108 D'ISJOUVIL IN PRISON*. 



miraculous cause of my liberty and safety." La- 

 treille died on the 6th February 1832, and was 

 buried in Pere la Chaise, where a handsome monu- 

 ment is erected to his memory. It is in the form 

 of a truncated obelisk, surmounted by a bronze bust 

 of Latreille ; and on one side is engraved a highly 

 magnified figure of the Necrobia ruficollis. 



An escape scarcely less wonderful than that of 

 Latreille, and effected by similar means, is told of 

 M. Quatremer d'Isjouvil, a Frenchman by birth, 

 who was adjutant-general in Holland, and took an 

 active part on the side of the Dutch patriots when 

 they revolted against the Stadtholder. On the 

 arrival of the Prussian army under the Duke of 

 Brunswick, he was immediately taken, tried, and, 

 having been condemned to twenty-five years' im- 

 prisonment, was incarcerated in a dungeon at 

 Utrecht, where he remained eight years. 



Spiders, which are the constant, and frequently 

 the sole occupants of such places, were almost the 

 only living creatures which d'Isjouvil saw in his 

 prison. Partly to beguile the tedious monotony of 

 his life, and partly from a taste which he had im- 

 bibed for natural history, he began to seek employ- 

 ment, and eventually found amusement in watching 

 the habits and operations of his tiny fellow-prison- 

 ers. He soon remarked that certain actions of the 

 spiders were intimately connected with approaching 



