Background
Gabriel-Léopold-Charles-Amé Bexon was born on March 10, 1747, at Remiremont, France, the son of Amé Bexon, a lawyer, and Marthe Pillement.
https://www.amazon.com/Histoire-Lorraine-Gabriel-L%C3%A9opold-Charles/dp/1175048518/?tag=2022091-20
1777
https://www.amazon.com/Histoire-Naturelle-Oiseaux-Onzi%C3%A9me-French/dp/127142276X/?tag=2022091-20
https://www.amazon.com/Herrn-Buffons-Naturgeschichte-V%C3%B6gel-German/dp/1272426688/?tag=2022091-20
https://www.amazon.com/Herrn-Von-Buffons-Naturgeschichte-V%C3%B6gel/dp/1377095223/?tag=2022091-20
clergyman naturalist scientist writer
Gabriel-Léopold-Charles-Amé Bexon was born on March 10, 1747, at Remiremont, France, the son of Amé Bexon, a lawyer, and Marthe Pillement.
Having shown considerable intelligence, Bexon was sent north to the seminary at Toul to continue his education and prepare for the clergy. He completed the course of study and received his doctorate in theology at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Besançon in 1766 or 1767.
Then Bexon returned to Toul to accept a post as a subdeacon. There Bexon spent some time studying canon law; he was ordained in 1772.
Bexon’s first published works appeared in 1773. Catéchisme d’agriculture, written about 1768, was published anonymously in Paris. It was a very simply written book that dealt as much with morals as with agriculture and was meant to aid and educate the French peasants. In the same year, he also published, under his brother Scipion’s name, Le système de la fertilisation.
Although Bexon had announced plans for a two-volume history of Lorraine, and had later expanded the project to a four-volume work that would include one volume on the natural history of the province, he ceased work on the project in 1774. Only one volume appeared (Histoire de Lorraine, Paris, 1777), and was dedicated to Marie Antoinette. Probably as a result of this dedication, Bexon was appointed canon of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris in 1778 and three years later was elevated to the post of precentor.
From childhood, Bexon had been interested in natural history. He was a keen observer, and knew the mineralogy of the Vosges region especially well. While at Paris for a six-month visit in 1768-1769 he may have tried to meet Buffon, hoping to help with the Histoire naturelle. At that time Buffon’s collaborator, Guéneau de Montbéliard, overworked and in poor health, was seeking an assistant; and there is an ambiguous reference to "the abbé" in a letter from Buffon to Montbéliard dated May 17, 1769.
Bexon did meet Buffon in 1772. The young man spoke of the influence of Buffon’s works on him and of his desire to be of some assistance, which timely offer the naturalist accepted. Soon thereafter Bexon began to supply information and descriptions for various articles in the Histoire naturelle.
Although he supplied Buffon with descriptions, Bexon did not actually begin to collaborate in the writing of the articles until 1777. From then on, though, his contributions were numerous, appearing ultimately in six of the nine volumes of the Histoire des oiseaux and in the Histoire des minéraux.
When he began to assist Buffon, at the age of twenty-five, Bexon’s writing style was extremely erudite and flowery, but under Buffon’s tutelage, it became more concise and exact. He worked hard, inspired by a love of natural history and by the need to support a sick mother and a young sister. Buffon publicly acknowledged his work on the Histoire des oiseaux in the preface to the seventh volume (1780), where he noted not only Bexon’s scholarly researches but also the "solid reflections and ingenious ideas" he had supplied. From this collaboration, there developed an increasingly close friendship that ended only with Bexon’s untimely death.
Despite their friendship, Bexon did not agree with the philosophical aspects of Buffon’s system; he regarded it as "an ingenious and learned hypothesis" but not a true system of nature. In an unpublished manuscript on religion in relation to the universe, written about 1773, Bexon said he believed he could use the phenomena that supported the theory to show that nature contradicted Buffon’s views.
The complete Histoire naturelle consisted of forty-four volumes published over a span of fifty-five years, and it proved to be a very popular and influential work. But although it is known as the product of Buffon’s genius and industry, the work could not have appeared had it not been for the aid of Buffon’s collaborators - Daubenton, Guéneau de Montbéliard, and the Abbé Bexon.
Gabriel-Léopold-Charles-Amé Bexon died on February 15, 1784, in Paris, France.
Initially, Gabriel-Léopold-Charles-Amé Bexon served as a subdeacon in Toul. There Bexon spent some time studying canon law; he was ordained in 1772.
In 1778, Bexon was appointed canon of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, and three years later was elevated to the post of precentor.
