Charney already foresaw important discoveries to be deduced from the seed, which was swelling and ripening in the calyx. He promised himself the triumph of the _Dies Seminalis_, or Feast of the Sowers. For space was no longer wanting for his experiments: Picciola has more than enough room for her own expansion. She has every facility to become a mother, and shelter her uprising children under her branches. While waiting this important event, the Count becomes eager to ascertain the real name of the fair companion, to whom he is indebted for so many happy hours. “Shall I never be able,” thought Charney, “to bestow upon my foundling, my adopted child, the name she inherits from science, in common with her legitimate sisters of the plain or mountain?” And at the first visit paid by the commandant to his charge, the Count admitted his desire to procure an elementary botanical work. Morand, unwilling either to refuse or to take upon himself the vast responsibility of compliance, thought proper to signify the demand in punctilious form to the governor of Piedmont. But from General Menon, the _protégé_ of the Empress was now safe from a refusal; and a botanical dictionary soon arrived at the fortress, accompanied by all the folios treating of botany which could be obtained from the Royal Library of Turin. “I have the honour,” wrote General Menon, “to facilitate to the utmost the wishes of the Sieur Charney; for her Majesty the Empress-Queen, a proficient in botanical science (as in many others), will doubtless be glad to learn the name of a plant in whose welfare she has deigned to evince an interest.” When Ludovico made his appearance with the piles of books, under the enormous weight of which his back was breaking, Charney could not resist a smile. “How!” cried he, “all this heavy artillery, to compel a poor helpless flower to give up her name?” Nevertheless, it afforded him satisfaction to _look_ once more upon a book. In turning over the leaves, his heart thrilled with pleasure, as in former days, when the attainment of knowledge was his chief delight in life. What months had now elapsed since printed characters were before his eyes! Already a plan of sage and sober study was concocting in his excited mind. “If ever I am released from captivity,” thought he, “I will certainly become a botanist. Instead of scholastic and pedantic controversies, which serve only to bewilder the human intellect, I will devote myself to a science where nature, ever varying, yet still the same, dispenses immutable laws to her disciples.” The books forwarded for the use of the Count de Charney consisted of the _Species Plantarum_ of Linnæus; the _Institutiones rei Herbariæ_ of Tournefort; the _Theatrum Botanicum_ of Bauhin; and the _Phytographia_, _Dendrologia_, and _Agrostographia_ of Plukenet, Aldrovandus, and Scheuchzer; besides half a hundred works of minor classicality, in the French, English, and Italian languages. [Illustration]