STUDENT LIFE AND BOTANICAL CAREER The profession of arms had not led Lamarck to forget the principles of physical science which he had received at college.

During his sojourn at Monaco the singular vegetation of that rocky country had attracted his attention, and Chomel's _Traite des Plantes usuelles_ accidentally falling into his hands had given him some smattering of botany.
Lodged at Paris, as he has himself said, in a room much higher up than he could have wished, the clouds, almost the only objects to be seen from his windows, interested him by their ever-changing shapes, and inspired in him his first ideas of meteorology.

There were not wanting other objects to excite interest in a mind which had always been remarkably active and original.

He then realized, to quote from his biographer, Cuvier, what Voltaire said of Condorcet, that solid enduring discoveries can shed a lustre quite different from that of a commander of a company of infantry.

He resolved to study some profession.