[16] De Mortillet (_Lamarck. Par un Groupe de Transformistes_, p. 11) states that Lamarck was elected to the Academy at the age of thirty; but as he was born in 1744, and the election took place in 1779, he must have been thirty-five years of age. [17] Cuvier's _Éloge_, p. viii.; also _Revue biographique de la Société Malacologique_, p. 67. [18] See letters to the Committee of Public Instruction. [19] Cuvier's _Éloge_, p. viii; also Bourguignat in _Revue biog. Soc. Malacologique_, p. 67. [20] He received no remuneration for this service. As was afterwards stated in the National Archives, _État des personnes attachées au Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle a l'époque du messidor an II de la République_, he "sent to this establishment seeds of rare plants, interesting minerals, and observations made during his travels in Holland, Germany, and in France. He did not receive any compensation for this service." [21] "The illustrious Intendant of the Royal Garden and Cabinet had concentrated in his hands the most varied and extensive powers. Not only did he hold, like his predecessors, the _personnel_ of the establishment entirely at his discretion, but he used the appropriations which were voted to him with a very great independence. Thanks to the universal renown which he had acquired both in science and in literature, Buffon maintained with the men who succeeded one another in office relations which enabled him to do almost anything he liked at the Royal Garden." His manner to public men, as Condorcet said, was conciliatory and tactful, and to his subordinates he was modest and unpretending. (Professor G. T. Hamy, _Les Derniers Jours du Jardin du Roi_, etc., p. 3.) Buffon, after nearly fifty years of service as Intendant, died April 16, 1788. CHAPTER III LAMARCK'S SHARE IN THE REORGANIZATION OF THE JARDIN DES PLANTES AND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY