296 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
canvass De Candolle called upon Adanson, then very aged, 
and in his dotage more eccentric than ever. 
If not chosen into the Institute, which indeed he could not 
pretend to expect, De Candolle was in that year made a mem- 
ber of that active association, — “la pépiniere de Academie 
des Sciences,” —the Société Philomathique, and was soon 
placed on the committee in charge of its Bulletin. This 
brought him into intimate connection with such colleagues 
as Brongniart (Alex.), Duméril, Cuvier, Biot, Lacroix, and 
Sylvestre. 
“ We met, at each other’s lodgings, on Saturday evenings, after the 
session of the society, to read and to discuss the morceaux intended 
for the Bulletin, and when our labor was finished we took tea to- 
gether and chatted familiarly. As one by one we exchanged the 
celibate for the married state, our wives were introduced ; — then 
we no longer read our extracts, and at length we gave over making 
the Bulletin, but we kept up our Saturday evening reunions. It was 
in consequence of this that Cuvier continued long afterwards his 
Saturday evening receptions; but I return to the year 1800.” 
By De Candolle’s account he was by about ten years the 
youngest member of this reunion. Yet he has the name of 
Biot and Duméril on his list, both of whom survived him for 
twenty years; and Biot was really not quite four years his 
senior, and Duméril only five. 
As amember of this select circle of intimate friends and 
zealous savans, all then pressing on to the very highest dis- 
tinction, we may well believe that the ambitious young bota- 
nist enjoyed, and improved to the full, such golden opportuni- 
ties, that he learned something of every branch of natural 
history, and also — what was no less useful at Paris— “a 
connaitre les hommes et les mobiles cachés de bien des 
choses.” 
De Candolle sketches the following portraits of three of his 
associates, Duméril, Cuvier, and Lacroix. And first of 
“The excellent Duméril. He was the ideal of the frank charac- 
ter which we attribute to the Picards. He was a sincere and devoted 
friend, always ready to second and render any service to me and 
