6 Martins on the Life and Labours of DeCandolle. 



At this period he contracted a close friendship with the noble- 

 minded Benjamin De Lessert, a man always open to everything 

 great and useful. The two friends glowed with the pm-est en- 

 thusiasm for the benefit of their fellow-men. They founded the 

 Societe Philanthropique, whose first operation, during a time of 

 public necessity, was the distribution in Paris of the Rumford 

 soup. DeCandolle was during ten years the secretary and an ac- 

 tive member of that benevolent society. At this time he brought 

 to maturity another institution of a similar tendency, which is 

 still flourishing, Adz. the Societe d'Encouragement pom- I'lndus- 

 trie Nationale ; he di-ew up the statutes for this society, and as- 

 sisted until the year 1807 in preparing the bulletins issued by it. 

 His activity in this field of philanthropy was maintained and en- 

 larged by his intercourse with many distinguished men of similar 

 views, such as the geometrician Lacroix, Biot, Cuvier and the 

 elder Brongniart. About this time he received the \dsit of two of 

 the most distinguished citizens of the department of the Leman, 

 who requested him to join them, in order to represent the inter- 

 ests of the department in a union of his Notables, which the First 

 Consul had summoned. He accompanied them to the Tuilleries. 

 Bonaparte inquired for the representative from Geneva, and turn- 

 ing to DeCandolle endeavoured to obtain from him the declaration 

 that Geneva found herself happy in her union \nth the French 

 republic. But courtesy could not bring the son of the Genevan 

 magistrate, an upright friend to his countiy, to make an obse- 

 quious reply. 



In the year 1802 DeCandolle married Mademoiselle Torras, 

 the daughter of a Genevan then resident in Paris. This marriage, 

 founded on mutual affection, and made happy by love and har- 

 mony, gave him three chikben ; of whom only one son sur\dved 

 the father. In the same year he was called to be professor hono- 

 rarius in the Academy at Geneva, but did not yet engage in its 

 duties. He remained in Paris instead, and gave at the College 

 de France, in Cuvier^s place, his fii-st com'se on botany. 



Benjamin De Lessert had pvu'chased, in the year 1801, the rich 

 and very interesting herbarimn of the Burmann family. The du- 

 plicates he presented to his friend DeCandolle ; and the latter 

 afterwards acquired the equally rich collection of plants made by 

 L'Heritier, who had fallen a victim to assassination. These were 

 the foundation of the immense herbarium which DeCandolle in- 

 creased, during his active life, to the number of from seventy to 

 eighty thousand kinds, and which may be regarded not less for 

 its copiousness than on account of its exemplary order, and the 

 rich variety of original specimens communicated by all the di- 

 stinguished botanists of om* times, as one of the greatest treasures 

 in natural science of all Europe. 



