Documents in Commemoration of Baron Cuvier. 309 
2. Subscription for a monument to the memory of G. Cuvier. - 
~ At the session of the academy of sciences at Paris on the 9th of 
July, 1832, the following prospectus was distributed among the Acade- 
micians. 
~The unexpected stroke which has taken from us our great natu- 
ralists, has spread mourning not only throughout France, but in all 
parts of the globe where science is held in honor. George Cuvier 
was one of those privileged geniuses which appear only at long in- 
tervals. 
France has been long distinguished for the love and respect which 
she bears for the great men whom she has produced; she knows that 
they constitute her highest glory, and this glory must survive all other. 
France knows also, that at the period in which we live, it is more 
than ever important to draw more closely the fraternal band which 
unites enlightened men of every nation; she will not be diverted by 
the political agitations which are working within her, from the great 
duty which this noble confraternity imposes upon her. 
‘The king has already confided to the chisel of one of our ablest 
statuaries the task of reproducing for the academy of Boar the 
features of the immortal Cuvier 
. The town of Montbeliard will consecrate, bya monument, the 
honor of having given him birth. ae 
“These homages are insufficient, to honor the memory of him whose 
Yabors have benefited the whole human race. Public opinion calls 
for something further ; it is the wish that a general subscription should 
invite the friends of science in all nations to concur in the public hon- 
or which it claims for the Aristotle of modern times. 
“Subscribers have presented themselves from all quarters; the 
learned bodies literary and political, of which Cuvier was a member 
have been in earnest to lead the subscription. 
To consider of the means of collecting these stati and 
concerting upon the nature of the monument to be raised, it appeared 
suitable to form a joint committee of members of the Institute 
Pe the University, of the Council of State, and of the Society of natu- 
hist 
ory. 
“This joint committee has not hesitated with respect to the proper 
place for the erection of such a monument: what place indeed could. 
possibly be more appropriate than the garden of plants, the theatre 
of all the labor of Cuvier. 
