Louis Ramond de Carbonnières
Encyclopedia
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
– May 14, 1827), was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
and botanist. He is regarded as one of the first explorers of the high mountains of the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
who can be described as a pyrénéiste.
Life
Louis Ramond was born in StrasbourgStrasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, to Pierre-Bernard Ramond (1715–1796), treasurer of war, and Reine-Rosalie Eisentraut (1732–1762).
He studied law at the University of Strasbourg
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with about 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....
in 1775 and became a lawyer in February 1777. In Strasbourg he became friends with another student, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz was a Baltic German writer of the Sturm und Drang movement.-Life:...
(1751–1792), a writer belonging to the then-fashionable Sturm und Drang
Sturm und Drang
Sturm und Drang is a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism...
movement. During this period Ramond discovered German Romantic literature, in particular Goethe's
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787...
; this book inspired him to become a writer and in 1777 he published the Werther-influenced Les Dernières aventures du jeune d’Olban (The Last Adventures of Young Olban). Ramond undertook a voyage to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in May 1777 where he met writers and poets, as well as scientists: the theologian Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar Lavater was a Swiss poet and physiognomist.-Early life:Lavater was born at Zürich, and educated at the Gymnasium there, where J. J. Bodmer and J. J...
(1741–1801), and the zoologists Albrecht von Haller
Albrecht von Haller
Albrecht von Haller was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet.-Early life:He was born of an old Swiss family at Bern. Prevented by long-continued ill-health from taking part in boyish sports, he had the more opportunity for the development of his precocious mind...
(1708–1777) and Charles Bonnet
Charles Bonnet
Charles Bonnet , Swiss naturalist and philosophical writer, was born at Geneva, of a French family driven into Switzerland by the religious persecution in the 16th century.-Life and work:Bonnet's life was uneventful...
(1720–1793); he also came across his friend Lenz there. The two men shared what was by all accounts an ecstatic experience contemplating the valley of the Rhine. Ramond also caught the passion for high mountains. A few days later, Lenz suffered his first bout of insanity. In 1778, Ramond published Élégies, impressions inspired by his love for nature. Extracts from this work were published the same year in the Journal de Dames of Claude-Joseph Dorat (1734–1780).
In 1779, Ramond and his father settled in Paris. In 1780, Ramond published La Guerre d’Alsace pendant le Grand Schisme d’Occident (The War of Alsace during the Great Western Schism), a romantic and historical epic. But the French capital was not yet ready for German Romanticism and the book was not received as well as he had hoped.
Leaving Paris he returned to Strasbourg, where he placed himself at the service of cardinal Louis René Édouard de Rohan
Louis René Édouard, cardinal de Rohan
Louis René Édouard de Rohan known as the Cardinal de Rohan , prince de Rohan-Guéméné, was a French bishop of Strasbourg , politician, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, and cadet of the Rohan family...
(1734–1803), prince of Rohan-Guemenée and cardinal-archbishop of Strasbourg, celebrated for his role in the affair of the diamond necklace
Affair of the diamond necklace
The Affair of the Diamond Necklace was a mysterious incident in the 1780s at the court of Louis XVI of France involving his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The reputation of the Queen, which was already tarnished by gossip, was ruined by the implication that she had participated in a crime to defraud...
. In the company of the prince, Ramond travelled widely and met many of the personalities of the age. The cardinal was sent in exile to La Chaise-Dieu
La Chaise-Dieu
La Chaise-Dieu is commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France.-Geography:La Chaise-Dieu occupies a 1082 m butte which dominates a plain between the mounts of Livradois and Velay...
in June 1786, and he left for Auvergne
Auvergne (province)
Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....
accompanied by his faithful secretary. That summer, the cardinal wished to stay in a thermal town in the Pyrenees and Ramond departed to reconnoitre the area. The two men spent the summer and the autumn of 1787 in Barèges
Barèges
Barèges is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France. It is situated in the valley of the stream Bastan on the former Route nationale 618, the "Route of the Pyrénées."-Economy:...
