Famous Men of Science Part 5

Four years later, in 1800, the first two volumes of his "Lessons in Comparative Anatomy" were published, and met with great success. The last three volumes were issued five years later.

In this year, 1800, Cuvier received another honor, that of the professorship of Natural Philosophy in the College de France. He was now but thirty-one. The following year, Napoleon I., who was usually wise in his selection of men, appointed him one of the six inspectors-general of education, to establish public schools in thirty towns of France.

Every moment now seemed occupied, and yet while the brain was busy perchance the heart was lonely. The father had died two years after the mother. The wife of his brother Frederic had died, also, and the two brothers were left alone. At thirty-four, Cuvier decided to take into his heart and home the widow of M. Duvaucel, Fermier-General, who had perished on the scaffold in 1794. The family had lost all their money in the French Revolution, and Madame Duvaucel had four large children to be supported; but Cuvier loved her for her rare mind and sweet disposition, and she blessed the remaining years of his life. An educated man needs companionship in mind; not simply a housekeeper.

Six years later one of her sons was a.s.sa.s.sinated in Portugal, during the retreat of the French army. Another, while collecting for the Museum of Paris, died in Madras, a young man of great talent and much beloved. A daughter, Mlle. Duvaucel, lived to be the comfort of Cuvier's declining years.

Happy in his home and absorbed with his work, Cuvier went forward to new labors and new honors. M. Mertrud had died, and, instead of being a.s.sistant at the Jardin des Plantes, Cuvier was now professor. In 1808 Napoleon made him counsellor for life of the Imperial University. The next year he organized new academies in the Italian States, which were now annexed to France. In 1811 he was sent on a similar mission to Holland and the Hanseatic towns, and was made a chevalier, which rank was a.s.sured to his heirs. Though he disliked to be absent from his family, he went where duty called him, and wrote back fond letters to his wife.

"MY TENDER FRIEND,--The weather, the road, the horses, and the postilions have proved so excellent that we have reached Porte Sainte Mayence before six o'clock; and I have bitterly regretted the two or three good hours that I might still have pa.s.sed with thee, without in the least delaying my journey. At least believe that I have pa.s.sed them in my imagination, and that the remembrance of thy caresses and tender friendship will form the happiness of my whole way." After some words to the children, he added, "We are quite well, my good friend; we have crossed an agreeable country; and we are in a tolerable inn. Our carriage appears to be quite able to bear the journey; thus, up to this moment, all goes well. Pray to G.o.d that this may last; thou art so good that he cannot refuse thee. Adieu. A thousand tender kisses. G. C."

This year, 1811, appeared one of his most important works--that on "Fossil Remains," which wrought a revolution in the study of geology. By comparing living and fossil animals, Cuvier showed that huger creatures had lived on the earth and become extinct before the creation of man. In the first epoch he found great reptiles, like the Ichthyosaurus, thirty feet long, and the Megalosaurus, seventy feet long. In the second epoch, he found the Paleotherium; in the third, the Mammoth, Mastodon, and gigantic sloth; and in the fourth epoch, man. So closely had he studied the relations of the organs of animals, that he could reconstruct the extinct fossil from a single bone. He had already prepared, at the request of Napoleon, a brilliant "Report on the Progress of Natural Sciences from the year 1789."

In 1813, though a Protestant, he was sent to Rome to organize a university, and was made Master of Requests in the Council of State.

Napoleon also appointed him Commissaire Imperial Extraordinaire, and sent him to endeavor to raise the people on the left bank of the Rhine in favor of France, against the invading troops then marching upon them. But Cuvier was stopped at Nancy by the entrance of the allied armies, and obliged to return.

He was now famous, and his company and counsel were sought by the learned and the great. And he was still a comparatively young man, forty-four.

But life had great sorrows in the midst of this prosperity. His first child, a son, had died a few weeks after his birth. His daughter Annie had died in 1812, at the age of four, and now in 1813, while he was absent in Rome, his only son, Georges, a boy of seven, had been taken from him. The blow was a terrible one. For many years he never saw a boy near that age, without being deeply affected. He would stop on the streets to watch a group of boys playing, and then go on sadly, thinking of the one he had buried.

In 1814, Cuvier was raised to the rank of Counsellor of State, and Chancellor of the University. When Napoleon was asked why he had appointed a savant to a political position, he replied, "that he may be able to rest himself sometimes," knowing that to a man like Cuvier change was the most helpful rest. When Napoleon abdicated his throne, and Louis XVIII. came to power, Cuvier was retained in office, for his rare administrative ability, and upright life.

Three years later, the first edition of his "Animal Kingdom" appeared, and is now to be seen in the British Museum, in seventeen volumes. This work has served as the basis for subsequent zoological cla.s.sification.

