these meetings. From
1793 until 1818 he rarely, if ever, missed a meeting. We have only
observed in the records of this long period the absence of his name on
two or three occasions from the list of those present. During 1818 and
the following year it was his blindness which probably prevented his
regular attendance. July 15, 1818, he was present, and presented the
fifth volume of his _Animaux sans Vertebres_; and August 31, 1819, he
was present[44] and laid before the Assembly the sixth volume of the
same great work.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF LAMARCK, WHEN OLD AND BLIND, IN THE COSTUME
OF A MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, ENGRAVED IN 1824.]

From the observations of the records we infer that Lamarck never had
any long, lingering illness or suffered from overwork, though his life
had little sunshine or playtime in it. He must have had a strong
constitution, his only infirmity being the terrible one (especially to
an observer of nature) of total blindness.

Lamarck's greatest work in systematic zooelogy would never have been
completed had it not been for the self-sacrificing spirit and devotion
of his eldest daughter.

A part of the sixth and the whole of the last volume of the _Animaux
sans Vertebres_ were presented to the Assembly of Professors
September 10, 1822. This volume was dictated to and written out by one
of his daughters, Mlle. Cornelie De Lamarck. On her the aged savant
leaned during the last ten years of his life--those years of failing
strength and of blindness finally becoming total. The frail woman
accompanied him in his hours of exercise, and when he was confined to
his house she never left him. It is stated by Cuvier, in his eulogy,
that at her first walk out of doors after the end came she was nearly
overcome by the fresh air, to which she had become so unaccustomed. She,
indeed, practically sacrificed her life to her father. It is one of the
rarest and most striking instances of filial devotion known in the
annals of science or literature, and is a noticeable contrast to the
daughters of the blind Milton, whose domestic life was rendered unhappy
by their undutifulness, as they were impatient of the restraint and
labors his blindness had imposed upon them.

Besides this, the seventh volume is a voluminous scientific work, filled
with very dry special details, making the labor of writing out from
dictation, of corrections and preparation for the press, most wearisome
and exhausting, to say nothing of