% Biographical Notice of' the Abbe Huiiij. 



ligious incumbents of the Abbey. The progress of the scholar 

 was so rapid that his masters engaged his mother to take 

 him to Paris, where he might find the means of continu- 

 ing his studies. The courageous mother followed this advice, 

 notwithstanding that difficulties of all kinds presented them- 

 selves, and persevered through all the trials which she had to 

 sustain in supporting herself and her son in a gr^at city, 

 where she found herself without resources. The first relief 

 which she obtained, after a long period of expectation, was a 

 place for her son as one of the infant choristers in a church in 

 the Fauxbourg St Antoine. The young Haiiy was able to 

 imprdve upon the simple instruction which he received in that 

 employment; he became a good musician. At length his pro- 

 tectors obtained for him a purse in the College of Navarre, and 

 it is from his entrance into this college that we must date the 

 commencement of his regular studies. His conduct secured 

 the esteem and attachment of his professors ; and when he 

 ceased to be a scholar, though still very young, his masters 

 judged him to be worthy of sharing with them in their la- 

 bours. At the age of twenty-one he was regent of the fourth, 

 and some time after, he passed as regent of the second to the 

 college of Cardinal Lemoine. Nothing, until then, had di- 

 rected his attention to the natural sciences, but he had attend- 

 ed the course of Brisson in the college at Navarre, and ac- 

 quired some taste for experimental physics. Among his new 

 confreres in the college of Lemoine was Lhomond, a man of 

 profound knowledge, and yet more modest and pious than he 

 was learned. This person had limited himself to the instruc- 

 tion of the sixth, and had composed works only for children ; 

 but they were remarkable for an uncommon clearness, and a 

 simplicity of tone conformable to the character of the author. 

 The young Hairy soon became the friend of the respectable 

 Lhomond, entrusted him with the secrets of his conscience, 

 and felt for him the tenderness of a son. He took care of his 

 business, comforted him in his sufferings, and accompanied 

 him in his walks. Lhomond loved to herborize, but Haiiy 

 had yet no idea of botany. The industrious friendship of the 

 young professor enabled him to fill up, in a very short time, 

 this blank in his information, in order that he might be more 



4 



