120 L\f& o.nd Writings of Francis Huher. 



like so many recollections of that fatal period of his life when he- 

 was daily sensible of the thickening of the veil which was constantly 

 spread between him and the material world, and increased his fear 

 not only of becoming entirely blind, but of being deserted by the 

 object of his love ! But it was not so : Miss Lullin resisted every 

 persuasion, every persecution even, by which her father endeavored 

 to divert her from her resolution, and as soon as she had attained 

 her majority, she presented herself at the altar, conducted by her 

 maternal uncle, M. Rilliet-Fatio, and leading, if we may so term it, 

 herself, the spouse who in his happy and brilliant days had been her 

 choice, and to whose saddened fate she was now determined to de- 

 vote her life ! A friend, a relation, an intimate confidant, was at her 

 side ; — that friend was my mother, and the story of this wedding of 

 love and devotion, often related to me by her in my youth, is con- 

 nected in my heart with the sweetest of my recollections. 



Madame Huber proved, by her constancy, that she was worthy of 

 tlie energy which she had manifested : during the forty years of their 

 union, she never ceased to bestow upon her blind husband, the kind- 

 est attention ; she was his reader, his secretary, his observer, and 

 she removed, as far as possible, all those embarrassments which 

 would naturally arise from his infirmity. Her husband, in alluding 

 to her small stature, would say of her, mens magna in corpore parvo. 

 As long as she lived, said he also, in his old age, I was not sensible 

 of the misfortune of being blind. 



This affecting union has been alluded to by celebrated pens. Vol- 

 taire often noticed it in his correspondence, and the episode of the 

 Belmont family, in Delphine,* is a true description, though some- 

 what glossed, of Mods, and Madame Huber. What can I add to 

 a picture traced by such masters ! Let me hasten then to the works 

 which have placed Huber in the rank of savans. 



We have seen the blind shine as poets, and distinguish themselves 

 as philosophers and calculators ; but it was reserved for Huber to 

 give a lustre to his class in the sciences of observation, and on ob- 

 jects so minute that the most clear sighted observer can scarcely dis- 

 tinguish them. The reading of the works of Reaumur and Bonnet, 

 and the conversation of the latter, directed his curiosity to the his- 

 tory of bees. His habitual residence in the country, inspired him 

 with the desire,, first of verifying some facts, then of filling some 



* Beljthine, par Madame de Stael, III partie, lettre XIX. 



