and revolutions, or - even though this notion was still a long way off - might have seen an
evolutionary process. Secondly, that history now needed to be taken into account when
studying the earth. As Martin Rudwick has summarised: “It can hardly be emphasized too
strongly that this was a radically new feature on the conceptual landscape of the natural
sciences: understanding and explaining the natural world began to be seen to entail its
contingent past history as much as its directly observable present”.
Within the context of this study it would go too far to address the many intricacies and
subtleties of this process of the historicization of the earth, but some caveats are called for: It
would be far too simplistic for instance to frame these developments within some sort of
opposition between “Science” and “Theology”, or as a process through which the shackles of
the biblical story of Creation were overcome. So too would it be to reduce these developments
to the polemic that was raging between “Vulcanists” and “Neptunists” - this was, essentially,
only about the puzzles basalt structures posed.
The area in which the issues surrounding the historicization of the earth came to the fore was
the study of fossil bones. Perhaps the single most pivotal character in these developments was
Georges Cuvier. He was a Frenchman who had spent a large part of his childhood in Southern
Germany, began to make a name for himself as a promising scholar before the French
Revolution, survived the ensuing political turmoil unscathed, and ended up as a professor at
the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. There, after 1795, he drew on his superior
knowledge of anatomy and studied a number of fossil bones, comparing them with similar
known species, and came to the conclusion that many of these fossil bones were from
unknown species. Crucially, he argued that these species were extinct. This idea was not
entirely new in itself, but Cuvier’s anatomical analysis proved far more solid and persuasive
than what had been presented before. His publications sent ripples through the international
scholarly community, being translated into many foreign languages.
The second of these publications contained a study of the bones of African and Indian
elephants, and a comparison with similar, elephant-like fossilized remains that had been
discovered in Siberia, i.e. mammoths. Interestingly, the specimens of the elephants Cuvier
used had originally formed part of the collections of the Dutch Stadthouder in The Hague, and
had only recently been brought to Paris from the Netherlands, alongside many other prize
specimens from almost all of the public — and often also private — collections of the countries
that had been defeated by the French Revolutionary Army.
12. The Prying Eyes of the French
It has already been pointed out in the previous chapter how the transferral of many European
collections to Paris - and even more so their return upon Napoleon’s final defeat — proved to
76 Ibid., 6.
be a watershed in the history of collections and museums, and how in the Netherlands too this
prompted the establishment of some of the first national museums. At this point it is therefore
worth dwelling briefly on the question of how the French interest in Dutch collections
affected Teylers Museum. Intriguingly, the prying eyes of the French turn out to have had no
direct effect whatsoever on the collections at Teylers Museum. No items were removed from
the Foundation’s collections. Not that van Marum wasn’t worried this might happen - on the
contrary, as he recalled about three decades later:
“The arrival of the French, in January 1795, inspired not a little fear in me for the preservation
of everything that had been brought together by me at Teylers Foundation, as I knew of
several Cabinets either of Natural History specimens or of other things in Countries equally
occupied by them, how much they had suffered by their requisitions.”
He might have had Francois-Xavier de Burtin’s fossil collection in mind, which had been
brought to Paris shortly before, after Burtin had fled Belgium.78 Van Marum had met,
corresponded with, and planned a joint acquisition with de Burtin in the early 1780s. And
indeed, according to van Marum’s account, it did not take long for two of the three French
commissioners that had been dispatched to the Dutch Republic in order to oversee the
annexation of the Stadtholder’s collections to show up on his doorstep, “early in the
morning”, once the Stadtholder had fled the Netherlands and the French Armies had occupied
the country. These two were Claude Roberjot and Barthélémy Faujas de Saint-Fond. (The
third commissioner was André Thouin.) Both were no strangers to van Marum: He had gotten
to know them on his journey to Paris ten years earlier, before the Revolution, and with Faujas
he had corresponded since.
So, early in the morning of this unspecified day sometime in January 1795, they asked to see
both Teylers Museum and the collections of the Holland Society. Van Marum of course
obliged, but recalled how he was not able to conceal his worries: “When they looked at these
collections, they perceived my fear that they would inspect some rare specimens with all too
desirous eyes.”Anxious to prevent the collections’ annexation, by his own account van
Marum then began to emphasise how he used the resources he was provided with for the
general good, and argued how the removal of any part of the collections would seriously
undermine his efforts. His old friends assured him they came with no bad intentions, and they
would do everything in their power to preserve the collections in Haarlem. And indeed,
nobody laid a finger on any of the items in the collections under van Marum’s purview in
Haarlem. Nevertheless, van Marum recalled how he had remained apprehensive: “From time
to time one or another of these Commissioners return, sometimes alone, sometimes
77 “De komst der Franschen, in Januarij 1795, verwekte bij mij niet weinig vrees voor het behoud van al het
geene door mij, bij Teijlers Stichting, was bijeengebracht, daar het mij van verscheidene Kabinetten van
Naturalia o f andere zaken, in Landen, door hun op gelijke wijzen bezet, bekend was, hoeveel dezelven, door
hunne requisitien, geleden hadden.” Martinus van Marum: “De Geschiedenis van de oprigting van Teyler s
Museum”, 1823-1833, Haarlem, NHA, Archief van Marum, vol. 529, nr. 9, fol. 57.
78 Rudwick Bursting the Limits o f Time: The Reconstruction o f Geohistory in the Age o f Revolution, 360.