t sorrows had crossed his life. Married late to a
young wife whom he loved, he lost her early; she left him a son, brought
up under his wing, and the object of his constant solicitude. Just at
the time of sending him to school, he wrote to Madame Daubenton, wife of
his able and learned co-operator: "I expect Buffonet on Sunday. I have
arranged all his little matters he will have a private room, with a
closet for his man-servant; I have got him a tutor in the school-house
itself, and a little companion of his own age. I do not think that he
will be at all unhappy." And, at a later date, when he is expecting this
son who has reached man's estate, and has been travelling in Europe: "My
son has just arrived; the empress and the grand-duke have treated him
very well, and we shall have some fine minerals, the collection of which
is being at this moment completed. I confess that anxiety about his
return has taken away my sleep and the power of thinking."

When the young Count de Buffon, an officer in the artillery, and at first
warmly favorable to the noble professions of the French Revolution, had,
like his peers, to mount the scaffold of the Terror, he damned with one
word the judges who profaned in his person his father's glory.
"Citizens," he exclaimed from the fatal car, "my name is Buffon." With
less respect for the rights of genius than was shown by the Algerian
pirates who let pass, without opening them, the chests directed to the
great naturalist, the executioner of the Committee of public safety cut
off his son's head.

This last drop of bitterness, and the cruel spectacle of social disorder,
Buffon had been spared; he had died at the _Jardin du Roi_ on the 14th of
April, 1788, preserving at eighty years of age, and even in the
feebleness of ill health, all the powers of his intelligence and the calm
serenity of 'his soul. His last lines dictated to his son were addressed
to Madame Necker, who had been for a long time past on the most intimate
terms with him. Faithful in death to the instincts of order and
regularity which had always controlled his mind even in his boldest
flight, he requested that all the ceremonies of religion should be
fulfilled around his body. His son had it removed to Montbard, where it
lies between his father and his wife.

Buffon had lived long, he had accomplished in peace his great work, he
had reaped the fruits of it. On the eve of the terrible shocks whereof
no presage distur