104 EARLY PATRONS.

tiveness of his manners when a child obtained for
him the regard and good offices of some gencrous
citizens of his native place. M. Laroche, a skilful
medical practitioner, and his family, took an affec-
tionate care of the young orphan; and after their
example, a merchant of Brives, named Malepcyre,
showed the warmest interest in him, lent him
books on natural history, and never ceased to
encourage and foster the rising taste which his
young friend already showed for the science he
was one day to illustrate. Perhaps, but for this
generous and Christian benevolence, France might
not have had the honour of possessing the first of
her entomologists.

Another of his early patrons was the Baron
(’Espignac, governor at the Invalides, at whose
request Latreille went to Paris when he was about
sixteen years of age. Soon afterwards he had the
misfortune to lose this friend, who had shown a
fatherly affection for him, by death; but the loss
was to some extent supplied by a sister of the
deceased, the Baroness de Puymarets, and by others
of the same family. Through their influence
Latreille was placed in the college of Cardinal Le-
moine, where he continued for a considerable time
prosecuting various branches of education. While
here he had the happiness to acquire the friendship
of the celebrated mincralogist Hatiy. In his twenty-