Page:Audubon and His Journals.djvu/366

318 about the portrait the latter is to paint, and I believe I will describe Cuvier's house to thee. The footman asked us to follow him upstairs, and in the first room we caught a glimpse of a slight figure dressed all in black, that glided across the floor like a sylph; it was Mlle. Cuvier, not quite ready to see gentlemen: off she flew like a Dove before Falcons. We followed our man, who continually turned, saying, "This way, gentlemen." Eight rooms we passed filled with books, and each with a recessed bed, and at last reached a sort of laboratory, the sanctum sanctorum of Cuvier; there was nothing in it but books and skeletons of animals, reptiles, etc. Our conductor, surprised, bid us sit down, and left us to seek the Baron. My eyes were fully employed, and I contemplated in imagination the extent of the great man's knowledge. His books were in great disorder, and I concluded that he read and studied them, and owned them for other purposes than for show. Our man returned and led us back through the same avenue of bed-chambers, lined with books instead of satin, and we were conducted through the kitchen to another laboratory, where the Baron was found. Politeness in great men is shown differently from the same quality in fashionable society: a smile suffices to show you are welcome, without many words, and the work in hand is continued as if you were one of the family. Ah! how I delight in this! and how pleased I was to be thus welcomed by this learned man. Cuvier was looking at a small lizard in a tiny vial filled with spirit. I see now his sparkling eye half closed, as if quizzing its qualities, and as he put it down he wrote its name on a label. He made an appointment with Mr. Parker, and went on quizzing lizards. Being desirous of seeing a gambling house, young Geoffroy took me to one in the Palais Royal, a very notorious one, containing several roulette tables, and there we saw a little of the tactics of the gentlemen of the trade. The play, however, was not on this occasion high. The