BARON CUVIER. 89 



conter les bonnes actions de quinze autres personnes, aux- 

 quelles I'academie a decerne des medailles ; au moment de 

 commencer ces recits, nous eprouvons ime crainte, celle 

 de fatiguer nos lecteurs par la monotonie, et ledefaut de va- 

 riete, ces recits vont se ressembler entre eux ; ce sera tou- 

 jours de la charite, toujours de la bienfaisance, toujours un 

 devoument desinteresse aiix infortimes d'autrui ; et puis, il 

 faudra toujours louer, toujours admirer : ce n'est pas le mo- 

 yen de reveiller et de soutenir I'attention ; I'eloge nous fa- 

 tigue ou nous endort : un ecrivain Anglais dit spirituelle- 

 ment, que tous les pan egyriques semblent confits dans du 

 jus des pavots. Eh bien ! nous nous abstiendrons de dire 

 un seul mot qui pourrait sembler destine a faire valoir des 

 actions si touchantes; elles se recommandent assez par elles- 

 memes ; et ceux qui auraient le malheur de n'en etre pas 

 attendris, ne seraient pas meme en etat de comprendre les 

 eloges que nous pourrions y ajouter." 



One of the great prizes awarded on this occasion was five 

 thousand francs to Louise Scheppler, whose history will, if 

 I mistake not, be acceptable to the reader, as given by the 

 Baron Cuvier. '^Louise Scheppler has, perhaps, carried this 

 industrious beneficence still farther, for it is not one family, 

 it is an entire country which enjoys the fruits of her benevo- 

 lence ; a whole country which has been vivified by the cha- 

 rity of a poor servant. In the rudest part of the chain of 

 the Vosges mountains is a valley, almost separated from the 

 rest of the world. Sixty years back it aflbrded but scanty 

 nourishment to a half-civihzed population, consisting of only 

 eighty families, distributed in five villages. Their igno- 

 rance and their poverty were equally great ; they neither un- 

 derstood German nor French : a patois, vmintelligible to any 

 but themselves, was their sole language : and, what is scarce- 

 ly credible, their misery had not softened their manners. 

 These peasants, like the lords of the middle ages, governed 

 by force, hereditary feuds divided families, and more than 



English writer Avittily says, that all panegyrics seem to have been cooked 

 in poppy juice. We however will abstain from saying a single word which 

 may appear to be given for the purpose of impressing these afiecting cir- 

 cumstances. Still more forcibly do they carry their own recommendation 

 with them ; and those who are' so unhappy as not to feel them, will not be 

 capable of comprehending any eulogiums which we could add to them. 



H* 



