14 MEMOIRS OP 



unknown to himself at that time, laid the basis of that 

 beautiful fabric which he afterwards raised on zoology. He 

 wrote concerning them, to a friend, " These manuscripts 

 are solely for my own use, and, doubtless, contain nothing 

 but what has been done elsewhere, and better established 

 by the naturalists of the capital, for they have been made 

 without the aid of books or collections." Nevertheless, al- 

 most every page of these precious manuscripts was full of 

 new facts and enlightened views, which were superior to 

 almost all that had yet appeared. A little society met every 

 evening in the town of Valmont, near the chateau de 

 Fiquainville, belonging to the Count d'Hericy, for the pur- 

 pose of discussing agricultural topics. M. Tessier was often 

 present at these meetings, who had fled from the reign of 

 terror in Paris, and who was concealed under the title and 

 office of surgeon to a regiment, then quartered at Valmont. 

 He spoke so well, and seemed so entirely master of the sub- 

 ject that the young secretary of the society, M. Cuvier, re- 

 cognised him as the author of the articles on agriculture in 

 the Encyclopedic Methodique. 



On saluting him as such, M. Tessier, whose title of 

 Abbe had rendered him suspected at Paris, exclaimed, " I 

 am known, then, and consequently lost." " Lost!" replied 

 M. Cuvier ; " no ; you are henceforth the object of our 

 most anxious care." This circumstance led to an intima- 

 cy between the two ; and by means of M. Tessier,* M. 

 Cuvier entered into correspondence with several savans, to 

 whom he sent his observations, especially Lamethrie, 

 Olivier, De la Cepede, Geoffrey St. Hilaire, and Millin de 

 Grand Maison. Through their influence, and from the 

 memoirs published in several learned journals, he was 

 called to Paris, where endeavours were making to re-esta- 

 blish the literary institutions, overthrown by the Revolu- 

 tion, and where it was reasonable to suppose that he would 

 find the means of placing himself. In the spring of 1795, 

 he obeyed the invitation of his Parisian friends, and, by 



* " Je viens de trouver une perle dans le fumier de Normandie," " I 

 have just found a pearl in the dunghill of Normandy," wrote M. Tes- 

 sier to his friend, M. Parmentier ; thus detecting the great naturalist in 

 M. Cuvier's earliest productions, and appreciating what were then but 

 the germs of his talent. 



