M. LE COMTE DE LACEPEDE. 23 



opinion lie entertained of mankind was too deeply 

 rooted to allow him to suspect that truth and jus- 

 tice would not immediately resume the ascendancy. 

 But, in waiting their return, his friends saw he was 

 exposing himself to imminent danger ; and, almost 

 by main force, they removed him from the capital. 

 He had not been long in the country till he longed 

 to return, and he imagined that nothing would 

 be more simple than to demand permission from 

 Robespierre. Happily the monster had that day a 

 spark of humanity about him, " He's in the country? 

 he demanded : Tell him to stay there." It is 

 certain, an hour's residence in the metropolis would 

 liave been fatal to him; his retreat was searched 

 for; and he could not venture to return to Paris 

 till after the 9th of Thermidor. 



He returned with a singular title for a man of 

 forty, who was already known by so many eminent 

 works ; it was that of a scholar of the Normal 

 school. The convention, at last giving up its 

 cruelties, imagined it might create as speedily as it 

 had destroyed ; and that, for the re-establishment of 

 general education, it might in a few weeks educate 

 masters with the help of a few celebrated men, who 

 would only require to point out to them the best 

 methods of proceeding. Fifteen hundred indivi- 

 duals were sent, with this object in view, from the 

 departments. M. Lacepede found himself on the 

 same bench with the celebrated Bougainville, a sep- 

 tuaginarian, and a general officer, equally famous as a 

 writer and a mathematician ; with the grammarian, 



