the Academie^ Caroline, an institution belonging to the university of that 

 city. After having spent some time in the various studies which were en- 

 joined on pupils of his age, Cuvier appears to have been closely attended 

 to by the Duke, and, as there is reason to believe that the latter acknow- 

 ledged some serious obligations in former times to members of the Cuvier 

 family, so did he feel a peculiar interest in forwarding the views of the 

 young aspirant. It appears, that though the youth was at first intended 

 for the clerical profession, yet at Studtgard his studies were all directed 

 to his education for performing political duties. We can readily believe 

 that the courses thus enjoined upon him were sufficiently agreeable to his 

 tastes, when we remember that they comprehended the branches of natural 

 history. He seems to have had leisure enough to perform herborizing ex- 

 cursions, to visit collections of objects in art and nature, and even to copy 

 the representations of animals. At Studtgard he distinguished himself by 

 obtaining many of the prizes, and succeeded in attaining the order of chi- 

 valry, a sort of distinction which fell to a very small number of the pupils 

 who won it by their merit. 



The accident of the retirement of Duke Frederick, the governor of 

 Montbeillard, into Germany, deprived young Cuvier of his most powerful 

 friend, and, for a moment, he suspended those ambitious hopes which had 

 long floated before him. Without patrimony, or the means of entering 

 u])on any permanent system for his life, Cuvier was under the necessity of 

 seeking out a tutorship. In 1788, we find him in the family of Count 

 d"Hericy, at Caen, in Normandy, where he was engaged in the instruc- 

 tion of an only son. The proximity of this Norman residence to the sea 

 afforded to the active tutor facilities for such observations on natural pro- 

 ductions as his instinctive inclinations led him to seek; and it was to the 

 accidental opportunities thus presented to him, that he owed the impulse, 

 which, in its subsequent influence, so vastly contributed to build up his 

 great reputation. Cuvier, being destitute of books or other means of re- 

 ference at the period we are speaking of, committed the results of his disco- 

 veries to paper, and the manuscripts survived to be of essential service to 

 him afterwards. At this interesting era of the life of Cuvier, a circum- 

 stance occurred which must not be omitted in the detail of the auspicious 

 events which led him gradually to his exalted destiny. At the little town 

 of Valmont, near the residence of the Count d'Hericy, a society used to 

 meet for the purpose of discussing points connected with the most im- 

 portant public question of the locality, viz. its agriculture. At this so- 

 ciety an individual of the place usually took a leading part; and it was not 

 long before the penetrating tutor recognised in him a contributor on this 

 subject to the Encyclopedic Methodique, then a highly popular scientific 

 work, published in Paris. Cuvier, in the ardour of an energetic spirit, 



