[2] Horace Bénédict Alfred Moquin-Tandon (1804–63), a distinguished naturalist, for twenty years director of the botanical gardens at Toulouse. He was commissioned by the French Government in 1850 to compile a flora of Corsica, and is the author of several important works on botany and zoology.—A. T. de M. [↑]
[3] A mountain 7730 feet high, about twenty-five miles from Ajaccio.—A. T. de M. [↑]
[4] Souvenirs, VI., pp. 63–66. The Life of the Fly, chap. vi., “My Schooling.” [↑]
[5] Souvenirs, I., pp. 178–180. The Life of the Spider, chap. ii., “The Black-bellied Tarantula.” [↑]
CHAPTER X
THE PROFESSOR: AVIGNON (1852–1870)
In 1852 the Professor of Physics and Chemistry in the lycée of Ajaccio was transferred to the lycée of Avignon.
Fabre was not yet twenty-seven. His youth, his enthusiasm, his good humour, the simplicity of his manners, and the vivacity of his mind naturally endeared him to young people eager for knowledge and the ideal. A few lines from the Souvenirs give us some idea of the relations between master and pupils: “There were five or six of us: I was the oldest, their master, but still more their companion and their friend; they were young fellows with warm hearts and cheerful imaginations, overflowing with that springtide sap of life which makes us so expansive, so desirous of knowledge.”
One guesses that he is speaking of one of those country walks on which, with a guide such as Fabre, everything became a source of instruction and an object of wonder and admiration. [[129]]