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