[Illustration: BRASSEUR DE BOURBOURG. Follows an etching published in the _Annuaire de la Société Américaine de France_, 1875. He died at Nice, Jan. 8, 1874, aged 59 years.] During the American Civil War, when there were hopes of some permanence for French influence in Mexico, the French government made some organized efforts to further the study of the antiquities of the country, and the results were published in the _Archives de la Commission Scientifique du Méxique_ (Paris, 1864-69, in 3 vols.).[950] The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, who took a conspicuous part in this labor, has probably done more than any other Frenchman to bring into order the studies upon these ancient races, and in some directions he is our ultimate source. Unfortunately his character as an archæological expounder did not improve as he went on, and he grew to be the expositor of some wild notions that have proved acceptable to few. He tells us that he first had his attention turned to American archæology by the report, which had a short run in European circles, of the discovery of a Macedonian helmet and weapons in Brazil in 1832, and by a review of Rio’s report on Palenqué, which he read in the _Journal des Savants_. Upon coming to America, fresh from his studies in Rome, he was made professor of history in the seminary at Quebec in 1845-46, writing at that time a _Histoire du Canada_, of little value. Later, in Boston, he perfected his English and read Prescott. Then we find him at Rome poring over the _Codex Vaticanus_, and studying the _Codex Borgianus_ in the library of the Propaganda. In 1848 he returned to the United States, and, embarking at New Orleans for Mexico, he found himself on shipboard in the company of the new French minister, whom he accompanied, on landing, to the city of Mexico, being made almoner to the legation. This official station gave him some advantage in beginning his researches, in which Rafael Isidro Gondra, the director of the Museo, with the curators of the vice-regal archives, and José Maria Andrade, the librarian of the university, assisted him. Later he gave himself to the study of the Nahua tongue, under the guidance of Faustino Chimalpopoca Galicia, a descendant of a brother of Montezuma, then a professor in the college of San Gregorio. In 1851 he was ready to print at Mexico, in French and Spanish, his _Lettres pour servir d’introduction à l’histoire primitive des anciennes nations civilisées du Méxique_, addressed (October, 1850) to the Duc de Valmy, in which he sketched the progress of his studies up to that time. He speaks of it as “le premier fruit de mes travaux d’archéologie et d’histoire méxicaines.”[951] It was this brochure which introduced him to the attention of Squier and Aubin, and from the latter, during his residence in Paris (1851-54), he received great assistance. Pressed in his circumstances, he was obliged at this time to eke out his living by popular writing, which helped also to enable