THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANTS.
The life of De Candolle—The Natural System.
There is a name which is very familiar to young and old botanists
nowadays, and which is always mentioned with feelings of great respect.
It is that of M. de Candolle, one of the founders of the modern system of
the classification of plants which is used by everybody now in preference
to the celebrated artificial method taught by Linnæus.
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle was born at Geneva, in February, 1778,
and his father, M. Augustine de Candolle, was descended from one of
the oldest families of Provence. One of his ancestors, M. Pyramus de
Candolle, became a Protestant, and left France for the freer air of
Switzerland, and settled at Geneva in 1591. This gentleman became a
citizen of the town, a member of the legislature, and took up the
business of a printer. His presses gave forth translations of the works
of Tacitus and Xenophon.
They were stirring times, and this energetic man once, in travelling
through Grenoble into Switzerland, learned that the Duke of Savoy
intended to take Geneva by surprise, with his army. When the attempt
was made, Pyramus de Candolle fought as a citizen of his adopted town.
Subsequently he went to Yverdun and established manufactories, but the
jealousy of the Bernese ruined him, and he died broken-hearted. The
family returned to Geneva to live on small means, and the father of De
Candolle became a banker, and was much employed by the State during
troublous political times.
An industrious, simple, loving, clever man was the father, and he
married Mademoiselle Brière. De Candolle wrote of his mother: “She was
an educated woman, good, fond of fun, and clever; she was gifted with
all the graces and virtues of the mind, and she contributed by her
amiable conversations and teachings to give me a taste for science and
literature. She had only one fault, and it strangely enough influenced my
character. She was proud of her family, which she considered was superior
in station to that of my father, because her mother was a distant
relation of La Fort, the minister of Peter the Great of Russia. She took
every opportunity of making my father feel this pretended superiority, so
that when he became forty-eight years of age, he thought that he would
make himself known to his relatives and take up his nobility in Provence,
and show his wife that his descent was better than hers. But my father
took every opportunity of teaching me that ability alone was the real
distinction amongst men, and that nobility by itself was nothing, and was
a matter of accident. So that my mother’s exaggerated family notions,
and my father’s wise precepts, coming as they did to me, during times
of political change, developed in me a sincere love for freedom, and a
contempt for all success except that which was deserved.” De Candolle was
born when his father was in active office, and the earliest recollections
of the future naturalist were about his father’s military command, and
the endeavours of this good citizen to pacify the populace and the
ruling powers, who were always in opposition. The little fellow was
always ill, and lost much of the outdoor play of his companions; but
there was compensation, for he learned to read fairly soon, and at five
years of age he used to read and pretend to act plays; and his heart
was in his studies, for when M. de Florian, an author, came to see the
family, the child told him that he was going to write comedies, and had
acted them. At seven years of age he was far in advance, and then came
illness—scarlet fever, ear-ache, and threatening brain disease. He used
to say in after years that he well remembered seeing everything looking
double. His recovery was very slow, and he was taken to the country to a
brisk air, and then he began to be robust, and for fifty years after he
never spent a day in bed. But his father did not send him to the public
school; he employed a tutor, and the child learned nothing during three
years. Then came a little country life, and the friendship of a man, a
distinguished naturalist, Mr. Charles Bonnet. His first start in science
was homely enough. His mother used to collect the herbs and fruit out of
the garden, and the boy used to arrange what she gathered, keeping the
different kinds separate with an exactitude that made everybody amazed.
He said that he ought to arrange the fruit according to their natures.
