56 LAMARCK, HiS LIPE AND) WORK 
trast to the daughters of the blind Milton, whose 
domestic life was rendered unhappy by their unduti- 
fulness, as they were impatient of the restraint and 
labors his blindness had imposed upon them. 
Besides this, the seventh volume is a voluminous 
scientific work, filled with very dry special details, 
making the labor of writing out from dictation, of 
corrections and preparation for the press, most weari- 
some and exhausting, to say nothing of the correc- 
tions of the proof-sheets, a task which probably fell 
to her—work enough to break down the health of a 
strong man. 
It was a natural and becoming thing for the As- 
sembly of Professors of the Museum, in view of the 
“‘malheureuse position de la famille,”’ to vote to give 
her employment in the botanical laboratory in arrang- 
ing and pasting the dried plants, with a salary of 1,000 
francs. 
Of the last illness of Lamarck, and the nature of 
the sickness to which he finally succumbed, there is 
no account. It is probable that, enfeebled by the 
weakness of extreme old age, he gradually sank away 
without suffering from any acute disease. 
The exact date of his death has been ascertained 
by Dr. Mondiére,* with the aid of M. Saint-Joanny, 
archiviste du Départment de la Seine, who made 
special search fortherecord. The “acte ‘states that 
December 28, 1829, Lamarck, then a widower, died 
in the Jardin du Roi, at the age of eighty-five years. 
The obsequies, as stated in the Monzteur Universel 
* See, for the Acte de décées, L Homme, iv. p. 289, and Lamarck. 
Par un Groupe de Transformistes, etc., p. 24. 
