Auguste Le Prévost, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Auguste Le Prévost

French scientist

Date of Birth: 03-Jun-1787

Place of Birth: Bernay, Normandy, France

Date of Death: 14-Jul-1859

Profession: politician, historian, geologist, botanist, archaeologist, linguist, lichenologist

Nationality: France

Zodiac Sign: Gemini


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About Auguste Le Prévost

  • Auguste Le Prévost (3 June 1787 in Bernay, Eure – 14 July 1859 in La Vaupalière) was a French geologist, philologist, archaeologist and historian. While studying classics and law, Le Prevost developed a passion for history and archeology.
  • To further it, he learned, besides Latin and Greek, English, Italian, German, Swedish, Hebrew and Sanskrit.
  • His encyclopedic knowledge, the critical and rigorous method he applied to his research, were clearly an innovation in his time.
  • As an historian, Le Prevost pioneered, along with his friend Arcisse de Caumont, research on the Romanesque and Gothic architecture in Normandy and France.
  • In 1824, he cofounded with de Caumont, Charles de Gerville and Father Gervais de La Rue, the Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, a veritable "school in motion of specialists of architecture".
  • He was elected a member of the Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Rouen in 1813, and chaired, on various occasions, the learned societies of Seine-Inférieure and Eure.
  • He was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1838. Le Prévost, who was fascinated by the History of Normandy, published the five volumes of the Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis' work.
  • He showed his versatility by authoring, among many scientific papers, a Discours sur la poésie romantique in 1825.
  • In 1830, he published two sets of detailed notes on the important discovery of "the treasure of Berthouville", a fabulous collection of Gallo-Roman silverware listed today among the most valuable pieces medal cabinet of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
  • He is responsible for the restoration of the Parlement de Normandie in Rouen and conservation of Roman theater of Lillebonne. He began a political career with his election as general counselor in Bernay in 1831, then as deputy in 1834.
  • He was consistently re-elected until the Orleans family fell from power after the French Revolution of 1848.
  • he did not oppose the republic, but said humorously, "The Republic and I greet one another, but we do not talk." He then resumed scholarly activities he had never really abandoned, and earned the nickname of "Norman Pausanias".
  • When he died in 1859, he had gone almost blind. He is featured in Jean de La Varende's most famous novel, Leather-Nose (1936), when the hero, Roger Tainchebraye, meets "a black man feverishly measuring, looking, counting, an active and tiny insect: it was Auguste Le Prevost, the archaeologist of Bernay, semi-founder of the science that would get such a upswing" walks through the ruins of the Abbey of Saint-Evroul.
  • Nez-de-Cuir also mentions a mysterious crypt in the abbey with "miscellaneous valuables, rings and bits of sticks, which come from a discovery made around here"... The innumerable unpublished Notes historiques et archéologiques by Le Prevost were later published in several volumes between 1866 and 1869 by Louis Passy and Léopold Delisle.
  • They have been widely used by generations of researchers, and are still authoritative. Le Prévost was appointed sub-prefect of Bernay in August 1814 before he was discharged in November 1815.
  • A street of his native town of Bernay was named after him.

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