Ornismya atala Lesson 1833 (2 Viewers)

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Plaque en hommage à René Primevère LESSON, premier pharmacien en chef de la Marine (here):

ADRESSE
29 rue Amiral Pottier, cimetière municipal (carré B, près du mur d'enceinte)

PRÉSENTATION
Date de la pose
2012

Origine de la pose
Mise en valeur des sépultures restaurées par l'A.R.C.E.F. (Association pour la Restauration du Centre et des Faubourgs de Rochefort)

Dimensions
30 cm x 21 cm

Matériaux
Lave émaillée

Inscription (texte complet)

René-Primevère Lesson
Premier pharmacien en chef de la marine (5 galons) - Officier de la Légion d'honneur
(Rochefort,1794 – Rochefort,1849)​

Son père était commis de l'administration de la marine.
René-Primevère entre à l' École de médecine navale de Rochefort en septembre 1809. Deux ans après,il en sort chirurgien auxiliaire. Aussitôt, il embarque sur la frégate Saale. En 1813, il passe sur le vaisseau Régulus.
La Restauration réduit les effectifs militaires. Ainsi René-Primevère est-il licencié en mai 1814. Il fait le choix de maintenir des liens avec la marine en servant gratuitement à l'hôpital maritime. Et en novembre 1814, il est nommé aide-jardinier au jardin botanique. En 1816, il est reçu au concours de pharmacien de la marine à Rochefort. Il doit assurer à la fois des tâches médicales et scientifiques (chimie, botanique, géologie).
A Toulon, en août 1822, il embarque sur la corvette La Coquille comme second chirurgien et pharmacien. Il est alors membre de l'expédition autour du monde dirigée par le lieutenant de vaisseau Louis-Isidore Duperrey. Il est de retour à Marseille en mars 1825.
Il séjourne ensuite à Paris pour surveiller la publication des deux volumes consacrés à la zoologie dans le rapport de l'Expédition. Il participe à la vie scientifique de son temps. Il publie des traités de zoologie et d'ornithologie.
En 1829, il est nommé professeur de botanique à l'Ecole de médecine de Rochefort. Il se partage entre Paris et Rochefort. Mais en 1832, son ministre lui demande de s'installer complètement dans sa ville natale. En 1833, il est élu membre correspondant de l'Académie des Sciences. Il continue à publier des ouvrages de sciences naturelles, auxquels il ajoute des livres consacrés au patrimoine monumental de la Charente-Inférieure. René-Primevère est l'auteur d'une œuvre considérable, principalement valable en zoologie.

A.R.C.E.F. 2012

Autres commentaires
Comme son frère cadet, Pierre Adolphe, René-Primevère est né à la Vieille forme. Ils sont décédés dans une maison située 9 rue Lesson. Une plaque commémorative est visible sur cet immeuble.
René primevère LESSON repose auprès de sa 2ème épouse, Marie Clémence DUMONT de SAINTE-CROIX, décédée le 4 août 1834. Dans le même enclos, une colonne ornée d'une guirlande de roses indique la sépulture de leur fille Anaïs, décédée en 1838, à l'âge de 10 ans.
Il est promu officier de la Légion d'honneur en 1847.
Au cours de son voyage, il rédige un journal qui est conservé à la médiathèque de Rochefort. Il permet de reconstituer le périple effectué. A bord de La Coquille, l'équipe scientifique se compose du commandant en second DUMONT d'URVILLE, du chirurgien major GARNOT et de LESSON. Il recueille de nombreux spécimens d'animaux et de plantes, étudie les oiseaux-mouches et les paradisiers dans leur milieu. Ces études alimenteront une grande partie de ses publications.
A Paris, il rencontre les grands naturalistes de l'époque comme CUVIER. Il est l’ami de Godefroy SAINT-HILAIRE.
Dans le livre de Michel SARDET, on trouve le catalogue des ouvrages publiés par Lesson (une quarantaine de publications). C'est un scientifique renommé en France et en Europe. Plusieurs espèces animales (39, surtout des oiseaux) et végétales (24), portent son nom.

Sources
Cotes archives:

• 2C 274 - Michel SARDET – p 112 à 125 – « Médecins et pharmaciens de la marine à Rochefort »
• 2C 297 - Ouvrage collectif - p 235 - « Rochefort, trois siècles en images »
• 2C 285 – Michel ALLARY – p244 à 245 – « Mémoire des rues de Rochefort »

If of any use/help?

/B

 

[l_raty]

His own opinion here appears to have been that he was born on 20 March.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Following those very (own) Words by Lesson, we (also) find:

... J’ai reçu le prénom de René, auquel l’officier de l’état-civil, ouvrant l’almanach du représentant Romme, ajouta celui de Primevère, parceque, gràce au ciel je suis venu au monde le premier jour du printemps; ...

Which, to me, supported (only) by Google translate, talks in favour of the unhyphenated version of his given name/s.

Also compare with the Key's "French naturalist René P. Lesson" (as told in the atala entry itself, in post #1, this thread), or in the Key's list of references where he's (repeatedly) listed as "Lesson, R. P." (thus, not; Lesson R-P.).

