Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution | Page 5

us in the thin volume of records, with its
tattered and torn leaves, the register of the Acte de Naissance, and made
a copy of it, as follows:
Extrait du Registre aux Actes de Baptême de la Commune de Bazentin,
pour l'Année 1744.
L'an mil sept cent quarante-quatre, le premier août est né en légitime
mariage et le lendemain a été baptisé par moy curé soussigné Jean
Baptiste Pierre Antoine, fils de Messire Jacques Philippe de Monet,
chevalier de Lamarck, seigneur des Bazentin grand et petit et de haute
et puissante Dame Marie Françoise de Fontaine demeurant en leur
château de Bazentin le petit, son parrain a été Messire Jean Baptiste
de Fossé, prêtre-chanoine de l'église collégiale de St. Farcy de Péronne,

y demeurant, sa marraine Dame Antoinette Françoise de Bucy, nièce de
Messire Louis Joseph Michelet, chevalier, ancien commissaire de
l'artillerie de France demeurante au château de Guillemont, qui ont
signé avec mon dit sieur de Bazentin et nous.
Ont signé: De Fossé, De Bucy Michelet, Bazentin. Cozette, curé.
[Illustration: ACT OF BIRTH]
Of Lamarck's parentage and ancestry there are fortunately some traces.
In the Registre aux Actes de Baptême pour l'Année 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 curé 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 Béarn, 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 château de Dinan,
pensionnaire de sa majesté."
The descendants of Philippe de Lamarck were, adds de Cauna, thus
thrown into two branches, or at least two offshoots or stems (brisures),

near Péronne. 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 Abbé 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 château of Lourdes, who had
as a son (II) Étienne 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 Béarn, guidon des
gendarmes de la compagnie du roi de Navarre." From him descended
(IV) Étienne 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 château 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 abbé
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