L76 RESTORED TO FREEDOM.

trial was already about to commence, and he would
infallibly have suffered death, because the mem-
bers of the Revolutionary Committee were ignorant
of the meaning of a botanical word, when, provi-
dentially, the 9th Thermidor arrived precisely at
this critical time ; Lebon himself was arrested, and
the naturalist had an opportunity of explaining to
his judges that his “‘chers Rhus” were not soldiers
armed against liberty, but plants, the juice of which,
as he conceived, would prove highly beneficial as a
medical remedy. The worthy man was conse-
quently restored to freedom and sent back to the
hospital at Valenciennes, where he continued to
discharge his duties and cultivate his Rhus as long
as he lived. Dufresnoy, for the rest, was an en-
thusiast in his notions as to his favourite plants
and herbs, and it appears some of his supposed dis-
coverles turned out to be fallacies. In point of
fact, he was no sooner dead than hig brother, who
practised medicine at Valenciennes, plucked up
from his garden the unfortunate Rhus which had so
nearly proved fatal to their cultivator,*

* It may interest some readers to be told that Rhus in botany is
the name given to a shrubby, arborescent genus, known in our
gardens as the sumach. There are numerous spccies, some of
which are poisonous. The Rhus toxicodendron and radicans were
at one time recommended in paralytic affections; ‘but the
cases In which these virulent plants were employed are few and
indecisive.”