Cuvier studied minutely the interior structure of animals, and based his cla.s.sification on this, instead of exterior resemblance.

After this great work was published, Cuvier went with his family to London, for a rest of six weeks. Here he received distinguished attention from Sir William Herschel, and other learned men.

In 1819, he was appointed President of the Committee of the Interior, and in this position, which he held for life, it is believed ten thousand various matters pa.s.sed through his hands each year, for his examination and decision. He officiated at the crowning of Charles X., as one of the presidents of the Council of State, and received from that monarch the decoration of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor. His former sovereign, the King of Wurtemberg, appointed him Commander of the Order of the Crown.

All this time in which he was doing earnest and responsible work for his country, he was writing and lecturing almost constantly. So careful was he of his time, that he always read or wrote as he was riding in his carriage through the streets of Paris. A lamp in the back of his carriage he used at night, till he found that he was injuring his eyes.

Even while he was sitting for a portrait, to be used as a frontispiece for his book, "Discourse on the Revolutions of the Globe," his wife's daughter read to him the "Fortunes of Nigel." In the evenings, when he was too tired for scientific research, his wife or daughter read to him general literature.

Every Sat.u.r.day evening a reception was held at the home of Baron Cuvier, and there one was sure to meet the most brilliant and learned from all parts of Europe, whether rich or poor....

Cuvier delighted everybody by his courtesy and his cordiality. Another person also was the life of these gatherings,--his beautiful daughter Clementine, his only remaining child. Never strong in body, she had been reared with the tenderest care. Devoted to all good work, reading to aged women, visiting the poor, educated, and of extreme loveliness of character, she was the idol of her family and of society. On the 25th of August, 1828, she was to have been married, but, while in the midst of the preparations, she fell ill of consumption, and died the following month, September 28.

The effect on both parents was crushing. Cuvier's light hair grew white, and lines gathered in his face. After two months he took his place again at the head of the Committee of the Interior. He listened attentively to all the discussions, but when it came his turn to speak, he burst into tears, and covered his bowed face in his hands, and sobbed bitterly.

Finally he raised his head and said, "Pardon me, gentlemen, I was a father, and I have lost all!" and then with a violent effort he resumed the business of the day, with his usual calmness.

He devoted himself now more than ever to his books, as though he must use every moment, or be prostrated with grief. This same year, 1828, the first book in a series of twenty volumes, beautifully ill.u.s.trated, appeared, on the "Natural History of Fishes, containing more than five thousand species of those animals, described after nature, and distributed according to their affinities, with observations on their anatomy, and critical researches on their nomenclature, ancient as well as modern."

In 1832, he was created a Peer of France, by Louis Philippe. Every honor had come that could be asked or desired. His books were eagerly read; crowds attended his lectures; he was loved, honored, and revered; but death had robbed him of the sweetest things in life.

On Tuesday, May 8, 1832, he lectured as usual before the College de France, on the "History and Progress of Science in all Ages." In the evening he felt a numbness in his right arm. It was the beginning of the end. Paralysis soon developed.

He said to M. Pasquier, President of the Chamber of Peers, "Behold a very different person to the man of Tuesday--of Sat.u.r.day. Nevertheless, I had great things still to do. All was ready in my head; after thirty years of labor and research, there remained but to write; and now the hands fail, and carry with them the head."

M. Pasquier tenderly expressed the universal interest felt for M.

Cuvier. "I like to think so," said the dying man; "I have long labored to render myself worthy of it." He is to be pitied, indeed, who does not care whether the world loves him.

On May 13, the nomination of Cuvier to the presidency of the whole Council of State was taken to the sovereign for his signature, but it came too late. Cuvier died that day. Four hours before his death he had asked to be taken into the room where he had met and talked with so many of the renowned of earth, and where his Clementine had charmed them by her presence. And there he died.

He was buried in Pere la Chaise, by his own request, under the tombstone which covered Clementine, and whose death had virtually caused his own.

His coffin was borne by the pupils of the different colleges in which he had taught, thousands following it to the cemetery. His library of nineteen thousand volumes was purchased by the government for the Jardin des Plantes. There was no child left to bear his t.i.tles.

Not only do the books of such a man live; his whole life, with its untiring energy, its promptness, its order, its unfaltering purpose, its high aims, as well as its tenderness and n.o.bility of heart, is a constant inspiration.

SIR WILLIAM AND CAROLINE HERSCHEL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL.]

In Hanover, Germany, in the year 1732, Isaac Herschel and a plain, industrious girl, Anna Ilse Moritzen, began their home life together.

The young man did not like the calling of his father, the cultivating of the royal gardens, and learned to play the oboe in the royal band.

He became skilled in music, and, as, one after another, ten children were born into the little home, he taught them to play on the violin and oboe, and such other branches of knowledge as he possessed. After a time his health became impaired with exposure in the Seven Years' War, and then he earned his living by lessons in music, given to scholars at his home.

