and our protégé's future was assured. Metchnikoff himself, however, was attacked and accused most unjustly, though he had never made any personal profit whatever from the enterprise. And yet, when his friends told him that it had been very reckless on his part thus to expose himself, he answered that he thought it impossible to hesitate between the welfare of a whole family and the possibility of gossip. His reasoning was imprudent and perhaps erroneous, but he never hesitated between doing a kindness and the possible unpleasant consequences it might have for himself. If some people could not understand him, it was because he was far from the commonplace, "not like other people," a quality often misunderstood and unforgiven. Such are the facts. "Honi soit qui mal y pense!" The desire to lessen the ills around him was, in general, the cause of heavy anxieties in his later years. He had learnt that the discovery of an industrial process, of which the realisation required capital, would be an excellent investment. He immediately wished to make his friends profit by it, as well as himself, in order to alleviate material difficulties. But until the end of his life the undertaking had no results, and he was obsessed by the fear of having given bad advice to those who followed him. He knew not how to refuse, even when he should have done so; therefore he was odiously exploited. Often he worked, in his rare leisure moments, for people who were unworthy of his kindness. During the last years of his life, all these incidents grieved him so much that he used to say he felt the burden of existence. His soul was darkened, he felt very depressed, and his health suffered. We spent the summer holidays of 1913 at St. Léger-en-Yvelines, a pretty place on the edge of the Rambouillet forest. In his choice of a holiday resort, my husband was always guided by the desire to find a place favourable to my sketching, and St. Léger answered the purpose wonderfully. The fields with their vast horizons, the forest with its graceful bracken and carpets of softly-tinted heather, the mysterious ponds, all went to compose an admirable symphony, full of artistic suggestion. Elie himself was gay and full of spirits. He worked in the morning, and we spent the rest of the day in the forest. He often read aloud; he rested and enjoyed the peaceful calm, pure air, and verdure which he loved so much.