Australasia and the Dutch East Indies and South America in search
of new ferns and orchids. He investigated the effect of ocean
currents and of tribal migrations in the distribution of trees.
His botanical monographs brought him renown among those who know,
and he was elected a corresponding member of many scientific
societies. After twenty years of voyaging he returned to port at
Azan, richly laden with observation and learning, and settled down
among his trees to pursue his studies and write his books.

The estate, under the forester's care, had improved a little and
promised a modest income. The house, though somewhat dilapidated,
was easily made livable. But the one thing that was full of glory
and splendor, triumphantly prosperous, was the great avenue of
beeches. Their long, low aisle of broad arches was complete. They
shimmered with a pearly mist of buds in early spring and later
with luminous green of tender leafage. In mid-summer they formed a
wide, still stream of dark, unruffled verdure; in autumn they were
transmuted through glowing yellow into russet gold; in winter
their massy trunks were pillars of gray marble and the fan-tracery
of their rounded branches was delicately etched against the sky.

"Look at them," the baron would say to the guests whom the fame of
his learning and the charm of his wide-ranging conversation often
brought to his house. "Those beeches were planted by my grandfather
after the battle of Wagram, when Napoleon whipped the Austrians.
After that came the Beresina and Leipsic and Waterloo and how many
battles and wars of furious, perishable men. Yet the trees live
on peaceably, they unfold their strength in beauty, they have not
yet reached the summit of their grandeur. We are all _parvenus_
beside them."