Mathieu Tillet (10 November 1714 Bordeaux - 13 December 1791) was a French botanist, agronomist, metallurgist and administrator.

Life

He was the son of the goldsmith Gabriel Tillet and began studying metals at his father's workshop. In 1740 he was appointed Director of the Mint at

Troyes Troyes () is a commune and the capital of the department of Aube in the Grand Est region of north-central France. It is located on the Seine river about south-east of Paris. Troyes is situated within the Champagne wine region and is near to ...

. Ten years later he published his first book, about alloys. In 1750, he was awarded a prize by the Academy of Bordeaux for his research concerning the plagues of cereals, especially wheat. In 1755, he published the results of his research as ''Dissertation sur la cause qui corrompt et noircit les grains de blé dans les épis; et sur les moyens de prévenir ces accidents'' (''Explanation of the cause that corrupts and blackens the grains of wheat in the ears; and the means to prevent these accidents''), and was awarded another prize for it. The fungus '' Tilletia tritici'', which he describes in this work, was named after him a century later by

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*k ...

and Louis Tulasne. In 1756 he resigned from his post at the Mint at Troyes and moved to Paris, living on Rue du Cloître-Notre-Dame. On 9 September 1758, he was admitted to the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...

as a botanist. He occupied several offices at the Academy over the next decades, finally becoming Treasurer in 1788, after the death of his predecessor Buffon. In 1760 and 1761 he traveled around the Angoumois, researching yet another cereal plague together with his friend and fellow agronomist Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau. The result of this was the book ''Histoire d'un insecte qui devore les grains de l'Angoumois'' (''History of an Insect that Devours the Grains of the Angoumois'', published by H. L. Guérin & L. F. Delatour, Paris, 1762). In 1766 he was charged with the making of 24 copies of the Toise de l'Academie, the official measuring unit of length in the Kingdom of France, and their distribution to the main French cities of the time. In 1767 he was appointed Inspector-General of the Mint, a post he held until 1774 when he was succeeded by the

Marquis de Condorcet Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet (; 17 September 1743 – 29 March 1794), known as Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French philosopher and mathematician. His ideas, including support for a liberal economy, free and equal pu ...

. In 1773 he became a Knight of the Order of Saint Michael. In 1784 he became the General Administrator of the Salpêtrière. It was during his administration that the

Comtesse de la Motte Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...

was imprisoned there for her participation in the Affair of the diamond necklace, and escaped. He was a member of commissions of the Academy of Sciences appointed in 1790 to advise the National Constituent Assembly on a new currency and on new weights and measures. He, with Jean-Charles de Borda, Joseph Louis Lagrange, Antoine Lavoisier and the

presented a report on 27 October 1790 advising that weights and measures, as well as currency, adopt decimal divisions. In 1847 botanists

Edmond Tulasne Louis René Étienne Tulasne, a.k.a. Edmond Tulasne (12 September 1815 – 22 December 1885) was a French botanist and mycologist born in Azay-le-Rideau. He originally studied law at Poitiers, but his interest later turned to botany. As a yo ...

and Charles Tulasne

circumscribed In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius. Not every po ...

Tilletia ''Tilletia'' is a genus of smut fungi in the Tilletiaceae family. Species in this genus are plant pathogens that affect various grasses. '' Tilletia indica'', which causes Karnal bunt of wheat, and '' Tilletia horrida'', responsible for rice ker ...

'', which is a genus of smut fungi in the

Tilletiaceae The Tilletiales are an order of smut fungi in the class Exobasidiomycetes. It is a monotypic order, consisting of a single family, the Tilletiaceae, which contains seven genera. The roughly 150 species in the Tilletiales all infect hosts of the g ...

family and is named in Tillet's honour.

References

Sources

* Alexander Lernet-Holenia: ''Das Halsband der Königin'' (''The Queen's Necklace'', Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Hamburg/Vienna, 1962, historical study on the affair of the diamond necklace, with a chapter on the life of Mathieu Tillet, and describing his role in the escape of the Comtesse de la Motte from prison)

Short bio in French {{DEFAULTSORT:Tillet, Mathieu 1714 births 1791 deaths 18th-century French botanists French entomologists Officers of the French Academy of Sciences Scientists from Bordeaux French metallurgists