AUGUSTIN-PYRAMUS DE CANDOLLE. 305 



Ecole de Medicine. This grave assembly amused themselves in giv- 

 ing me the reception, in full dress, from the ' Malade imaginaire.' 

 It was a curious sight to see Cuvier, Lacroix, Biot, and other learned 

 Academicians rehearsing the scene from Moliere in the costumes of 

 the Comedie Francaise. They had smothered me in an immense 

 sugar-loaf paper cap ornamented all over with little lamps all alight. 

 In the motion of bowing I constantly expected to be set on lire. 

 But the acolyte who conducted me would then press a sponge well 

 filled with water borne on the top of the cap, and the water ran 

 down, not upon the lamps, but upon my head, — the audience 

 laughing uproariously at my surprise." 



Let us pass on to more serious matters, and rapidly sketch 

 the outlines of the scientific career now fairly and promisingly 

 opening. For the event which fixed De Candolle in his true 

 field of labor was his arrangement (in 1802) with Lamarck — 

 who had long since abandoned botany — to prepare a new 

 edition of the " Flore Francaise." The arrangement was a 

 favorable one to De Candolle, both financially and scientifi- 

 cally. The new edition was of course an entirely new work, 

 one particularly adapted to De Candolle's genius, and which 

 gave him at once a wide reputation. Indirectly this work 

 gave origin to the botanical explorations of the provinces of 

 France, under the auspices of the government, which engaged 

 much of De Candolle's attention from the summer of 1806 

 until he ceased to be a French subject. 



And now, the death of old Adanson left a vacancy in the 

 botanical section of the Institute, which De Candolle might 

 hope to fill. But parties and personal dislikes, as it appears, 

 were not unknown nor uninfluential in the Paris of half a 

 century ago. Indeed De Candolle (let us hope without suf- 

 ficient grounds) roundly charges lamentable weakness to La- 

 marck, and less creditable motives to Fourcrov and even to 

 Jussieu, in respect to the nomination and canvass ; while of 

 the Abbe Hauy he relates, to his credit, that, upon being ap- 

 proached with the suggestion that his conscience should pie- 

 vent his voting for a protestant, he replied that he was very 

 glad of an opportunity to show that he never mixed up relig- 

 ious opinions with scientific judgments. Palisot de Beauvois, 



