390 



NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



PT. III. 



gave him a free education in the Acade'mie Caroline at the 

 University of Stuttgard. Here he already began in his spare 

 moments to read books of natural history and make drawings 

 of plants and animals. When he left Stuttgard he went as 

 tutor in a nobleman's family at Caen, in Normandy, and found 

 a new and delightful study in the examination of the marine 

 animals on the sea- shore. After living there six years, he 

 happened to meet the celebrated Abbe Tessier, who had fled 

 from the Revolution in Paris, and through his means the young 

 Cuvier was introduced to Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and other 

 scientific men in Paris, and became assistant-professor of 

 comparative anatomy in the Jardin des Plantes. From this 

 post he rose to very great honours both as a politician and 

 man of science, holding the posts of President of the In- 

 stitute, Inspector- General of Education, Councillor of the 

 Imperial University, and many others of equal importance. 



Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, the third and youngest of the three 

 friends, was born at Etampes in 1772. It is curious that he 

 also began his education as a priest, and that all these 

 three men should have given up the church for science. 

 In St.-Hilaire's case it was a passionate love for zoology 

 which led him to persuade his father to let him stop in Paris 

 to study at the Jardin des Plantes, where he was soon 

 offered a post which gave him an excuse for following his 

 own tastes. He afterwards joined Lamarck at the Musee 

 d'Histoire Naturelle in 1793 ; and in 1795 it was chiefly 

 through his influence that Cuvier was invited to Paris and 

 became their fellow-worker. 



It now remains for us to see what was done by these 

 three remarkable men. For three years they all remained at 

 work in the museum. Cuvier had found in a lumber-room 

 four or five old skeletons collected by Daubenton (p. 205), 