The children attended the garrison school in Hanover, and learned the ordinary rudiments, besides French and German. Though the father sometimes copied music half the night to eke out his scanty living, he spared no pains to teach them all he could of his favorite art.

The fourth son, William, born November 15, 1738, not only learned French and English rapidly, but studied Latin and arithmetic with the teacher, after hours. He became pa.s.sionately fond of books, reading their own little store with avidity. The mother, who could not even write, viewed with alarm this intellectual development, feeling that her children, if they became learned, would go away from home--possibly from Germany.

Poor, ignorant heart! She cooked and sewed, and prevented her daughters from learning French or drawing; but her weak hand could not stay the power of a mind like William's, bent on acquiring knowledge.

Caroline, the eighth child, born in 1750, twelve years younger than William, looked upon this brother as a marvel; and shy, plain, and silent herself, watched the boy with pride, who, perchance, would be somebody by and by. Alexander, a little older than Caroline, was skilled on the violoncello, and both the boys became members of the Hanover foot guards.

Years later, Caroline gave this picture of that early life: "My brothers were often introduced as solo performers and a.s.sistants in the orchestra of the court, and I remember that I was frequently prevented from going to sleep by the lively criticism on music, on coming from a concert; or by conversations on philosophical subjects, which lasted frequently till morning, in which my father was a lively partaker and a.s.sistant of my brother William, by contriving self-made instruments....

"Often I would keep myself awake that I might listen to their animating remarks, for it made _me so happy to see them so happy_. But generally their conversation would branch out on philosophical subjects, when my brother William and my father often argued with such warmth that my mother's interference became necessary; when the names Leibnitz, Newton, and Euler sounded rather too loud for the repose of her little ones, who ought to be in school by seven in the morning. But it seems that on the brothers retiring to their own room, where they shared the same bed, my brother William had still a great deal to say; and frequently it happened that when he stopped for an a.s.sent or reply, he found his hearer was gone to sleep, and I suppose it was not till then that he bethought himself to do the same.

"The recollection of these happy scenes confirms me in the belief, that had my brother William not then been interrupted in his philosophical pursuits, we should have had much earlier proofs of his inventive genius. My father was a great admirer of astronomy, and had some knowledge of that science; for I remember his taking me, on a clear frosty night, into the street, to make me acquainted with several of the most beautiful constellations, after we had been gazing at a comet which was then visible. And I well remember with what delight he used to a.s.sist my brother William in his various contrivances in the pursuit of his philosophical studies, among which was a neatly turned four-inch globe, upon which the equator and ecliptic were engraved by my brother."

When William was seventeen, the guards went to England for a year, and on their return home he brought one precious memento of the country, Locke "On the Human Understanding." Such a boy would not remain in the foot guards forever. He was delicate in health, so that his parents removed him from the army.

At nineteen, he determined to try his fortune in England. He said good-by to the culture-loving and warm-hearted father, to the poor mother who knew "no other wants than good linen and clothing," and started out to make his way in the world. For three years nothing is known of him, save that he pa.s.sed through many hardships. He played in military bands whenever and wherever he could find a situation, or at concerts, and led probably a cramped and obscure life.

There was little prospect then that he would become, as Prof. Edward S.

Holden says in his admirable life, "the greatest of practical astronomers, and one of the world's most profound philosophers." What the poor German youth thought and felt in those years of trial, we do not know. He had one resource in his loneliness, the reading of useful books.

After about three years, a fortuitous circ.u.mstance occurred. It proved "fortuitous" only because young Herschel had studied music faithfully, and had made himself ready to fill a fine position, if, poor and without influence, such a position could be obtained.

As Dr. Miller, a noted organist, "was dining at Pontefract with the officers of the Durham militia, one of them, knowing his love of music, told him they had a young German in their band, as a performer on the oboe, who was also an excellent performer on the violin. The officer added that if Miller would come into another room, this German should entertain him with a solo. The invitation was gladly accepted, and Miller heard a solo of Giardini's executed in a manner that surprised him.

"He afterwards took an opportunity of having some private conversation with the young musician, and asked him whether he had engaged himself for any long period to the Durham militia. The answer was, 'Only from month to month.'

"'Leave them, then,' said the organist, 'and come and live with me. I am a single man, and think we shall be happy together; and doubtless your merit will soon ent.i.tle you to a more eligible situation.'

"The offer was accepted as frankly as it was made, and the reader may imagine with what satisfaction Dr. Miller must have remembered this act of generous feeling, when he heard that this young German was Herschel, the astronomer. 'My humble mansion,' says Miller, 'consisted at that time but of two rooms. However, poor as I was, my cottage contained a library of well chosen books.'