SECRETARY'S REPORT. 135 



the committee of public safety, attached to which we find the 

 names of Robespierre, Saint Just, Couthon, Collot, d'Herbois, 

 Billaud, Yaresme, Carnot, &c., ordered the preservation of the 

 establishment of Rambouillet, and that it should be carried 

 on at the expense and on account of the government. 



In the fourth year of the Republic, they were upon the point 

 of alienating the domain, but a decree of the Directory, exe- 

 cuted on the 7th of Messidor (26 June) of the same year, 

 excepted the park of Rambouillet from the sale of public prop- 

 erties ordered by the law of the 28th of Ventose (18 March.) 



After the Consulate and the Empire, the flock of Rambouillet 

 had still new dangers to run, and new attacks directed against it 

 to resist. In 1814, M. Bourgeois, director of the farm, saved 

 the Merinos by concealing them in the forest of Anet, situated 

 near the Dreux, and in 1815 he resorted to subterfuges to pre- 

 vent Generals Bliicher and Bulozz from seizing it. In. 1832, 

 some intrigues and secret steps were taken for the suppression 

 of the rural establishment. They were credited by the admin- 

 istration, and had such an influence that a decision was made, 

 to announce publicly a sale of the flock on the 1st of June, 

 1833. The friends of agriculture protested most strenuously 

 against such an act of vandalism. It required the influence of 

 many large proprietors and the objections of the agricultural 

 societies, to cause this decision to be revoked. 



A little while after, a decree of the king, made in council of 

 ministers, the 8th of Jan., 1834, pronounced the preservation 

 of the flock as the original type of the most beautiful Merino 

 race, destined still to add to the agricultural glory of France. 



In 1848, M. Elys^e Lefebvre, then the director, heard some 

 talk of the destruction of the establishment and the suppression 

 of the flock as a thing wholly decided upon. He went to Paris, 

 showed to the minister, M. Bixio, that this suppression would 

 be very much to his discredit, and that to turn the flock over 

 to the public would be to lose completely the purest blood of 

 this beautiful animal, because all breeders would do as has 

 hitherto been done ; that is to say, take crosses. The minister 

 immediately concurred in the just observations of M. Elys^e 

 Lefebvre, and the decision was revoked. 



In 1849, the question was seriously agitated of removing the 

 flock to the National Agricultural Institute of Versailles, then 



