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[22] Another intended victim of La Billarderie, whose own salary had been at the same time reduced, was Faujas de Saint-Fond, one of the founders of geology. But his useful discoveries in economic geology having brought him distinction, the king had generously pensioned him, and he was retained in office on the printed État distributed by the Committee of Finance. (Hamy, l. c., p. 29.)

[23] Hamy, l. c., p. 29. This brochure, of which I possess a copy, is a small quarto pamphlet of fifteen pages, signed, on the last page, “J. B. Lamarck, ancien Officier au Régiment de Beaujolais, de l’Académie des Sciences de Paris, Botaniste attaché au Cabinet d’Histoire Naturelle du Jardin des Plantes.”

[24] Hamy, l. c., p. 31; also Pièces Justificatives, Nos. 11 et 12, pp. 97–101. The Intendant of the Garden was completely ignored, and his unpopularity and inefficiency led to his resignation. But meanwhile, in his letter to Condorcet, the perpetual Secretary of the Institute of France, remonstrating against the proposed suppression by the Assembly of the place of Intendant, he partially retracted his action against Lamarck, saying that Lamarck’s work, “peut être utile, mais n’est pas absolutement nécessaire.” The Intendant, as Hamy adds, knew well the value of the services rendered by Lamarck at the Royal Garden, and that, as a partial recompense, he had been appointed botanist to the museum. He also equally well knew that the author of the Flore Française was in a most precarious situation and supported on his paltry salary a family of seven persons, as he was already at this time married and had five children. “But his own place was in peril, and he did not hesitate to sacrifice the poor savant whom he had himself installed as keeper of the herbarium.” (Hamy, l. c., pp. 34, 35.)

[25] The first idea of the foundation of the Jardin dates from 1626, but the actual carrying out of the conception was in 1635. The first act of installation took place in 1640. Gui de la Brosse, in order to please his high protectors, the first physicians of the king, named his establishment Jardin des Plantes Medicinales. It was renovated by Fagon, who was born in the Jardin, and whose mother was the niece of Gui de la Brosse. By his disinterestedness, activity, and great scientific capacity, he regenerated the garden, and under his administration flourished the great professors, Duverney, Tournefort, Geoffroy the chemist, and others (Perrier, l. c., p. 59). Fagon was succeeded by Buffon, “the new legislator and second founder.” His Intendancy lasted from 1739 to 1788.

[26] Three days after, August 30th, the report was ready, the discussion began, and the foundations of the new organization were definitely laid. “No longer any Jardin or Cabinets, but a Museum of Natural History, whose aim was clearly defined. No officers with unequal functions; all are professors and all will give instruction. They elect themselves and present to the king a candidate for each vacant place. Finally, the general administration of the Museum will be confided to the officers of the establishment, this implying the suppression of the Intendancy.” (Hamy, l. c., p. 37.)

[27] Hamy, l. c., p. 37. The Faubourg Saint Victor was a part of the Quartier Latin, and included the Jardin des Plantes.

[28] Devis de la Dépense du Jardin National des Plantes et du Cabinet d’Histoire Naturelle pour l’Année 1793, presented to the National Convention by Citoyen Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. In it appeared a note relative to Lamarck, which, after stating that, though full of zeal and of knowledge of botany, his time was not entirely occupied; that for two months he had written him in regard to the duties of his position; referred to the statements of two of his seniors, who repeated the old gossip as to the claim of La Billarderie that his place was useless, and also found fault with him for not recognizing the artificial system of Linné in the arrangement of the herbarium, added: “However, desirous of retaining M. La Marck, father of six children, in the position which he needs, and not wishing to let his talents be useless, after several conversations with the older officers of the Jardin, I have believed that, M. Desfontaines being charged with the botanical lectures in the school, and M. Jussieu in the neighborhood of Paris, it would be well to send M. La Marck to herborize in some parts of the kingdom, in order to complete the French flora, as this will be to his taste, and at the same time very useful to the progress of botany; thus everybody will be employed and satisfied.”—Perrier, Lamarck et le Transformisme Actuel, pp. 13, 14. (Copied from the National Archives.) “The life of Bernardin de St. Pierre (1737–1814) was nearly as irregular as that of his friend and master [Rousseau]. But his character was essentially crafty and selfish, like that of many other sentimentalists of the first order.” (Morley’s Rousseau, p. 437, footnote.)

[29] Joseph Lakanal was born in 1762, and died in 1845. He was a professor of philosophy in a college of the Oratory, and doctor of the faculty at Angers, when in 1792 he was sent as a representative (député) to the National Convention, and being versed in educational questions he was placed on the Committee of Public Instruction and elected its president. He was the means, as Hamy states, of saving from a lamentable destruction, by rejuvenizing them, the scientific institutions of ancient France. During the Revolution he voted for the death of Louis XVI.

Lakanal also presented a plan of organization of a National Institute, what is now the Institut de France, and was charged with designating the first forty-eight members, who should elect all the others. He was by the first forty-eight thus elected. Proscribed as a regicide at the second restoration, he sailed for the United States, where he was warmly welcomed by Jefferson. The United States Congress voted him five hundred acres of land. The government of Louisiana offered him the presidency of its university, which, however, he did not accept. In 1825 he went to live on the shores of Mobile Bay on land which he purchased from the proceeds of the sale of the land given him by Congress. Here he became a pioneer and planter.

In 1830 he manifested a desire to return to his native country, and offered his services to the new government, but received no answer and was completely ignored. But two years later, thanks to the initiative of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, who was the means of his reëlection to the French Academy, he decided to return, and did so in 1837. He lived in retirement in Paris, where he occupied himself until his death in 1845 in writing a book entitled Séjour d’un Membre de l’Institut de France aux États-Unis pendant vingt-deux ans. The manuscript mysteriously disappeared, no trace of it ever having been found. (Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universel, Art. Lakanal.) His bust now occupies a prominent place among those of other great men in the French Academy of Sciences.

[30] This is seen to be the case by the title of the pamphlet: Mémoire sur les Cabinets d’Histoire Naturelle, et particulièrement sur celui du Jardin des Plantes.

[31] Bourguin also adds that “on one point Lamarck, with more foresight, went farther than Lakanal. He had insisted on the necessity of the appointment of four demonstrators for zoölogy. In the decree of June 10, 1793, they were even reduced to two. Afterwards they saw that this number was insufficient, and to-day (1863) the department of zoölogy is administered at the museum by four professors, in conformity with the division indicated by Lamarck.”