The Professor: Avignon 



And he had the power of communicating 

 to his hearers his own conviction, his pro- 

 found faith, the sacred fire that inspired him, 

 the passion which he felt for all natural 

 things. 



But there were sufficient reasons to set the 

 sectarians all agog and excite the rancour 

 of the envious, some regarding this great nov- 

 elty of placing the natural sciences within 

 reach of young girls as a heresy and even a 

 scandal, others finding it unsatisfactory that 

 this " irregular person, the child of his own 

 solitary studies, should fill, by his work, his 

 successes, and the magic of his teaching, a 

 place so apart and so disproportionate. 

 Their cavilling, their underhand cabals, their 

 secret manoeuvring won an easy triumph." 

 In what hateful and tragic fashion we must 

 let him tell us in his own words: 



The first of these removals took place in 1870. 

 A little earlier, a minister who has left a lasting 

 memory in the university, that fine man Victor 

 Duruy, 1 had instituted classes for the secondary 

 education of girls. This was the beginning, as far 

 as was then possible, of the burning question of 



1 Jean Victor Duruy (1811-1894), author of a number 

 of historical works, including a well-known Histoire des 

 Romains, and Minister of Public Instruction under Napo- 

 leon in. from 1863 to 4869. Cf. The Life of the Fly, 

 chap. xx. — A. T. de M, 



195 



