14 Memoirs of DeCandolle. 
his credit, that, upon being approached with the suggestion that 
his conscience should prevent his voting for a Protestant, he 
replied that he was very glad of an opportunity to show that he 
never mixed up religious opinions with scientific judgments. 
Palisot de Beauvois, the rival candidate, was elected, in spite of 
the hearty support DeCandolle received from his comrades of the 
Bulletin Philomathique and his eminent associates of the Société 
d’ Arcueil, Berthollet, Chaptal, LaPlace, Cuvier, &c.,—to say noth- 
ing of his scientific superiority over his rival, which DeCandolle 
naturally regarded as very great. At that time, according to 
DeCandolle, Beauvois had produced, ‘ni la Flore d’ Oware, ni le 
Prodrome de ’Ethéogamie, ni en un mot aucun de ses ouvrages 
qui,” ete. But in this DeCandolle’s memory was perhaps at 
fault: for, while this election took place in the autumn of 1806, 
the latter of these works of Beauvois, according to Pritzel, was 
published in 1805, and the first volume of the former in 1804. 
Evidently the disappointment was keenly felt. Membership 
in the Institute secured not only an assured position but also a 
comfortable little annuity. This, and the prospective needs of 
an increasing family disposed DeCandolle to look elsewhere, and 
to accept, after some hesitation, the botanical chair at the Uni- — 
versity of Montpellier, which in 1807 became vacant by the 
death of Broussonet. Hardly was he established there when 
the death of Ventenat, in the autumn of 1808, made him again 
a candidate for a seat in the Institute;—again an unsuccessful 
one, but now chiefly because a considerable number of his par- 
ticular friends in the Institute required a promise that if chosen 
he would reside at Paris, which he could not with propriety give. 
So they voted for Mirbel;—and DeCandolle took root at Mont- 
pellier, where he flourished from 1808 to the year 1816. 
That DeCandolle, full of ambition and with a good opinion of 
his abilities, should have disliked to give up Paris is natural; but 
he himself afterwards records the opinion (which we share) that 
his removal from the metropolis was the best thing for him, as 
enabling him to accomplish more for botany. And as to the 
honors of the Institute, his disappointments were more than 
made up to him in the sequel by his election as one of the eight 
foreign associates of the Academy of Sciences. 
At Montpellier, DeCandolle was heartily welcomed by his col- 
leagues, by the official personages and by the protestant society 
of the city,—in those days there was little social intercourse be- 
tween catholics and protestants in the south of France,—and he 
gave himself with ardor and success to his new duties. He 
renovated the botanic garden,—the oldest in France, founded 
by Henry IV,—and secured additional funds for its my ime 
e built up the botanical school, and developed peculiar talents 
as an instructor,—with results perhaps up to the average as 
