BARON CUVIEIl. 23 



of his Parisian friends, and, by the influence of 

 M. Millin, was appointed membre de la Commis- 

 sion des Arts, and, a short time after, professor 

 at the central school of the Pantheon. For this 

 school he composed his " Tableau 61ementaire 

 de I'Histoire naturelle des Animaux;" which 

 work contained the first methodical writing on 

 the class Vermes that had been given to the 

 world. His great desire, however, was to be 

 attached to the Museum of Natural History, the 

 collections in whicli could alone enable him to 

 realise his scientific views. A short time after his 

 arrival in the capital, M. Mertrud was appointed 

 to the newly-created chair of comparative ana- 

 tomy at the Jardin des Plantes, and finding 

 himself too far advanced in years to follow a 

 study which had hitherto been foreign to his 

 pursuits, consented, at the request of his col- 

 leagues, particularly MM. de Jussieu, Geoffroy, 

 and De la Cepede, to associate M. Cuvier with 

 him in his duties. This association was exactly 

 what M. Cuvier was desirous of obtaining; and 

 no sooner was he settled in the Jardin des 

 Plantes, as the assistant of M. Mertrud, July, 

 1795, than he sent for his father, then nearly 

 eighty years of age, and his brother, M. Fre- 

 deric Cuvier ; his mother he had unfortunately 



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