48 MEMOIR OF LATREILLE. 



would, I am certain, be more satisfying to his heart 

 than all those called forth by his genius or talent. 



" Deprived by the first of our revolutions of the 

 support of a noble and powerful family, whose pro- 

 tection he had acquired, and on which he had some 

 claims by birth, Latreille was thrown alone into the 

 world, in the midst of political tempests, without 

 property or means of any kind, with a well finished 

 education, an ardent passion for study, a quick and 

 sensitive heart, and a delicate frame of body. 



" Having escaped, the proscription (who is there 

 who has reached our times, after passing through 

 these dreadful periods, without escaping the pro- 

 scription oftener than once !) he was called, in a 

 more favourable era to the Museum of Natural His- 

 tory to arrange the insects contained in that institu- 

 tion. He there found the means of perfecting himself 

 in this branch of his studies, which he had always 

 preferred to every other. In a short time he be- 

 came in this department the competitor, then the 

 rival, and finally the superior (not unquestioned 

 although the fact was so undisputable) of those 

 whom he called his masters. 



" He must needs obtain books. Many had al- 

 ready been published in Germany on the science in 

 which he excelled : the library of the Museum, now 

 so rich, was then very poor, possessing very few on 

 insects, and no additional ones were purchased. 

 Latreille, whose slender appointments scarcely suf- 

 ficed for his most urgent wants, wrought for the 

 booksellers in order to procure for himself what was 