When eleven years of age, De Candolle was sent to the college at Geneva,
and was placed in the fourth class, under a master of only moderate
powers of teaching. No great progress was made in study, and the boy was
rarely seen in the upper part of the class. One day his father came to
the college to inquire how the boy was getting on, and being a Government
official was, of course, well received. A little arrangement by the
master, which excited the contempt of the boy, placed him at the head
of the class, and so unfair did this seem that the little fellow told
his father that he had no right to be there. However, he was removed
to the third class, and fortunately came under a better master. Young
De Candolle played hard and got more healthy, and his studies were not
onerous. In fact, his mother did more for him than the school. She taught
him his native language, and gave him a love for poetry. But this was
almost crushed out by the foolish method of teaching in the school. If
a boy wanted a holiday he had to write to the rector of the college
for it in Latin verse, and of course children of twelve years of age
could not compose sufficiently well. So they copied, and the result
was that, year after year, the rector received a collection of Latin
letters which resembled those of the year before, and this had gone on
for several generations. However, the boy wrote to the rector in French
verse, and in original verse. This was considered something out of the
common, and the boy was praised, and his peculiar gift was fostered.
He became very intimate with a school-fellow named Gaudy, who had the
same tastes, and they used to spend much of their time in turning Latin
prose and poetry into very bad French verse. Soon after his old fondness
for acting returned, and he was successful in private theatricals. The
boy worked hard at this amusement, and learned many of the great French
tragedies and comedies, and although the time was apparently wasted, yet
De Candolle used to say that it did his memory good, gave him a good
style, and took away nervousness. Then his father gave him a good private
tutor, and the boy entered the first class. There he found a master who
insisted on regular and profitable study, besides Latin verse, and the
result was that De Candolle began to distinguish himself and took prizes.
One prize which he gained, made him think very deeply afterwards. It was
an essay relating to the existence of God. De Candolle wrote his essay in
four hours, and it consisted of from fifteen to twenty pages; it included
all he had learned of his catechism, what he remembered of many sermons,
and a host of quotations from the Bible. But although the youth got the
prize, and was much applauded, he felt that he was a complete stranger to
the spirit of the truths he had written, and that his heart had little to
do with the sentences which came from his pen. He learned religion just
as he learned Greek and Latin. In 1792 De Candolle left the college and
began to study literature, and, released from the troublesome discipline
of the class, worked as if he were a man. But things did not go on
smoothly, for the political troubles of that age soon affected Geneva.
A French army occupied Savoy and encamped near Geneva. The Government
prepared to defend the town, and the fathers of families began to send
their wives and children into the interior of Switzerland. De Candolle
was in despair when his father told him and his brother to accompany
their mother; he longed to fight for his country, but he had to leave,
and they went to Champagne, a small village near Grandison, where the
father, foreseeing the trouble, had bought an estate. There the summer
and autumn were passed peaceably, and in superintending the vines, the
gathering of the grapes, and managing the property with his mother.
Montesquieu, the French general, did not care about crushing the little
town of Geneva, and other matters called him away. So the immediate
danger passed and the family returned to Geneva.
The youth returned to his studies amidst popular discontent within
the town. A revolution occurred, and a provisional committee occupied
the position of the former Government. Strangely enough this occurred
whilst De Candolle’s father was chief magistrate, and the Government
fell whilst he was in office. Of course the man who had done so much for
the town was obliged to go into exile, and he left for his little estate
at Champagne, leaving his son behind to pursue his studies. The youth
was left under the charge of his tutor, a young married man, and much
good work was done, and in 1793 he rejoined his father. During the next
year M. Vaucher gave some lectures on botany in the very modest little
Botanical Garden of Geneva. He was a clergyman and Professor of Theology,
but his amusements led him to study plants, and especially those which
live in fresh water. His manner of teaching and the subject, attracted
De Candolle, and indeed so much so that he felt that botany would be his
special study through life. What he learned from M. Vaucher was about
the principal organs of plants, and he began to get books describing
plants and to endeavour to describe for himself. Singularly enough, the
methodical courses of study which De Candolle had undergone assisted him;
for although he obtained some botanical works of a very indifferent kind,
which would have satisfied most youths, he began to see their errors
of method. Knowing nothing of the labours of the great botanists, the
youth managed to see his way to the most reasonable plan of describing
plants, and he noticed the organs, one after the other, in the proper
manner. Teaching himself the rudiments of the study of plants, and giving
much time also to literature, young De Candolle remained much at home,
for Geneva was in a horrible state of political revolution. Robespierre
managed to send emissaries there, and most of the better class of
citizens were imprisoned. De Candolle’s father was sentenced to death,
but being away from the town the sentence had no effect. This state
of things lasted for some time, until the good sense of the majority
annulled the sentence and restored order. Many Genevese emigrated to
America, and when De Candolle returned to his studies he found the town
sad, and nearly all his old friends exiled or gone in disgust. He had no
amusements and therefore his studies were prosecuted with vigour, and he
began a course of natural philosophy. In 1796 he left his studies and
spent the summer with his father, reading good botanical works on the
natural philosophy of trees, the uses of leaves; and, what was of more
importance, he wandered far and wide over the Jura Mountains, collecting
plants to describe and study. He got Linnæus’s European Botany, and soon
began to learn many plants by their proper names. But he used Linnæus’s
book as a simple dictionary, for he saw that although the names of plants
could be easily found out by it, there were plants grouped together in
it that had no close resemblance in their most important parts. At this
time his interest in his study was intensified by a terrible instance
which he witnessed of the hidden powers of simple-looking plants. He saw
three little children die who had eaten belladonna berries.
