severe quarantine, the little Algerine colony was in the habit of going
to an enclosure near the lazaretto, where a very beautiful gazelle,
belonging to M. Dubois Thainville, was confined; she bounded about there
in full liberty with a grace which excited our admiration. One of us
endeavoured to stop this elegant animal in her course; he seized her
unluckily by the leg, and broke it. We all ran, but only, alas! to
witness a scene which excited the deepest emotion in us.

The gazelle, lying on her side, raised her head sadly; her beautiful
eyes (the eyes of a gazelle!) shed torrents of tears; no cry of
complaint escaped her mouth; she produced that effect upon us which is
always felt when a person who is suddenly struck by an irreparable
misfortune, resigns himself to it, and shows his profound anguish only
by silent tears.

Having ended my quarantine, I went at once to Perpignan, to the bosom of
my family, where my mother, the most excellent and pious of women,
caused numerous masses to be said to celebrate my return, as she had
done before to pray for the repose of my soul, when she thought that I
had fallen under the daggers of the Spaniards. But I soon quitted my
native town to return to Paris; and I deposited at the Bureau of
Longitude and the Academy of Sciences my observations, which I had
succeeded in preserving amidst the perils and tribulations of my long
campaign.

A few days after my arrival, on the 18th of September, 1809, I was
nominated an academician in the place of Lalande. There were fifty-two
voters; I obtained forty-seven voices, M. Poisson four, and M. Nouet
one. I was then twenty-three years of age.