CHAPTER IX 



THE PROFESSOR: AJACCIO 



T7IRGIL has truly said: 



. . . labor omnia vincit 

 Improbus. 



Persistent labour, in the service of a keen 

 intelligence, knows no insuperable obstacles : 

 it always achieves its ends. Success, accord- 

 ingly, could not fail to befall the intrepid vir- 

 tuosity of the youthful Carpentras school- 

 master. The degree of licentiate in the math- 

 ematical sciences was won, like the rest, at 

 the point of the sword, and the valiant cham- 

 pion of the cosine and the laboratory was 

 appointed Professor of Physics and Chemis- 

 try in the lycee of Ajaccio. 



Here, by a happy concatenation of circum- 

 stances, and under the inward impulsion of 

 the providential vocation, the destiny of the 

 famous entomologist was to be finally deter- 

 mined. 



In this novel environment, in " this para- 

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