Background
Louis François Élisabeth Ramond de Carbonnières was born on January 4, 1755, in Strasbourg, France, the son of a state official in Alsace Pierre-Bernard Ramond (1715–1796), treasurer of war, and Rosalie-Reine Eisentrand (1732–1762).
An engraving representing a portrait of L.F. Elis. Ramond.
University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, Alsace, France
Ramond took courses in law and medicine attending the University of Strasbourg in 1775.
Louis François Élisabeth Ramond, baron de Carbonnières, a French politician, geologist, and botanist.
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1789
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1811
Botanist geologist politician scientist
Louis François Élisabeth Ramond de Carbonnières was born on January 4, 1755, in Strasbourg, France, the son of a state official in Alsace Pierre-Bernard Ramond (1715–1796), treasurer of war, and Rosalie-Reine Eisentrand (1732–1762).
Ramond took courses in law and medicine attending the University of Strasbourg in 1775.
In 1777 Ramond visited Switzerland, where he met Voltaire, Haller, and Johann Lavater. He also traveled across the Alps in order to study their natural history. In 1776 the Englishman William Coxe had made similar journeys, and his observations were later published as Sketches of the Natural, Civil and Political State of Swisserland in a Series of Letters to William Melmoth (London, 1779). Ramond translated this work into French, adding notes based on his own observations in Switzerland, in particular giving details about the glaciers.
The success of this book, which was published in 1781, attracted the attention of Cardinal Louis de Rohan, and he engaged Ramond as his confidential secretary. In this capacity, Ramond acted as go-between in Rohan's dealings with the notorious charlatan Cagliostro.
In 1787 he accompanied Rohan to Bareges, a small spa in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The mineralogical and botanical observations he made in the neighboring mountains were published in 1789 as Observations faites dans les Pyrenees, a work which aroused great interest. Ramond described glaciers in the Pyrenees which were quite unknown to the scientific world. He also gave an account of the fauna and flora and described the changes that took place in the vegetation with increasing altitude.
During the early years of the Revolution Ramond was in Paris and in 1791 was elected to the Legislative Assembly as a deputy. In debates he supported Lafayette and after the events of 10 August 1792 found it necessary to leave the city immediately. He returned to Bareges, but in 1794 was imprisoned in Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrenees) for ten months because of his political views. After his release, he was appointed a professor of natural history at Tarbes.
In the summer of 1797 Ramond attempted to reach the summit of Mont-Perdu (now Monte Perdido, in Spain) in the central Pyrenees, which he erroneously believed to be the highest peak of the range. He was accompanied by Philippe Picot de la Peyrouse, botanist and inspector of mines, from Toulouse, and several students. The summit was not reached, but the party made the unexpected discovery of abundant fossil remains of marine shells in the limestone strata at an altitude of about 10,000 feet. Ramond and Picot de la Peyrouse, each anxious to claim credit for this discovery, sent separate accounts to the Institut National des Sciences et des Arts (the former Academie des Sciences) in Paris and these were published in the Journal des Mines, 8 (1798).
Ramond continued his researches, botanical as well as geological, in the Pyrenees. In 1800 he returned to Paris and was elected to the Corps Legislatif. He published a new account of his several journeys in the Pyrenees in Voyages au Mont-Perdu et dans la partie adjacente des Hautes-Pyrenees (Paris, 1801). He continued to visit the district and on 10 August 1802 at last succeeded in reaching the summit of Monte Perdido, an altitude of 10,997 feet.
Ramond was elected a member of the Institut National in 1802, and in 1806 Napoleon appointed him prefect of Puy-de-Dome. In Auvergne, he continued to pursue his botanical and geological researches, and barometric measurements also engaged his attention. During the invasion of France in 1814, his house in Paris was ransacked by Cossacks, and manuscripts that he was preparing for publication were destroyed.
Ramond was active in the political life of the country, and from 1800 to 1806, he worked with the Parliament. Also, as a friend of Napoleon, Ramond was named vice-president of the Corps législatif and was a member of the Constitutional Council.
Ramond became a member of the French Academy of Sciences in January 1802. He was also a member of the Société des observateurs de l'homme, which rendered in English as Society of Observers of Man, was a French learned society founded in Paris in 1799.
Ramond married Bonne-Olympe in 1805, widow of General Louis-Nicolas Chérin and the daughter of his friend Bon-Joseph Dacier (1742–1833).