Memoirs of DeCandolle. 5 
side; indeed Desfontaines was his botanical master and fatherly 
riend. The botanical library of L’Heritier, then much the largest 
at Paris, was.naturally at his service, until the death by assassina- 
tion, soon afterwards, of its singular owner. DeCandolle, thus 
connecting his name and studies with the work of the unrivalled 
flower-painter, acquired thereby, as he remarks, more reputation 
than he deserved, and more instruction than he ex 
nthe course of this same summer, of 1798, an invitation 
from Alexander Brongniart, the mineralogist, (whom DeCandolle 
had slightly known, through Dolomien, on his first visit to Paris,) 
connected him with a small party of naturalists who made an 
excursion to Fontainbleau. Besides Dejean, the entomologist, 
then very young, Cuvier and Dumeril were of the party. In 
the autumn of the same year he visited Normandy, with less 
celebrated companions, and formed his first acquaintance with 
marine vegetation. The next year he made a visit to Holland, 
to consult the gardens and conservatories of that country, the 
richest in the plantes grasses, which then occupied his attention. 
One result of this journey was that he induced his friend Benja- 
min Delessert to purchase Burmann’s herbarium, and thus to 
lay the foundation of the important collections and library at the 
otel Delessert which have been so useful to naturalists, and so 
liberally devoted to their service. During the winter of the fol- 
lowing year DeCandolle elaborated the Astragalogia, his first in- 
dependent work of any considerable consequence, and which 
was published two years later: in this he found opportunity to 
dedicate to his friend Delessert the Leguminous genus Lessertia. 
About this time, namely, at the beginning of the century, he 
beeame acquainted with Mirbel, who had come up to Paris from 
the south of France, where he had been a pupil of Ramond. 
Instead of translating DeCandolle’s remarks, we may as well 
give them in the original. 
“Il [Mirbel] savait alors peu de botanique, mais il annongait de les- 
idées, nouvelles pour lui, et dont quelques-tnes l’étaient pour le “eu 
, car en ne gra partie dans 
éléments de physiologie quwil publia peu d’années aprés; telles sont la 
distinction des fenilles séminales et primordiales, Pimportance de létude 
es nervures principales des feuilles, ete, Appelé a rendre un compt 
Succinct de cette ouvrage dans le Bulletin philomathique, je me divertis 
Ne citer que les idées que j'avais suggérées a auteur; je n’en revin- 
diquai ancune, et ne sais pas méme s'il s'est apercu de cette petite malice, 
¢ dois dire que je ne prétendis point, méme alors, que se fit un plagiat 
Volontaire, mais il arrive souvent dans les sciences qu’on s’appropie, sans 
sen douter, ce qu’on a entendu dire. : Juuusitecose 
“Cette circonstance éveilla ma propre attention sur la justice rigour- 
