And indeed, when we consider closely, with the author of the Souvenirs, all the prodigies of art, all the marks of ingenuity displayed by these sorry creatures, so inept in other respects, then, whatever hypothesis we may prefer as to the formation of species, whether with Fabre we believe them fixed and unchanging, or whether with Gaudry [9] we believe in their evolution, we cannot refrain from proclaiming the necessity of a sovereign Mind, the creator and instigator of order and harmony, and we are quite naturally led to repeat, to the glory of God the Creator, the beautiful saying of Saint Augustine: “Fecit in cœlis angelos et in terris vermiculos, nec major in illis nec minor in istis.” Now this venerable nonagenarian whom naturalists, poets, and philosophers are so justly about to honour in Sérignan, because his brow is radiant with the purest rays of science, poetry, and philosophy: this entomologist of real genius, he whom Edmond Perrier ranks among “the princes of natural history,” he whom Victor Hugo called “the insects’ Homer,” he whom Darwin proclaimed “an incomparable observer”: who is there in Aveyron, knowing that he was born beneath our skies and that he has dwelt upon our soil, but will rejoice to feel that he belongs to us by his birth and the whole of his youth? CHAPTER II THE URCHIN OF MALAVAL Jean-Henri Fabre was born at Saint-Léons, the market-town and administrative centre of the canton of Vezins. In witness of which behold this extract from the register of baptisms, a certified copy transcribed by the Abbé Lafon, curé of Saint-Léons: In the year 1823, on the 22nd September, was baptised Jean-Henri-Casimir Fabre, of the aforesaid Saint-Léons, the legitimate son of Antoine Fabre and Victoire Salgues, inhabitants of the same place:—His godfather was Pierre Ricard, primary schoolmaster. In proof of which—Fabre, vicar. [10] Jean-Henri Casimir’s mother, by birth Victoire Salgues, was the daughter of the bailiff of Saint-Léons. His father, Antoine Fabre, was born in a little mas in the parish of Lavaysse, Malaval, where his parents were still cultivating the old family property which since then has passed to the head of the Vaissière family. It was thus at Malaval that the future entomologist “passed his earliest childhood,” as he told me when writing to me ten years ago. [11] There was no wallowing in abundance at Saint-Léons. In order to relieve the poor household of one mouth, he was confided to the care of his grandmother and sent to Malaval. “There, in solitude, amid the geese, the calves, and the sheep, my mind first awoke to consciousness. What went before is for me shrouded in impenetrable darkness.”