BARON CUVIER. l6l 



dans du jus des pavots. Eli bien ! nous nous 

 abstiendrons de dire un seul mot qui pourrait 

 sembler destin6 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 

 ^tat de comprendre les ^ioges que nous pour- 

 rions 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, car- 

 ried this industrious beneficence still farther, 

 for it is not one family, it is an entire country 

 which enjoys the fruits of her benevolence ; a 

 whole country which has been vivified by the 

 charity 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 afforded but scanty nourish- 

 ment to a half-civilised population, consisting 

 of only eighty families, distributed in five vil- 

 lages. Their ignorance and their poverty 

 were equally great ; they neither understood 

 German nor French ; a patois, unintelligible to 

 any but themselves, was their sole language ; 



M 



