XXVI 



with experimental students, he founded, as early as 1832, a laboratory 

 of research at his own expense. 



Almost immediately after the Revelation of February new labours 

 of the most diverse kind began to encroach upon Dumas' scientific 

 work. The political and social upheaval of 1848, shaking, as it did, 

 the stability of all French institutions, turned into political and admi- 

 nistrative courses many men of mark whose energies had been hitherto 

 exclusively devoted to the service of science. It would have been 

 strange, indeed, had not the want been felt of securing Dumas' well- 

 tried powers for the public affairs of the country. Election to the 

 National Legislative Assembly, appointment as Minister of Agricul- 

 ture and Commerce, admission to the Senate, President of the Muni- 

 cipal Council of Paris, and nomination as Master of the Mint of 

 France, are the steps by which he rapidly rose in his new career. 



With the fall of the second Empire the political and administrative 

 career of Dumas came to an abrupt termination. The Senate had 

 ceased to exist, and in the stormy days which followed, the Municipal 

 Council had naturally changed its composition ; and even in the Mint, 

 where his rich experience and his rare talent of organisation might 

 have been still of such use in the public service, the man who played 

 so conspicuous a part under the Imperial Government had to vacate 

 his place. 



Having thus withdrawn from his official positions, Dumas found 

 himself at the age of seventy in the possession of otium cum digm'tate ; 

 but he never allowed himself to enjoy it in any other than the Cice- 

 ronian acceptation of the words. After his retirement from political 

 and municipal life Dumas once more exclusively belonged to science. 

 There was no chemical aspiration which he was not anxious to assist, 

 no problem in the domain of chemistry, physics, or physiology to the 

 solution of which he was not happy and proud to contribute, no 

 scientific movement of any kind to the furtherance of which he was 

 not willing to open the treasury of his matured experience or to lend 

 at least the prestige of his name. But he was never more happy than 

 when, in furthering science, he was at the same time able to serve the 

 material wants and to promote the well-being of his fellow-citizens. 



That to scientific services continued for upwards of half a century 

 science should have accorded with unstinted hand a rich share even 

 of her external marks of honour was but to be expected ; no Academy, 

 no learned Society but has deemed it an honour to inscribe the name 

 of Dumas on its register. A member of the French Institute at the 

 early age of thirty-two, he has in due time reaped the full harvest of 

 distinctions in store for successful cultivators of science. He became 

 a correspondent of the Berlin Academy of Science in 1834, and ;i 

 Foreign Associate of that body in 1880 ; he was elected a Foreign 

 Member of the Royal Society of London in 1840. He was an hono- 



