236 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



regiment of Beaujolais. This gentleman, on seeing 

 before him a lad of seventeen, whose somewhat stunted 

 growth made him look still younger than he really 

 was, sent the youth immediately to his own quarters. 

 The next day a battle was immediately impending, and 

 M. de Lastic, on passing his regiment in review, saw 

 his protege in the first rank of a company of grenadiers. 

 The French army was under the orders of the Marshal 

 de Broglie and of the Prince de Soubise; the allied 

 troops were commanded by Ferdinand of Brunswick. 

 The two French generals were beaten owing to their 

 divided counsels, and Lamarck's company, almost an- 

 nihilated by the enemy's fire, was forgotten in the 

 confusion of the retreat. All the officers, commissioned 

 and non-commissioned, were killed, and only fourteen 

 men out of the whole company remained alive : the 

 eldest "proposed to retreat, but Lamarck, improvising 

 himself as commander, declared that they ought not to 

 retire without orders. Presently the colonel seeing that 

 this company did not rally sent an orderly officer who 

 made his way up to it by protected paths. Next day 

 Lamarck was made an officer, and shortly afterwards 

 lieutenant. 



"Fortunately for science," continues M. Martins, 

 " this brilliant debut was not to decide his career. After 

 peace had been signed he was sent into garrison at 

 Toulon and Monaco, where an inflammation of the lym- 

 phatic ganglions of the neck necessitated an operation 

 which left him deeply scarred for life. 



" The vegetation in the neighbourhood of Toulon and 

 Monaco now arrested the young officer's attention. He 



