The Funds Were Not Withdrawn; The Expedition Was Not Adjourned.

But Humboldt was a German, and the Institute very naturally desired that French savants should do the work which was to be sustained by French funds.

There would probably be the less inclination to employ Humboldt, as he reserved to himself "the liberty of leaving Captain Baudin whenever I thought proper." He believed himself to be "cruelly deceived in my hopes, seeing the plans which I had been forming during many years of my life overthrown in a single day." But in view of his confessed dislike of the commander, it does not seem that, on this ground alone, it would have been good policy to enrol him as a member of the staff, when there were French men of science eager for appointment.

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. He was industrious, keen, methodical, and, above all, possessed of that valuable quality of imagination which, discreetly harnessed to the use of the scientific intellect, enables a student to see through his facts, and to read their vital meaning. The expedition to the South Seas had already been fitted out, and Baudin's ships were lying at Havre awaiting sailing orders from the Minister of Marine, when Peron sought employment as an additional biologist. The staff was by that time complete; but Peron addressed himself to Jussieu, pressing his request with such ardour, and explaining his well-considered plans with such clearness, that the eminent botanist was unable to listen to him "sans etonnement et sans emotion."

Peron was very anxious to travel, not only for the sake of the scientific work which he might do, but also to find relief for his feelings, depressed by the disappointment of a love affair.

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