32 HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM. 



ed a library of natural history and a conside- 

 rable herbarium, which were of eminent ser- 

 vice to his illustrious brother and nephew , and 

 which have been always as much at the disposal 

 of those who cultivate the science , as if they 

 belonged to the establishment; with this advan- 

 tage, that desired explanations are never with- 

 held by the courtesy of the possessors. 



The chair of botany , vacant by his death in 

 1758, was filled by Lemonnier, a member of the 

 academy of sciences, and physician in chief to 

 the army in Germany. 



Lemonnier, like his master Bernard de Jussieu, 

 was attached by inclination to the science. In 

 1770 , being appointed first physician to the king, 

 and consequently obliged to reside at Versailles, 

 he was replaced by the present professor , An- 

 tony-Laurence de Jussieu, the nephew of Ber- 

 nard; but he still continued to employ his lei- 

 sure in rearing and naturalising plants, and, 

 when stript of place and fortune in his old age , 

 by the revolution , found a source of consolation 

 and enjoyment in this favourite pursuit. 



Bernard de Jussieu had, at first, alone directed 

 the cultivation; but the number of plants which re- 

 quired peculiar care augmenting every day , he 

 instructed for that purpose a gardener named 

 Bertamboise : this individual dying in 1 745,Buffon 



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