Jean-Baptiste Geneviève Marcellin Bory de Saint-Vincent was a French naturalist, officer and politician. He was born on 6 July 1778 in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne) and died on 22 December 1846 in Paris. Biologist and geographer, he was particularly interested in volcanology, systematics and botany.

Life

Youth

Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint Vincent was born at Agen on 6 July 1778. His parents were Géraud Bory de Saint-Vincent and Madeleine de Journu; his father's family were petty nobility who played important roles at the bar and in the judiciary, during and after the French Revolution. Instilled with sentiments hostile to the revolution from childhood, he studied first at the college of Agen, then with his uncle Journu-Auber in Bordeaux in 1787. He may have attended courses in medicine and surgery from 1791 to 1793. During the Reign of Terror in 1793, his family was persecuted and took refuge in the Landes.

In 1794, as a precocious naturalist, aged 15, Bory was instrumental in freeing from prison the entomologist Pierre André Latreille, whose early work he had read, and in saving Latreille from deportation to the penal colony of Cayenne. Latreille later became one of the leading entomologists of his time; he and Bory remained lifelong friends. A student of geologist and mineralogist Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu at the Paris School of Mines, Bory sent his first scholarly publications to the Academy of Bordeaux the same year, He served first in the Army of the West, then in the Army of the Rhine under the orders of General Jean Victor Marie Moreau. He was then assigned to Brittany and moved to Rennes; it was at this time that he acquired his Bonapartist sentiments.

First expeditions in the oceans of Africa

left|thumb|290x290px|Map of the [[Réunion|Réunion island drawn in 1802 by Bory de Saint-Vincent.]]

In 1799, Bory learned about the upcoming departure of a scientific expedition to Australia organized by the government and obtained, thanks to his uncle and to the famous naturalist Bernard-Germain de Lacépède,

After several stops in Madeira, the Canary islands, and Cape Verde and then rounding the Cape of Good Hope, towards the middle of the trip Bory suddenly left the ship of Captain Baudin with whom he was in conflict He proclaimed the constitution, gave a resounding speech before the tribune,

It was during this productive period in 1822, that Bory, along with most of the scientists of his time, including Arago, Brongniart, Drapiez, Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, von Humboldt, de Jussieu, de Lacépède, Latreille, etc., began the writing of one of his greatest works, the Dictionnaire classique d'histoire naturelle en 17 volumes (1822-1831). but the Greek victories were short-lived and the Turkish-Egyptian troops had reconquered the Peloponnese in 1825. King Charles X, supported by a strong current of philhellenism, decided to intervene alongside the Greek insurgents. After the naval Battle of Navarino (20 October 1827), which saw the annihilation of the Turkish-Egyptian fleet by the Allied Franco-Russo-British fleet, a French expeditionary force of 15,000 men landed in the south-west of the Peloponnese in August 1828. The purpose of the Expédition de Morée was to liberate the area from the Turkish-Egyptian occupation forces and return it to the young independent Greek state; this would be accomplished in just one month. Bory was thus appointed director of the commission.

center|thumb|560x560px|Bory de Saint-Vincent and the members of the scientific commission of the Morea Expedition studying the ruins of the stadium of [[Messene|ancient Messene (detail of a lithograph by Prosper Baccuet)]]

Bory and his team of 19 scientists (including Edgar Quinet, Abel Blouet and Pierre Peytier) representing various scientific disciplines, such as natural history and antiquities (archaeology, architecture and sculpture) disembarked from the frigate Cybèle at Navarino on 3 March 1829 and there joined General Nicolas Joseph Maison, who was commanding the French expeditionary force. Bory then met General Antoine Simon Durrieu, chief of staff of the expedition, who was also from the Landes region and with whom Bory had been connected for a decade. The topographic maps they produced, which were widely acknowledged, were of an unprecedented high quality and surveys, drawings, cuts, plans and proposals for the theoretical restoration of the monuments were a new attempt to systematically and exhaustively catalogue the ancient Greek vestiges. The Morea expedition and its scientific publications offered a near complete description of the regions visited and formed a scientific, aesthetic and human inventory that remained for a long time one of the best achieved about Greece. deputy of the 3rd college of Lot-et-Garonne (Marmande) to replace his friend the Viscount of Martignac. In his profession of faith, he denounced the hereditary titles of the peerage, which he declared to be contradictory to the principle of equality before the law, spoke against the incompatibility of the legislature's mandate with a public function, and advocated for the revision of the municipal, electoral and national guard laws. Bory de Saint-Vincent, who had been one of its promoters, became its president as a staff Colonel and went there, accompanied by his collaborators, to conduct his identifications, researches, samplings and scientific explorations. He arrived in the first days of January 1840 in Algiers and visited other cities of the coast. He left Algeria in the first trimester of 1842. Bory published numerous books on the country, such as Notice sur la commission exploratrice et scientifique d'Algérie (1838), Sur la flore de l'Algérie (1843), Sur l'anthropologie de l'Afrique française (1845) and the Exploration scientifique de l'Algérie pendant les années 1840, 1841, 1842. Sciences physiques (1846-1867).

Last years

Although sick, Bory was still thinking about making a trip to the islands of the Indian Ocean or to Algeria. He died, however, on 22 December 1846, at the age of sixty-eight, of a heart attack, in his apartment on the 5th floor, 6 rue de Bussy in Paris. He was buried in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery (49th Division).

