Electronic edition published by Cultural Heritage Langauge Technologies (with permission from Charles Scribners and Sons) and funded by the National Science Foundation International Digital Libraries Program. This text has been proofread to a low degree of accuracy. It was converted to electronic form using data entry.
BUFFON, GEORGES-LOUIS LECLERC, COMTE
DE (b. Montbard, France, 7 September 1707; d. Paris,
France, 16 April 1788); natural history.
Buffon was the son of Benjamin-François Leclerc
and Anne-Cristine Marlin, both of whom came from
the bourgeoisie. Anne Marlin was related to a rich
financier whose money enabled Benjamin to become,
in 1717, lord of Buffon and of Montbard, and conseiller
to the Burgundian parliament. Georges-Louis,
the naturalist, was the eldest of five children, of whom
three others entered the church, where two of them
rose to high position. In 1717 the Leclerc family
moved to a fine house in Dijon, where they occupied
an important place in society. The intellectual life of
that provincial capital was active but not oriented
toward science at that particular time.
Georges-Louis was a pupil at the Collège des
Jésuites in Dijon from 1717 to 1723. He was only an
average student, although he distinguished himself by
his bent for mathematics. His father undoubtedly
wanted him to have a legal career, and he did study
law in Dijon between 1723 and 1726. As early as 1727,
however, he became friendly with the young Swiss
mathematician Gabriel Cramer, a professor at the
University of Geneva. In 1728 he went to Angers,
where he may have studied medicine and botany, as
well as mathematics, with Père de Landreville, professor
at the Collège de l'Oratoire. A duel forced him
to leave Angers in October 1730, and he embarked
on a long journey through Southern France and Italy
with a young English nobleman, the duke of Kingston,
and his tutor, Nathaniel Hickman, an obscure
member of the Royal Society.
Buffon returned to France in 1732 and, despite his
father's opposition, obtained his mother's fortune (she
had died during his absence). At the same time, he
began to make himself known in Parisian political
and scientific circles. His first works on the tensile
strength of timber were written at the request of the
minister of the navy, Maurepas, who was seeking to
improve the construction of war vessels. Buffon's
Mémoire sur le jeu du franc-carreau, a study of probability
theory, contributed to his admission to the
Académie Royale des Sciences as adjoint-méchanicien
on 9 January 1734. For six years he divided his time
among finance (his fortune soon became considerable);
research in botany and forestry (he wrote
several dissertations and translated Stephen Hales's
Vegetable Statiks into French in 1734); and mathematics
(he wrote dissertations and in 1740 translated
Newton's The Method of Fluxions and Infinite Series
into French from the English translation of the original
Latin manuscript, published in 1736 by John
Colson). At the end of this time he also became
interested in chemistry and biology and conducted
some microscopic research on animal reproduction.
In June 1739 he became an académicien-associé and
transferred from the mechanical to the botanical
section. That July, through the influence of Maurepas,
he succeeded Dufay as intendant of the Jardin du
Roi.
Each spring, from 1740 on, Buffon left Paris for
Montbard, to administer his estates, continue his
research, and edit his writings. His robust constitution
allowed him to adhere to a well-organized
schedule: he arose at dawn and spent the morning
at his work, and the afternoon at his business affairs.
For fifty years, Buffon spent the summer on his estate,
returning to Paris in the fall. At the end of this time,
he had doubled the area of the Jardin du Roi, enriched
its collections, and enlarged its buildings considerably;
moreover, he himself had become rich,
having been showered with pensions and having
increased his landholdings. He had published the
thirty-six volumes of Histoire naturelle and was famous
throughout Europe and even in America; he was
a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, the
Académie Française, the Royal Society of London,
and the academies of Berlin and St. Petersburg, among
others. Catherine II bestowed gifts upon him, and
Louis XV made him Comte de Buffon and commissioned