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was, at this period, no professor of zoology, or of mineralogy, the botanical garden was the only part of the establishment methodically distributed throughout. Yet, far from reproaching Buffon with not having effected what it was perhaps impossible at that time to perform, we should rather acknowledge our obligations to him for having assembled, not only the numerous collection of birds contained in his work, and that of fishes described by M. de Lacepede, but also a multitude of objects of all kinds, which have since been properly arranged, and have eminently contributed to the progress of natural history.

In 1784, Daubenton the younger being obliged by bad health to resign his place of keeper and demonstrator of the Cabinet, Buffon appointed, as his successor, M. de Lacepede, who was thus fixed in the pursuit of natural history, in which he has since made so eminent a figure, both as a professor and an author.

We have said that there was at this period chairs for botany, anatomy, and chemistry only; but as Daubenton and his assistant repaired daily to the Cabinet, naturalists were enabled to obtain explanations of the objects before them, and these private lessons were the more useful, as they were adapted to the capacity and knowledge of the hearers. Lemonier had been Professor of Botany since 1758, and Bernard de Jussieu demonstrator since 1722; but the former being obliged to reside at Versailles, and the latter finding himself weakened through age, M. de Jussieu, his nephew, was chosen to supply the place of both, and was thus charged with the lectures in the garden, and the botanical excursions in the country. During the last years of his life, Bernard de Jussieu intrusted the details of cultivation wholly to M. Andre Thouin, and it was a signal satisfaction to him to witness the replanting of the Botanic Garden. When he walked in the establishment, his former pupils crowded around him, listening to him with eagerness, and treasuring up with veneration his slightest words. Among his many services to the garden, must be reckoned the education of his nephew, who has made of botany a regular science, by developing and perfecting the natural method.

M. Desfontaines was appointed Professor of Botany about the year 1786, immediately after his return from Barbary with the plants of which he has since published the history. At the period of his appointment, the Botanic Garden was already very rich; and the instruction was no longer limited to the demonstration of medicinal plants; for the progress of the science since Tournefort, by the intermediate labours of Linnæus, Adanson, and de Jussieu, authorized and required a more philosophic plan. M. Desfontaines was the first to perceive the importance of a general knowledge of the nature of vegetables, the functions peculiar to each organ, and the phenomena of the different periods of their development, in order duly to understand their generic and specific characters; he therefore, divided his course into two parts; the MARCH, 1824.-263 26

first he devoted to the anatomy and phisiology of vegetables; the second to the classification and description of the genera and species. From that period, botanical instruction was no longer confined to the exterior forms of plants, but comprised their affinities, uses, and modifications. To the method of teaching adopted in the King's Garden since 1788, are to be ascribed those works which have made vegetable physiology the basis of botany, and led to the applications of this science in agriculture and the

arts.

Buffon died on the sixteenth of April, 1788, and his place of Chief Intendant of the King's Garden was given to the Marquis de la Billarderie. We come now to the third and last period of our history, that which extends from the death of Buffon down to the present time, including the epoch of the new organization, to which we have already occasionally alluded. On the 20th of August, 1790, M. Lebrun made a report, in the name of the committee of Finances of the Constituent Assembly, on the state of the King's Garden, in which its expenses were estimated at 92,222 francs; 12,777 being necessary for repairs. This report, which was the signal for a new organization, was followed by the draught of a decree proposing the reduction of the Intendant's salary from 12,000 to 8000 francs; the suppression of several places, particularly that of commandant of the police of the Garden; an increased stipend to some of the professors; the creation of a chair of natural history, &c. &c.

The disorders of the revolution beginning at this period, M. de la Billarderie withdrew from France, and his place of Intendant was filled by the appointment of M. de St. Pierre, in 1792. St. Pierre undertook the direction of the King's Garden at a difficult conjuncture. That distinguished writer was gifted with eminent talents as a painter of nature, and a master of the milder affections; he knew at once to awaken both the heart and the imagination; but he wanted exact notions in science, and his timid and melancholy character deprived him of that knowledge of the world, and that energy of purpose, which are alike requisite for the exertion of authority. Nevertheless, he was precisely the man for the crisis. His quiet and retired life shielded him from persecution, and his prudence was a safeguard to the establishment. He presented several memoirs to the ministry, containing some very sound regulations, conceived in a spirit of economy which cir cumstances rendered necessary. In these memoirs may always be noticed the following words,-" After consulting the elders," by which term he designated the persons who had been long attached to the establishment, though without an official share in its administration.

At a period so pregnant with disaster to the fortunes of the King, it may well be supposed that the King's wild beasts would not meet with a kinder treatment than the rest of the family. In

fact, the Menagerie at Versailles being abandoned, and the animals likely to perish of hunger, M. Couturier, intendant of the King's domains in that city, offered them, by order of the minister, to M. St. Pierre; but, as he had neither convenient places for their reception, nor means of providing for their subsistence, he prevailed on M. Couturier to keep them, and immediately addressed a memoir to the government on the importance of establishing a Menagerie in the garden. This address had the desired effect, and proper measures were ordered to be taken for the preservation of the animals, and their removal to the Museum; which, however, was deferred till eighteen months after.

A decree of the Legislative Assembly having about this time suppressed the universities, the faculties of medicine, &c., there was reason to fear that the King's Garden would have been involved in the same proscription; but, as the people were led to believe that it was destined for the culture of medicinal plants, and that the laboratory of chemistry was a manufacture of saltpetre, the establishment escaped destruction. At last, on the 10th of June, 1793, a decree for the organization was obtained, chiefly by the exertions of M. Lakanal, President of the Committee of Public Instruction. The following are some of the most essential articles:

"The establishment shall henceforth be called the Museum of Natural History.

"Its object shall be the teaching of Natural History in all its branches.