. Ramond started to explore the nearby mountains above Gavarnie
Gavarnie
Gavarnie is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France.-See also:* Cirque de Gavarnie* Gavarnie Falls*Communes of the Hautes-Pyrénées department-References:*...
and in the Maladetta Massif, to get a better acquaintance with their geological formations – these were the subject of a topical controversy, fed in particular by the limestone theories of Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu
Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu
Dieudonné Sylvain Guy Tancrède de Dolomieu usually known as Déodat de Dolomieu was a French geologist; the rock dolomite and the largest summital crater on the Piton de la Fournaise volcano were named after him.Déodat de Dolomieu was born in Dauphiné, France, one of 11 children of the Marquis de...
(1750–1801) – and to see whether the mountains were granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
or limestone, which was believed to be older rock.
When the cardinal was authorized to return to Strasbourg in December 1788, Ramond settled in Paris, where in 1789 he published his Observations faites dans les Pyrénées, pour servir de suite à des observations sur les Alpes (Observations Made in the Pyrenees, To Be Useful in Observations of the Alps). To improve his knowledge of natural history, he followed the courses of Jussieu (1748–1836) and René Desfontaines
René Louiche Desfontaines
René Louiche Desfontaines was a French botanist.Desfontaines was born near Tremblay in Brittany. He attended the Collège de Rennes and in 1773 went to Paris to study medicine. His interest in botany originated from lectures at the Jardin des Plantes given by Louis Guillaume Lemonnier...
(1780–1831) in the Jardin des Plantes
Jardin des Plantes
The Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. It is one of seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. It is situated in the 5ème arrondissement, Paris, on the left bank of the river Seine and covers 28 hectares .- Garden plan :The grounds of the Jardin des...
.
Feuillant
Feuillant, a French word derived from the Latin for leaf, has been used as a tag by two different groups:*Feuillant *Feuillant ...
. In 1792 he defended the refractory priests whose deportation had been voted for. Ramond passionately supported the action of La Fayette
Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette , often known as simply Lafayette, was a French aristocrat and military officer born in Chavaniac, in the province of Auvergne in south central France...
, who tried to temper the over-enthusiasm of the Jacobins
Jacobin (politics)
A Jacobin , in the context of the French Revolution, was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary far-left political movement. The Jacobin Club was the most famous political club of the French Revolution. So called from the Dominican convent where they originally met, in the Rue St. Jacques ,...
. His life in danger, Ramond decided to flee Paris in August and seek refuge in the Pyrenees. Under surveillance and regarded as suspect, he left for Barèges
Barèges
Barèges is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France. It is situated in the valley of the stream Bastan on the former Route nationale 618, the "Route of the Pyrénées."-Economy:...
, where he was able to indulge in his botanizing and mountain observations to his heart’s content.
He was arrested in 1794 and accused of being an enemy of the Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. Imprisoned in Tarbes
Tarbes
Tarbes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France.It is part of the historical region of Gascony. It is the second largest metropolitan area of Midi-Pyrénées, with 110,000 inhabitants....
for seven months, his was a lucky escape from the guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
.
From 1796 he devoted himself exclusively to natural history. He corresponded with Philippe Picot of Lapeyrouse (1744–1818) and various botanists such as René Desfontaines, Jean Thore (1762–1823) and Domenica Villars (1745–1814). From 1796, he taught as professor of natural history at the new Central School of Tarbes,, where his courses were an immediate success, and he soon became a specialist in the botany and geology of the central Pyrenees. In 1797, he was finally able to concentrate on a project which had long intrigued him: to reach the top of Monte Perdido
Monte Perdido
Monte Perdido is the third highest mountain in the Pyrenees. The summit of Monte Perdido , located in Spain, lies hidden from France by the seemingly impenetrable peaks of the Cirques of Gavarnie and Estaubé. It is in the north of Huesca province...
(3,355 m) to counter the theories of Dolomieu
Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu
Dieudonné Sylvain Guy Tancrède de Dolomieu usually known as Déodat de Dolomieu was a French geologist; the rock dolomite and the largest summital crater on the Piton de la Fournaise volcano were named after him.Déodat de Dolomieu was born in Dauphiné, France, one of 11 children of the Marquis de...
