The Professor: Avignon 



them. My memory recalls, all streaming with the 

 morning dew, those elegant tufts of Androsace vil- 

 losa, with its pink-centred white blooms; the Mont- 

 Cenis violet, spreading its great blue blossoms over 

 the chips of limestone ; the spikenard valerian, which 

 blends the sweet perfume of its flowers with the 

 offensive odour of its roots; the wedge-leaved globu- 

 laria, forming close carpets of bright green dotted 

 with blue capitula; the Alpine forget-me-not, whose 

 blue rivals that of the skies; the Candolla candy- 

 tuft, whose tiny stalk bears a dense head of little 

 white flowers and goes winding among the loose 

 stones. 1 



Our naturalist is evidently fascinated by 

 so many beauties, of such delicate quality. 

 Will he not be tempted to forsake his in- 

 sects for the flowers? Will not the botani- 

 cal wealth of the Ventoux make him forget 

 the entomological wonders of the " Sunken 

 Road"? No; he is saved from such an 

 error by God and the good genius that 

 watches over the destiny of him who is to 

 become the prince of entomologists. Even 

 in his lectures on botanical subjects the in- 

 sects are given their due; and now from time 

 to time they claim his attention and seduce 

 him from the spectacle of the vegetable curi- 

 osities which form the principal motive of 



1 Souvenirs, l., pp. 192-193. 



151 



