36 MEMOIRS OF 



his religious faith must have increased the ob- 

 stacles he had to encounter. To those unac- 

 quainted with the early part of" M. Cuvier*s 

 career, it would seem extraordinary, that all 

 these high functions shoukl be conferred on a 

 naturalist by profession, but it should be con- 

 sidered, that he only thus pursued his original 

 destination, out of which lie had been thrown 

 by political events j that he had only changed 

 his master, and become counsellor of state to a 

 great king instead of a petty prince. From 

 this period he took a very active part, not pre- 

 cisely in political measures, properly so called, 

 from which he by choice withdrew himself as 

 much as possible, but in projects for laws, and 

 every sort of administration, which especially 

 belonged to the Committee of the Interior at- 

 tached to the Council of State. He was also, 

 generally speaking, the Commissaire du Hoi, 

 appointed for defending the new or ameliorated 

 laws before the two Chambers. 



During the first years of the restoration of 

 the Bourbons, M. Cuvier was twice offered the 

 directorship for life of the Museum of Natural 

 History, but he persisted in refusing it, from the 

 conviction that it was much more favourable to 

 the advancement of science, that this establish- 