and Lapeyrouse on the 'early era' of the limestone of the central chain. The expedition, which comprised about fifteen people, including Picot of Lapeyrouse and several of Ramond's pupils, found many fossils, but did not reach the top. The account of the expedition appeared in 1797 under the title of Voyage au Mont-Perdu et dans la partie adjacente des Hautes-Pyrénées (Voyage to Monte Perdido and the neighbouring parts of the High Pyrenees). On 7 September of the same year, again accompanied by his pupils and Charles-François Brisseau de Mirbel (1776–1854), Ramond made a second attempt. The administrator and forester Étienne-François Dralet (1760–1844) also took part in the expedition. But it was only in 1802 that he reached finally the top. Ramond reported this ascent in the Journal de Mines (in Thermidor year XI). He corresponded in particular with René Just Haüy
René Just Haüy
René Just Haüy – 3 June 1822 in Paris) was a French mineralogist, commonly styled the Abbé Haüy after he was made an honorary canon of Notre Dame. He is often referred to as the "Father of Modern Crystallography." -Biography:...
(1743–1822), Alexandre Brongniart
Alexandre Brongniart
Alexandre Brongniart was a French chemist, mineralogist, and zoologist, who collaborated with Georges Cuvier on a study of the geology of the region around Paris...
(1770–1847) and Jean Florimond Boudon de Saint-mercy (1748–1831).
After the Central School of Tarbes closed, he returned to Paris in 1800 as a member of the Constitutional Council. From 1800 to 1806, he worked with the Parliament, as well as taking part in the work of the Société des Observateurs de l'Homme and becoming a member of the French Academy of Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of 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...
in January 1802. He married Bonne-Olympe in 1805, widow of General Louis-Nicolas Chérin, and the daughter of his friend Bon-Joseph Dacier (1742–1833). As a friend of Napoleon, Ramond was named vice-president of the Corps législatif
Corps législatif
The Corps législatif was a part of the French legislature during the French Revolution and beyond. It is also the generic French term used to refer to any legislative body.-History:The Constitution of the Year I foresaw the need for a corps législatif...
, then in 1806 he became prefect of Puy-de-Dôme
Puy-de-Dôme
Puy-de-Dôme is a department in the centre of France named after the famous dormant volcano, the Puy-de-Dôme.Inhabitants were called Puydedomois until December 2005...
. He spent more time, however, botanizing and making weather measurements than occupying himself with administration. This did not prevent him from being made baron d' Empire in December 1809.
In 1815 he published Nivellement des Monts Dorés et des Monts Dômes disposé par ordre de terrains, (Stratification of the Monts Dorés and the Monts Dômes). The same year, he was elected deputy of Puy-de-Dôme. In 1818 he was elected to the Conseil d'État and did not leave Paris again except to go to Auvergne. In 1821, he spent the summer in Auvergne with René Desfontaines and two young naturalists, Victor Jacquemont
Victor Jacquemont
Victor Jacquemont was a French botanist and geologist.Born in Paris on August 8, 1801, Victor Jacquemont was the youngest of four sons of Venceslas Jacquemont and Rose Laisné....
(1801–1832) and Count Hippolyte Jaubert (1798–1874). He published finally, in 1825, Sur l’état de la végétation au sommet du Pic du Midi, (On the Condition of the Vegetation on the Summit of the Pic du Midi), this being the Pic du Midi de Bigorre
Pic du Midi de Bigorre
The Pic du Midi de Bigorre or simply Pic du Midi is a mountain in the French Pyrenees famous for its astronomical observatory, the Observatoire du Pic du Midi de Bigorre , part of the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées .-Pic du Midi Observatory:Construction of the observatory began in 1878 under the...
, not its more shapely namesake
Pic du Midi d'Ossau
The Pic du Midi d'Ossau is a mountain rising above the Ossau Valley in the French Pyrenees. Despite possessing neither a glacier nor, in the context of the range, a particularly high summit, its distinctive shape makes it a symbol of the French side of the Pyrenees...
. On his death in 1827 Ramond was buried in the cemetery of Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
.
Commemoration
- One endemic Pyrenean species, Ramonda pyrenaicaRamonda pyrenaicaRamonda pyrenaica is relictual endemite of the Gesneriaceae family growing in the Pyrenées.The plant name has been dedicated to Louis Ramond de Carbonnières by the botaniste Jean...
in the family GesneriaceaeGesneriaceaeGesneriaceae is a family of flowering plants consisting of ca. 150 genera and ca. 3,200 species in the Old World and New World tropics and subtropics, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.Most...
