BURMA MOGI AAND  MIETTARY (CAREER Vy 
hood, there are no sources of information. But 
several of his brothers entered the army, and the 
domestic atmosphere was apparently a military 
one. 
Philippe de Lamarck, with his large family, had 
endowed his first-born son so that he could maintain 
the family name and title, and had found situa- 
tions for several of the others in the army. Jean 
Lamarck did not manifest any taste for the cler- 
ical profession. He lived in a martial atmosphere. 
For centuries his ancestors had borne arms. His 
eldest brother had been killed in the breach at the 
siege of Berg-op-Zoom; two others were still in the 
service, and in the troublous times at the beginning 
of the war in 1756, a young man of high spirit and 
courage would naturally not like to relinquish the 
prospect of renown and promotion. But, yielding 
to the wishes of his father, he entered as a student at 
the college of the Jesuits at Amiens.* 
His father dying in 1760, nothing could induce the 
incipient abbé, then seventeen years of age, to longer 
wear his bands. Immediately on returning home he 
bought himself a wretched horse, for want of means 
to buy a better one, and, accompanied by a poor lad 
* We have been unable to ascertain the date when young Lamarck 
entered the seminary. On making inquiries in June, 1899, at the 
Jesuits’ Seminary in Amiens, one of the faculty, after consultation 
with the Father Superior, kindly gave us in writing the following in- 
formation as to the exact date: ‘‘ The registers of the great seminary 
were carried away during the French Revolution, and we do not know 
whither they have been transported, and whether they still exist to- 
day. Besides, it is very doubtful whether Lamarck resided here, be- 
cause only ecclesiastics preparing for receiving orders were received 
in the seminary. Do you not confound the seminary with the ancient 
college of Rue Poste de Paris, college now destroyed ?” 
