50 HISTORICAL EULOGIUM 



triousoldmanwaslivingnearly alone, lodging in a small house 

 in the street des Bernardines, which he only quitted to go to 

 Mass, to the Academy, and to the Jardin des Plantes, and ab- 

 sorbed in profound meditations which were only interrupted, 

 (if interruption it may be called), by the society of a few 

 friends chosen from among the most respected names of that 

 epoch, Le Poivre, Le Monnier, Duhamel, and Malesherbes. 



Such was the retired life of Bernard. To this simplicity 

 of manners, and love for acontinuoustrainof thought, in which 

 by the peculiar turn of his mind, he rather admitted the ideas 

 which arose, than sought for them, he added the strictest and 

 exactest regularity in all his habits. Every thing in his 

 house was done with extreme order, in a spirit of method so 

 to speak, of the most unerring kind ; daily, at the same hour, 

 and after the same fashion, had each meal its fixed and inva- 

 riable time; supper was regularly served at nine; and when 

 the young Laurent ventured on rare occasions to indulge 

 himself in a visit to the theatre, he never failed to calculate 

 the precise number of minutes which it should require for him 

 to enter the eating-room by one door precisely at the instant 

 when his uncle was coming in at the other. A trifling cir- 

 cumstance exhibits another trait of Bernard's character. That 

 portion of his income which was not required for his running 

 expenses, he deposited in a chest. One day, being called 

 upon to incur a large and extra expense, he opened this 

 chest and found in it 40,000 francs ; it vvas then closed not 

 to be reopened till after his death, when about an equal sum 

 was discovered there. 



It is no unfair allegation to say that Bernard de Jussieu 

 treated his ideas much as he did his money. With the same 

 regularity and continuity, yet with a degree of carelessness 

 did he accumulate them; at length, dipping into the trea- 

 sures of his mind one happy day, he drew thence his plan 

 for the Natural Orders, an undying proof of his genius; 

 again he let them gather up, and at his decease bequeathed 

 these ideas to his nephew, as the most valuable part of his 

 inheritance. 