An indefatigable worker, Bory wrote on several branches of natural history, including the study of reptiles, fish, microscopic animals, plants, cryptogams, etc. He was the main editor of the Bibliothèque physico-économique, of the Dictionnaire classique d'histoire naturelle en 7 volumes and of the scientific part of the Expédition de Morée. He participated in composing for the Encyclopédie Méthodique the sections concerning the zoophytes and the worms, as well as for the volumes of the physical geography and atlas that accompanied them. He also wrote well-composed geographical summaries, especially the one concerning Spain, and contributed many articles notable for the originality of their ideas to the Encyclopédie moderne.

Bory was a proponent of the theory of the transmutation of species alongside, among others, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck. According to historian Adrian Desmond Bory was a leading anti-Cuvierian materialist who blended the best of Lamarck's philosophy with Geoffroy's higher anatomy. His Dictionnaire classique d'histoire naturelle already contained information about Lamarck and the species debate, and is notable for a copy of it having been carried by Charles Darwin on the Beagle.

Bory was also a fervent defender of spontaneous generation (theme of the famous controversy between Louis Pasteur and Félix Archimède Pouchet) and an ardent polygenist. He thought that the different human "races", according to the sense of the time, were true species, each having its own origin and history. He was finally a notorious opponent of slavery; Victor Schœlcher quotes him among his scientific allies in favor of abolition.

Toponymy

thumb|301x301px|Volcano [[Piton de la Fournaise on the island of Réunion, drawn in 1802 by Bory de Saint-Vincent.]]

  • In tribute to Bory's pioneering exploration of the volcano, one of the two summit craters of Piton de la Fournaise on the island of Réunion was named the Bory crater by his companion de Jouvancourt during their ascent of the volcano in 1801.
  • A Primary school was named after him in Saint Denis (La Réunion) (École primaire publique Bory de Saint Vincent).
  • A College was named after him in Saint Philippe (La Réunion) (Collège Bory de Saint-Vincent).
  • Streets were named after Bory in Saint-Pierre (La Réunion) and in his hometown of Agen (Lot-et-Garonne).

Private life

In September 1802, at Rennes where he was garrisoned, Bory married Anne-Charlotte Delacroix of la Thébaudais, with whom he had two daughters: Clotilde, born on 7 February 1801, and Augustine, born on 25 May 1803, whom he called "his little Antigone" and with whom he remained very close all his life. His marriage, "contracted too young to be a happy one"), annexes sur le site de la revue (lire en ligne).

  • Juan C. Castañón y Francisco Quirós, La contribución de Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778-1846) al conocimiento geográfico de la Península Ibérica. Redescubrimiento de una obra cartográfica y orográfica olvidada. Ería. Revista cuatrimestral de Geografía, n° 64-65, 2004,
  • Pietro Corsi, Lamarck, genèse et enjeux du transformisme, 1770-1830, CNRS Éditions, Paris, 2001.
  • B. Dayrat, Les botanistes et la flore de France – trois siècles de découverte, Paris, Publication du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 2003.
  • Amédée Dechambre, Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales, (première série), t. X, Ble-Bro, publié sous la direction de M. A. Dechambre, 1869.
  • Léon Dufour, Souvenirs d'un savant français à travers un siècle, (1780-1865.) Science et histoire, Paris, J. Rothschild, 1888, p. 43-45
  • Paul Guérin (dir.), Dictionnaire des dictionnaires, Paris, Librairie des imprimeries réunies, Motteroz, 1880.
  • Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, Notice sur le baron Bory de Saint-Vincent, Bruxelles, in-12. Note que Lacroix dit ne pas avoir retrouvée (Lacroix, p. 58.) Cette notice est parue en 1848 dans les Notices bio-bibliographiques de l'Académie des Sciences de Belgique, tome VIII, p. 832
  • Alfred Lacroix, Le naturaliste Bory de Saint-Vincent, Revue scientifique, 55<sup>e</sup> année n° 8, avril, 1917, Éloge du savant prononcé en octobre 1916 à l'Académie des Sciences.
  • Goulven Laurent, Paléontologie et évolution en France : 1800-1860. De Cuvier-Lamarck à Darwin, Paris, CTHS, 1987, p.&nbsp;377-380.
  • P. Maryllis, Bory de Saint-Vincent, naturaliste et voyageur, 6 p., La Couronne agenaise, Villeneuve-sur-Lot, 1910
  • François Picavet, Les Idéologues, essai sur l'histoire des idées et des théories scientifiques, philosophiques, religieuses, etc. en France depuis 1789, édité en 1891.
  • André Role, Un destin hors série : la vie aventureuse d'un savant : Bory de Saint-Vincent 1778-1846, 256 pls. La Pensée universelle, Paris, 1973.
  • Thomas Rouillard, un herbier de Bory saint-Vincent à Angers Bulletin de la Société d'Études Scientifiques de l'Anjou, t.XVIII, 2004
  • C. Sauvageau, Bory de Saint-Vincent, d'après sa correspondance publiée par M. Lauzun, Journal de Botanique, 1908, 2<sup>e</sup> série, 1 : 198-222.
  • P. Tcherkezoff, Tahiti 1768, Jeunes filles en pleurs. Au vent des îles Éditions, Tahiti, Pirae, 2004.
  • Jean Tucoo-Chala, Le Voyage en Grèce d'un naturaliste gascon en 1829, Bull. de l'association Guillaume Budé, en deux parties : dans le bulletin 2 et 3 de l'année, bull.2, p.&nbsp;190-200 et Bull.3 p.&nbsp;300-320, Paris, 1976.
  • Pierre Vidal-Naquet, L'Atlantide, petite histoire d'un mythe platonicien, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2005.

Notes and references

Notes

References