CAMBRIDGE 33 
country home at Concord, was a little more with- 
drawn, his influence was powerful in the intellectual 
life of the whole community, and acquaintance readily 
grew to friendship between him and Agassiz. Such 
was the pleasant and cultivated circle into which Agas- 
siz was welcomed in the two cities, which became 
almost equally his home, and where the friendships 
he made gradually transformed exile into household 
life and ties. 
In Cambridge he soon took his share in giving 
as well as receiving hospitalities, and his Saturday 
evenings were not the less attractive because of the 
foreign character and somewhat unwonted combina- 
tion of the household. Over its domestic comforts now 
presided an old Swiss clergyman, Monsieur Christinat. 
He had been attached to Agassiz from childhood, had 
taken the deepest interest in his whole career, and. . . 
had assisted him to complete his earlier studies. Now 
under the disturbed condition of things he had thrown 
in his lot with him in America. ...To Agassiz his 
presence in the house was a benediction. He looked 
after the expenses, and acted as commissary in chief 
to the colony. ...In short, so far as an old man 
could, “Papa Christinat,” as he was universally 
called in this miscellaneous family strove to make 
good to him the absence of wife and children. 
The make-up of the settlement was somewhat 
anomalous. The house though not large was suffi- 
ciently roomy, and soon after Agassiz was established 
there he had the pleasure of receiving under his roof 
certain friends and former colleagues, driven from 
