REORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM 27 
Lamarck, though holding a place subordinate to 
the other officers, was present, as the records of the 
proceedings of the officers of the Jardin des Plantes at 
this meeting show. 
During the middle of 1791, the Intendant, La 
Billarderie, after “four years of incapacity,” placed 
his resignation in the hands of the king. The Min- 
ister of the Interior, instead of nominating Daubenton 
as Intendant, reserved the place for a protégé, and, 
julyet. 1701, sent. im the’ name of} Jacques-Henri 
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the distinguished author 
of Paul et Virginte and of Etudes sur la Nature. 
The new Intendant was literary in his tastes, fond of 
nature, but not a practical naturalist. M. Hamy 
wittily states that ‘Bernardin Saint-Pierre contem- 
plated and dreamed, and in his solitary meditations 
had imagined a system of the world which had 
nothing in common with that which was to be seen 
in the Faubourg Saint Victor, and one can readily 
imagine the welcome that the officers of the Jardin 
gave to the singular naturalist the Tuileries had sent 
them: 
Lamarck suffered an indignity from the _ inter- 
meddling of this second Intendant of the Jardin. 
In his budget of expensest sent to the Minister of 
* Hamy, |. c., p. 37. The Faubourg Saint Victor was a part of the 
Quartier Latin, and included the Jardin des Plantes. 
+ Devis de la Dépense du Jardin National des Plantes et du Cabinet 
@’ Histoire Naturelle pour 1 Année 1793, presented to the National Con- 
vention by Citoyen Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. In it appeared a note 
relative to Lamarck, which, after stating that, though full of zeal 
and of knowledge of botany, his time was not entirely occupied ; that 
for two months he had written him in regard to the duties of his posi- 
tion ; referred to the statements of two of his seniors, who repeated the 
old gossip as to the claim of La Billarderie that his place was useless, 
