34 MEMOIRS OF 



the causes of this marked distinction. Towards 

 the end of this year (1813) he was further em- 

 ployed by Napoleon, in a manner that showed 

 the estimate he had made of liis character. He 

 appointed him Commissaire Imperial extraor- 

 dinaire, and sent him on the difficult mission 

 of endeavouring to raise the people inhabiting 

 the left bank of the Rhine in favour of France, 

 (their new country) against the invading troops 

 then marching against her. M. Cuvier was 

 ordered to Mayence ; but he was stopped at 

 Nancy, by the entrance of the allied armies, 

 and obhged to return. 



The events of 1814 happened at the moment 

 when the Emperor had bestowed on him a still 

 more honourable mark of his favour, by making 

 him Counsellor of State. A delay of only a few 

 months, however, took place in his final esta- 

 blishment in the council; for Louis XVIII., who 

 was very sensible to intellectual merit, again 

 conferred this dignity on him, and, in the Sep- 

 tember of the same year, first employed him in 

 the temporary office of Commissaire du Roi. 

 These favours were, in some measure, to be at- 

 tributed to an introduction to the Abbe de Mon- 

 tesquion, then minister, by means of MM. Royer 

 Collard, Becquey, de Talleyrand, and Louis, 



