^08 The Life and Writings of M. Desfontames. 



This loss having rendered all labor unavailing, with respect to a 

 digested history of his journey, Desfontaines determined to devote 

 himself entirely to botany. He revised w^ith scrupulous zeal the no- 

 menclature of the plants of the garden, and arranged the materials 

 of his botanical course. In following the path of his predecessors, 

 he improved it, especially in relation to the generalities of vegetable 

 physiology, in which he pursued the method of Duhamel. His man- 

 ner of lecturing was simple, clear, unostentatious, without efforts, 

 and was relished to the very last by the pupils, who pressed in crowds 

 to his room. Extracts from his course have been inserted in the 

 Decade Philosophique and republished in the Annales d'Usteri. 

 While they exhibit his views of the science, they testify to the clear- 

 ness and elegance of his style. 



It was at that epoch of his life when occupied with the plants of 

 Barbary, he presented to the Academy and published, either in its 

 memoirs, in the Journal of Fourcroy, or in the Acts of the Society 

 of Natural History, various descriptive memoirs. But the revolu- 

 tion had reached the sanguinary period of its history, and if, in cer- 

 tain respects, by disgusting men of science, it turned them more ear- 

 nestly to study, it deprived them also of the freedom of spirit, and 

 often of the means of publishing their labors. Desfontaines spent 

 this gloomy period within the recesses of the garden which he had 

 the charge of, and in writing u description of his African Herbarium. 

 A stranger to all party spirit, but alive to the feelings of friendship, and 

 to merit in misfortune, he left his retreat only when he could do 

 good. In a few instances, he displayed great courage and was suc- 

 cessful in rescuing L'Heritier from impending destruction. 



As soon as tranquility was restored and the Institute was again 

 opened, Desfontaines reappeared upon the scene with a work of high 

 order. His sojourn in Barbary, by affording an opportunity of see- 

 ing many date trees, had called his attention to the structure and 

 vegetation of the palms. He had written a few notes on this subject 

 to Danbenton, who made use of them in his memoir on the organi- 

 zation of wood, and presented in 1790, some ideas to the Academy 

 on that subject. Later reflexions, and the comparison of a great 

 many trunks of trees, extended his ideas, and showed him the inti- 

 mate connexion which subsists between the structure of stems and 

 that of the seminal organs, which had been exclusively made the ba- 

 sis of natural classification. He presented to the Institute in 1796, 

 a Memoir on the organization of the Monocotyledons, which was re- 



