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Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, was born
August 1, 1744, at Bazentin-le-Petit. This little village is situated in
Picardy, or what is now the Department of the Somme, in the
Arrondissement de Peronne, Canton d'Albert, a little more than four
miles from Albert, between this town and Bapaume, and near Longueval,
the nearest post-office to Bazentin. The village of Bazentin-le-Grand,
composed of a few more houses than its sister hamlet, is seen half a
mile to the southeast, shaded by the little forest such as borders
nearly every town and village in this region. The two hamlets are
pleasantly situated in a richly cultivated country, on the chalk uplands
or downs of Picardy, amid broad acres of wheat and barley variegated
with poppies and the purple cornflower, and with roadsides shaded by
tall poplars.

The peasants to the number of 251 compose the diminishing population.
There were 356 in 1880, or about that date. The silence of the single
little street, with its one-storied, thatched or tiled cottages, is at
infrequent intervals broken by an elderly dame in her _sabots_, or by a
creaking, rickety village cart driven by a farmer-boy in blouse and
hob-nailed shoes. The largest inhabited building is the _mairie_, a
modern structure, at one end of which is the village school, where
fifteen or twenty urchins enjoy the instructions of the worthy teacher.
A stone church, built in 1774, and somewhat larger than the needs of the
hamlet at present require, raises its tower over the quiet scene.

Our pilgrimage to Bazentin had for its object the discovery of the
birthplace of Lamarck, of which we could obtain no information in Paris.
Our guide from Albert took us to the _mairie_, and it was with no little
satisfaction that we learned from the excellent village teacher,
M. Duval, that the house in which the great naturalist was born was
still standing, and but a few steps away, in the rear of the church and
of the _mairie_. With much kindness he left his duties in the
schoolroom, and accompanied us to the ancient structure.

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK, FRONT VIEW]

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF LAMARCK]

The modest _chateau_ stands a few rods to the westward of the little
village, and was evidently the seat of the leading family of the place.
It faces east and is a two-storied house of the shape seen everywhere in
France, with its high, incurved roof; the wa