1001 



BUFFON, COMTE DE. 



BUGEAUD, MARSHAL. 



1002 



the cooling and grinding, and only three, it is said, were preserved 

 out of twenty-four. He presented one of these, having a diameter of 

 46 inches, and considered as the most powerful burning-glass in 

 Europe, to the king of France. 



Hitherto we have seen Buffon devoting himself to his studies with 

 unwearied diligence ; but the more abstruse of the sciences and the 

 formation of his style appear to have almost entirely occupied him up 

 to a certain period. 



Sonic few years however before he commenced the experiments 

 above recorded, he was, at the age of thirty-two (about the year 1739), 

 called to succeed M. Dufay, who, struck by a mortal disease (the small- 

 pox), had recommended Buffon to the minister as the only man capable 

 of following up his projects in the office of intendant of the Royal 

 Garden and Museum, where he planted the two avenues of lime-trees 

 which terminate towards the extremity of the nursery, and mark the 

 limits of the garden at that period. The appointment seems to have 

 at once awakened his dormant love for the study of natural history. 

 His ardent mind took an immediate and comprehensive view of the 

 subject, and commencing with the theory or history of the earth as his 

 basis, he followed it out through the great work which has immor- 

 talised his name as a zoologist, calling to his assistance the talents of 

 men who were most deeply versed in particular branches of the 

 atudy : the names of Daubenton and Lace'pede stand pre-emiuent 

 among those who were thus associated with him. 



His marriage with Mademoiselle de Saint Belin, in 1762, appears to 

 have been productive of great happiness to both parties, for she is 

 recorded as anxiously watching all his steps on the road to fame, and 

 rejoicing with him at the honoura which were showered upon him by 

 crowned heads and learned societies. Louis XIV., in 1776, raised his 

 estate into a compte, and invited him to Fontainebleau, with a view 

 of inducing him to accept the office of Administrator of the Forests of 

 France, but Buffon declined the office. 



His days appear to have been passed in great tranquillity, uninter- 

 rupted till a late period of his life, when that cruel disease, the stone, 

 came to embitter the rest of it After seven or eight years of suffering 

 he died on the 1 6th of April 1788, at the age of eighty-one. Fifty-seven 

 stones, some of them as large as a bean, arc said to have been found in 

 his bladder. His body was embalmed, and placed iu the same vault 

 with that of his wife, at Montbard. The respect paid to his memory 

 was great, and reflected honour on the assemblage of academicians and 

 persons of rank and distinction who followed his remains to the tomb. 

 It is said that above 20,000 people had congregated to see the funeral 

 pass. Condorcet, Broussonet, Vicq d'Azyr, and Lace'pede were his 

 principal eulogists. 



Buffon left an only son, whose abilities were considerable, and whose 

 attachment to his parent was extreme, if indeed filial love can ever be 

 extreme. He was in the army, and had risen to the rank of major in 

 the regiment of Angoumois. We have seen the father's obsequies 

 celebrated by the great and good, and attended by the people ; but 

 this homage to a great genius was soon to give way to the storm that 

 darkened the political horizon of all Europe. The son of the great 

 Comte de Buffon expiated the crime of his birth on the scaffold which 

 had already reeked with the noblest blood of France ; and even the 

 bones of the father the man whom the people had delighted to 

 honour could not escape desecration. The remains of the illustrious 

 zoologist were torn from the grave ; the lead in which he was hearsed 

 was plundered, and his monument was razed to the ground. And 

 when a citizen, to whom science was dear, complained to the Committee 

 of Public Instruction of the outrage, and proposed that Buffon should 

 have n place iu the Pantheon, he was answered that the temple would 

 be profaned by the presence of one who had been connected with the 

 aristocracy of France. 



The character of Buffon' s mind seems to have been comprehensive, 

 exhibiting an insatiable desire of knowledge joined with a persevering 

 fondness and appetite for study rarely to be found : to these gilts 

 nature had added a most fervid imagination, and, hU biographers 

 have Euperadded, no small portion of vanity. He would read to his 

 visitors those passages in his works which were his greatest favourites, 

 such as portions of his natural history of man, the description of the 

 Arabian deserts in the account of the camel, and his poetical pages on 

 the swan. The last affected Prince Henry of Prussia, to whom the 

 author read it when he was on a visit to Montbard, so strongly, that 

 he sent to the zoologist a service of porcelain on which swana were 

 represented in almost every attitude. 



Buffou was of a noble countenance and commanding figure, and his 

 fondness for magnificence and drees seems to have amounted almost to 

 a passion. It is curious to observe such an intellect as his finding 

 time in the midst of the severest studies to submit his head to the 

 friseur often twice and sometimes three times in the day, and to make 

 his toilet in the extreme of the fashion. On a Sunday, after the 

 service of the church, the peasantry of Montbard came to gaze on the 

 count, who, clad in the richest dress, and at the head of his son and 

 retainers, was wont to exhibit himself to their admiring eyes. This 

 last exhibition however may have been a trait of the times. 



