Jean-Baptiste François Rozier (23 January 1734 in Saint-Nizier parish,

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

– 28/29 September 1793 in Lyon) was a French botanist and

agronomist An agriculturist, agriculturalist, agrologist, or agronomist (abbreviated as agr.), is a professional in the science, practice, and management of agriculture and agribusiness. It is a regulated profession in Canada, India, the Philippines, the U ...

Life

Rozier was the son of Antoine Rozier (a squire, king's counselor and provincial controller for war for the department of

Touraine Touraine (; ) is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher, Indre and V ...

) and his wife. He was a 'knight' (i.e. canon) of the primatial church in Lyon, prior commendatory of Nanteuil-le-Haudouin and lord of Chevreville. Rozier studied in the Jesuit college at

Villefranche-sur-Saône Villefranche-sur-Saône (, ; frp, Velafranche) is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France. It lies 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the river Saône, and is around north of Lyon. The inhabitants of the town are called ''Caladois''. ...

and entered the Saint-Irénée seminary in

. Refusing to enter a more major seminary, he preferred to devote himself to science. He was ordained priest but lacked a vocation and thus became manager of his elder brother's estate in the Sainte-Colombe district on the banks of the Rhône, near

Vienne Vienne (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Viéne'') is a landlocked department in the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It takes its name from the river Vienne. It had a population of 438,435 in 2019.Marc Antoine Louis Claret de La Tourrette (1729–1793) and Jean-Emmanuel Gilibert (1741–1814), into his schemes to convert the lands to pasture. He thus met Claude Bourgelat (1712–1779), who set up a veterinary school in Lyon, where Rozier became professor of botany and materia medica in 1761 and set up a major botanical garden. In 1765 he became the institution's teaching director but Bourgelat – who had become the director of the school in Alfort – was offended by Rozier's success and convinced the Bertin ministry to dismiss him in 1765. Rozier therefore returned to his family lands, where he was visited by

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revol ...

. With his friend Claret de la Tourrette, he wrote ''Démonstrations élémentaires de botanique'', foregrounding the virtues of plants and combining the principles of Tournefort and

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, ...

. He came to Paris to edit the ''Journal de physique et d’histoire naturelle'' founded by Jacques Gautier d'Agoty, a periodical of which he became owner in 1771 and which he re-titled ''Journal d’observations sur la Physique, l’Histoire naturelle et sur les Arts et Métiers''. His nephew, abbé Mongez, a noted mineralogist, helped him for a time before joining the Lapérouse expedition. In 1775 and 1776, Rozier published ''Tables des Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences'' (since its foundation until 1770, in four quarto volumes). In 1775

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne ( ; ; 10 May 172718 March 1781), commonly known as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Originally considered a physiocrat, he is today best remembered as an early advocate for economic lib ...

(1727–1781) sent him to southern France to study local produce there in 1777 and to the Low Countries in 1777 accompanied by Nicolas Desmarest (1725–1815) to study windmills. This gave him a steady post and independence that also included a stay in Poland at the court of

Stanisław August Poniatowski Stanisław II August (born Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski; 17 January 1732 – 12 February 1798), known also by his regnal Latin name Stanislaus II Augustus, was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1764 to 1795, and the last monarch ...

founding a garden and a chair in botany. In 1779 he became prior of the abbey at Nanteuil-le-Haudouin and began his ''Cours complet d’agriculture'', before returning to Lyon in 1786, where he accepted the post of director of a practical school of agriculture. He also became director of the Pépinière de la Province. Rozier had a particular interest in wine (he won a prize proposed by the Société d’agriculture de Limoges on the subject for an 8 volume treatise in 1770), in

Brassica rapa ''Brassica rapa'' is a plant species growing in various widely cultivated forms including the turnip (a root vegetable); napa cabbage, bomdong, bok choy, and rapini. ''Brassica rapa'' subsp. ''oleifera'' is an oilseed which has many common ...

and in colza (1774). He was admitted to the Académie de Lyon. In 1779 he set himself up near

Béziers Béziers (; oc, Besièrs) is a subprefecture of the Hérault department in the Occitanie region of Southern France. Every August Béziers hosts the famous ''Feria de Béziers'', which is centred on bullfighting. A million visitors are attra ...

(''domaine de Beauséjour'') where he edited his ''Cours complet d'agriculture… ou Dictionnaire universel l'agriculture, par une société d'agriculteurs'' (twelve volumes, of which nine were by Rozier himself, 1781–1800). That same year, Rozier was elected a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communi ...

. In 1786 Rozier became director of Lyon's agriculture school. He returned to Lyon a few years later and assisted in the early stages of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

, asking the first two assemblies to create a national agriculture school. He became curé constitutionnel of Sainte-Polycarpe parish in Lyon during the Revolution and was killed in his bed by a bomb during the

siege of Lyon The siege of Lyon occurred on 9 August to 9 October 1793 when French Republican forces laid siege and captured the city of Lyon, which was the centre of a revolt against the French government during the War of the First Coalition. Historical b ...

