BUFFON 363 



houses had just been erected, which Reaumur called 

 *' magnifiques." ^ 



BufFon was not long in turning out the physicians. 

 He extended the grounds by purchasing (with his own 

 money) the Clos Patouillet and the glebe of the Abbaye 

 de St. Victor. His 12,000 livres of annual pay were 

 swallowed up in the cost of the gardens, and at his 

 death the King owed him no less than 600,000 livres. 

 He kept up a correspondence with Frenchmen resident 

 in distant countries, who sent him cases of live plants, 

 rocks, and minerals. When he bought for the Cabinet 

 du Koi a collection which the King's treasury could not 

 afford to pay for, he only said : — '* Que voulez-vous ? Le 

 Jardin du Roi est mon fils ain^." He refused to make 

 a private collection, and the visitor to Montbard was 

 astonished to find no museum there. 



Buffon was always ready to spend his money, not only 

 on the Jardin, but on his workmen and all who needed 

 help. The iron gates and palisades of the Jardin were 

 supplied from his own forges at Buffon, near Montbard, 

 no doubt at his own expense ; they helped to keep his 

 people employed. At Montbard he laid out great sums 

 upon a terraced garden, though the soil was ungrateful. 

 It was useless to point out that the expenditure was 

 not likely to be remunerative ; the reply was : — ** Mes 

 jardins ne sont qu'un pr^texte pour faire Faum6ne." 



Buffon had meant that his son, " Buffonet," as he 

 called him, should become intendant at the Jardin ; with 

 this view he had sent him with Lamarck to visit the 

 chief botanical gardens of Europe. But Buffonet had 

 no great talent, and a more adroit man, the Comte de la 



* One of them is figured in a vignette prefixed to the fourth volume of hit 

 M6moire8 dtn Instctfu. They superseded older one* built by tho oelebratad 



phyHician and Ixjtani.st, Fagon. 



