BIRTH, YOUTH, AND MILITARY CAREER n 



hood, there are no sources of information. But 

 several of his brothers entered the army, and the 

 domestic atmosphere was apparently a military 

 one. 



Philippe de Lamarck, with his large family, had 

 endowed his first-born son so that he could maintain 

 the family name and title, and had found situa- 

 tions for several of the others in the army. Jean 

 Lamarck did not manifest any taste for the cler- 

 ical profession. He lived in a martial atmosphere. 

 For centuries his ancestors had borne arms. His 

 eldest brother had been killed in the breach at the 

 siege of Berg-op-Zoom ; two others were still in the 

 service, and in the troublous times at the beginning 

 of the war in 1756, a young man of high spirit and 

 courage would naturally not like to relinquish the 

 prospect of renown and promotion. But, yielding 

 to the wishes of his father, he entered as a student at 

 the college of the Jesuits at Amiens.* 



His father dying in 1760, nothing could induce the 

 incipient abbd, then seventeen years of age, to longer 

 wear his bands. Immediately on returning home he 

 bought himself a wretched horse, for want of means 

 to buy a better one, and, accompanied by a poor lad 



* We have been unable to ascertain the date when young Lamarck 

 entered the seminary. On making inquiries in June, iSgg, at the 

 Jesuits' Seminary in Amiens, one of the faculty, after consultation 

 with the Father Superior, kindly gave us in writing the following in- 

 formation as to the exact date : " The registers of the great seminary 

 were carried away during the French Revolution, and we do not know 

 whither they have been transported, and whether they still exist to- 

 day. Besides, it is very doubtful whether Lamarck resided here, be- 

 cause only ecclesiastics preparing for receiving orders were received 

 in the seminary. Do you not confound the seminary with the ancient 

 college of Rue Poste de Paris, college now destroyed?" 



