On October 4th we find that he reported to the Managers that--
“Michael Faraday had expressed a wish to accompany him on his scientific travels, but that he would not engage Mr. Faraday if the Professor of Chemistry considered his services as at all essential to the Institution, or if the Managers had the slightest objection to the measure.”
Mr. Brande reported that arrangements could be made to allow Mr. Faraday to leave,
“and that as he had shown considerable diligence and attention in cleaning and arranging the mineral collection he recommended his services to the Managers’ attention, as this was not his immediate duty.”
A few days afterwards the party, consisting of Sir H. and Lady Davy, Mr. Faraday, and Lady Davy’s maid, together with the chemical cabinet, crossed in a cartel from Plymouth to Morlaix. Here they were arrested, but after a week’s detention, allowed to depart for Paris, where they arrived on October 27th. Nothing could exceed the cordiality and warmth of Davy’s reception by the French _savants_. On November 2nd he attended a sitting of the First Class of the Institute, and was placed on the right hand of the President, who announced to the meeting that it was honoured by the presence of “Le Chevalier Davy.” Each day saw some reception or entertainment in his honour. On November 10th he dined with Rumford at Auteuil. How much had happened in the ten years since last they met, and how different their situations now! Davy at the very summit of his scientific eminence, courted and caressed by society, honoured and admired by his intellectual peers; Rumford, his former patron, a broken-hearted, disappointed man about to sink into the grave, worried to death, in fact, by his wife, and the victim of the spiteful persecutions she instigated. Of the remarkable men of science whom Davy met on these occasions he has left us some slight sketches composed during his last illness, some of which are of interest to the student who desires to know something of the men whose names are as household words in the history of chemistry. Guyton de Morveau--who played such a leading part in the political Revolution of France, as well as in the revolution of its chemistry, and who, with Fourcroy, popularised the doctrines of Lavoisier whilst bringing his head to the scaffold--was found to be a gentleman of mild and conciliatory manners.