362 BUFFON 



presented to the Academy of Sciences memoirs worthy 

 of publication in each of its six departments, was 

 appointed, and was busy with extensions and plans 

 when he was struck with mortal illness. Buffon aspired 

 to the post of Director, soon to be vacant. His qualifi- 

 cations were not exactly those which the Jardin du Eoi 

 might have seemed to require, for he was above all 

 things a mechanic and a mathematician. But he already 

 belonged to the Academic, having been received six 

 years before as a member of the class of Mechanics,^ and 

 Du Fay's appointment furnished a good precedent for 

 the selection of a man who was practised in experi- 

 mental science, without being a professed naturalist. 

 Buflfon was also known to possess some skill in garden- 

 ing, and he was ready to promise great things for the 

 future, not nearly so much, however, as he actually 

 performed. His friends used all their diligence on his 

 behalf, and the chemist Hellot even brought a warm 

 recommendation of Buffon to be signed by the dying 

 Du Fay. They carried their point, and on August 1st, 

 1739, Buffon was made intendant of the Jardin du 

 Eoi. " Que dites-vous de I'aventure de Buffon ? " wrote 

 President De Brosses to a friend. "Je ne sache pas 

 avoir eu de plus grande joie que celle que m'a causee sa 

 bonne fortune, quand je songe au plaisir que lui a fait 

 ce Jardin du Eoi. Combien nous en avons parl^ en- 

 semble ! Combien il I'a souhaitd ! Et combien il dtait 

 peu probable qu'il I'eut jamais, a I'^e qu'avait Du 

 Fay!" 



The Jardin du Eoi, when Buffon became intendant, 

 covered only a small part of the present Jardin des 

 Plantes. An old country-house lodged the herbarium, 

 the pharmacy, and the collections of E^aumur. Green- 



1 In 1739 he was exchanged into the class of Botany. 



