166 MEMOIRS OF 



province, or perhaps from a colony at the other end of the 

 world, was no longer ashamed to think that he had not kept 

 pace with the march of science in the capital, and had 

 been poring over obsolete systems ; and the young student ; 

 fresh from the Universities, was not afraid to utter the ob- 

 jections, the fallacies, or the inaccuracies, he fancied he had 

 detected in his perusal of more recent authors. 



The repast whichclosed theseeveningentertainments was 

 served in ihe dining-room, and, certainly, at the most de- 

 lightful tea-table hi the world. A select few only would 

 stay, though M. Cuvier sometimes pressed into the service 

 more than could be well accommodated ; and while the tea, 

 the fruit, and refreshments of various kinds were passing 

 round, the conversation passed brilliantly with them. De- 

 scriptions of rarities were given, travellers' wonders related, 

 works of art criticized, and anecdotes told : when, reserving 

 himself till the last, M. Cuvier would narrate something 

 which crowned the whole ; and all around were either 

 struck with the complete change given to the train of 

 thought, or were forced to join in a general shout of laugh- 

 ter. One evening, the various signs placed over the shop 

 doors in Paris were discussed ; their origin, their uses, were 

 described ; and then came the things themselves. Of 

 course, the most absurd were chosen ; and, last of all, M. 

 Cuvier said that he knew of a bootmaker who had caused 

 a large and ferocious looking lion to be painted, in the act of 

 tearing a boot to pieces with his teeth. This was put over 

 his door, with the motto, " On peut me dechirer, mais ja- 

 mais me decoudre."* 1 was in Paris when the celebrated 

 picture, painted by Girodet, of Pygmalion and the Statue, 

 was exhibiting at the Louvre. It caused a general sensation; 

 epigrams, impromptus, were made upon it without end ; 

 wreaths of flowers, and crowns of bays, were hung upon it; 

 so that it became a universal theme of conversation. 

 Among other topics, it was one evening introduced at M. 

 Cuvier's ; when M. Brongniart (the celebrated mineralogist, 

 and director of the Royal Manufactory of China at Sevres.) 

 found fault with the flesh, which, he said, was too transpa- 

 rent; Baron de Humboldt (the learned Prussian traveller, 



* "I may be torn, but never unsewn." 



