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.