This celebrated chemist and mineralogist, upwards of forty years
director of the porcelain manufactory of Sèvres, was born at Paris in
1770. His father was justly celebrated for his attainments in the fine
arts. His mind developed itself in the midst of that brilliant society
belonging to the end of the eighteenth century, which his father was
accustomed to draw around him. He there derived, from conversations with
Franklin, the germ of that mild and practical philosophy which he never
abandoned; and from those of Lavoisier his earliest notions of
chemistry, which formed one of the foundations of his scientific career.
He gave early indications of that clearness of elocution which formed
one of his merits as a professor; and it is related that Lavoisier
himself took pleasure in listening to a lecture on chemistry delivered
by Brongniart even when he was scarcely fifteen years of age. He studied
in the Ecole de Medécine, where he was thrice enrolled; and when every
Frenchman was called to the frontier, he was connected to the army of
the Pyrenees in the capacity of an apothecary. A stay of fifteen months
among these mountains gave him the opportunity of studying a rich and
varied field of nature, as a zoologist and botanist. He likewise made
geological observations, which, at a later period, took their place in
the science, and which he often took pleasure in recalling; but there he
encountered dangers which his youth did not suspect, and he was
imprisoned under suspicion of having favoured the escape of the skilful
naturalist, Broussonnet, who avoided certain death by fleeing by the
breach of Rolland. Restored to liberty after the 9th Thermidor,
Brongniart returned to Paris, and, in 1800, was nominated director of
the porcelain manufactory of Sèvres, on the recommendation of
Berthollet. At nineteen years of age, Brongniart was one of the founders
of the Societé Philomatique, which, at the period of proscription for
all of a higher class, kept alive the sacred fame of science. He died in
1847, and at his funeral, on October 9th, M. Elie de Beaumont delivered
an _éloge_, whence these details have been derived.
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