/B

 

[Taphrospilus]

The question remains if Lesson really named two birds after his daughter under different names.

• Trochilus ceciliæ Lesson, 1839 OD here = Oreotrochilus estella (d'Orbigny & Lafresnaye, 1838)
• Metriopelia ceciliae (Lesson, 1845) OD here

Cet oiseaux vit au Pérou. Il est consacré à madame Gautrau, née Cécile Lesson.

 

[l_raty]

Yes my point exactly. Each has 20th except the French one that appears to have been modified in the last few days and has 21st in one place and 2Oth in another. The irony is that his middle name gives away his birth date i.e. Primevère = vernal equinox = first day of spring = 1 Germinal.

The modification is not really recent, actually.

• The date on the French Wikipedia page was originally given in the text only and was (as everywhere else) "le 20 mars 1794";
• on 19 Nov 2006, "(1er germinal an II)" was added to this date without indicating a source, by someone who presumably did not realize that this was 21 March 1794;
• the date was then changed to 21 March on 7 Oct 2011 1794, by a reviewer who evidently based himself on the archive of the État Civil, and took the time to check which day "1er germinal an II" actually was (in the page history, this version is commented "Correction éléments biographiques d'après les archives en ligne de la Charente-Maritime et de Paris"; simultaneously, a footnote reading "Le second prénom est orthographié Primevert sur les actes de naissance, de mariage et de décès" was also added).

The biographical infobox is a more recent thing : this was added on 5 Jun 2016. The info that appears in this box was not typed in by the user who added the box; it is taken directly and automatically from WikiData. It seems likely that this user did not even notice an inconsistency; and, even if he had, I'm not sure he would have been able to change it.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

...

Also Eustelle was Rene's mother's name...

Even if a bit dangerous (me dealing with French texts, that is), if we look at the book/text by Lesson himself (link in Laurent's post #22) wasn't "Marie-Eustelle Nicolo, née le 23 juliet 1768" (mentioned on p.54) René's Grandmother (his Father's Father's wife) ... ?!?

Or?

 

[l_raty]

Following those very (own) Words by Lesson, we (also) find:

... J’ai reçu le prénom de René, auquel l’officier de l’état-civil, ouvrant l’almanach du représentant Romme, ajouta celui de Primevère, parceque, gràce au ciel je suis venu au monde le premier jour du printemps; ...

= "I received the first name of René, to which the state registrar, opening the almanac of the representative Romme, added that of Primevère, because, thanks heaven, I was born on the first day of spring; a few days later I could have been named cabbage or parsnip."

"le représentant Romme" was Charles Gilbert Romme, who developed the French Republican calendar. In this calendar, instead of being associated to a saint (as in the traditional Catholic calendar), days were associated to a plant, an animal, or a rural tool. The state registrar (who signed birth records as "Gallocheau") may have referred to this, or something similar. 1 Germinal in this calendar was associated to the primevère, i.e, the primrose, Primula sp.
Thus, Lesson's explanation, despite his statement that he was born on 20 March, also brings a quite clear support to 1 Germinal as his birthday...

Even if a bit dangerous (me dealing with French texts, that is), if we look at the book/text by Lesson himself (link in Laurent's post #22) wasn't "Marie-Eustelle Nicolo, née le 23 juliet 1768" (mentioned on p.54) René's Grandmother (his Father's Father's wife) ... ?!?

No, it's his mother. This bit of text translates more or less as:
"My father, René-Clément, was a second-class naval clerk. He was born in Nouastre (Indre-et-Loire) on 23 Nov 1760; he died in Rochefort on 1 Jun 1841. His father, Louis, was of Irish origin and his mother was called de Fontenille. He had married, on 3 Jul 1792, Marie-Eustelle Nicolo, born on 23 Jul 1768, and who is still alive."
"He" in the last sentence is still his father; Marie-Eustelle Nicolo is his father's wife; he had married her in 1792; René was born in 1794.
In René's birth record, her name is misspelled as "Marie Ustel Nicoleau".

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Thanks Laurent

Better safe than sorry.

 

[PScofield]

Rene's father died on 1 July 1844 (attached) - there is a printing error (ink issue) on that page.

 

[l_raty]

Rene's father died on 1 July 1844 (attached) - there is a printing error (ink issue) on that page.

I don't clearly see an error ?

Here, René primevert (this spelling) Lesson, then acting mayor of Rochefort, acted as a state registrar, who happened to register the death of his own father, reported by two other persons (Auguste Laps and Léon Montaud).
The original is here, 75/164, lower right. You can easily verify that all the death records from this period (4 May - 5 Oct 1844) were indeed signed by RP Lesson.
(I doubt he actually filled the records himself -- in any case, the pen he used to sign them seems to have produced a significantly thicker line than the pen that was used to fill them, hence was probably different. Note that there are at least two different handwritings in the records themselves -- one, as in Lesson's father death record, that spelled his name "René primevert Lesson", the other, as e.g. in the upper left record on the same page, that spelled it "René Primevère Lesson". The former also consistently wrote "Rochefort canton de Idem" in the fourth line of the record forms, while the latter used "Rochefort canton dudit" instead.)