MEMOIR OF LAMARCK. 
19 
France was now occupied with the eventful struggle 
which commenced in 1756. His eldest brother 
had fallen in the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom ; others 
of them were still in the army ; and all his most 
cherished associations were connected with the pro- 
fession of arms. With so much to inspire an aver- 
sion to seclusion and comparative inactivity, nothing 
could have induced him to remain at college but the 
authority of his father, who still enforced compliance 
with his wishes. That salutary restraint, however, 
having been removed by death, in 1760, no time 
was lost by young Lamarck in following his own 
inclinations. With nothing hut a letter of recom- 
mendation from a lady residing in the neighbourhood 
of his father, addressed to the colonel of a French 
regiment, he set out for the army, which was then in 
Germany. Lamarck’s somewhat diminutive stature 
and boyish appearance, which made him lookyounger 
than he really was, were ill fitted to make amends 
for the want of influential patronage. His reception 
was by no means flattering, hut nothing could daunt 
the zeal of the young volunteer. Lie joined a com- 
pany of grenadiers, and determined to trust to fortune 
and his own exertions for obtaining that rank which 
individuals of his birth and education commonly 
acquire by other means. 
Zeal like this seldom fails sooner or later in 
attaining its object, and in the present instance it 
was speedily rewarded. Lamarck had joined the 
army on the day preceding the battle of Fis- 
singshausen, in which a vigorous but unsuccessful 
