«5 2 
HONOURS PAID TO THE 
many of the members were absent, yet the institution continued to sub- 
sist, and the number of its members increased every day. 
In the beginning of August 1 790, the motion of erefting a monument 
to Linn je us was again renewed; and as it was not convenient to be- 
stow any considerable expences upon it at first, a resolution was entered 
into of ere&ing a plain stone-monument in the wood of St. Ger- 
main, at the distance of a few leagues from Paris, with the words 
Charles Linne, engraved upon it. Most of the members, who were 
present at the meeting when this resolution was taken, went on a Sun- 
day to St. Germain. A short time before, some troubles had broken out 
there between the inhabitants and the national guards ; and whenever three 
or four individuals were seen together in any place, the people always 
thought that some plot was going forward. The members of the so- 
ciety, about forty in number, heedless of the troubles and ferment, fully 
experienced this disposition of the people on their arrival. The popu- 
lace manifested their suspicions at the meeting of so numerous a 
society by the bitterest inveftives, and declared the good and innocent 
Linn^ans to be a horde of aristocrats, meditating some dangerous 
plot. At this serious juncture the matter was on the point of being ter- 
minated by fighting and bloodshed, as some members, conscious of their 
innocence, and fired with their enthusiastic resolution of erefting the 
monument, attempted to aggravate the fury of the enraged multitude by 
warm and spirited remonstrances. 
What roused and fostered most the suspicions of the populace, were 
the tin-boxes which some of the members bore across their shoulder, fas- 
tened with a broad ribband. They had brought those cases to put in them 
such plants as they might colleft on their way. It fortunately, however, so 
happened, 
