He says: "The great founder in electricity was deeply religious, and his piety clothed a heart that was not less affectionate and sensitive to affection than it was intrepid and courageous. When called upon to take the civic oath in a formula involved in ambiguous words, he did not believe that he ought, on so serious an occasion, to permit himself anything but the clear and precise expression of his sentiments, full as they were of honesty and rectitude. Refusing to take advantage of the suggestion that he should modify the oath by some declaration apart from the prescribed formula, though it might still be generally understood that he had taken the oath, he refused constantly to commit himself to any such subterfuge. It is not our duty here to ask whether his conclusion was correct or not. He followed the voice of his conscience, which ever must be the standard of duty, and it certainly would have been a fault to have deviated from it. It is sad to think that this great man, deprived of his position, saw himself, for an instant at least, exposed to the danger of ending his career, deprived of the recompense which he so richly deserved and to which his past services to the State and the University had given him so just a title. This is all the more sad when we realize that the vicissitudes of his delicate health, much more than his age, now rendered such recompense doubly necessary. It is a gracious thing to recall, however, the noble firmness with which he maintained himself against so serious a blow. His courage is all the more admirable as one can see how absolutely without affectation it is. He was not ostentatious in his goodness, and did not permit himself to be cast down by the unfortunate conditions, but constantly preserved in the midst of adverse fortune that modest, imperturbable and dignified conduct which had always characterized him in the midst of his prosperity and his glory." That his action in this matter was very properly appreciated by his contemporaries, and that the moral influence of his example was not lost, can be realized from the expressions used by Alibert, the Secretary-General of the Medical Society of Emulation, in the historical address on Galvani which he delivered before that society in Paris in 1801: "Galvani constantly refused to take the civil oath demanded by the decrees of the Cis-Alpine Republic. Who can blame him for having followed the voice of his conscience--that sacred, interior voice which alone prescribes the duties of man and which has preceded all human laws? Who could not praise him for having sacrificed all such exemplary resignation, all the emoluments of his professorship, rather than violate the solemn engagements made under religious sanction?"