304 MEMOIRS OF 



crowns of bays, were hung upon it ; so that it 

 became an universal theme of conversation. 

 Among other topics, it was one evening intro- 

 duced at M. Cuvier's ; when M. Brongniart (the 

 celebrated mineralogist, and director of the 

 Royal Manufactory of China at S6vres), found 

 fault with the flesh, which, he said, was too trans- 

 parent ; Baron de Humboldt (the learned Prus- 

 sian traveller, who had lately been occupying 

 himself with the cliemical experiments of M. 

 Gay-Lussac) objected to the general tone of 

 the picture, which, he said, looked as if lighted 

 up with modern gas ; M. de Prony (one of the 

 mathematical professors of the Ecole Polytech- 

 nique, and also director of the Ecole des Ponts 

 et Chaussees *) found fault with the plinth of 

 the statue ; and many gave their opinion in the 

 like manner, each pointing out the faults that 

 had struck him in tliis celebrated performance ; 

 after which, M. Cuvier said that the thumb of 

 Pygmalion was not properly drawn, and would 

 require an additional joint to those given by na- 

 ture, for it to appear in the position selected by 

 the painter. Upon this, M. Biot (the mathe- 

 matician and natural philosopher, who had re- 



* A school resembling those for our civil engineers. 



