If such conduct as this is rare, so is the power of inspiring such devoted affection; therefore we add to the renown of Lamarck, when it is told what his children endured for his sake. Lamarck died on the 18th December, 1829, aged eighty-five, and left two sons and two daughters behind him. Full of ability and perseverance, he has left such monuments of industry and solid learning behind him, that his favourite theory, containing indeed the germs of truth, may be well pardoned. People who know nothing of his good work, laugh at his memory; but every true student of nature constantly recognizes his obligations to the founder of philosophical zoology. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. THE LIFE OF CUVIER. The union of zoology and comparative anatomy, and the examination and study of fossil remains. George Léopold Chretien Fréderic Dagobert Cuvier was born at Montbéliard, in the Department du Doubs, a town which was subsequently united to France, although at the time of Cuvier’s birth it belonged to the kingdom of Wurtemberg. He was born on August 23rd, 1769. His family originally came from a village in the Jura mountains, which still bears the name of Cuvier; but, becoming the victims of religious persecution, they were obliged to leave and to go to reside at Montbéliard at the time of the Reformation. Cuvier’s grandfather had two sons, one celebrated for his learning, and the other belonging to a Swiss regiment in the French service. The soldier, after forty years’ service, retired on a small pension to Montbéliard, where he was appointed commandant of the artillery of the town. He was made Chevalier de l’Ordre Merite Militaire, which, among Protestants, was equal to the Catholic order of the Croix de St. Louis. The old soldier married, late in life, a young and highly accomplished lady, by whom he had three sons. The eldest died a short time before the birth of the second, who is the subject of this biography, and who was extremely delicate. The mother, sad at the death of her firstborn, took the curious fancy of calling her little weak second child by the name of George, which was that of her firstborn also. Cuvier was not baptized with that name, although he ever used it in deference to his mother; but in after years, when legal difficulties presented themselves, he took the necessary measures to have a right to use the name. Feeble in constitution, the child required all the attention of his mother, and he never forgot her loving care. She taught him carefully and well during his early years, and the child grew strong and able. He could read fluently at the age of four years, and when the time came for him to be placed at school, the mother went over his exercises at night, and by her good knowledge of Latin enabled him to be better prepared than any other boy in the school, for his daily tasks. She taught him drawing, and this necessary art was subsequently taught Cuvier by an architect in the town.