In 1788, that is in his nineteenth year, Cuvier quitted Stuttgardt, and became tutor in a nobleman’s family in Normandy, where he remained till 1795, when he was discovered by the Abbé Tessier, who wrote to Parmentier, “I have just found a pearl in the dunghill of Normandy;” to Jussieu he wrote—“Remember it was I who gave Delambre to the academy; in another department this also will be a Delambre.” Geoffroy St. Hilaire, already professor at the Jardin des Plantes, though younger than Cuvier, was shown some of Cuvier’s manuscripts, which filled him with such enthusiasm that he wrote to him, “Come and fill the place of Linnæus here; come and be another legislator of natural history.” Cuvier came, and Geoffroy stood aside to let his great rival be seen. Goethe, as I have elsewhere remarked, has noticed the curious coincidence of the three great zoologists successively opening to their rivals the path to distinction: Buffon called Daubenton to aid him; Daubenton called Geoffroy; and Geoffroy called Cuvier. Goethe further notices that there was the same radical opposition in the tendencies of Buffon and Daubenton as in those of Geoffroy and Cuvier—the opposition of the synthetical and the analytical mind. Yet this opposition did not prevent mutual esteem and lasting regard. Geoffroy and Cuvier were both young, and had in common ambition, love of science, and the freshness of unformed convictions. For, alas! it is unhappily too true, that just as the free communicativeness of youth gives place to the jealous reserve of manhood, and the youth who would only be too pleased to tell all his thoughts and all his discoveries to a companion, would in after years let his dearest friend first see a discovery in an official publication; so, likewise, in the early days of immature speculation, before convictions have crystalized enough to present their sharp angles of opposition, friends may discuss and interchange ideas without temper. Geoffroy and Cuvier knew no jealousy then. In after years it was otherwise. Geoffroy had a position—he shared it with his friend; he had books and collections—they were open to his rival; he had a lodging in the museum—it was shared between them. Daubenton, older and more worldly wise, warned Geoffroy against this zeal in fostering a formidable rival; and one day placed before him a copy of Lafontaine open at the fable of _The Bitch and her Neighbour_. But Geoffroy was not to be daunted, and probably felt himself strong enough to hold his own. And so the two happy, active youths pursued their studies together, wrote memoirs conjointly, discussed, dissected, speculated together, and “never sat down to breakfast without having made a fresh discovery,” as Cuvier said, truly enough, for to them every step taken was a discovery.