etienne and Isidore Geoffroy. The daughter of the latter, and his son- 

 in-law, M. d'Audrey, have come to live with their grandmother, bringing with them her 

 great-grandchildren. 



