Martins, on the Life and Labors of De Candolle. 225 



probably have completed, accustomed as he was to give to his 

 plans the fullest development, if the political catastrophe of 1814 

 had not directed his activity into new channels. Only a few 

 portions of that work were completed by him. One result of 

 these journeys was the very valuable supplement, in a botanical 

 point of view, to his Flore Frangaise. Meanwhile he had been 

 called, in the year 1807, to the professorship of the medical fac- 

 ulty at Montpelier. He repaired thither a few years later (1810) 

 to take possession of the professorship of botany in the philo- 

 sophical faculty, (faculte des sciences,) which was then cre- 

 ated. He received the direction of the botanical garden, the col- 

 lections of which he soon doubled. His active spirit animated 

 the scholars, who flocked thither in great numbers. Since Mag- 

 nol, the chair of botany at Montpelier had never exercised so 

 favorable an influence on the academic youth. The clearness, 

 fullness, and elegance of his style, the practical bearing which 

 he gave to his teachings, with the genial serenity and freshness of 

 his character, which united the glow of the Provencals with the 

 serious diligence of the Swiss, — who could withstand such qual- 

 ities ? His ready talent for extemporaneous discourse, and the 

 spirit and grace which he threw into his lectures, made his sci- 

 ence charming even to women. Even if what passes by the 

 name of botany among the fair sex in France and Switzerland 

 be not precisely his science, yet it may be deemed a proof of his 

 influence, that in those countries, a knowledge of plants is re- 

 garded as almost as essential an element in the education of wo- 

 men, as that of music with us sound-loving Germans. 



One result of his academical labors at Montpelier, of great in- 

 terest for the scientific public, was the publication of his Theorie 

 Elementaire de Botanique; the first edition of which appeared in 

 1813, the second in 1816. This book put into circulation a host 

 of new and sound ideas in vegetable morphology and physiology. 

 His talent for generalization is manifest throughout this work, 

 often leading him, indeed, into bye-ways, which, however, like 

 every excursion of the true enquirer, tend to bring him ultimate- 

 ly to a higher point of view. Two doctrines, here for the first 

 time propounded in a scientific connection, that of the confluence 

 or union of organs {soudures), and that of their unequal develop- 

 ment or suppression (avortemens), have become, under certain 

 points of view, canons in observation. It may be said in gen- 



Vol. xliv, No. a.— Jan.-March, 1843. 29 



