AUGUSTIN-PYRAMUS DE CANDOLLE. 293 
Republic, the prospects were not encouraging. A career 
must be sought elsewhere. De Candolle determined to study 
medicine, at the same time prosecuting his botanical studies, 
so as to have a double chance, by falling back upon the for- 
mer in case the latter should fail to support him. 
In this view, he returned to Paris in the spring of 1798, 
just in time to see his patron Dolomieu set out for Egypt, as 
one of the savans of that famous expedition, and to decline a 
pressing invitation to accompany him. Taking a lodging in 
the Rue Copeau, to be near the Jardin des Plantes, he at- 
tended the hospitals and medical lectures, which he disliked, 
but recompensed himself at the Garden of Plants with the 
courses of Lacépéde, Lamarck, Cuvier, and Hauy, omitting 
the botanical lectures as not to his mind, but sedulously ex- 
amining the plants of the Garden. He renewed his acquaint- 
ance with Lamarck, at whose request he wrote a few articles 
(under the letter P) for the “ Dictionaire Encyclopedique.” 
Lamarck himself by this time had quite abandoned botany. 
It was to Desfontaines that De Candolle was indebted for 
an immediate opportunity of beginning his botanical career. 
It came about thus: L’Heritier, who appears to have been 
wealthy, had engaged Redouté, the celebrated flower-painter, 
to prepare drawings of all the fleshy plants in cultivation, it 
being impossible to preserve them well in the herbarium. 
The artist undertaking to publish these drawings, applied to 
Desfontaines for a botanist to furnish the descriptive letter- 
press. The kind Desfontaines recommended De Candolle, 
and moreover offered to direct him in the work. He freely 
opened to the young botanist his herbarium and library, and 
allowed him to study by his side; indeed Desfontaines was 
his botanical master and fatherly friend. The botanical 
library of L’Heritier, then much the largest at Paris, was 
naturally at his service, until the death by assassination, soon 
afterwards, of its singular owner. De Candolle, thus connect- 
ing his name and studies with the work of the unrivaled 
flower-painter, acquired thereby, as he remarks, more reputa- 
tion than he deserved, and more instruction than he expected. 
In the course of this same summer, of 1798, an invitation 
