the future placed;"
though in general the assembly only reported to the Minister matters
relating to the expenses, the first annual grant of the Museum being
100,000 livres.

Four days after, June 14th, the assembly met and adopted the name of the
establishment in the following terms: _Museum d'Histoire Naturelle
decrete par la Convention Nationale le 10 Juin, 1793_; and at a meeting
held on the 9th of July the assembly definitely organized the first
bureau, with Daubenton as director, Thouin treasurer, and Desfontaines
secretary. Lamarck, as the records show, was present at all these
meetings, and at the first one, June 14th, Lamarck and Fourcroy were
designated as commissioners for the formation of the Museum library.

All this was done without the aid or presence of Bernardin
de Saint-Pierre, the Intendant. The Minister of the Interior, meanwhile,
had communicated to him the decision of the National Convention, and
invited him to continue his duties up to the moment when the new
organization should be established. After remaining in his office until
July 9th, he retired from the Museum August 7th following, and finally
withdrew to the country at Essones.

The organization of the Museum is the same now as in 1793, having for
over a century been the chief biological centre of France, and with its
magnificent collections was never more useful in the advancement of
science than at this moment.

Let us now look at the composition of the assembly of professors, which
formed the Board of Administration of the Museum at the time of his
appointment.

The associates of Lamarck and Geoffroy St. Hilaire, who had already been
connected with the Royal Garden and Cabinet, were Daubenton, Thouin,
Desfontaines, Portal, and Mertrude. The Nestor of the faculty was
Daubenton, who was born in 1716. He was the collaborator of Buffon in
the first part of his _Histoire Naturelle_, and the author of treatises
on the mammals and of papers on the bats and other mammals, also on
reptiles, together with embryological and anatomical essays. Thouin, the
professor of horticulture, was the veteran gardener and architect of the
Jardin des Plantes, and withal a most useful man. He was affable,
modest, genial, greatly beloved by his students, a man of high
character, and possessing much executive ability. A street near the
Jardin was named after him. He was succeeded by Bosc. Desfontaines
had the chair of botany, but his attainments as a botanist