18 10, ] 
from the United States to the emperor of 
Morocco. What severe reflections on 
human nature, and on the springs which 
actuate the machinery of nations, must 
have arisen in the mind of the man who 
thus found himself reduced to the neces- 
sity of seeking some degree of personal 
safety in Morocco, for the ,crime of 
having thought that one of the most 
refined communities in Europe was com- 
petent to bestow on itself a rational con- 
sutation! Yet it was here that he again 
found happiness, in finding repose, and 
resuming his original studies ;—and here 
he received intelligence. of the change 
that took place in the political sentiments 
of his couvcrymen, and of their-exertions 
to’ re-establish a regular system of 
government. i 
But the excesses which he had pérson- 
ally witnessed among them, had made 
too terrible an impression on his imagi- 
nation, to allow him to confide in these 
first appearances of tranquillity; and 
accordingly, after obtaining of the direc- 
tory the erasure of his name from the 
ist of emigrants, he employed all the 
influence of his friends to procure his 
return to Morocco in the character of 
consul. Being subsequently driven from 
this post by the plague, he was appointed 
consul at the Canary islands; and, as if 
he thought he could never be far enough 
from his country, he finally solicited the 
consulship at the Cape of Good Hope, 
A minister who was one of his relations, 
and who has always felt a tender interest 
in the concerns of the school in which 
they both were pupils, was obliged tause 
a sort of violence, for the purpose of 
determining him to accept a situation in 
that establishment, 
Tt must be acknowledged that botany, 
which had again become the favourite pur- 
suit of Broussonnet, had a considerable 
share in his motives for desiring to live 
abroad, During the whole period of his 
residence at Salee, Mogadore, Morocco, 
and Teneriff, he employed his leisure 
moments in studying the plants of those 
places ; and the interesting observations 
which he frequently sent home, were 
well adapted to atone for his absence. 
But whatever importance might charac- 
terize his researches, they were still of 
too particular a nature. The proper 
post for such a man as Broussonnet, was 
a professor’s chair; from which his genius 
and activity might extend the general 
domain of science, as much as his elo- 
quence would diffuse a taste for it; and 
Montury Mag, No. 198, 
_ Memoirs of M. Broussonnet. 349 
natural history itself; as well as merely 
the school of Montpellier, was indebted 
to the hand that brought him back wholly 
to their service. 
During the short period that he was 
professor at Montpellier, he succeeded, 
by the assistance of M. Chaptal’s pro- 
tection, in rendering the public garden 
of the school there an object of admira- 
tion to botanists, by the order which he 
introduced into it, and the number of 
plants that he collected. His lessons ate 
tracted a great concourse of students; 
he had resumed his original labours on 
the animal kingdom; and he hoped to 
retrieve the loss of those fifteen years 
which a single error in his conduct had 
nearly rendered useless to science and to 
his fame, when his career in both was 
cut short in the prime of life; ~ 
His last illness was one of those which 
always surprise us, however common 
they may be: it was perhaps brought on 
by grief for the loss of his wife, and.the 
sufferings of his daughter (whom he tene 
derly loved) in childbed ; and a tall which 
he had received in the Pyrénees, doubt- 
less contributed to its production, He 
one night sustained a slight stroke of 
apoplexy: but under the care of his bro» 
ther, and M. Dumas his colleague; he 
soon recovered the use of his limbs and 
his senses; and even his memory, which 
had formerly -been so prodigious. A 
single point of the latter failed him: he 
was never afterward able to pronounce 
or write correctly substantives and pro- 
per names, either in French or Latin; 
though he retained a perfect-command 
over the rest of both these languages, 
Epithets and adjectives presented them. 
selves to his mind in abundance; and he 
contrived to multiply them in his dis- 
course, in such a striking manner as to 
make himself understood. If, for ine 
stance, he wished to speak of any parti- 
cular person, he described his appear= 
ance, his qualities, and his occupation ; 
or if of a plant, he described its form and 
its colours. He recognised the name 
when pointed out to him in a book, but 
it never occurred to bim spontaneously. 
His case suggests a Curious question cone 
cerning the nature of memory: Whether 
this incomprehensible faculty is divided 
into different and independant depart. 
ments, in which ideas are distributed 
according to grammatical classes, instead 
of being connected by the sensations 
from which the ideas themselves flow? 
His healtd: continued to amend daily, 
seat 2X wll 
