328 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST, 



leaders of science, as, for instance, Linnaeus, Fabricius, 

 and others ; for if he saw where they erred, he also knew 

 how to indicate the remedy. Two letters written to his 

 friend Hartmann, and which M. Duvernoy has preserved, 

 are extremely remarkable in this respect ; for we find 

 in them some of those great ideas, which he was destined 

 subsequently to develope, well and clearly expressed, and 

 we may thus trace as it were the germ of those immense 

 labours which subsequently occupied the whole of his 

 life. 



Cuvier remained for eight years in Normandy. I have 

 already related in my note on Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 

 how he was called to Paris, and how Cuvier responded 

 to that appeal in a spirit alike noble and intelligent. 

 Mertrud, then a man of eighty, was Professor of Compa- 

 rative Anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes, and through 

 the influence of G-eoiFroy Cuvier was nominated first as his 

 assistant, and shortly afterwards as his successor. His 

 future, therefore, seemed provided for, although his 

 present position was a very unsatisfactory one. It was 

 at the time of the Directory, and the monetary embarrass- 

 ments of the existing government were felt in all the 

 different establishments devoted to public instruction ; 

 and in a letter of Cuvier's to Hartmann, he informs him 

 that twelve months' salary is still due to the professors at 

 the Jardin des Plantes, on which account he adds that 

 he is almost disposed to envy the fate of the elephants, 

 " for if their food has been obtained on credit, they at 

 all events do not know it, and consequently are not 

 mortified by it." 



These straitened circumstances soon gave place, how- 

 ev er, to competency, and subsequently even to the wealth 

 which was derived from several lucrative posts. We 

 must not omit to mention that science at all times pro- 

 fited by every change for the better in Cuvier's circum- 



