22 MEMOIRS OF 



that the young secretary of the society, M. Cu- 

 vier, recognised him as tlie author of the articles 

 on agriculture in the Encyclopedic M6thodique. 

 On saluting him as such, M. Tessier, whose 

 title of Abb6 had rendered him suspected at 

 Paris, exclaimed, " 1 am known, then, and con- 

 sequently lost." — " Lost!" replied M. Cuvier; 

 "no; you are henceforth the object of our 

 most anxious care." This circumstance led to 

 an intimacy between the two; and by means of 

 M. Tessier*, M. Cuvier entered into corre- 

 spondence with several savans, to whom he sent 

 his observations, especially Lam^thrie, Olivier, 

 De la C6pede, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and Millin 

 de Grand Maison. Through their influence, 

 and from the memoirs published in several 

 learned journals, he was called to Paris, where 

 endeavoui's were making to re-establish the lite- 

 rary institutions, overthrown by the Revolution, 

 and where it was reasonable to suppose that 

 he would find the means of placing himself. 

 In the spring of 1795, he obeyed the invitation 



* " Je viens de tronver une perle dans le fumier de Nor- 

 mandie," — " I have just found a pearl in tlie dunghill of Nor- 

 mandy," — wrote M. Tessier to his friend M. Parmentier ; 

 thus detecting the great naturalist in M. Ciivier's earliest 

 productions, and appreciating what were then but the germs 

 of his talent. 



