prevailing systems, he considered himself fortunate in discovering accidentally among his father's books, the works of Descartes, which appeared to contain the philosophy which he sought. He was not, however, permitted to enjoy this gratification openly; but his ardour and enthusiasm were apparently exactly proportioned to the mystery by which it was attended.
Tournefort, being designed by his father for the church, of course included theology in his studies, and even went so far as to enter into a seminary. But his natural inclinations prevailed. The fathers and the doctors of the Sorbonne were less attractive than the plants of the field; and when he should have been engaged with
Councils, classics, fathers, wits,
he stole away to the garden of an apothecary of Aix, who delighted in the same studies, and there pursued in secret the course he had chosen for himself. But the treasures of the apothecary's garden were soon exhausted. It therefore soon became necessary to discover a wider field; and as botanists, like most other mortals, consider stolen joys the sweetest, he occasionally penetrated into forbidden grounds, and exposed himself to the suspicion of having less exalted views than those by which he was really actuated. In fact, being one day discovered in a garden by some peasants, he was taken for a robber, and narrowly escaped the fate of St. Stephen.
There is something in the circumstances under which the science of botany is studied, which has a tendency to confer upon it a kind of poetical charm. It is not a sedentary pursuit. It leads the student abroad among the most magnificent and beautiful scenery of the earth, in all seasons, but more particularly during those in which external
