Lamarck had, with his customary self-abnegation and generosity, aided and favored the young Cuvier in the beginning of his career,[50] who in his _Regne Animal_ adopted the classes founded by Lamarck.

Thoroughly convinced of the erroneous views of Cuvier in regard to cataclysms, he criticised and opposed them in his writings in a courteous and proper way without directly mentioning Cuvier by name or entering into any public debate with him.
When the hour came for the great comparative anatomist and palaeontologist, from his exalted position, to prepare a tribute to the memory of a naturalist of equal merit and of a far more thoughtful and profound spirit, to be read before the French Academy of Sciences, what a eulogy it was--as De Blainville exclaims, _et quel eloge_! It was not printed until after Cuvier's death, and then, it is stated, portions were omitted as not suitable for publication.[51] This is, we believe, the only stain on Cuvier's life, and it was unworthy of the great man.
In this _eloge_, so different in tone from the many others which are collected in the three volumes of Cuvier's eulogies, he indiscriminately ridicules all of Lamarck's theories.

Whatever may have been his condemnation of Lamarck's essays on physical and chemical subjects, he might have been more reserved and less dogmatic and sarcastic in his estimate of what he supposed to be the value of Lamarck's views on evolution.

It was Cuvier's adverse criticisms and ridicule and his anti-evolutional views which, more than any other single cause, retarded the progress of biological science and the adoption of a working theory of evolution for which the world had to wait half a century.
It even appears that Lamarck was in part instrumental in inducing Cuvier in 1795 to go to Paris from Normandy, and become connected with the Museum.

De Blainville relates that the Abbe Tessier met the young zooelogist at Valmont near Fecamp, and wrote to Geoffroy that "he had just discovered in Normandy a pearl," and invited him to do what he could to induce Cuvier to come to Paris.