When eighteen years of age, De Candolle went to Paris and lived in the
same house as Dolomieu, a very distinguished mineralogist, a wise and
moderate man whose simplicity charmed the young man. This wise friend did
not press his special study on De Candolle, but advised him to follow his
fondness for botany, giving him, however, some little insight into the
nature of crystals and their laws of form. De Candolle then learned that
there was a philosophy in stones, and he always stated in after life that
this instruction made him think about the philosophy which linked plants
together in the scheme of creation. He had an instructive conversation
with a well-known botanist, about the structure of the stems of palms and
grapes—which differ so much from those of the oak, plane, willow—and of
ordinary shrubs; and this distinction of two great groups of plants gave
him an insight into some of the grand distinctions between plants, and
which enabled hundreds of species or genera to be grouped and separated.
Unfortunately, at the time of his arrival at Paris, the botanical courses
at the college were not being given, so he began to attend the lectures
on chemistry, physics, and mineralogy. He often went to hear Cuvier, the
great comparative anatomist, whose great ability and dignity of manner
impressed everybody, and he made the acquaintance of the still greater
Lamarck in a very curious manner. De Candolle had seen M. de Lamarck at
the French Academy of Sciences, but he did not know anybody who could
introduce him to the great man. However, he found out that Lamarck
used to dine at the same little restaurant which he patronized. So a
little plan was adopted to draw the celebrated zoologist and botanist
into conversation. De Candolle asked his friend Pictet, who afterwards
became a professor at Geneva and a great man, to come by chance as it
were and sit beside him at the same table as Lamarck, and they began a
conversation about botany. De Candolle especially stated how useful he
had found a book called the “Description of the French Plants” in his
studies. This was overheard by Lamarck, who was the author of it, and he
joined in the conversation. Lamarck asked the young man to come and see
him, and a friendship commenced; and although they did not have at that
time much to say to one another about botany, still the distinguished
French naturalist gave good advice, and, when De Candolle left Paris,
presented him with a letter and a book to give to M. Sénebier, of Geneva,
whose friendship probably decided the future career of the rising young
botanist. Certainly the acquaintance of Lamarck stimulated De Candolle
to study the physiology of plants—how they grow, breathe, how the sap
circulates, how the colours are produced, and how the young seeds
are formed. The happy circumstances which surrounded the young man at
Paris enabled him to see the great comedies of the day and to admire
the splendid acting at the theatres. But he was a philosopher then, and
he could not but be struck with the furious gaiety of society and the
great frivolity of the day, and with that careless method of living
and thinking which followed as a kind of revulsion on the awful scenes
of the Revolution and the Reign of Terror. In the spring of 1797, De
Candolle returned to Geneva. There he studied the physiology of plants
with M. Sénebier, going to his father’s house in the holidays, which were
spent in botanical excursions. In one of these, on the Jura Mountains,
De Candolle discovered a new fungus of a beautiful red colour, and his
adventure in obtaining the specimen was very characteristic of the man.
