152 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



in 1783 a place in the academy left vacant in the class of botany, 

 and in 1788 he was ranked as associate in the class of natural history 

 and mineralogy. 



Nor was it long before, armed with this new torch of truth, the 

 science of mineralogy at the hands of Haiiy began to undergo a 

 rejuvenation; from the nebulous mineral group which up to that 

 time had gone by the generic name of schorl, there emerged fourteen 

 well-defined species. The zeolites yielded six species, the garnets 

 four and the zircons five. 



In 1784, having been in the service of the university twenty 

 years, on the advice of his friend Lhomond, Haiiy availed himself 

 of the right to retire on a pension as emeritus and proceeded to 

 devote himself to research. 



A man of Spartan simplicity in his secular and religious life, it 

 is said that he, through ignorance of the formalities and etiquette 

 of the Louvre, appeared at his first lecture before the court in a 

 long ecclesiastical gown, doubtless grown shabby by much wear in 

 his daily round of prayer and teaching. 



The Revolution by depriving him of his pension further aug- 

 mented the rigors of his life, but although forced to earn his living 

 the placidity of his disposition and the simplicity of his tastes 

 rendered him to an extent immune to the privations of this period 

 of his life. Indeed, so immersed was he in the daily round of worship, 

 labor and study that it was with astonishment rather than fear 

 that he received the delegation of citizens who came to arrest him. 

 They demanded of him his fire arms and he showed them the spark 

 of an electric machine; they searched his papers and found only 

 algebraic formulae. Nevertheless he was apprehended and lodged, 

 together with all the other priests and regents of that part of Paris, 

 in the Seminary of Saint Firmin which had been turned into a 

 prison. For Haiiy it was but the exchange of an ecclesiastical for 

 a secular cell. In the midst of his friends and brothers in religion 

 he prevailed on his jailors to send for his cabinets of crystals and 

 was soon again in the midst of his interrupted researches. And it 

 was thus that his former pupil and colleague, Geoffroy de ■ Saint 

 Hilaire, found him when armed with the order for his release he 

 penetrated the prison which had become in reality a retreat. Arriv- 

 ing late in the day he was unable to persuade Haiiy to exchange his 

 tranquil incarceration for liberty until the following day, which was 

 the 31st of August just two days before that fatal 2d of September 

 which, had it dawned upon the Abbe Haiiy in prison, would have 

 inevitably seen him mount the steps of the guillotine. 



