[Illustration: ACT OF BIRTH] Of Lamarck's parentage and ancestry there are fortunately some traces. In the _Registre aux Actes de Baptême pour l'Année 1702_, still preserved in the _mairie_ of Bazentin-le-Petit, the record shows that his father was born in February, 1702, at Bazentin. The infant was baptised February 16, 1702, the permission to the _curé_ by Henry, Bishop of Amiens, having been signed February 3, 1702. Lamarck's grandparents were, according to this certificate of baptism, Messire Philippe de Monet de Lamarck, Ecuyer, Seigneur des Bazentin, and Dame Magdeleine de Lyonne. The family of Lamarck, as stated by H. Masson,[3] notwithstanding his northern and almost Germanic name of Chevalier de Lamarck, originated in the southwest of France. Though born at Bazentin, in old Picardy, it is not less true that he descended on the paternal side from an ancient house of Béarn, whose patrimony was very modest. This house was that of Monet. Another genealogist, Baron C. de Cauna,[4] tells us that there is no doubt that the family of Monet in Bigorre[5] was divided. One of its representatives formed a branch in Picardy in the reign of Louis XIV. or later. Lamarck's grandfather, Philippe de Monet, "seigneur de Bazentin et autres lieux," was also "chevalier de l'ordre royal et militaire de Saint-Louis, commandant pour le roi en la ville et château de Dinan, pensionnaire de sa majesté." The descendants of Philippe de Lamarck were, adds de Cauna, thus thrown into two branches, or at least two offshoots or stems (_brisures_), near Péronne. But the actual posterity of the Monet of Picardy was reduced to a single family, claiming back, with good reason, to a southern origin. One of its scions in the maternal line was a brilliant officer of the military marine and also son-in-law of a very distinguished naval officer. The family of Monet was represented among the French nobility of 1789 by Messires de Monet de Caixon and de Monet de Saint-Martin. By marriage their grandson was connected with an honorable family of Montant, near Saint-Sever-Cap.