The Natural History Chair, created by Prof. Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton, was held by full professor Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier, known as Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), from 1800 to 1832.

This chair marked Cuvier's importance in the scientific panorama of the time, and his research and work confirmed the Collège de France as a place of " research in the making ".

His courses covered evolutionary biology, comparative anatomy and paleontology. Addressing the general public as well as his colleagues, Cuvier rigorously presented his revolutionary discoveries against all religious " dogmatism  ". This chair brought the natural sciences into a new age of observation and classification, dealing with taxonomy, comparative anatomy and kinship. Through his lectures and works, he developed, among other things, a new scientific approach to the study of living things, in particular his theory of the three principles of " conditions d'existence ", " subordination des caractères " and " correlation des formes ", which revolutionized the sciences of the time.