fessor of zooelogy,
Lamarck was in his fiftieth year. He had married twice and was the
father of six children, and without fortune. He married for a third, and
afterwards for a fourth time, and in all, seven children were born to
him, as in the year (1794) the minute referring to his request for an
indemnity states: "Il est charge de sept enfans dont un est sur les
vaisseaux de la Republique." Another son was an artist, as shown by the
records of the Assembly of the Museum for September 23, 1814, when he
asked for a chamber in the lodgings of Thouin, for the use of his son,
"_peintre_."

Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in 1829, spoke of one of his sons, M. Auguste de
Lamarck, as a skilful and highly esteemed engineer of Ponts-et-Chaussees,
then advantageously situated.

But man cannot live by scientific researches and philosophic meditations
alone. The history of Lamarck's life is painful from beginning to end.
With his large family and slender salary he was never free from carking
cares and want. On the 30 fructidor, an II. of the Republic, the
National Convention voted the sum of 300,000 livres, with which an
indemnity was to be paid to citizens eminent in literature and art.
Lamarck had sacrificed much time and doubtless some money in the
preparation and publication of his works, and he felt that he had a just
claim to be placed on the list of those who had been useful to the
Republic, and at the same time could give proof of their good
citizenship, and of their right to receive such indemnity or
appropriation.

Accordingly, in 1795 he sent in a letter, which possesses much
autobiographical interest, to the Committee of Public Instruction, in
which he says:

"During the twenty-six years that he has lived in Paris the citizen
Lamarck has unceasingly devoted himself to the study of natural
history, and particularly botany. He has done it successfully, for
it is fifteen years since he published under the title of _Flore
Francaise_ the history and description of the plants of France, with
the mention of their properties and of their usefulness in the arts;
a work printed at the expense of the government, well received by
the public, and which now is much sought after and very rare." He
then describes his second great botanical undertaking, the
_Encyclopaedia and Illustration of Genera_, with nine hundred plates.
He states that for ten years past he has kept busy "a great number
of Parisian artists, th