IS 11.] Memoirs 
2?Is familiarity, his gracious manners, 
without being affected. 
His majesty had conferred on M. Du¬ 
bois the office of librarian, and also no¬ 
minated him a counsellor of his court. 
But, notwithstanding these advantages, 
the horrors resulting from civil broils, 
added to the rigours of the climate, obli¬ 
ged him to leave Poland. He carried 
along with him on this occasion, the most 
honorable tokens of affection and regret ; 
for Stanislaus presented him with his por¬ 
trait, and at the same time continued all 
his appointments. Nor did he easily 
forget him ; for upwards of ten years after 
his departure from Poland, the king re¬ 
plied to him in the following manner: 
“ You seem to ask pardon for having 
said * I love you;'* but it is my thanks, 
and not a pardon, which I am willing to 
grant in return.’^ On his way home to 
his native country, M. Dubois passed 
through Fotzdam. The great Frederic 
wished to see him, and even endeavoured 
to attach him to his service; for in the 
correspondence between that monarch 
and D’Alembert, we can find traces of 
the negociation which took place on this 
subject. His majesty himself wrote seve- 
j ral letters to him ; and these having been 
discovered among his papers during his 
imprisonment, amidst the revolutionary 
excesses, had nearly cost him his life, 
as a conspirator, keeping up a corre¬ 
spondence with kings!” 
On his return to France, tliat connexion 
commenced between him and M. de 
Malesherbes, which proved so service¬ 
able to both; and, ill a short time, this 
illustrious man afforded him an honour¬ 
able proof of his confidence, by entrusting 
him with the education of his grandson 
M. Lepelletier de Rosainbo, the dearest 
object of his affection, as well as the sole 
hope of his family. M. Dubois acquitted 
himself of this difficult commission to the 
entire satisfaction of his wortliy friend; 
and from that period there existed a strict 
wnion in friendship, as well as an entire 
reciprocity in point of sentiments and 
gratitude between them. All the world 
is acquainted with the application and 
success of the celebrated Malesherbes, 
in respect to those points in which the 
public prosperity and advantage of his 
native country were interested. Seeking 
for useful results, rather than for learned 
tjieories, or ingenious classification, he 
chiefly applied himself to what was prac¬ 
tical; and in this point of view the science 
qf botany, consider^^ in its ^onnsxion 
of Dubois, 137 
with agricu-lture, had become the peculiar 
object of his studies. His attempts to 
naturalise exotic vegetables, were followed 
by the most interesting consequencesj 
and he now associated M. Dubois with 
himself, in all his researches, particularly 
in the establishment of agricultural so¬ 
cieties. The latter, ou becoming a mem- 
berof thatof the Department of the Seine, 
addressed several memoirs to it, one of 
which had the cultivation of artificial 
meadows for its object, while another 
recommended the introduction of several 
agricultural instruments. Dubois, how¬ 
ever, thought with Fontenelle, that truth 
ought not to be shewn ail at once to man¬ 
kind, but be allowed to filter drop by 
drop; this was the reason tliat he did 
not then open his mind, and disclose 
his sentiipents in respect to greater 
object^o 
When the civil broils in France began 
to assume a terrifying aspect, when par¬ 
ties degenerated into factions, and the 
breath of the revolution became a for¬ 
midable tempest, the subject of this me¬ 
moir had an opportunity to evince his 
friendship for Malesherbes, who from an 
impulse of generosity had undertaken the 
defence of Louis XVI. No sooner had 
this singularly benevolent man, whom 
his courage, fortune, rank, and still more 
than these, his many virtues, had desig¬ 
nated for proscription, retired into the 
country, than Dubois immediately re¬ 
joined him. They there "resumed their 
former occupations, and endeavoured to 
console themselves for the horrible in¬ 
justice of man, by the innocent study of 
nature. Perhaps they wished to be for¬ 
gotten ! but in this they were terribly de¬ 
ceived; for Malesherbes, and liis whole 
family, were snatched from their retreat, 
in order to be conducted to the scaffold; 
while his coadjutor, who liad been in¬ 
cluded in the same order, was permitted 
to remain a few days longer in the castle, 
under the inspection of the constituted 
authorities. Meantime, his own friends, 
affrighted at the almost inevitable lot tfiat 
awaited him, endeavoured to save him, 
by alleging the immense advantage 
the Republic might derive from his 
knowledge in rural economy. He was 
accordingly nominated by the Committee 
of Public Safety, belonging to the tJon- 
vention, to be a commissioner of aw-ri- 
culture. It was thus, that by one of those 
fantastical events, so common at tRe pe¬ 
riod to which we now allude, the same 
government which had proscribed^ actu- 
