MEMOIR OF LE VAILLANT. 21 



idea that with their assistance he might be able to 

 accomplish the bold enterprise which he had so long 

 meditated. But this illusion he soon found himself 

 obliged to renounce ; and after having prosecuted 

 his ornithological researches among them as far west 

 as the 14th degree, and north to the tropic of Can- 

 cer, he resumed his journey towards the Cape, 

 w r hich he reached, not without escaping innumerable 

 perils, within sixteen months after his departure. 



His health having suffered from fatigue and the 

 effects of the climate, he determined on returning to 

 Europe. Accordingly, on the 14th of July 1784, 

 he embarked for Holland, and in a few months 

 landed at Flushing. In January, the following 

 year, he repaired to Paris, where his time and 

 attention were entirely engrossed in arranging the 

 materials and ornithological observations he had 

 collected in his travels, and in preparing his jour- 

 nals for publication. 



At that unfortunate period the French capital 

 was the bloody scene of those revolutionary storms 

 which were then preparing to spread devastation 

 and ruin over the Continental kingdoms. Obscure 

 and peaceful as were the occupations of Mons. Le 

 Vaillant, he did not escape the calamities of that 

 terrible era. The jealous rivalry and hatred of con- 

 tending factions fixed upon him as an object of 

 suspicion. He was thrown into prison in the year 

 1793, and must inevitably have added another to 

 the thousand victims of the guillotine, had not the 

 overthrow of the notorious Robespierre paved the 



