104 EARLY PATROXS. 



tiveness of his manners when a child obtained for 

 him the regard and good offices of some generous 

 citizens of his native place. M. Laroche, a skilful 

 medical practitioner, and his family, took an affec- 

 tionate care of the young orphan ; and after their 

 example, a merchant of Brives, named Malepeyre, 

 showed the warmest interest in him, lent him 

 books on natural history, and never ceased to 

 encourage and foster the rising taste which his 

 young friend already showed for the science he 

 was one day to illustrate. Perhaps, but for this 

 generous and Christian benevolence, France might 

 not have had the honour of possessing the first of 

 her entomologists. 



Another of his early patrons was the Baron 

 d'Espignac, governor at the Invalides, at whose 

 request Latreille went to Paris when he was about 

 sixteen years of age. Soon afterwards he had the 

 misfortune to lose this friend, who had shown a 

 fatherly affection for him, by death ; but the loss 

 was to some extent supplied by a sister of the 

 deceased, the Baroness de Puymarets, and by others 

 of the same family. Through their influence 

 Latreille was placed in the college of Cardinal Le- 

 inoine, where he continued for a considerable time 

 prosecuting various branches of education. While 

 here he had the happiness to acquire the friendship 

 of the celebrated mineralogist Haiiy. In his twenty- 



