138 SATURDAY LECTURES. 



College of Suiiite-Foix to the Senate. Professor Verneuil, 

 liis life-long friend, said to him, "If we are in great strength 

 around thee, it is because thou hast continually made new 

 friends, and hast never lost a single one." 



In his speech of acknowledgment, Broca said, "the}^ 

 would not have thought of me if they had not known with 

 what certainty they could count upon my devotion to 

 republican principles ; and if, among many others not less 

 trustworthy and more skilled in political knowledge, they 

 have chosen a man of science, it is because they hold science 

 in high consideration, and believe that to serve science is to 

 serve one's country best." 



His speech was one of the most eloquent he had ever 

 delivered, and ended Avith a sentence that proved strangely 

 pathetic, in-the light of the after occurrence. He said, " were 

 I superstitious, I should believe, from the great hajipiness 

 I experience to-day, that some great danger was threatening 

 me." 



Five months later, these now sorrowing friends followed 

 him to the grave. On Tuesday, the 6th July, 1880, he was 

 in his seat at the Senate and was attacked suddenly by 

 faintness. The next day, he had apparently recovered, and 

 Thursday evening was passed in work with his friend, 

 pupil, colleague, and successor, Dr. Paul Topinard. Toward 

 midnight, he was suddenly attacked with difficulty of 

 breathing, he rose from his bed and, in ten minutes, he ex- 

 pired. The post mortem examination discovered no lesion 

 of any organ, — no cause for this sudden taking-o.ff. " Cere- 

 bral exhaustion '' was the medical periphrasis, which im- 

 plied two things; — that the man had worked himself to 

 death and that how he died was a mystery. He died at the 

 comparatively early age of 50, in the very plenitude of his 

 powers and the height of his renown. 



He was buried in the cemetery of the old church of the 

 Celestins, in which his first labors in craniology had com- 

 menced thirty-three years before, and which led to his long 

 course of studies in anthropology. The Vice-President of 

 the Senate, M. Eugene Pelletan, in his oration at the grave. 



