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Faculty of Medicine, at the Ecole Poly technique, at the College of 
France, were admirable of their kind. Notwithstanding his intimate 
acquaintance with the subject, and his long experience as a lecturer, 
he never presented himself before an audience, without having care- 
fully planned the lecture, and determined the exact order and position 
which every part should occupy. He used to say that each fact had 
its own proper place, where alone it could be exhibited in relief, and 
that it was the duty of the Professor to determine this place before- 
hand, just as much as it is the duty of an author to clear his sentences 
of feeble tautology, and to attach the right word to every idea. In 
consequence of this care, his lecture was always complete, always a 
continuous lesson on the subject in hand ; free alike from deficiency 
and from exuberance. 
It is indeed in his character as a lecturer, that M. Thenard is 
best studied. On the public platform, the peculiar idiosyncracies of 
the whole man came out spontaneously. Let me endeavour to present 
him to you, as he stands before his class. Imagine a vast amphitheatre 
capable of holding a thousand persons — every seat occupied — the 
very lobbies and passages crowded to overflowing. At the back of 
the contracted space allotted to the Professor and his apparatus, 
stands a huge black board, well covered with chemical formulae. 
The assistant whose duty it has been to prepare the experiments, 
stands anxiously regarding his work. The lecturer enters. Your 
ideas, derived from Hogarth, have perhaps pictured to you a thin 
spare man with a hatchet face, and you start when your eyes rest 
on a figure placed in strong relief against the black board, whose firm 
build and massive countenance more than come up to the typical 
John Bull of your own land. His broad full eye, set off by a dark 
mass of hair, first glances at the apparatus, then rises and haughtily 
scans the audience, as if to measure their capacity, and finally drops 
on the assistant, who quails beneath its weight. The lecture begins. 
So clear, so forcible, so continuous, is the stream which flows from 
the speaker’s lips — so appropriate, so neat and so well performed 
are the experiments, that the hour passes over quickly and insensi- 
bly. But should any accident happen ; should the unfortunate 
assistant have mistaken his directions; woe betide him. The 
presence of a thousand persons places no restraint on the lecturer’s 
indignation. On one occasion, when he had given way to an un- 
