The Chief Naturalist And Future Historian Of The Expedition, Francois
Peron, Was Twenty-Five Years Of Age When He Was Commissioned To Join Le
Geographe.
Born at Cerilly (Allier) in 1775, he was left fatherless at an
early age; but he was a bright, promising scholar, and the cure of his
native place took him into his house with the object of educating him for
the priesthood.
But "seduced by the principles of liberty which served as
pretext for the Revolution, inflamed by patriotism, his spirit exalted by
his reading of ancient history," as a biographer, Deleuze, wrote, he left
the peaceful home of the village priest, and shouldered a musket under
the tricolour. He fought in the army of the Rhine, and in an engagement
against the Prussians at Kaiserslautern, was wounded and taken prisoner.
Always a student, he spent the little money that he had on the purchase
of books, which he devoted all his time to reading. He was exchanged in
1794, and returned to France.
His short soldiering career had cost him his right eye; but this
deprivation really determined the vocation for which his genius
especially fitted him. The Minister of the Interior gave him admission to
the school of medicine at Paris, where, in addition to pursuing the
prescribed course, he applied himself with enthusiasm to the study of
biology* (* The word "biology" was not used till Lamarck employed it in
1801 to cover all the sciences concerned with living matter; but we are
so accustomed to it nowadays, that it is the most convenient word to use
to describe the group of studies to which Peron applied himself.) and
comparative anatomy at the Museum.
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