6 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 
born and lived through his infancy and early boy- 
hood.* 
If his parents did not possess an ample fortune, 
they were blessed with a numerous progeny, for La- 
marck was the eleventh and youngest child, and 
seems to have survived all the others. Biographers 
have differed as to the date of the birth of Lamarck.t 
Happily the exact date had been ascertained through 
the researches of M. Philippe Salmon; and M. Duval 
kindly showed us in the thin volume of records, with 
its tattered and torn leaves, the register of the Acte de 
Natssance, and made a copy of it, as follows: 
Extrait du Registre aux Actes de Baptéme de la Com- 
mune de Bazentin, pour l’ Année 1744. 
L’an mil sept cent quarante-quatre, le premier aott 
est né en légitime mariage et le lendemain a été 
baptisé par moy curé soussigné Jean Baptiste Pierre 
Antoine, fils de Messire Jacques Philippe de Monet, 
chevalier de Lamarck, seigneur des Bazentin grand 
et petit et de haute et puissante Dame Marie Fran- 
coise de Fontaine demeurant en leur chateau de Ba- 
zentin le petit, son parrain a été Messire Jean Bap- 
tiste de Fossé, prétre-chanoine de l’église collégiale 
de St. Farcy de Péronne, y demeurant, sa marraine 
Dame Antoinette Francoise de Bucy, niéce de Messire 
Louis Joseph Michelet, chevalier, ancien commissaire 
*Tn the little chapel next the church lies buried, we were told by 
M. Duval, a Protestant of the family of de Guillebon, the purchaser 
(acquéreur) of the chéteau, Whether the estate is now in the hands 
of his heirs we did not ascertain. 
+ As stated by G. de Mortillet, the date of his birth is variously 
given. Michaud’s Dictionnatre Biographique gives the date April 
I; other authors, April 11; others, the correct one, August I, 1744. 
(Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Trans formistes, ses Disciples. L’ Homme, 
iv. p. 289, 1887.) 