His devotion to study early ripened into a habit, and became his 

 solace under the excruciating torments which embittered the last 

 years of his life. When asked how he had found time to do so much, 

 he would reply, " Have I not spent fifty years at my desk ?" Buffou's 



style was brilliant and eloquent oven to the verge of poetry ; and it is 

 worthy of remark, that a mind which had been trained and disciplined 

 in the severity of the exact sciences should surrender the reins so 

 entirely to the most luxuriant but wildest imagination. Hence he was 

 often arraigning nature at the bar of his fancy for some supposed 

 defect of design, when the fault was in his own want of perception of 

 the end to which that design was directed, arising from his not being 

 acquainted with the habits to which it ministered. His observations 

 on the bill of the avoset, on the structure of the sloth, and on the 

 melancholy condition of the woodpecker (Pious), are examples of this 

 habit ; upon the woodpecker he is quite pathetic, but, as in all such 

 cases, he bestows his pity very needlessly. He has been charged with 

 infidelity ; but this, like some others, is a charge easy to he made and 

 hard to be disproved ; though it must be admitted that his works 

 afford some ground for it. His moral character, we are compelled to 

 add, was far from good, there being too much evidence in proof of 

 his licentious habits and conversation to admit of doubt on the 

 subject. 



His works were numerous, and have obtained for him that fame 

 which he is said to have so much desired. His translations of Hales's 

 ' Vegetable Statics/ and of Newton's ' Fluxions.' both of which he 

 prefaced with great ability, appear to have been undertaken with a 

 view of improving his style as well as of advancing his knowledge. 

 The ' Memoirs of the Royal Academy,' of which he was so distin- 

 guished a member, contain many of his papers ; but without entering 

 into these and other compositions, we proceed to the notice of his 

 opus magnum, the ' Histoire Naturelle.' Of the quarto editions, the 

 first in 36 vols., printed at the royal press, appeared in 1749, and was 

 in a course of publication down to 1788 ; another was published in 

 1774 and the following years, in 28 vols., but this is comparatively of 

 less value, for though it contains the supplementary matter, Daubeu- 

 ton's 'Anatomy' is cut out, and the plates are considered as worn and 

 bad. Of the Supplement, 6 vols. appeared in Buffon's lifetime ; the 

 7th was published in 1789, by Lace'pede, after Buffon's death, aud in 

 it Lace'pede expressed his deep regret for the loss. In the department 

 of the Birds, Buffon was assissted by M. Gueueau de Montbeillard, 

 Baillon, and the Abb<5 Bexon. There are 5 vols. on minerals ; a history 

 of vegetables was also contemplated. The magnificence of the 'Planches 

 Enlumine'es ' is well known to every collector. 



The ' Histoire Naturelle ' has been translated into Italian, Spanish, 

 Dutch, German (twice with additions), and English. Numerous 

 editions of the ' Histoire Naturelle ' have been published in Frauce 

 since the death of Buffon, as well as several selections from his 

 writings. Of the former, the most valuable are the ' Histoire Natu- 

 relle de Buffon, mise uu nouvel ordre ; prdce'de'e d'une notice sur les 

 ouvrages et la vie de Buffon, par M. le Baron Cuvier,' in 36 vols. 8vo, 

 Paris, 1825-26 ; and that edited by M. A. Richard, in 30 vols. 8vo, 

 1824, &c. 



BUGEAUD DE LA PICONNERIE, THOMAS ROBERT, DUG 

 D'ISLY, Marshal of France, was boru at Limoges, October 15, 1784. 

 He came of a good family, most of the members of which were 

 among the emigrants of the first revolution. Young Bugeaud however 

 remained in Frauce, and having chosen a military life, entered the 

 army as a private in 1804. At Austerlitz he was a corporal; the 

 following year he was made sub-lieutenant. He served in the cam- 

 paign of Prussia and Poland, and was wounded at Pultusk, Nov. 26, 

 1806. Sent into Spain as adjutant-major he speedily caught the eye 

 of Marshal Suchet, who in his despatches made frequent mention of 

 Bugeaud's merits. He in consequence rose steadily in professional 

 rank till he was made lieutenant-colonel, and appointed to the com- 

 mand of the 14th regiment of the line. On his return to France he 

 was created colonel. 



On the abdication of Napoleon I., Bugeaud gave in his adhesion to 

 the restored dynasty ; but, with most of the other officers, went over 

 to the emperor on his return from Elba. During the Hundred Days 

 he had the command of a small body of troops, aud with it he suc- 

 ceeded in defeating a much superior Austrian force at I'Hopital-sous- 

 Conflans, June 1815. Upon the second restoration, Bugeaud retired 

 to his estate, where he diligently cultivated the soil, till the revolution 

 of July 1830 called him again into public life. He was elected a 

 member of the Chamber of Deputies, and became an earnest supporter 

 of Louis Philippe, whose confidence he quickly gained, and who 

 named him marshal. In January 1834 occurred a deplorable event, 

 which caused great excitement in Paris, and rendered Bugeaud ex- 

 tremely unpopular : this was the death of M. Dulong, in a duel 

 between him and General Bugeaud, arising out of some bitter remarks 

 made in the Chamber of Deputies by Dulong in reply to Bugeaud, 

 in a debate on the conduct of Marshal Soult. So great was the exas- 

 peration of the Parisians, that the government found it advisable on 

 the occasion of Dulong's funeral to take precautions against an 

 insurrection. A few months later Bugeaud's unpopularity was 

 increased by the decisive measures he took for suppressing the 

 various e'meutes which broke out, and especially by having his name 

 coupled with the massacre of the Rue-Trausnonain. 



In 1837 Bugeaud was sent to Algiers, where he concluded a treaty 

 with Abd-el-Kader, which was much criticised at home, but which 

 served the purpose for which Bugeaud made it that, namely, of 

 enabling the French commander, by securing the inactivity of the 



