REORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM 37 



Lamarck, though holding a place subordinate to 

 the other officers, was present, as the records of the 

 proceedings of the officers of the Jardin des Plantes at 

 this meeting show. 



During the middle of 1791, the Intendant, La 

 Billarderie, after " four years of incapacity," placed 

 his resignation in the hands of the king. The Min- 

 ister of the Interior, instead of nominating Daubenton 

 as Intendant, reserved the place for a prot^g^, and, 

 July I, 1791, sent in the name of Jacques-Henri 

 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the distinguished author 

 of Paul et Virginie and of Etudes sur la Nature. 

 The new Intendant was literary in his tastes, fond of 

 nature, but not a practical naturalist. M. Hamy 

 wittily states that " Bernardin Saint-Pierre contem- 

 plated and dreamed, and in his solitary meditations 

 had imagined a system of the world which had 

 nothing in common with that which was to be seen 

 in the Faubourg Saint Victor, and one can readily 

 imagine the welcome that the officers of the Jardin 

 gave to the singular naturalist the Tuileries had sent 

 them."* 



Lamarck suffered an indignity from the inter- 

 meddling of this second Intendant of the Jardin. 

 In his budget of expenses f sent to the Minister of 



*Hamy, 1. c, p. 37. The Faubourg Saint Victor was a part of the 

 Quartier Latin, and included the Jardin des Plantes. 



f Devis de la De'pense du Jardin National des Plantes et du Cabinet 

 d'Histoire Natur die pour V Annie lygj, presented to the National Con- 

 vention by Citoyen Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. In it appeared a note 

 relative to Lamarck, which, after stating that, though full of zeal 

 and of knowledge of botany, his time was not entirely occupied j that 

 for two months he had written him in regard to the duties of his posi- 

 tion ; referred to the statements of two of his seniors, who repeated the 

 old gossip as to the claim of La Billarderie that his place was useless, 



