More fortunate than the human beings outside, the animals in the royal garden were in no way affected by the Revolution. The hateful title of their abode, however, was naturally changed; and the former Garden of the King became the Museum of Natural History. In 1792 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the author of _Paul and Virginia_, was made director of the establishment; and the Convention, which with all its destructiveness showed constructive tendencies in regard to all matters of science, literature, and art, founded at the museum twelve chairs, which were filled by professors of human anatomy, zoology, animal anatomy, botany, mineralogy, geology, general chemistry, chemistry in its application to the arts, agriculture, and iconography. The number of some of the chairs has since been increased, and a few new ones have been established; but, fundamentally, the organisation of the establishment remains what it was at the time of the radical transformation under the Convention. The professors appointed by the Convention went to work with the greatest enthusiasm, and all the invaders and explorers of the time were begged to supply the museum with whatever specimens of natural history they could offer. The collection, moreover, was increased by the activity and success of the French troops, with a view to the greater glory of France, and especially of Paris. The commanders of the French armies brought back with them, in the form of booty, the most interesting objects from the museums of the conquered cities. Holland having been overrun in 1798, a number of the curiosities belonging to the Stadtholder’s Museum were forwarded to Paris; and the celebrated naturalist, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, was sent to Lisbon, occupied at the time by a French army, to choose from the local collections whatever he might find suitable for the natural history museum at Paris. After a time the collection became too rich for the professors and officials who had to arrange it. Money and space were alike wanting; and at last the established authorities formally complained that the treasures forwarded to them by the victorious troops were too abundant. Among the most celebrated professors attached to the museum of natural history may be mentioned Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, already named, Lamarck, Lacépède, and Cuvier. The garden of the museum forms a spacious quadrilateral, bounded on the east by the Quai Saint-Bernard, on the north by the Rue Cuvier, on the south by the Rue Buffon, and on the west by the Rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.