On the sides of those hills are many very precipitous trough-like paths,
down which the wood-cutters pass the fir trees they cut high up on the
mountains, to the valleys. They are rugged at the sides, and have really
been worn out of the hills by running water and the rushing downwards of
the trees. Active people can slide down these “couloirs” by sitting on a
stick placed between one’s legs, and down went young De Candolle in that
fashion. As he rushed along, he saw a beautiful red plant on a branch of
a tree overhanging the couloir, and as he slid down he managed to cut the
branch and obtain his prize—his first new plant to describe. But it was
done at the expense of his clothes, which got torn off from him in many
parts, by the rocks, so that he had to slink home to avoid being seen.
Working hard at botany, the young enthusiast had very agreeable hours
of relaxation. He was in the midst of a charming homely society; and
there is no doubt that his purity of character and thorough honesty of
disposition were fostered and intensified, by his having the friendship
of several young married and single women of good education and position.
They made him a polished gentleman, and he used to say that that was the
happy time of his life; he had no cares or anxieties, everything smiled
on him, yet he was conscious that it must end, and that he must prepare
for work and the struggle of life.
Politics were always the trouble of the De Candolle family, and they
settled the future career of the young botanist. Geneva was about to
become a portion of the French Republic, the father of De Candolle lost
one-half of his fortune, and the young man went to Paris to learn how
to earn his bread after preliminary study. He had a sad parting from
the father who had been so good to him, and who loved him so well, and
arrived at Paris, being received by an uncle, in March, 1798. After a
few days of quietude, which he spent in calling on his former friends,
he determined to go into lodgings near the Jardin des Plantes, and to
work, leaving pleasure behind him, and to be sought for when he could
afford it. He began to study medicine, and led the odd life of a
medical student, attended to by old crones in their second childhood,
and witnessing all the sad sights of the hospitals. Whenever he could,
he made his way to the Botanical Garden, and yet he did not attend the
lectures on botany. He found them not consistent with what he knew. But
he was ever studying, describing, and observing plants, and, knowing
nobody at the gardens, sought out Lamarck, who offered him some articles
in his Encyclopædia to write. The articles were written, and mistakes
were naturally made, and in after years they were readily acknowledged
and set right. But the work did not advance the young botanist in his
studies, although it confirmed him in the necessity of examining all the
parts of a plant in classifying it, and in paying especial attention to
those organs which are the most important to the life and reproduction
of the kind. Leaving his lodgings to board with a friend, De Candolle
was robbed, as was usual in those days, by his housekeepers; but he got
into a worse scrape by being inveigled into a gambling-house, where he
lost nearly all the money he had earned. It cured him of that folly. At
work he began to make experiments on the action of different gases on the
roots of plants, and obtained some curious results; and M. Desfontaines,
the Professor of Botany, gave him hints about the correct method of
describing plants, so as to enable him to write the letterpress to the
plates of a work on those succulent plants called Crassulaceæ, of
which the houseleek and stonecrops are familiar examples. Medicine was
quite given up; and, in fact, it was hateful to De Candolle, who used
to say, “If I make a mistake in naming a plant, I can set it right, but
if I had made mistakes as a medical man, who knows how many dear little
children I might not have killed?” He became a friend of the Delessert
family, and met at their house all those rising naturalists who were
forming the great French school, and this society was of great importance
to him. Botanical excursions to Fontainebleau were made by him, with
Brongniart, Cuvier, and Dumeril, all great men in their day, and then
he went botanizing into Normandy, and nearly got drowned collecting
seaweeds. Returning to Paris, he was fortunate enough to be again kindly
looked after by some good families, and he became attached to Mdlle.
Fanny Torras, one of a bright circle of ladies who liked the brilliant
conversation and good manners of the rising young man. Going to Holland
for a trip, De Candolle was struck with the curious vegetation of the
hills or dunes of sand near the coast, and this appears to have attracted
his attention to the geographical distribution of plants. Nevertheless,
and in spite of all those attractions, he studied human anatomy and
zoology. In course of time he went home to Champagne, and his future
marriage was agreed upon. On his return to Paris, he was received as the
future husband of Mdlle. Torras.
