observations upon which his fame is built.

Returning to Avignon, in the possession of his new degree, he commenced an
important task which took him nearly twenty years to complete: a
painstaking treatise on the Sphaeriaceae of Vaucluse, that singular family
of fungi which cover fallen leaves and dead twigs with their blackish
fructifications; a remarkable piece of work, full of the most valuable
documentation, as were the theses whose subjects I have just detailed; but
without belittling the fame of their author, one may say that another, in
his place, might have acquitted himself as well.

Although he continued to undertake researches of limited interest and
importance, although he persisted in dissecting plants, and, although he
disliked it, in "disembowelling animals," the fact was that apart from
Thursdays and Sundays it was scarcely possible for him to escape from his
week's work; hardly possible to snatch sufficient leisure to undertake the
studies toward which he felt himself more particularly drawn. Tied down by
his duties, which held him bound to a discipline that only left him brief
moments, and by the forced hack-work imposed upon him by the necessity of
earning his daily bread, he had scarcely any time for observation excepting
vacations and holidays.

Then he would hasten to Carpentras, happy to hold the key to the meadows,
and wander across country and along the sunken lanes, collecting his
beautiful insects, breathing the free air, the scent of the vines and
olives, and gazing upon Mont Ventoux, close at hand, whose silver summit
would now be hidden in the clouds and now would glitter in the rays of the
sun.

Carpentras was not merely the country in which his wife's parents dwelt: it