132 Transactions of the Society. 



character, was designated by the Committee of National Defence, 

 sitting at Lyons, to organise the defence at various points of the 

 Saone-et-Loire. This mission was full of difficulties, in the midst 

 of the orders and counter-orders coming from every quarter, and 

 representing the unhappy disorder resulting from an improvised de- 

 fence. Though constantly called from one point to another, search- 

 ing for cartridges which were abundant just where they were not 

 wanted, he succeeded in giving satisfaction to administrators over- 

 whelmed by the critical position ; he received the greatest eulogies." 

 Though Eenault does not appear to have been exposed to the 

 dangers of actual war, he none the less had to suffer severely for 

 his country. On his way to Autun, then threatened by the 

 Prussians, he was seized with smallpox, so prevalent under the 

 evil conditions of war-time, and for some days was given up by the 

 doctors. His friend, M. Penjon, Professor of Philosophy at Lille, 

 came to his assistance during his illness ; Eenault did not forget 

 his timely aid, and commemorated him in the name of the now 

 famous fossil fructification, Cordaianthus Penjoni (Boche, 1905, 

 p. 7). During his convalescence, Eenault once more found recrea- 

 tion in collecting and preparing the fossil plants of his native 

 district. 



With the return of more peaceful times an important change 

 took place in Eenault's position. In 1872 he was summoned by 

 Brongniart to the Museum of Natural History at Paris — the field 

 of all his future labours. He co-operated with his great chief in 

 the classical work on silicified seeds, published posthumously under 

 Brongniart's name in 1881 (Brongniart, 1881). 



For the first four years Eenault had no other title than that of 

 " Preparateur," but in January 1876 he was officially nominated 

 "Assistant Naturalist at the Museum, attached to the Chair of 

 Botany, Organography, and Physiology." This modest post was 

 all he obtained to the day of his death. Few men so distinguished 

 have received such miserably inadequate recognition from their 

 official chiefs, an injustice which his learned countrymen cannot 

 speak of without indignation. 



Eenault had no laboratory at first ; after a time, however, he 

 induced the architect of the museum to put up for him, under the 

 head of " repairs," two little glazed wooden boxes, one on each 

 side of the portico of the botanical and geological department. 

 Chevreul, the venerable director of the museum, was indignant 

 when he first saw this inartistic excrescence on the architecture of 

 his building. The little boxes are shown in the accompanying 

 photograph, taken by my friend, Professor F. W. Oliver, last April. 

 The one to the left was the workshop where Eenault cut his fossil 

 sections, that to the right was the laboratory proper, where his 

 microscopic work went on, and where he received his scientific 

 visitors. " Eenault's cage," as the laboratory was jocosely called, 



