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From the outset this prospect failed to have the least attraction for him, but 

 as long as his father lived, he had to obey him. When he was seventeen, 

 however, his father died, and he inherited a sum just sufficient to enable him 

 to buy a nag; on this he rode away and joined the French Army, which at 

 that time was in the field during the Seven Years' War. On the day after he 

 enlisted, a battle took place, in which his company suffered severely, losing 

 all its officers and non-commissioned officers, whereupon Lamarck, with his 

 one day's war-experience, collected the survivors and held out at his post until 

 help arrived. This deed was rewarded with a lieutenant's commission, but 

 his promotion went no further; he was sent to Toulon on garrison duty, and 

 on the conclusion of peace he resigned his commission for reasons of ill 

 health and was granted a small pension. He now had to look about him for a 

 fresh means of livelihood, and for this purpose betook himself to Paris; 

 there he remained for the next fifteen years as a literary hack, living in a 

 garret in the Quartier Latin just the kind of Bohemian life that has so often 

 been described in novels. During these difficult years, however, there de- 

 veloped in Lamarck an ever-increasing love of natural science, particularly 

 botany; even during his garrison life on the shores of the Mediterranean the 

 abundant and wonderful flora of that coast had deeply interested him, and 

 this love of knowledge grew apace in Paris, where in those days the interest 

 in animate nature was kept alive by Buffon. It was he, too, who paved the 

 way for the scientific success of the penniless writer; he became interested 

 in a flora of France that Lamarck had written and procured his admittance 

 to the Academy of Science. Further, Lamarck was commissioned to travel 

 through several European countries as companion to Buffon's young son, 

 and he finally became an assistant in the botanical department of the natural- 

 history museum. It was during the Revolution, however, that Lamarck 

 first obtained a secure position; the National Convention, which wanted to 

 reform everything, instituted a number of professorships, including two in 

 zoology. As no more suitable candidates could be found, the one chair was 

 offered to the botanist Lamarck, and the other to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 

 who had till then been mostly occupied with mineralogy. These two im- 

 provised zoologists shared between them the duty of lecturing, Geoffroy 

 undertaking the vertebrates, and Lamarck the invertebrates. Thus, at the 

 age of fifty Lamarck started research work in the field in which he was 

 eventually to win fame as a pioneer. The rest of his life passed in assiduous 

 work in the career he entered so late; retiring and modest as he was, he 

 sought no outward honours, nor did he win any; he remained throughout 

 his life in poor circumstances, especially at the end, having lost by unsuccess- 

 ful speculation what little capital he had saved. He suffered, too, from domes- 

 tic troubles more than most people; he was married four times and lived to 

 see all his unions dissolved by death, while of his seven children the majority 



