REORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM 25 



of botany ; an office for giving information, the dis- 

 tribution of seeds, etc. — all the resources already so 

 varied, as well as the facilities for work at the Jardin, 

 passed successively in review before the representa- 

 tives of the country, and the address ended in a 

 modest request to the Assembly that its author be 

 allowed a few days to offer some observations regard- 

 ing the future organization of this great institution. 



The Assembly, adopting the wise views announced 

 in the manifest which had been presented by the offi- 

 cers of the Jardin and Cabinet, sent the address to 

 the Committee, and gave a month's time to the 

 petitioners to prepare and present a plan and regula- 

 tions which should establish the organization of their 

 establishment.* 



It was in 1790 that the decisive step was taken by 

 the officers of the Royal Garden f and Cabinet of 



* Hamy, 1. c, p. 31 ; also Pihes Justificatives, Nos. il et 12, pp. 

 97-101. The Intendant of the Garden was completely ignored, and his 

 unpopularity and inefficiency led to his resignation. But meanwhile, 

 in his letter to Condorcet, the perpetual Secretary of the Institute of 

 France, remonstrating against the proposed suppression by the As- 

 sembly of the place of Intendant, he partially retracted his action 

 against Lamarck, saying that Lamarck's work, " pcitt Hre utile, mats 

 fi est pas absolutement nicessaire." The Intendant, as Hamy adds, 

 knew well the value of the services rendered by Lamarck at the Royal 

 Garden, and that, as a partial recompense, he had been appointed 

 botanist to the museum. He also equally well knew that the author 

 of the Flore Franfaise was in a most precarious situation and sup- 

 ported on his paltry salary a family of seven persons, as he was al- 

 ready at this time married and had five children. " But his own 

 place was in peril, and he did not hesitate to sacrifice the poor savant 

 whom he had himself installed as keeper of the herbarium." (Hamy, 

 1. c, pp. 34, 35-) 



f The first idea of the foundation of the Jardin dates from 1626, 

 but the actual carrying out of the conception was in 1635. The first 

 act of installation took place in 1640. Gui de la Brosse, in order to 

 please his high protectors, the first physicians of the king, named his 

 establishment _/a?'a'!» des Plantes Medicinales. It was renovated by 

 Fagon, who was born in the Jardin, and whose mother was the niece 



