Pierre-Clément Grignon

Pierre-Clément Grignon

Pierre-Clément Grignon (born August 24, 1723 in Saint-Dizier , † August 2, 1784 in Bourbonne-les-Bains ) was a French metallurgist and archaeologist .

Life

Although Pierre-Clément Grignon was particularly interested in the exact sciences in his youth and was a pupil of the Count of Caylus , it was only in his more mature years that he succeeded in drawing attention to himself. This was 1770 so, as he that of the Royal Academy of Bizkaia question asked "Quel est le meilleur des trois espèces de soufflets employés dans les forges de fer?" ( "What is the best of the three types of bellows, which in be used by iron smiths? ”) and won the award. His treatise is printed in the Recueil of the Academy of 1770 (No. 3, pp. 184–232). Appointed director of the iron hammer works of Bayard, he made new experiments with the material used to feed his furnaces. The Académie des sciences testified to him that it was satisfied with the results of his undertakings presented to it and appointed him its correspondent.

When Grignon carried out excavations near Saint-Dizier in 1772, he discovered remains of antiquity that caused so much attention at the time that King Louis XV. Grignon commissioned to continue his research. Under the title of compensation, the king granted him the sum of 10,000 francs for his work and also awarded him the Order of St. Michael in his honor . Now he also became a correspondent for the royal Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres ; the academies of Dijon and Châlon made him a full member.

In the last years of his life, Grignon suffered from a heated illness that mocked all medical help. Finally, he was prescribed a spa stay in Bourbonne-les-Bains, but this was also in vain, because Grignon died in this city on August 2, 1784 at the age of almost 61 years.

Publications

• Mémoires sur la nécessité et la facilité de rendre navigable la rivière de Marne depuis Saint-Dizier jusqu'au-dessus de Joinville , Paris 1770
• Bulletins des fouilles faites par ordre du roi, d'une ville romaine sur la petite montagne du Châtelet, en Champagne , 2 volumes, Paris 1774–1775 (most of the antiquities described therein passed into the cabinet of the Abbé de Tersan)
• Mémoires de physique sur l'art de fabriquer le fer, d'en fondre et forger des canons d'artillerie, sur l'histoire naturelle, et sur divers sujets particuliers de physique économique , Paris 1775; new edition under the title L'art de fabriquer le fer, de fondre et de forger des pièces d'artillerie , 1807
• Observations sur les épizootics contagieuses, et particulièrement sur celle qui a régné en Champagne , Paris 1776

Most recently, Grignon dealt with the translation of T. Bergmanns Analyze des Eisens from German, which he edited with notes and an appendix as well as four treatises on metallurgy in Paris in 1783.

literature

• F. Th. Richter: Grignon (Pierre-Clément) . In: Johann Samuelersch , Johann Gottfried Gruber (Ed.): General Encyclopedia of Sciences and Arts , 1st Section, Vol. 91 (1871), p. 74 f.