Jean Baptiste Antoine de Monet, also called the Chevalier de Lamarck, was born at Bazantin, a village of Picardy, on April 1st, 1744. He was the eleventh child of Pierre de Monet, the principal person of the neighbourhood, whose small estate was disproportionate to his huge family. But the Church was a resource for such families, and occasionally its great prizes were taken by the younger members of noble houses. So M. de Monet determined to prepare his son, at an early age, for this hopeful future, and sent him to the Jesuit College at Amiens. However, the inclinations of the child were not those which made it probable that he would succeed in the direction which his father had chosen for him. Everything around the boy, at home, was quite opposed to a clerical career. For centuries his ancestors had carried arms, and his eldest brother was killed at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom. Two brothers were in the army, and at that time France was in dire trouble, and required every man who could fight, it was therefore not probable that young Lamarck would stay at home. Nevertheless, his father resisted his desire to enter the army, and the young man had to study year after year, until he was sixteen years of age. Then in 1760 the father died, and the youth was left to his own resources. He set forth for the army, mounted on a sorry horse, and accompanied by a poor boy out of the village, to journey across France into Germany to join the French army. He had a letter of introduction from one of his neighbours, Madame Lameth, to M. de Lartié, colonel of the regiment of Beaujolais, who did not receive him very gladly, for the wretchedness of the boy made him look more helpless than he really was. Nevertheless, he sent Lamarck to his barracks and had him to do duty. It was at a most critical moment that the brave, self-reliant boy joined the army. It was about July 14th, 1761, and M. de Broglie had just united his force with that of the Prince du Sorbise, preparatory to attacking, on the next day, the allied army, commanded by Frederick of Brunswick. At break of day M. de Lartié inspected his regiment, and the first person he saw was the newly-arrived volunteer, who, without orders, had placed himself in the first rank of the grenadier company. The battle, which was fought at Fissingshausen, between Ham and Leppstadt, was lost by the French, and during the fight, the company, in which was M. de Lamarck, was placed in a locality on which the whole of the allied artillery was concentrated, and it was forgotten to be moved during the confusion of the retreat. All the officers and sub-officers were killed, and only sixteen men remained, when the oldest grenadier, seeing that they were left behind by their army, proposed to the young volunteer that they should retreat. Lamarck said, “They have posted us here, and we ought not to move until we are relieved,” and insisted on remaining. By-and-by the colonel, missing the company, sent them an order to retreat