Antoine-Léonard de Chézy was born on January 15, 1773 in Neuilly, France.
His father, Antoine de Chezy (1718 - 1798), was an engineer who finally became director of the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees.
The son was intended for his father's profession; but in 1799 he obtained a post in the oriental department of the national library.
In about 1803, Antoine-Léonard de Chézy began studying Sanskrit, and although he possessed no grammar or dictionary, he succeeded in acquiring sufficient knowledge of the language to be able to compose poetry in it.
Antoine-Léonard de Chézy was the first professor of Sanskrit appointed in the Collège de France (1815), where his pupils included Alexandre Langlois, Auguste-Louis-Armand Loiseleur-Deslongchamps and especially Eugène Burnouf, who would become his successor at the Collège in 1832. He was a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, and a member of the Académie des Inscriptions.
