Sébastien Vaillant (May 26, 1669 – May 20, 1722) was French botanist who was born at Vigny in present-day

Val d'Oise Val-d'Oise (, "Vale of the Oise") is a department in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It was created in 1968 following the split of the Seine-et-Oise department. In 2019, Val-d'Oise had a population of 1,249,674.

Early years

Vaillant went to school at the age of four and by the age of five, he was collecting plants and transplanting them into his father's garden. At the age of six, he was sent to a boarding school at

Pontoise Pontoise () is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the " new town" of Cergy-Pontoise. Administration Pontoise is the official ''préfecture'' (capital) of the Val-d'Oise ''dépa ...

. He suffered with a fever for four months which he claims to have cured using

lettuce Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but sometimes for its stem and seeds. Lettuce is most often used for salads, although it is also seen in other kinds of food, ...

seasoned with vinegar. He was sent to study with the organist of the

Pontoise Cathedral Pontoise Cathedral (french: Cathédrale Saint-Maclou de Pontoise) is a Roman Catholic church located in the town of Pontoise, on the outskirts of Val d'Oise in Paris, France. The cathedral, dedicated to Saint Maclovius otherwise Saint Malo (''Sai ...

. When the organist died, Vaillant succeeded him at the age of eleven. Vaillant studied medicine and surgery at the hospital in Pontoise (medicine then included studies in botany). He left Pontoise for

Évreux Évreux () is a commune in and the capital of the department of Eure, in the French region of Normandy. Geography The city is on the Iton river. Climate History In late Antiquity, the town, attested in the fourth century CE, was named ...

at the age of nineteen. He was at the battle of Fleurus in 1690 as a surgeon. While still a surgeon in

1691 Events January–March * January 6 – King William III of England, who rules Scotland and Ireland as well as being the Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, departs from Margate to tend to the affairs of the Netherlands. * January 14 – A ...

, he was in

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 ...

when he took as his master of botany

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (5 June 165628 December 1708) was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants. Botanist Charles Plumier was his pupil and accompanied him on his voyages. Lif ...

(1656–1708). Tournefort used Vaillant's talents while writing (''History of the plants that are born around Paris''), published in 1698. Vaillant also took lessons in

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...

with Joseph-Guichard Du Verney and

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

with

Antoine de Saint-Yon Antoine de Saint-Yon was a French physician and chemist of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Biography Antoine de Saint-Yon passed his medical thesis in 1671 with the title: In 1677, he practised as a Title formerly given to doctors who w ...

Botanist

Guy-Crescent Fagon Guy-Crescent Fagon (11 May 1638 – 11 March 1718) was a French physician and botanist. He came from nobility and his uncle, Guy de La Brosse, had founded the Royal Gardens. Fagon was director of the gardens too. His substitute professors were Gil ...

, the king's physician and botanist, noticed Sébastien Vaillant and made him his secretary. Vaillant was therefore able to devote himself to the study of plants for which he obtained unlimited access to the Royal Garden. Fagon appointed him director. Fagon himself was a teacher and sub-demonstrator The sub-demonstrator, according to Boerhaave

, had more privileges than the demonstrator. at the Royal Garden. The garden collections grew considerably under the leadership of Vaillant. Even though Vaillant himself was based in Paris and is remembered for his work on the Parisian flora, the garden had several contributors outside Paris, in particular in the colonies. Fagon obtained from Louis XIV an authorization to build a "Cabinet of drugs" in the Royal Garden and charged Vaillant to furnish it and to provide security. Charles Bouvard had the first greenhouse built: the Garden had plants from hot countries, and in 1714 Vaillant obtained the authorization to build another one. He became ill and too poor to publish his (alphabetically or Enumeration of plants that grow in and around Paris) illustrated by Claude Aubriet. A fruit of 36 years of work, he left his work at Herman Boerhaave's home, . The work contained engraved illustrations and was published in 1727. It is a work of particular importance in the history of botany and one of the first to describe the flora known. Vaillant introduced the terms of stamen, ovary, and egg in their current direction. All his life, Vaillant opposed the theses of

. As a mark of respect

Carl von Linné Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

named a genus Valantia after Vaillant in the

Rubiaceae The Rubiaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with interpetiolar stipules ...

. His herbarium is now kept at the

National Museum of Natural History, France The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

References

External links

* * * Vaillant, Sébastien (1727
''Botanicon Parisiense, ou Denombrement par ordre alphabetique des plantes''
- digital facsimile from the

Linda Hall Library The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, sitting "majestically on a urban arboretum." It is the "largest independently funded public library of scien ...

1669 births 1722 deaths Botanists with author abbreviations 18th-century French botanists French mycologists Pre-Linnaean botanists Members of the French Academy of Sciences National Museum of Natural History (France) people 17th-century French botanists {{France-botanist-stub