124 Elvrenherg'' s Discoveries — Notices of Eminent Men. 



self with the natural history of my province, in spite of repulse 

 and ridicule." The same spirit involved him in other struggles 

 to the end of his life ; and, indeed, we may almost say, beyond 

 it. He took a prominent part in the political controversies of his 

 day ; and few works on such subjects, which appeared in France 

 in modern times, produced a greater fermentation than his " Me- 

 moire a consulter" on the subject of the Jesuits. In this work he 

 maintained that the position of the Jesuits in France was danger- 

 ous and illegal : and he must be considered as the originator of 

 that movement in consequence of which their body was, a few 

 years later, suppressed by the government. The expression of 

 his o]3inions respecting the conduct and influence of the clergy of 

 his country was condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities, and 

 was deemed by them of a nature to exclude him from that recog- 

 nition of his being a son of the Catholic Church, which is implied 

 by the performance of the funeral rite according to its ordinances. 

 This, however, did not prevent the inhabitants of the neighbor- 

 hood and the military stationed at Clermont from showing the re- 

 gard which his intercourse v^ith them had inspired, by attending 

 his sepulture in great numbers. He was buried in a spot pre- 

 viously selected by himself, in the crater of the extinct volcano 

 in which his abode was, in the middle of the scenes which he 

 had from his earliest years loved and studied, and taught others 

 to feel a deep interest in. He died at the age of 83, on. his way 

 to Paris in order to lake his seat in the Chamber of Peers, of which 

 he was a member.* 



Anselme-Gaetan Desmarest, honorary member of the Royal 

 Academy of Medicine, and Professor of Zoology at the Royal 

 Veterinary College of Alfort, was the son of Nicolas Desmarest, 

 who has just been mentioned as the predecessor of Montlosier in 

 his theory of the volcanic origin of Auvergne. The son also em- 

 ployed himself upon the same district ,• and published an enlarged 



* Besides his " Essay on the Extinct Volcanos of Auvergne," M. de Montlosier 

 was the author of the following works : " M6moive a. consulter sur un Systcmc 

 Religieux et Politique tendant k renverser la Religion, la Society et le Trone" 

 (1826.) '' Denonciation aux Cours Royales relativcment au Systime Religieux et 

 Politique signale dans le Memoire k consulter," (1826.) " Memoires de M. le 

 Comte de Montlosier sur la Revolution Fran(;;aise, le Consulat, I'Empire, et les 

 principaux Evenements qui ont suivis 1755-1830." Of this work two volumes 

 have appeared, which bring the narrative down to the author's quitting the Na- 

 tional Assembly in 1790. 



