1 82 HEROES OF SaENCE. 



academy, and his really good training soon placed 

 him high amongst his fellows. For four years he 

 studied all that was taught in the higher classes, 

 mathematics, law, administration, tactics, and com- 

 merce, and obtaining various prizes, was made, with 

 five or six others out of the four hundred, to belong 

 to a class bearing the order of "Chevalerie." These 

 youths were under the immediate patronage of the 

 duke, and had privileges besides that of dining at a 

 separate table. Nine months after his arrival at 

 Stuttgart, Cuvier gained the prize in German. But 

 all this time Cuvier led a second life. Out in 

 the fields and in the museum he was supremely 

 happy. Collecting, observing, drawing, and de- 

 scribing were his occupations in his leisure hours, 

 and his drawings of birds, insects, and plants were 

 very excellent and correct. All the books he could 

 get on natural history he read, and the works of 

 Linnaeus were especially learned with zeal. At the 

 end of his academical career Cuvier was promised 

 a place in the administration of the country, and if 

 he had got it probably he would have become a 

 kind of civil service clerk, and have never been 

 heard of. But trouble came, and that of the 

 bitterest kind for a rising young man. Circum- 

 stances against which he could not bear up necessi- 

 tated his seeking a totally different kind of em- 

 ployment. The unsettled state of money and 

 finance in France caused Cuvier's father's pension 

 to be withheld, and the young man, very properly 

 desiring to be no burthen to his parents, gave up 



