tany. Had death spared him longer, I should doubtless
have owed more to him, for his was a generous heart, ever open to the
troubles of novices.

In the following year, I met Moquin-Tandon, with whom, thanks
to Requien, I had already exchanged a few letters on botany. The
illustrious Toulouse professor came to study on the spot the flora which
he proposed to describe systematically. When he arrived, all the hotel
bedrooms were reserved for the members of the general council which had
been summoned; and I offered him board and lodging: a shakedown in a
room overlooking the sea; fare consisting of lampreys, turbot and sea
urchins: common enough dishes in that land of Cockayne, but possessing
no small attraction for the naturalist, because of their novelty. My
cordial proposal tempted him; he yielded to my blandishments; and there
we were for a fortnight chatting at table de omni re scibili after the
botanical excursion was over.

With Moquin-Tandon, new vistas opened before me. Here it was no longer
the case of a nomenclator with an infallible memory: he was a naturalist
with far-reaching ideas, a philosopher who soared above petty details to
comprehensive views of life, a writer, a poet who knew how to clothe the
naked truth in the magic mantle of the glowing word. Never again shall
I sit at an intellectual feast like that: 'Leave your mathematics,' he
said. 'No one will take the least interest in your formula. Get to the
beast, the plant; and, if, as I believe, the fever burns in your veins,
you will find men to listen to you.'

We made an expedition to the center of the island, to Monte Renoso,
with which I was already familiar. I made the scientist pick the hoary
everlasting (Helichrysum frigidum), which makes a wonderful patch of
silver; the many-headed thrift, or mouflon grass (Armeria multiceps),
which the Corsicans call erba muorone; the downy marguerite
(Leucanthemum tomosum), which, clad in wadding, shivers amid the
snows; and many other rarities dear to the botanist. Moquin-Tandon was
jubilant. I, on my side, was much more attracted and overcome by his
words and his enthusiasm than by the hoary everlasting. When we came
down from the cold mountaintop, my mind was made up: mathematics would
be abandoned.

On the day before his departure, he said to me: 'You interest yourself
in shells. That is something, but it is not enough. You must look into
the animal itself. I will show you how it's done.'

And, takin