He studied the “sleep of plants,” the classification of the Vetches,
was presented at the Institute, and elected a member of the Société
Philomathique, where he met and became the associate of his old botanical
companions at Fontainebleau.
There is no doubt that a singular political position which was thrust
upon this young man of twenty-two years of age, decided his future
career, for it brought him under the eye of Napoleon Bonaparte, the
First Consul of France. Geneva nominated him as a “notable” to whom the
consul might apply for information about the requirements of the town.
De Candolle wrote in his memoirs: “I was not much of a partisan. Born
a republican, a friend of peace, I saw with anxiety Napoleon’s evident
love of war and desire for monarchy, but I was obliged to look favourably
on him, for he had destroyed anarchy, and possessed great abilities.”
Napoleon and the young man had two interviews, one a peaceable one, which
did good to the town of Geneva, and a second and stormy one, during
which the simple student of the truth stood up, like a man, against the
angry despot, and quailed not beneath that eye which most men feared.
He was not forgotten, however, and after a while he was nominated on a
commission to investigate the teaching given in the schools of Paris,
under the charge of laymen. This commission was necessary, for the Roman
Catholic authorities were anxious to put down lay teaching. De Candolle,
a firm Protestant, took great care in making his report, and he decided
that although there was much to be desired, still the lay schools were
doing their duty.
Pursuing his studies, De Candolle began to form an herbarium, and his
time was divided between science and philanthropy—for he was a visitor
at the hospitals and prisons of Paris—and his Fanny, whom he married in
1802. Immediately afterwards he began to write his description of the
plants of France, and Cuvier asked him to lecture for him during a term.
The subject chosen was the physiology of plants; it was well managed, and
it tempted De Candolle to head his new book with some chapters on it.
Grief came in due time; De Candolle and his wife lost their firstborn,
a pretty little girl, and a long absence from Paris was necessary. On
their return, De Candolle recommenced his work on his book, and after its
completion he began a series of excursions in different parts of France,
studying the botany and geology. After a while a son was born, and De
Candolle was offered the professorship of Botany at Montpellier.
He visited the city to see how he liked it, and he took this opportunity,
also, to go to the Pyrenees for a botanical trip, collecting at the time
many interesting plants. A difficulty existed about the acceptance of
the position, for there was much teaching required, and there would not
be much time for these excursions about France, which were absolutely
necessary for the knowledge of the different local assemblages of plants
or floras. De Candolle had a salary of about £160 a year, which enabled
him to start from Paris and to botanize. If he went to Montpellier, all
his original work might cease, and he could not earn this money and teach
at the same time. So, loving real work, he determined not to accept the
position. A great endeavour was being made, however, to restore the
teaching of natural history at Montpellier, and the friends of the young
man called on the then Minister of the Interior, M. Cretet, and urged
him to see the rising botanist. At the interview Mr. Cretet, who had no
botanical tastes, was wonderfully amused at a man’s giving up a good
place for the sake of running about France picking up plants, and said,
in a good-humoured manner, “Now, young man, if you don’t take both the
situations you shan’t have either.” The professorship at Montpellier
was accepted, and the necessary journeys were to be allowed. This M.
Cretet seems to have been a man of great sense, and quite upset M. de
Laplace, the great mathematician, about De Candolle. Laplace wanted to
pay a compliment to the minister, and also to bring the young botanist
before his notice, so he said, “Sir, you have done us a doubtful service
in sending M. de Candolle to Montpellier, for we expected soon to have
him as a member of the Institute.” M. Cretet turned on him with an angry
air and said, “Your institute! Do you know what I should like to do with
your institute?” “What?” said Laplace, rather astonished at the tone of
voice. “I should like to fire a cannon well into the middle of it.” M.
de Laplace seemed as if he would sink. “Yes,” continued the minister, “I
would fire a cannon at you all, and disperse you all over France. It is
frightful to concentrate all the lights of the age in Paris, and to leave
the departments in ignorance and idleness! I have sent M. de Candolle
to Montpellier to stimulate others to activity.” Considering that the
members of the Institute of France have always considered themselves the
very cream of the cream of science, this was very shocking.
