24 MEMOIR OP 



Wailly, who had been esteemed as a classical 

 author for forty years, and with Fourrier. La Place 

 himself, and this is saying much, appeared in this 

 strange scene as a scholar ; and it was hy the side 

 of such men as these, that there were seated pea- 

 sants who could scarcely read. The influence of 

 these great men was soon felt in society, and was 

 highly useful in the metropolis. 



Lacepede, after his retirement, was not legally a 

 member of the establishment of the Jardin des 

 Plants, but scarcely was his name allowed to be 

 pronounced in Paris, when those who had been 

 appointed in his absence, urgently invited him to 

 associate himself with them. For this purpose a 

 new chair was appointed for him, connected with 

 the history of Reptiles and Fishes. His lectures 

 were most successful. A crowd of young men 

 flocked round him, who, for three or four years, had 

 been deprived of all instruction, and who were thus 

 as it were famished. The politeness of the pro- 

 fessor, the elegance of his language, the variety of 

 the ideas and knowledge which he displayed, after 

 so long an interval of barbarism, introduced as it 

 were another and a better age. Then it was espe- 

 cially that Lacepede assumed, in the public esti- 

 mation, the rank of the successor of Buffon; as 

 in him, in truth, were found many of his distin- 

 guishing characteristics : he possessed the same art 

 of giving interest to the driest details; and when 

 Daubenton was approaching the termination of his 

 career, th new professor remained the only re- 



