62 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 
two professorships thus formed were given to Latreille 
and De Blainville. 
At the session of the Assembly of Professors held 
December 8, 1829, Geoffroy St. Hilaire sent in a 
letter to the Assembly urging that the department of 
invertebrate animals be divided into two, and referred 
to the bad state of preservation of the insects, the 
force of assistants to care for these being insufficient. 
He also, in his usual tactful way, referred to the 
“complaisance extrime de la parte de M. De La- 
marck””’ in 1793, in assenting to the reunion in a 
single professorship of the mass of animals then 
called “ znusectes et vermes.” 
The two successors of the chair held by Lamarck 
were certainly not dilatory in asking for appoint- 
ments. At asession of the Professors held December 
22, 1820, the first meeting after his death, we find the 
following entry: “M. Latreille écrit pour exprimer 
son desir d’étre présenté comme candidat a la chaire 
vacante par le décés de M. Lamarck et pour rappeler 
Sesititnes a-cetterplace: | 
M. de Blainville also wrote in the same manner: 
“Dans le cas que la chaire serait divisée, il demande 
la place de Professeur de lhistoire des animaux inar- 
ticulés. Dans le cas contraire il se présente égale- 
ment comme candidat, voulant, tout en respectant 
les droits acquis, ne pas laisser dans l’oubli ceux qui 
lui appartiennent.” 
January 12, 1830, Latreille* was unanimously elected 
* Latreille was born at Brives, November 29, 1762, and died Feb- 
ruary 6, 1833. He was the leading entomologist of his time, and to 
him Cuvier was indebted for the arrangement of the insects in the 