The new professor started with his wife, little boy, his library and
herbarium, and with many a regret at leaving such friends as those who
enlightened Paris as anatomists and botanists. It was a great position
for a man of thirty years of age, however, and it gave him sufficient to
live upon; and this was welcome, for hitherto he had been poor.
When he was settled in his new establishment his father, then seventy-two
years of age, came to see him, and, after a short sojourn, took his
leave, accompanied by his daughter-in-law and grandson. Whilst they all
went to Geneva, De Candolle prepared for and went on an excursion into
Italy. During the visit to Italy, in 1808, politics came in the way of
botany, and nothing was heard of De Candolle for a month, his letters
having gone astray; but he turned up at Geneva, well, and in good
spirits, for he heard that he had a chance of being made a member of the
Institute. But he found that even great scientific men have their little
foibles and favourites, and he did not get elected. In fact, he never
was elected a member, although he was the most distinguished botanist
of the age. Years afterwards, when he was in Geneva, he was made one of
the eight foreign members, and that has always been considered a great
honour. Nevertheless, politics, social position, and agreement with the
authorities of the day, on all subjects, are of very considerable moment
in these elections.
The return to Montpellier was sad, but the fine sunshine of the south,
and cheerful society, soon made De Candolle forget his disappointment.
After a botanical trip in Savoy, De Candolle wrote an important volume on
geographical botany and agriculture. The first of these subjects infers a
thorough knowledge of the names and kinds of plants, and it is of great
importance in associating certain plants with soils, rocks, and climates.
By November, 1811, De Candolle had nearly completed his botanical
tours, and he then considered that he was settled at Montpellier for
a long time, and that his work would be more that of a teacher than
investigator. He found that travelling and collecting had enlarged his
mind, and he never regretted the six years of wandering about. About
this time the young professor commenced a great work on the statistics
of French vegetation. It did not deal with descriptions of species, or
of the special localities where they could be found; but, first, with
the general distribution of wild plants in France, and then with the
relation of the plants of France to the different wants of mankind.
This last part was eminently practical, and it dealt with food plants,
medicinal plants, dye plants, and those which are used for clothing.
It was a prodigious attempt, and it never came to a conclusion; only
fragments of it were in his possession fourteen years afterwards, and he
attributed much of the difficulty thrown in his way, to the alterations
which occurred in the boundaries of France after the fall of Napoleon.
Moreover, he had to complete his description of the plants of France, and
that was not done until 1815.
De Candolle was always fond of society, and, after his labours of the
day, was glad to go into or receive company. Being a Protestant, and
a man of mark in his native town, he was well received by most of the
families of Montpellier, and his wife also. Society consisted of good
Protestant families of old, so-called nobles, and some who thought
themselves nobles. It was split up like the society of most small towns,
into cliques, but De Candolle escaped, for a long time, any discomforts
or social antagonisms. They came at last, however.
De Candolle, like many active-minded men, was not popular with the
officials who had “places” in their gift. He was intrigued against,
and lost the rectorship of the University, but he had the pleasure of
exposing the intrigue in 1813.
Napoleon had fought his last fight, and had gone to Elba, and the
Bourbons had been restored. Disgusted with the military spirit of the
Empire, De Candolle rejoiced at the restoration of the Bourbons, and even
became a volunteer to keep the town in order. He began to change his mind
soon, however, for the Count d’Artois, one of the royal family, received
the professor with great haughtiness, and, by way of making amends, paid
particular attention to a rascal of the first water who had returned from
the galleys, where he had been sent for stealing, and not for devotion
to the Bourbons, as he told the duke. Going to Geneva on a visit, to
place his eldest son at school, De Candolle found the city just being
received into the Confederation of the Swiss Republic. He returned to
Montpellier, which was full of rejoicing at Napoleon’s exile, but shortly
afterwards all was disorder during the hundred days in which Napoleon
was, for the last time, ruler of France. Beyond the reach of direct
politics, the professors of Montpellier had their little evenings, and
even got up private theatricals. In the midst of a scene in one of these
came the news that Napoleon had landed at Cannes, and was on his way to
Paris. That was the last quiet hour that De Candolle had in the town.
