Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution | Page 5

Louis Joseph Michelet, chevalier, ancien commissaire de l'artillerie de France demeurante au chateau de Guillemont, qui ont sign�� avec mon dit sieur de Bazentin et nous.
Ont sign��: De Foss��, De Bucy Michelet, Bazentin. Cozette, cur��.
[Illustration: ACT OF BIRTH]
Of Lamarck's parentage and ancestry there are fortunately some traces. In the Registre aux Actes de Bapt��me pour l'Ann��e 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 cur�� 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 B��arn, 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 chateau de Dinan, pensionnaire de sa majest��."
The descendants of Philippe de?Lamarck were, adds de?Cauna, thus thrown into two branches, or at least two offshoots or stems (brisures), near P��ronne. 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.
Another authority, the Abb�� J. Dulac, has thrown additional light on the genealogy of the de?Lamarck family, which, it may be seen, was for at least three centuries a military one.[6] The family of Monet, Seigneur de Saint-Martin et de Sombran, was maintained as a noble one by order of the Royal Council of State of June?20, 1678. He descended (I) from Bernard de?Monet, esquire, captain of the chateau of Lourdes, who had as a son (II) ��tienne de?Monet, esquire, who, by contract dated August?15, 1543, married Marguerite de?Sacaze. He was the father of (III) Pierre de?Monet, esquire, "Seigneur d'Ast, en B��arn, guidon des gendarmes de la compagnie du roi de Navarre." From him descended (IV) ��tienne de?Monet, esquire, second of the name, "Seigneur d'Ast et Lamarque, de Julos." He was a captain by rank, and bought the estate of Saint-Martin in 1592. He married, in 1612, Jeanne de?Lamarque, daughter of William de?Lamarck, "Seigneur de?Lamarque et de Bretaigne." They had three children, the third of whom was Philippe, "chevalier de Saint-Louis, commandant du chateau de Dinan, Seigneur de?Bazentin, en Picardy," who, as we have already seen, was the father of the naturalist Lamarck, who lived from 1744 to 1829. The abb�� relates that Philippe, the father of the naturalist, was born at Saint-Martin, in the midst of Bigorre, "in pleine Bigorre," and he very neatly adds that "the Bigorrais have the right to claim for their land of flowers one of the glories of botany."[7]
The name was at first variously spelled de?Lamarque, de?la?Marck, or de?Lamarck. He himself signed his name, when acting as secretary of the Assembly of Professors-administrative of the Museum of Natural History during the years of the First Republic, as plain Lamarck.
The inquiry arises how, being the eleventh child, he acquired the title of chevalier, which would naturally have become extinct with the death of the oldest son. The Abb�� Dulac suggests that the ten older of the children had died, or that by some family arrangement he was allowed to add the domanial name to the patronymic one. Certainly he never tarnished the family name, which, had it not been for him, would have remained in obscurity.
As to his father's tastes and disposition, what influence his mother had in shaping his character, his home environment, as the youngest of eleven children, the nature of his education in infancy and boyhood, there are no sources of information. But several of his brothers entered the army, and the domestic atmosphere was apparently a military one.
Philippe de?Lamarck, with his large family, had endowed his first-born son so that he could maintain the family name and title, and had found situations for several of the others in the