BIRTH, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER g 



esquire, who, by contract dated August 15, 1543, 

 married Marguerite de Sacaze. He was the father of 

 (ill) Pierre de Monet, esquire, " Seigneur d'Ast, en 

 B6arn, guidon des gendarmes de la compagnie du roi 

 de Navarre." From him descended (iv) Etienne de 

 Monet, esquire, second of the name, " Seigneur d'Ast 

 et Lamarque, de Julos." He was a captain by rank, 

 and bought the estate of Saint-Martin in 1592. He 

 married, in 1612, Jeanne de Lamarque, daughter of 

 WiUiam de Lamarck, " Seigneur de Lamarque et de 

 Bretaigne." They had three children, the third of 

 whom was Philippe, " chevalier de Saint-Louis, com- 

 mandant du chS.teau de Dinan, Seigneur de Bazen- 

 tin, en Picardy," who, as we have already seen, was 

 the father of the naturalist Lamarck, who lived from 

 1744 to 1829. The abb6 relates that Philippe, the 

 father of the naturalist, was born at Saint-Martin, in 

 the midst of Bigorre, " in pleine Bigorre" and he 

 very neatly adds that " the Bigorrais have the right 

 to claim for their land of flowers one of the glories 

 of botany."* 



* The abbe attempts to answer the question as to what place gave 

 origin to the name of Lamarck, and says : 



" The author of the history of Beam considered the cradle of the 

 race to have been the freehold of Marca, parish of Gou (Basses- 

 Pyrenees). A branch of the family established in le Magnoac changed 

 its name of Marca to that of La Marque." It was M. d'Ossat who 

 gave rise to this change by addressing his letters to M. de Marca (at 

 the time when he was preceptor of his nephew), sometimes under the 

 name of M. Marca, sometimes M. la Marqua, or of M. de la Marca, 

 but more often still under that of M. de la Marque, "with the object, 

 no doubt, of making him a Frenchman " (" dans la vue sans doute de 

 le franciser"). (Vie du Cardinal d' Ossat, tome i., p. 319.) 



" To recall their origin, the branch of Magnoac to-day write their 

 name Marque-Marca. If the Marca of the historian belongs to 

 Eearn, the Lamarque of the naturalist, an orthographic name in prin- 

 ciple, proceeds from Bigorre, actually chosen {ddsignie) by Lamarcq^, 



