Berthollet was a most amiable man; when the friend of Napoleon, even, always good, conciliatory, and modest, frank and candid. He had no airs, and many graces. In every way below La Place in intellectual powers, he appeared superior to him in moral qualities. Berthollet had no appearance of a man of genius; but one could not look on La Place’s physiognomy without being convinced that he was a very extraordinary man. Other notable men of this period were Fourcroy, Vauquelin, Klaproth, and Proust. =Antoine-François Fourcroy=, the son of a pharmacist, was born at Paris in 1755, and started his career as a dramatic author. On the advice of Vicq d’Azir, the anatomist, he turned to medicine, and in 1784, by the influence of Buffon, obtained the chair of Chemistry at the Jardin du Roi, in succession to Macquer. He was an excellent teacher—clear, orderly, and methodical. He had, indeed, a talent for oratory. This he assiduously cultivated, and became one of the most popular lecturers of his time in France. Ambitious and time-serving, he became embroiled in the turbulent politics of the period, and, after a chequered career, died, embittered and disappointed, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. His chief services to science consisted in his works, _Système des Connaissances Chimiques_ and _Philosophie Chimique_. These, no less than his public lectures, did much to popularise the doctrines of Lavoisier among his countrymen. =Louis Nicolas Vauquelin=, the son of a Norman peasant, was born in 1763, and while a boy became assistant to an apothecary in Rouen. In 1780 he came to Paris, and entered Fourcroy’s laboratory. Much of the experimental work published in Fourcroy’s name was actually done by Vauquelin. He became a member of the Academy in 1791, Professor of Chemistry at the Mining School, Assayer to the Mint, and subsequently Professor of Chemistry at the Jardin des Plantes. On Fourcroy’s death he was made Professor of Chemistry of the Medical Faculty of Paris. Vauquelin was no theorist; he was, however, an excellent practical chemist, and one of the best analysts of the period. He made a large number of mineral analyses, more particularly for Hauy, the crystallographer. He discovered the element _chromium_ in the so-called red-lead ore (lead chromate) from Siberia. He also first made known the existence of _glucinum_ in beryl. He described a method of separating the platinum metals, and worked upon _iridium_ and _osmium_. He investigated the _hyposulphites_, _cyanates_, and _malates_. He discovered the presence of _benzoic acid_ in the urine of animals; with Robiqet, he first isolated _asparagin_; with Buniva, _allantoic acid_; and with Bouillon de la Grange, _camphoric acid_. Vauquelin lived wholly for science, and had no other interests than in his laboratory. He was pensioned in 1822, and died at his birthplace—St. André d’Héberlot—in the sixty-sixth year of his age.