Tournefort, having thus overreached the dull-headed banditti of Spain, roamed about at leisure through the wild regions of the Pyrenees, climbing the most abrupt and apparently inaccessible pinnacles. New plants, however, were found at almost every step, and the pleasure derived from this circumstance, which none but a discoverer can conceive, amply compensated him for the fatigues and dangers he underwent. One day during this tour he narrowly escaped with his life: a miserable house, in which he had taken shelter, fell down upon him, and for two hours he lay buried under the ruins, but was at length dug out by the peasantry.
Towards the end of the year 1681 he returned through Montpellier to Aix, where he classed and arranged all the plants which he had collected in Provence, Languedoc, Dauphiny, Catalonia, the Alps, and the Pyrenees; and the pleasure afforded him by the sight of his collection was an ample reward for all the fatigue and danger which he experienced in procuring it.
Tournefort’s reputation now began to diffuse itself. M. Fagon, principal physician to the queen, a man who ardently desired to advance the interests of botany, learning his extraordinary merit, invited him to Paris in 1683; and on his arrival obtained for him the place of botanical professor in the Jardin des Plantes. This appointment, however, by no means restrained his passion for travelling; for, although botany was perhaps his principal object, the delight arising from visiting new scenes was strongly associated with the weaker and more tranquil gratification afforded by science. He therefore once more undertook a journey into Spain, and while in Andalusia, where the palm-tree abounds, endeavoured to penetrate the mysterious loves of the male and female of this celebrated tree, but his researches were unsuccessful. He proceeded next into Portugal, from whence, when the object of his journey had been accomplished, he returned to France.
Shortly after this he visited England and Holland, in the latter of which countries he was invited, and even tempted by the offer of a more liberal salary than he enjoyed at home, to take up his residence as botanical professor. The offer was flattering, but Tournefort, persuaded that no worldly advantages are an equivalent for a permanent exile from home, wisely declined it. His own country was not ungrateful. In 1691 he was made a member of the Academy of Sciences; and his reputation, which was now rapidly gaining ground, paved the way to other more solid advantages.