p. 513.

CHAPTER XV.

MEMOIR OF LAMARCK.

I take the following memoir of Lamarck entirely from the biographical
sketch prefixed by M. Martins to his excellent edition of the
'Philosophie Zoologique.'[184] From this sketch I find that "Lamarck was
born August 1, 1744, at Barenton, in Picardy, being the eleventh child
of Pierre de Monet, squire of the place, a man of old family, but poor.
His father intended him for the Church, the ordinary resource of younger
sons at that time, and accordingly placed him under the care of the
Jesuits at Amiens. But this was not his vocation: the annals of his
family spoke all to him of military glory; his eldest brother had died
in the breaches at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom; two others were still
serving in the army, and France was exhausting her energies in an
unequal struggle. His father would not yield to his wishes, but on his
death, in 1760, Lamarck was left free to take his own line, and made his
way at once--upon a very bad horse--to the army of Germany, then
encamped at Lippstadt in Westphalia.

"He was the bearer of a letter written by Madame de Lameth, one of his
neighbours in the country, and recommending him to M. de Lastic, colonel
of the regiment of Beaujolais. This gentleman, on seeing before him a
lad of seventeen, whose somewhat stunted growth made him look still
younger than he really was, sent the youth immediately to his own
quarters. The next day a battle was immediately impending, and M. de
Lastic, on passing his regiment in review, saw his protege in the first
rank of a company of grenadiers. The French army was under the orders of
the Marshal de Broglie and of the Prince de Soubise; the allied troops
were commanded by Ferdinand of Brunswick. The two French generals were
beaten owing to their divided counsels, and Lamarck's company, almost
annihilated by the enemy's fire, was forgotten in the confusion of the
retreat. All the officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, were
killed, and only fourteen men out of the whole company remained alive:
the eldest proposed to retreat, but Lamarck, improvising himself as
commander, declared that they ought not to retire without orders.
Presently the colonel seeing that this company did not rally sent an
orderly officer who made his way up to it by protected paths. Next day
Lamarck was made an officer, and shortly afterwards lieutenant.

"Fortunately for science," continues M. Martins, "this brilliant _debut_
w