Jean Honoré Robert de Paul de Lamanon, known as Robert de Lamanon (6 December 1752,

Salon-de-Provence Salon-de-Provence (, ; oc, label= Provençal Occitan, Selon de Provença/Seloun de Provènço, ), commonly known as Salon, is a commune located about northwest of Marseille in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d' ...

– 11 December 1787,

Tutuila Tutuila is the main island of American Samoa (and its largest), and is part of the archipelago of Samoan Islands. It is the third largest island in the Samoan Islands chain of the Central Pacific. It is located roughly northeast of Brisbane, Au ...

, Island of Maouna,

Samoan Islands The Samoan Islands ( sm, Motu o Sāmoa) are an archipelago covering in the central South Pacific, forming part of Polynesia and of the wider region of Oceania. Administratively, the archipelago comprises all of the Independent State of Samoa a ...

) was a French

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

and

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

. He joined several scientific expeditions and eventually died on one (the La Perouse expedition).

Family

He belonged to the lordly family of

Lamanon Lamanon () is a commune located in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, part of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southern France. Its inhabitants are called ''Lamanonais'' in French. North of the village the archaeological site of Grottes ...

, ennobled in 1572. His father was Jean François de Paul de Lamanon and Anne de Baldony (born in

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...

). He had two sisters and an elder brother, Auguste Paul de Lamanon (1748–1820). Auguste was destined for the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

by his father, becoming a

garde de la marine In France, under the Ancien Régime, the Gardes de la Marine (Guards of the Navy), or Gardes-Marine were young gentlemen undergoing training to be naval officers. The training program was established by Cardinal Richelieu in 1670 and lasted until A ...

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...

, then an officer.

Life

Robert's brother Auguste left the Navy on his father's death to devote himself to the study of sciences and letters. Robert left holy orders and together they set out on a trip round Europe and the French provinces collecting plants, documents, manuscripts and

objets d'art In art history, the French term Objet d’art describes an ornamental work of art, and the term Objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish th ...

. They perfected their studies in Paris and there met the most famous scholars of the era :

Laplace Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarized ...

, Jussieu,

d'Alembert Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''Encyclopédie ...

, the

Monge Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse (9 May 1746 – 28 July 1818) was a French mathematician, commonly presented as the inventor of descriptive geometry, (the mathematical basis of) technical drawing, and the father of differential geometry. Duri ...

brothers, Volney, Malesherbes, and

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 ...

, secretary of the

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

. Robert's paper on fossils found in the gypsum formation around

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, ''Observations sur la Physique'', contributed to practice of turning physical geography into geohistory. The practice was still novel at the time, Nicolas Desmarest (1725-1815) publishing his essay on recognizing prismatic basalt as old lava streams only three years before in 1774. Reported to be "energetic and full of lively curiosity," on a trip from Paris to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, Robert ordered himself to be tied to the

mainmast The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected more or less vertically on the centre-line of a ship or boat. Its purposes include carrying sails, spars, and derricks, and giving necessary height to a navigation ligh ...

during a violent storm so that he could contemplate the spectacle.

Memorial

A memorial to La Perouse massacred expedition members was built in 1883 in Aasu village on Massacre Bay on the Northwest coast of the island of

(then — the island of Maouna),

. The monument surmounted by a cross bears the words "Morts pour la Science et la Patrie" ("Those who died for Science and Fatherland") and names of eleven French sailors who were killed in the encounter with the Samoans, among them the name of Robert de Lamanon.

Notes

External links

Family tree on geneanet de samlap
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lamanon, Robert de 1752 births 1787 deaths People from Salon-de-Provence 18th-century French botanists 18th-century French physicians French meteorologists

Family

Life

Memorial

See also

Notes

External links