Marie-Henri Ducrotay de Blainville. 195 
The manager of this establishment wrote to the mother of 
his pupil—‘‘ The character of the young man is rough; . . 
his heart, although not in a sound state, is not without good 
qualities; his greatest passion is a desire to learn; all the 
rest is a tissue of ill-combined ideas.’ ‘ 
In order to complete his studies, M. de Blainville came to 
Paris. Scarcely had he arrived, when even the shadow of 
authority was removed from him, by the loss of his mother. 
Thus left to himself, his too great independence became to 
him a dangerous stumbling-block. He gave himself up to all 
the inclinations peculiar to his time of life; and, surrounded 
by thoughtless companions, he very speedily squandered in 
gaiety the whole of his patrimony. 
Having thus arrived at the result to which this mode of 
life naturally led, he began to reflect, and perceived the 
necessity of replacing the means which could be no longer 
available for the future. In his first efforts, he did nothing 
but give vent to a restless activity. We find him by turns 
a poet and litterateur among his friends, and a zealous musi- 
cian in the Conservatory ; while in a celebrated studio we 
encounter him as a painter, and in particular a very skilful 
drawer. : 
Two lofty principles still survived in the heart of this young 
man; a high respect for his birth, and a thirst for know- 
ledge. The former of these sentiments was not, indeed, 
without its attendant dangers; it gave rise to pretensions of 
a singular character. M. de Blainville had retained all the 
illusions of a gentleman of the previous century, to such a 
degree that he could never, even when become a sober-minded 
man, altogether divest himself of the assurance that he was 
provided, by royal appointment, with particular privileges. 
Of these the privilege of criticising and being always in the 
right seems to have been in his eyes the most valuable, and 
he made use of it constantly and everywhere; a circumstance 
which stood in the way of his intercourse with those who were 
unwilling to admit this obsolete feudality. 
The desire of instruction, united to a pious regard for a 
family name, was the means of saving this stormy life, by 
holding out a noble object to unusual energy. When, on 
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