AUGUSTIN-PYRAMUS DE CANDOLLE. 117 
(let us hope without sufficient grounds) roundly charges lamentable 
weakness to Lamarck, and less creditable motives to Fourcroy and 
even to Jussieu, in respect to the nomination and canvass; while of 
the Abbé Haiiy, he relates, to his credit, that, upon being approached 
with the suggestion that his conscience should prevent his voting for 
a Protestant, he replied that he was very glad of an opportunity to 
show that he never mixed up religious opinions with scientific judg- 
ments. Palisot de Beauvois, the rival candidate, was elected, in spite 
of the hearty support De Candolle received from his comrades of the 
* Bulletin Philomathique,’ and his eminent associates of the Société 
d’Arcueil, Berthollet, Chaptal, La Place, Cuvier, etc.,—to say nothing 
of his scientific superiority over his rival, which De Candolle naturally 
regarded as very great. At that time, according to De Candolle, 
Beauvois had produced “ni la * Flore d’Oware,’ ne le * Prodrome de 
l'Ethéogamie,! ni en un mot aucun de ses ouvrages qui,” etc. But in 
this De Candolle's memory was perhaps at fault; for, while this elec- 
tion took place in the autumn of 1806, the latter of these works of 
Beauvois, according to Pritzel, was published in 1805, and the first 
volume of the former in 1804. 
Evidently the disappointment was keenly felt. Membership of the 
Institute secured not only an assured position, but also a comfortable 
little annuity. This, and the prospective needs of an increasing 
family, disposed De Candolle to look elsewhere, and to accept, after 
some hesitation, the botanical chair at the University of Montpellier, 
which in 1807 became vacant by the death of Broussonet. Hardly 
was he established there when the death of Ventenat, in the autumn of 
1808, made him again a candidate for a seat in the Institute : again 
an unsuccessful one, but now chiefly because a considerable number of 
his particular friends in the Institute required a promise that if chosen 
he would reside in Paris, which he could not with propriety give. 
So they voted for Mirbel; and De Candolle took root at Montpellier, 
where he flourished from 1808 to the year 1816. 
That De Candolle, full of ambition and with a good opinion of his 
abilities, should have disliked to give up Paris is natural; but he him- 
self afterwards records the opinion (which we share) that his removal 
from the metropolis was the best thing for him, as enabling him to ac- 
complish more for botany. And as to the honours of the Institute, his 
disappointments were more than made up to him in the sequel by his 
