252 THE JUSSIEUS AND THE NATURAL METHOD. 



It was Antoine de Jussieu who, in 1720, consigned to tlie Chevalier Dcs- 

 clieux, midshipman, that famous coflFee plant which, transported from our con- 

 servatories to Martinique, has produced all Avhich have been since reared there. 

 The plant deserved an historian; "Europe," says Antoine, "is indebted for the 

 culture of this shrub to the care of the Dutch, who brought it from Moka to 

 Batavia, and from Batavia to the garden of Amsterdam, whence an offset was 

 conveyed to Marly, presented to the King, and then sent to Paris to the garden 

 of his Majesty, where we have seen it yield in succession flowers and fruit."* 



I proceed, lastly, to notice a memoir by Antoine of a wholly different kind from 

 those which precede, and in which, by a fortunate and brief excursion beyond 

 the domain of strict science, he retraces for us historically the origin of the 

 collection of vellums belonging to the Jardin des Plantes. The memoir is enti- 

 tled : " A history of the facts which have occasioned and perfected the assemblage 

 of paintings of plants and animals on sheets of vellum, preserved m the Bibli- 

 otheque dii Roi.^' 



This inestimable collection, begun in 1650 by Gaston of Orleans, and continued 

 by Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, was at the latter date composed of 

 sixty-four volumes or portfolios. At this day it comprises nearly a hundred, 

 and it should be added that its scope has been greatly extended. No longer con- 

 fine 1 to plants and a few birds, it embraces all the classes of the animal kingdom ; 

 to zoology it has added comparative anatomy and physiology ; and to the two 

 living kingdoms, the inorganic : geology, mineralogy, and crystallography. 



It has been seen how active was the life of Antoine de Jussieu, and how 

 varied were the subjects with which he was occupied. Unprovided with fortune, 

 he had been obliged to devote nearly all his time to the practice of medicine, 

 in which he attained great eminence. Had he been enabled to place his active 

 intelligence and ardent curiosity wholly at the service of science, much might 

 have been expected fi'om him. But while the labors which I have recited suffice 

 for the illustration of his name, his best title to acknowledgment will be always that 

 of having introduced into botany his brother Bernard, who for forty years was the 

 companion of his life. " They journeyed and studied together", says their 

 nephew, M. Adrien de Jussieu, and the younger profited by the situation of his 

 brother to give himself wholly to natural science. Both being immarried, they 

 lived together in iraternal union, which on the part of Bernard might have been 

 characterized as truly filial. The disposition of which they thus set the exam- 

 ple, remarkable in itself, seemed innate in this family; paternal protection on the 

 part of the elder ; tendei'ness, respect, and confidence on the part of the younger; 

 community of principles, of sentiments, often of studies, almost always of goods ; 

 a union of interests and affection rarely paralleled, at least in modern times. 

 In a like spirit Joseph, the youngest,! came at a later period to join his two 

 brothers, for whom he preserved the same deference, the same devotion." 



* Histoiredu cafe, (Memoires de V Acad, des Sciences, ]7I3, page 292, edition 1716.) The 

 following', from this memoir, i.s a new proof of what I have remarked elsewhere, touching' 

 the law imposed upon our Academy, from its origin, of asserting nothing except on the direct 

 ohsercatioii of nauire: "As the authority of authors who have not seen the objects is not 

 decisive in point of natural history, and our Academy can only establish its progress on a 

 scrupulous examination of nature itself, on verified facts and exact experiments, we may 

 regard as imperfect the descriptions of the coffee plant which have appeared heretofore, since 

 we have been enabled to make one from the tree itself now in the royal garden." 



t This brother was also a botanist of distinction, and accompanied, in that capacity, the 

 scientitio commission sent by the Academy to Peru to measure a degree of the meridian at 

 the equator. " His curiosity," says M. Flourens, '" held him captive for many years in 

 those regions so rich and unexplored, where he often joined the labors of the engineer with 

 those of the botanist. To him Europe owes several new plants, the heliotrope, cierge du 

 Pcroii. &c., with many curious and then unknown species. Condorcet remarks that, by a 

 singular chance, he was au acadeaiiciau for thirty-six years, without having ever appeared at 

 the Academy." 



