CUVIER. GU 



Cuvier was already a professor at the Jardin des Plantes, he at once wrote to 

 Cuvier "Come and fill the place of Linnseus here; come and be another legislator 

 of Natural History." Cuvier came and Geoffroy stood aside to let his great rival 

 be seen. 



Goethe has noticed the curious coincidence of the three great zoologists suc- 

 cessively opening to their rivals the path to distinction. Buffon called Dauben- 

 ton to aid him, Daubenton called Geoffroy and Geoffroy called Cuvier. Geof- 

 froy and Cuvier knew no jealousy then. In after years it was otherwise, . 



Geoffroy had a position — he shared it with his friend; he had books and col- 

 lections — they were open to his rival; he had a lodging in the Museum — it was 

 shared between them. Daubenton, older and more worldly wise, warned Geof- 

 froy against this zeal in fostering a formidable rival, and one day placed before 

 him a copy of La Fontaine's fables open at The Bitch and Her Neighbor. But 

 Geoffroy was not to be daunted, and probably felt himself strong enough to hold 

 his own. And so these two happy active youtlis pursued their studies together, 

 wrote memoirs conjointly, discussed, dissected, speculated together — and as 

 Cuvier has said " never sat down to breakfast without having made afresh discov- 

 ery." From this time on Cuvier was famous, but the real foundations were laid in 

 those seven years on the Normandy coast when every animal he can lay his hands 

 on is dissected with the greatest care and every detail of interest preserved with the 

 pencil. Every work that is published of any importance in his line was read, 

 analyzed and commented upon. The marvels of marine life, in those days so 

 little thought of, he studied with persevering minuteness and admirable success. 

 He dissected the cuttle fish and made his drawings with its own ink. Six years 

 later, Pfaff on arriving at Paris, found that his old fellow student was " a Person- 

 age," yet his life was simple and wholly devoted to science. He had a lodging 

 in the Jardin des Plantes and was waited on by an old housekeeper, hke any 

 other simple professor. 



On Pfaff's subsequent visit, things were changed. Instead of the old house- 

 keeper, the door was opened by a lackey in grand livery. Instead of asking for 

 ' ' Citizen Cuvier " he inquired for Monsieur Cuvier ; whereupon the lackey in- 

 quired if he wished to see Monsieur le Baron, or M. Frederic his brother. " I 

 soon found where I was," says Pfaff". " It was the baron separated from me by 

 that immense interval of thirty years and by those high dignities which an empire 

 offers to the ambitions of men." Cuvier had almost entirely exchanged science 

 for politics and here we leave him. — Scientific and Literary Gossip. 



