ucy, niece de Messire Louis Joseph
Michelet, chevalier, ancien commissaire de l'artillerie de France
demeurante au chateau de Guillemont, qui ont signe avec mon dit
sieur de Bazentin et nous.

Ont signe: De Fosse, De Bucy Michelet, Bazentin. Cozette, cure.

[Illustration: ACT OF BIRTH]

Of Lamarck's parentage and ancestry there are fortunately some traces.
In the _Registre aux Actes de Bapteme pour l'Annee 1702_, still
preserved in the _mairie_ of Bazentin-le-Petit, the record shows that
his father was born in February, 1702, at Bazentin. The infant was
baptised February 16, 1702, the permission to the _cure_ by Henry,
Bishop of Amiens, having been signed February 3, 1702. Lamarck's
grandparents were, according to this certificate of baptism, Messire
Philippe de Monet de Lamarck, Ecuyer, Seigneur des Bazentin, and Dame
Magdeleine de Lyonne.

The family of Lamarck, as stated by H. Masson,[3] notwithstanding his
northern and almost Germanic name of Chevalier de Lamarck, originated in
the southwest of France. Though born at Bazentin, in old Picardy, it is
not less true that he descended on the paternal side from an ancient
house of Bearn, whose patrimony was very modest. This house was that of
Monet.

Another genealogist, Baron C. de Cauna,[4] tells us that there is no
doubt that the family of Monet in Bigorre[5] was divided. One of its
representatives formed a branch in Picardy in the reign of Louis XIV.
or later.

Lamarck's grandfather, Philippe de Monet, "seigneur de Bazentin et
autres lieux," was also "chevalier de l'ordre royal et militaire de
Saint-Louis, commandant pour le roi en la ville et chateau de Dinan,
pensionnaire de sa majeste."

The descendants of Philippe de Lamarck were, adds de Cauna, thus thrown
into two branches, or at least two offshoots or stems (_brisures_), near
Peronne. But the actual posterity of the Monet of Picardy was reduced to
a single family, claiming back, with good reason, to a southern origin.
One of its scions in the maternal line was a brilliant officer of the
military marine and also son-in-law of a very distinguished naval
officer.

The family of Monet was represented among the French nobility of 1789 by
Messires de Monet de Caixon and de Monet de Saint-Martin. By marriage
their grandson was connected with an honorable family of Montant, near
Saint-Sever-Cap.

Another authority, the Abbe J. Dulac, has thrown additional light on the
genealogy of the de Lamarck fa