20 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 



work at once placed young Lamarck in the front rank 

 of botanists, and now the first and greatest honor of 

 his life came to him. The young lieutenant, disap- 

 pointed in a military advancement, won his spurs in 

 the field of science. A place in botany had become 

 vacant at the Academy of Sciences, and M. de La- 

 marck having been presented in the second rank {en 

 seconde ligne), the ministry, a thing almost unex- 

 ampled, caused him to be given by the king, in 1779, 

 the preference over M. Descemet, whose name .was 

 presented before his, in the first rank, and who since 

 then, and during a long life, never could recover 

 the place which he unjustly lost.* " In a word, the 

 poor officer, so neglected since the peace, obtained 

 at one stroke the good fortune, always very rare, 

 and especially so at that time, of being both the 

 recipient of the . favor of the Court and of the 

 public."t 



The interest and affection felt for him by Buffon 

 were of advantage to him in another way. Desiring 

 to have his son, whom he had planned to be his suc- 

 cessor as Intendant of the Royal Garden, and who 

 had just finished his studies, enjoy the advantage of 

 travel in foreign lands, Buffon proposed to Lamarck to 

 go with him as a guide and friend ; and, not wishing 

 him to appear as a mere teacher, he procured for him, 

 in 1 78 1, a commission as Royal Botanist, charged 



* De Mortillet {Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Trans formistes, p. il) 

 states that Lamarck was elected to the Academy at the age of thirty; 

 but as he was born in 1744, and the election took place in 1779, he 

 must have been thirty-five years of age. 



f Cuvier's J&loge, p. viii. ; also Revue biographique de la Socidti 

 Malacologique, p. 67. 