An unfriendly man, who was a royalist, began to set people against the
professor, who resented their interference. He began to limit his circle
of friends, left literature alone more and more, and plunged more deeply
into science. He determined to leave Montpellier and its littlenesses.
His principal care was to enlarge and utilize the botanic garden of the
place, and then he devoted much time to teaching, and with great success.
Civil war was imminent, and the defeat at Waterloo produced outbreaks
at Montpellier. De Candolle had been elected Rector of the University
during the Hundred Days, and was ordered to give up the title. This he
did, and prepared to leave the place. He had sent his family to Geneva,
and in travelling himself to join them, by way of Nimes, he saw traces
of the horrible treatment the Protestants had received. Subsequently the
family went to Paris, passing through the towns occupied by the allied
troops. Having time, De Candolle visited England, and became the guest
of Dr. Marcet, and was introduced to the best of the scientific world.
He met and enjoyed the reticent Robert Brown, and went to a sitting of
the Royal Society, which he said was dull. He was introduced to Hooker
and Sir James Smith, the proprietor of the Herbarium of Linnæus, which
he very properly said was the basis of botanical nomenclature. In 1816
De Candolle found himself settling down in his native town of Geneva,
where he was well received, and became Professor of Natural History, and
taught students of both sexes, and began to establish a botanic garden of
some importance. There he was obliged to go into local politics, and for
years was a representative of the town, doing good work for the poor, for
liberty by receiving and protecting political fugitives and by insisting
on the freedom of the press, which was considerably hated in France under
the restored Bourbons. Nevertheless, year after year he taught well,
and most of the great botanists of later years were either his students
or his visitors and friends. As age crept on, De Candolle continued his
researches, and got through the description and classification of a
considerable number of known plants. These were published in a book which
will always be his masterpiece. Honours crowded on him, the gifts of
learned societies of all nations, and he visited most of the great cities
of the Continent. In 1832 he published the second part of his work. He
had great happiness with his wife, and his parents lived to great ages,
content with the prosperity of their son, who was ever good and loving
to them, and got his reward. He had a little estate, out of Geneva, at
Saint Seine, and enjoyed it much; but, as years rolled on, the death of
a son there, affected his tender heart, and he sold the place and bought
another, called La Barrière, near Geneva. His eldest son, Alphonse,
followed well in the father’s steps. Finally, when old age troubled De
Candolle, he gave up his professorship.
Ill health succeeded, but the man worked on at his great book, and even
entered the political arena once again at a time of emergency. The winter
of 1840-41 was one of illness, and he could no longer work. His friends
were dying off, month after month, and when death came to him, he was
content. He had been a good son, an excellent father, a loving friend,
a true patriot, deserving everything that elevated mankind; and it is
admitted by all botanists that he consolidated the science, and gave it
a definite natural classification.
De Candolle early in life grasped the truth that plants grow, reproduce,
and arrive at maturity, not by accident, but according to natural law,
and he soon saw that some parts of plants were of more importance to
their well-being and multiplication than others. He was thus a follower
of Ray, and he became impressed with the belief that in arranging plants,
the resemblances of the most important parts and organs, should be
considered before those of the less important. This manner of proceeding
he called the natural method. It was founded upon the knowledge of the
anatomy of the plants and upon their physiology, and the method required
care and research. The artificial method of Linnæus enabled botanists to
distinguish plants readily, by examining the most readily examined, and
often unimportant, parts of the plant’s flower. It was not a scientific
plan, but a ready method. It did not bring one plant into relation with
another, showing the common method of growth and reproduction, but simply
enabled one plant to be separated and distinguished from another, and
this is the least part of botany.
The works of Whewell on the inductive sciences, the article on botany in
the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” Pulteney’s “Life of Linnæus,” and that
written by Miss Brightwell, of Norwich, and De Candolle’s “Mémoires et
souvenirs écrits par lui même” have been freely and largely quoted in
these chapters.
[Illustration]