children I might not have killed?” He became a friend of the Delessert family, and met at their house all those rising naturalists who were forming the great French school, and this society was of great importance to him. Botanical excursions to Fontainebleau were made by him, with Brongniart, Cuvier, and Dumeril, all great men in their day, and then he went botanizing into Normandy, and nearly got drowned collecting seaweeds. Returning to Paris, he was fortunate enough to be again kindly looked after by some good families, and he became attached to Mdlle. Fanny Torras, one of a bright circle of ladies who liked the brilliant conversation and good manners of the rising young man. Going to Holland for a trip, De Candolle was struck with the curious vegetation of the hills or dunes of sand near the coast, and this appears to have attracted his attention to the geographical distribution of plants. Nevertheless, and in spite of all those attractions, he studied human anatomy and zoology. In course of time he went home to Champagne, and his future marriage was agreed upon. On his return to Paris, he was received as the future husband of Mdlle. Torras. He studied the “sleep of plants,” the classification of the Vetches, was presented at the Institute, and elected a member of the Société Philomathique, where he met and became the associate of his old botanical companions at Fontainebleau. There is no doubt that a singular political position which was thrust upon this young man of twenty-two years of age, decided his future career, for it brought him under the eye of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of France. Geneva nominated him as a “notable” to whom the consul might apply for information about the requirements of the town. De Candolle wrote in his memoirs: “I was not much of a partisan. Born a republican, a friend of peace, I saw with anxiety Napoleon’s evident love of war and desire for monarchy, but I was obliged to look favourably on him, for he had destroyed anarchy, and possessed great abilities.” Napoleon and the young man had two interviews, one a peaceable one, which did good to the town of Geneva, and a second and stormy one, during which the simple student of the truth stood up, like a man, against the angry despot, and quailed not beneath that eye which most men feared. He was not forgotten, however, and after a while he was nominated on a commission to investigate the teaching given in the schools of Paris, under the charge of laymen. This commission was necessary, for the Roman Catholic authorities were anxious to put down lay teaching. De Candolle, a firm Protestant, took great care in making his report, and he decided that although there was much to be desired, still the lay schools were doing their duty.