BARON CUVIER. 21 



missaire Imperial extraordinaire, and sent him on the diffi- 

 cult mission of endeavouring to raise the people inhabiting 

 the left bank of the Rhine in favour of France, (their new 

 country) against the invading troops then marching against 

 her. M. Cuvier was ordered to Mayence ; but he was stop- 

 ped at Nancy, by the entrance of the allied armies, and 

 obliged to return. 



The events of 1814 happened at the moment when the 

 Emperor had bestowed on him a still more honourable 

 mark of his favour, by making him Counsellor of State. 

 A delay of only a few month, however, took place in his 

 final establishment in the council ; for Louis XVIII., who 

 was very sensible to intellectual merit, again conferred this 

 dignity on him, and, in the September of the same year, 

 first employed him in the temporary office of Commissaire 

 du Roi. These favours, were in some measure, to be at- 

 tributed to an introduction to the Abbe de Montesquion, then 

 minister, by means of MM. Royer Collard, Becquey, de 

 Talleyrand, and Louis, who were well acquainted with the 

 Abbe, and who, by their presentation, gave him an oppor- 

 tunity of profiting by tlie merits of M. Cuvier. 



The return of Napoleon for a while banished the new 

 counsellor from his dignity, but he was retained by the 

 Emperor in the Imperial University. After the hurricane 

 of the Hundred Days it became necessary to remodel both 

 the Royal and Imperial Universities, and a provisional su- 

 perintendence was deemed necessary. A committee of pub- 

 lic instruction was created to exercise the powers formerly 

 belonging to the grand master, the council, the chancellor, 

 and the treasurer of the University. M. Cuvier made a 

 part of this committee, and was at once appointed to the 

 chancellorship, which office he retained till his death, under 

 the most difficult circumstances, in the midst of the most 

 opposite prejudices, and notwithstanding the most invete- 

 rate resistance offered to him as a Protestant. The Jesuiti- 

 cal tendency of those in power augmented the difficulties 

 that a wise and disinterested man must at all times meet 

 with, in trying to do good, and to prevent evil ; but when 

 that man was of a different religion, it may easily be ima- 

 gined in how delicate a situation he must have been often 

 placed, and how greatly his religious faith must have in- 



