tronger outline. Monsieur de Bacourt,[29] the
literary executor of Talleyrand, who was the French Ambassador to the
United States in 1840, paid a visit to Mr. Gallatin in that year, and
describes him as a "beau vieillard de quatre-vingt ans," who has fully
preserved his faculties. Bacourt alludes to his remarkable face, with
its clear, fine cut features, and his "physiognomie pleine de finesse;"
and dwells also upon the ease and charm of his conversation.

As his life slowly drew to its close, one after another of the few of
his old friends who remained dropped from the road. Early in 1848 Adams
fell in harness, on the floor of the House of Representatives; Lord
Ashburton died in May. Finally, nearest, dearest of all, the companion
of his triumphs and disappointments, the sharer of his honors and his
joys, his wife, was taken from him by the relentless hand. The summer of
1849 found him crushed by this last affliction, and awaiting his own
summons of release. He was taken to Mount Bonaparte, the country-seat of
his son-in-law, at Astoria on Long Island, where he died in his
daughter's arms on Sunday, August 12, 1849. The funeral services were
held in Trinity Church on the Tuesday following, and his body was laid
to rest in the Nicholson vault,[30] in the old graveyard adjoining. The
elegant monument erected during his lifetime is one of the attractive
features of this venerable cemetery, in whose dust mingle the remains of
the temple of no more elevated spirit than his own. The season was a
terrible one--the cholera was raging, the city was deserted. In the
general calamity private sorrow disappeared, or the occasion would have
been marked by a demonstration of public grief and of public honor. As
the tidings went from city to city, and country to country, the friends
of science, of that universal wisdom which knows neither language nor
race, paused in their investigations to pay respectful homage to his
character, his intellect, and to that without which either or both in
combination are inadequate to success--his labor in the field.

On October 2, 1849, at the first meeting of the Historical Society
after the death of Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Luther Bradish, the presiding
officer, spoke of him in impressive words, as the last link connecting
the present with the past. He dwelt upon the peculiar pleasure with
which the presence of Mr. Gallatin was always hailed, and the peculiar
interest it gave to the proceedings of the soci