XXIX 



Daring the siege of Paris Wurtz took an active interest in the 

 fate of the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine, who had crowded to 

 Paris. He was one of those who took part in the establishment, of 

 the Societe de Protection des Alsaciens-Lorrains, which has been the 

 means of relieving so much suffering, and of founding in Algiers 

 three prosperous villages, peopled by refugees from those two pro- 

 vinces. He was also one of the first shareholders in the Ecole 

 Alsacienne, in which school the principles of instruction of the 

 Gymnase Protestant of Strasburg have been adopted with much 

 success. He was an active member of the committees of several 

 charitable and other societies. He frequently spoke at the public 

 meetings of the Societe Protestant de Prevoyance et de Secours 

 Mutuels, of which he was Vice-President, M. Leon Say being Presi- 

 dent. 



In the year 1880 he went to Bordeaux to take part as a member 

 of the Committee at the annual meeting of the Colonial Agricole de 

 Sainte-Foy. At this meeting he delivered a most eloquent address, 

 giving an account of the life of Felix Vernes, and of his services to 

 his country during the siege and to French Protestantism. 



Wurtz himself had worked most actively during the siege, both in 

 the ambulances and on the field of battle. After the battle of 

 Buzenval, the Societe Francaise de Secours aux Blesses, of which he 

 was on the Council, entrusted him with the painful task of finding 

 the body of Henry Regnault. On the 23rd of January he reported 

 to the Academie des Sciences his failure to find the remains of the 

 son of his illustrious colleague. As we now know, it was in the 

 cemetery of Pere la Chaise that the body was at last recognised, 

 amongst a crowd of others, on the 24th January. 



Wurtz remained to the end of his life firmly attached to the reli- 

 gious belief in which he had been brought up. He was assiduous in 

 his attendance at the meetings of the Consistory and the Synods. He 

 contributed greatly to the reorganisation in Paris of the Strasburg 

 Faculte de Theologie Protestante, in which he continued to take an 

 active interest, and he also accepted the presidency of a society which 

 was founded for the encouragement of theological study. 



He was of course a member of all the principal learned and 

 scientific societies, both in France and abroad. He became Vice- 

 President of the Academie des Sciences in 1880, and presided at the 

 sittings during the following year. His numerous brilliant and scien- 

 tific labours were appreciated abroad at least as fully as in France, 

 and certainly sooner. He became a Foreign Member of the Royal 

 Society before he was admitted to the Institute. True it is that 

 between the election of Balard to the Academie des Sciences, in 

 1844, and that of Wurtz in place of Pelouze, in 1867, there was 

 only one other election, that of 1857, when Fremy was chosen in pre- 