– a remnant of the flora of the TertiaryTertiaryThe Tertiary is a deprecated term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...
– was dedicated to him by the botanist Jean Michel Claude RichardJean Michel Claude RichardJean Michel Claude Richard was a noted French botanist and plant collector active in Senegal, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Réunion, and a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.Richard was born in Volon, Haute-Saône...
(1787–1868). It grows between an elevation of 1,200 m and 2,500 m in the cracks of schistSchistThe schists constitute a group of medium-grade metamorphic rocks, chiefly notable for the preponderance of lamellar minerals such as micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite, and others. Quartz often occurs in drawn-out grains to such an extent that a particular form called quartz schist is...
rocks. There are two other species in the genus Ramonda, R. nathaliae and R. serbica, both of which are found in the BalkansBalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
; the genus is the only one in the Gesneriaceae found outside the tropics or the sub-tropics. - The Soum de RamondSoum de RamondSoum de Ramond is a mountain in the Monte Perdido massif in the Pyrenees....
(3,263 m) (known in Spanish as Pico Añisclo) in the Monte PerdidoMonte PerdidoMonte Perdido is the third highest mountain in the Pyrenees. The summit of Monte Perdido , located in Spain, lies hidden from France by the seemingly impenetrable peaks of the Cirques of Gavarnie and Estaubé. It is in the north of Huesca province...
massif is named after him. (See photograph above left.) - His name is also given to Pic RamougnPic RamougnPic Ramougn is a steep, rocky mountain in the Néouvielle massif in the Pyrenees.It is located in the commune of Saint-Lary-Soulan within the department of the Hautes-Pyrénées, and is named after the French politician, geologist and botanist Louis Ramond de Carbonnières. Ramougn is the...
(3,011 m), a steep, rocky peak in the Néouvielle massifNéouvielle massifThe Néouvielle massif is a group of mountains in the Pyrenees in France notable for its lakes and its microclimate. Much of the massif lies within the Néouvielle National Nature Reserve; this nature reserve was created in 1936 and is the third oldest in France.The name Néouvielle derives from nèu...
. Ramougn is the pronunciation of Ramond in the Gascon languageGascon languageGascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
.
- Bory de Saint Vincent gave Ramond's name to a chain of craters (Puy Ramond) on the Piton de la FournaisePiton de la FournaisePiton de la Fournaise : "Peak of the Furnace" is a shield volcano on the eastern side of Réunion island in the Indian Ocean. It is currently one of the most active volcanoes in the world, along with Kīlauea in the Hawaiian Islands , Stromboli, Etna and Mount Erebus in Antarctica...
in RéunionRéunionRéunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...
: they are regularly visited by walkers on the GR route which crosses Réunion from north to south, and by the thousands of runners who take part in the Diagonale des Fous each year. - The Société Ramond (Ramond Society) was formed in 1865 in Bagnères-de-BigorreBagnères-de-BigorreBagnères-de-Bigorre is a French commune in the south-western Hautes-Pyrénées department, of which it is a sub-prefecture.-Notable people:Bagnères-de-Bigorre was the birthplace of:*Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke...
, by Henry RussellHenry Russell (explorer)Henry Patrick Marie, Count Russell-Killough was one of the pioneers of Pyrenean exploration, known for his obsession with the Vignemale.-Early life:...
(1834–1909), Émilien Frossard (1829–1898), Charles PackeCharles PackeCharles Packe was an English lawyer and explorer who is noted for his travels in and writing about the Pyrenees.-Family:Packe was born in 1826, the oldest son of Edmund Packe, a captain in the Royal Horse Guards.-Pyrenees:...
(1826–1896) and Farnham Maxwell-LyteFarnham Maxwell-LyteFarnham Maxwell-Lyte was a chemist and the pioneer of a number of techniques in photographic processing...
. It wanted to distinguish itself from traditional academic societies, while still being devoted primarily to the scientific and ethnographic study of the Pyrenees and to the dissemination of knowledge. Ramond, who had excelled in these disciplines, was the best symbol for the new society. The Ramond Society still publishes an annual bulletin. - Ramond's herbariumHerbariumIn botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...
can be seen at the Muséum de l'histoire naturelle in Bagnères-de-Bigorre.