"Twelve courses of lectures shall be given in the Museum. 1. A course of Mineralogy. 2. A course of General Chemistry. 3. A course of Chemistry applied to the Arts. 4. A course of Botany. 5. A course of Rural Botany. 6. A course of Agriculture. 7 and 8. Two courses of Zoology. 9. A course of Human Anatomy. 10. A course of Comparative Anatomy. 11. A course of Geology. 12. A course of Iconography.

The third section provides for the formation of a library, where all the books on natural history in the public repositories, and the duplicates of those in the National Library, shall be assembled; and also the drawings of plants and animals taken from nature

in the Museum.

By the above decree, twelve chairs were established, without naming the professors; the distribution of their functions being left to the officers themselves. These were M. M. Daubenton, keeper of the Cabinet, and Professor of Mineralogy, in the College of France; Fourcroy, Professor of Chemistry; Brogniart, Demonstrator; Desfontaines, Professor of Botany; De Jussieu, Demonstrator; Portal, Professor of Anatomy; Bertrud, Demonstrator, Lamarck, Botanist of the Cabinet, and keeper of the Herbarium; Faujas St. Fond, Assistant keeper of the Cabinet, and Corres

ponding Secretary; Geoffrey, Sub-demonstrator of the Cabinet; Vanspaendonck, Painter; Thouin, First Gardener.

The general administration of the Cabinet belonged to the Assembly, and the care of the collections to the several Professors, the places of keeper and assistant keepers of the Cabinet were therefore suppressed. But, as it was necessary to have some person charged with the key of the galleries, the preservation of the objects, and the reception of visiters, these were devolved on M. Lucas, who had passed his life in the establishment, and enjoyed the confidence of M. Buffon. M. Andre Thouin, being made Professor of Agriculture, M. John Thouin was appointed First Gardener. Four places of Assistant Naturalist were created, for the arrangement and preparation of objects under the direction of the Professors; and these appointments were in favour of M M. Desmoulins, Dufresne, Valenciennes, and Deleuze,-the two first for Zoology, the others for Mineralogy and Botany; and three painters were attached to the establishment-M. Marechal, and the brothers, Henry and Joseph Redoute. At the same time the Library was disposed for the reception of the books and drawings; which last already filled sixty-four port-folios.

The animals were removed from the Menagerie at Versailles in 1794. The report of the Committee of Public Instruction approved the regulations of the Professors, and fixed the organization of the Museum in its present form, with the exception of slight modifications exacted by the change of circumstances. A law in conformity, of the 11th of December, 1797, created a third chair of Zoology, to which M. de Lacepede was appointed, gave the whole administration of the establishment to the Professors, increased their salary from 2800 to 5000 francs; fixed the expenses of the following year at 194,000 francs; and ordained the purchase of certain additional lands for the Garden.

Notwithstanding this apparent progress, however, the delightful region of which we are now sketching the history, began, in common with every other institution, to experience the effects of what the ingenious Professor Feldborg would have called, "the wretched state of the world at that juncture." The reduced state of the finances, the depreciation of the funds, the cessation of foreign commerce, and the employment of every species of revenue and industry for the prosecution of the war, "bella horrida bella," were serious hindrances to the project of improvement. Painful contrasts were visible in all directions. Houses and lands of great value were annexed to the Garden, and magnificent collections were acquired; yet funds were wanting to pay the workmen, and your common potato was cultivated in beds destined for the rarest and most beautiful of exotic flowers. Ere long, however, some of the official administrators of the Museum were called to situations in the government of the nation, and used their influence

in favour of their favourite haunts-" loving the spot which once they gloried in. "

At the end of the year 1794, the Amphitheatre of the Garden was finished in its present state, and in it was opened, on the 25th of January, 1795, the Normal School; an extraordinary institution, but founded on an unfeasible and visionary plan. It was fancied that men already ripe in years, by a few lectures from eminent masters, might be rendered capable of extending instruction, and diffusing through the provinces the elements of science, which very few of themselves had been prepared by previous education to understand. Every reasonable man felt the impossibility of realizing such a scheme, and the institution fell of itself soon after. It had the good effect, however, of exciting the public attention and fixing it upon an establishment, become, as it were, the type of all institutions that might be formed for the study of

nature.

The most important event connected with the history of the Garden which occurred about this period, was the voyage of Captain Baudin. In 1796, this gentleman informed the officers of the Museum, that, during a long residence in Trinidad, he had formed a rich collection of natural history, which he was unable to bring away, but which he would return in quest of if they would procure him a vessel. The proposition was acceded to by the government, with the injunction that Captain Baudin should take with him four naturalists. The persons appointed to accompany him were Mauge and Levillain, for zoology, Ledru, for botany; and Reidley, gardener of the Museum, a man of active and indefatigable zeal.

Captain Baudin weighed anchor from Havre on the 30th of September, 1796. He was wrecked off the Canary Isles, but was furnished with another vessel by the Spanish government, and shaped his course towards Trinidad. That island, however, had in the meantime fallen into the hands of the British. The party being thus unable to land, repaired first to St. Thomas, and then to Porto Rico, where they remained about a year, and then returned to Europe. They entered the port of Frecamp in June, 1798. The collections, forwarded by the Seine, arrived at the Museum, on the 12th of July following.

Never had so great a number of living plants, and especially of trees, from the West Indies been received at once; there were one hundred large tubs; several of which contained stocks from six to ten feet high. They had been so skilfully taken care of during the passage, that they arrived in full vegetation, and succeeded perfectly in the hot-houses. The two zoologists brought back a numerous collection of quadrupeds, birds, and insects. That of birds, made by Mauge, was particularly interesting, from their perfect preservatiou, and from the fact, that the greater part were new to the Museum.

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