[8] We have been unable to ascertain the date when young Lamarck entered the seminary. On making inquiries in June, 1899, at the Jesuits' Seminary in Amiens, one of the faculty, after consultation with the Father Superior, kindly gave us in writing the following information as to the exact date: "The registers of the great seminary were carried away during the French Revolution, and we do not know whither they have been transported, and whether they still exist to-day. Besides, it is very doubtful whether Lamarck resided here, because only ecclesiastics preparing for receiving orders were received in the seminary. Do you not confound the seminary with the ancient college of Rue Poste de Paris, college now destroyed?" [9] We are following the _Éloge_ of Cuvier almost verbatim, also reproduced in the biographical notice in the _Revue biographique de la Société Malacologique de France_, said to have been prepared by J. R. Bourguignat. CHAPTER II STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER The profession of arms had not led Lamarck to forget the principles of physical science which he had received at college. During his sojourn at Monaco the singular vegetation of that rocky country had attracted his attention, and Chomel's _Traité des Plantes usuelles_ accidentally falling into his hands had given him some smattering of botany. Lodged at Paris, as he has himself said, in a room much higher up than he could have wished, the clouds, almost the only objects to be seen from his windows, interested him by their ever-changing shapes, and inspired in him his first ideas of meteorology. There were not wanting other objects to excite interest in a mind which had always been remarkably active and original. He then realized, to quote from his biographer, Cuvier, what Voltaire said of Condorcet, that solid enduring discoveries can shed a lustre quite different from that of a commander of a company of infantry. He resolved to study some profession. This last resolution was but little less courageous than the first. Reduced to a pension (_pension alimentaire_) of only 400 francs a year, he attempted to study medicine, and while waiting until he had the time to give to the necessary studies, he worked in the dreary office of a bank.