. The last two volumes of the ''Cours Complet'' were published posthumously in 1796 and 1798. In 1801 his ''Traité théorique et pratique sur la culture de la vigne, avec l'art de faire le vin, les eaux-de-vie, esprit de vin, vinaigres…'' was published

Publications

Rozier monument - Parc de la Tête d'Or - DSC05300

* with Marc-Antoine-Louis Claret de la Tourrette, ''Démonstrations élémentaires de botanique, contenant les principes généraux de cette science, l’explication des termes, les fondemens des méthodes, et les élémens de la physique des végétaux ; la description des plantes les plus communes, les plus curieuses, les plus utiles, rangées suivant la méthode de M. de Tournefort et celle du chevalier Linné, leurs usages et leurs propriétés dans les arts, l’économie rurale, dans la médecine humaine et vétérinaire ; ainsi qu’une instruction sur la formation d’un herbier, sur la dessiccation, la macération, l’infusion des plantes...'', 1766 ; 2e éd., 1773, 2 vol. in-8° ; 3e éd. (corrigée et considérablement augmentée), Lyon, Bruyset frères, 1787, 3 vol. in-8° ; 4e éd. en 1793, 4 vol. ; Lyon, Bruyset aîné, 1796, 2 vol. in-4° * ''Mémoire sur la meilleure manière de faire et de gouverner les vins de Provence, soit pour l'usage, soit pour leur faire passer les mers, qui a remporté le prix au jugement de l'Académie de Marseille, en l'année 1770'', Marseille : F. Brébion, 1771 ; édition augmentée, Lausanne et Lyon, L. Rosset, 1772 * ''Démonstrations élémentaires de botanique, à l'usage de l'École royale vétérinaire'', Lyon, Jean-Marie Bruyset, 1773, 2 vol. * ''Observations sur la physique, sur l'histoire naturelle et sur les arts…'', Paris
''Cours complet d'agriculture théorique, pratique, économique, et de médecine rurale et vétérinaire, suivi d'une Méthode pour étudier l'agriculture par principes, ou Dictionnaire universel d'agriculture, par une société d'agriculteurs, et rédigé par M. l'abbé Rozier''
Paris : rue et hôtel Serpente (t. I-VII), chez Delalain fils (t. VIII), chez Moutardier (t. IX-X), 1781–1800, 10 vol. in-4° ; les tomes 9 et 10 paraissent après la mort de Rozier ; en 1805, deux volumes supplémentaires paraissent (Paris, Marchant, 2 vol. in-4°)
''Nouvelle table des articles contenus dans les volumes de l'Académie royale des sciences de Paris depuis 1666 jusqu'en 1770 : dans ceux des Arts et métiers publiés par cette Académie, et dans la collection académique''
1776Jugement
/ref> * ''Traité théorique et pratique sur la culture de la vigne, avec l'art de faire le vin, les eaux-de-vie, esprit de vin, vinaigres'', Paris : Delalain, 1801, 2 vol. * ''Dictionnaire d’agriculture et d’économie rurale'', Nîmes, J. Gaude, 1804, 2 vol in 1 vol in quarto

Bibliography

* Adrien Davy de Virville (ed.), ''Histoire de la botanique en France'', Paris : SEDES, 1955, 394 p. * Françoise Dissard, ''L’Abbé Rozier, second directeur de l’École nationale vétérinaire de Lyon (1765–1769)'', Thèse de doctorat vétérinaire, Lyon, 1987 * Ruth Janet Severson Haug, "The abbé François Rozier and agricultural reform", in ''Proceedings of the IVth annual Meeting of the Western Society for French history, 11–13 November 1976'', Reno (Nevada), Santa Barbara (CA) : Western Society for French history, 1977, * Yvette Maurin, "Un agronome en Biterrois : l’abbé Rozier", L’an I de la liberté en Languedoc et en Roussillon, ''Société archéologique, scientifique et littéraire de Béziers'', 1990, n° spécial, p. 13–18 * Douglas McKie, ''The ''Observations'' of the Abbé François Rozier (1734–93)'', in ''Annals of Science'', vol. 13, numéro 2, June 1957, p. 73–89 (17), Taylor and Francis Ltd. * Florian Reynaud, ''Les bêtes à cornes (ou l'élevage bovin) dans la littérature agronomique de 1700 à 1850'', Caen, doctoral thesis in history, 2009, appendix 2 (publications) et appendix 22 (biography) * Antonio Saltini, ''Storia delle scienze agrarie'', vol. II, ''I secoli della rivoluzione agraria'', Bologne, Edagricole, 1987, p. 369–402 * Arsène Thiébaut de Berneaud
''Éloge historique de l'abbé François Rozier, restaurateur de l'agriculture française''
A. Barbier, 1833, nb p. 92

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rozier, Francois 1734 births 1793 deaths Scientists from Lyon 18th-century French botanists Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Members of the French Academy of Sciences 18th-century agronomists Members of the American Philosophical Society