Sébastien Vaillant (; May 26, 1669 – May 20, 1722) was a French botanist who was born at Vigny in present-day

Val d'Oise Val-d'Oise (, "Vale of the Oise") is a department in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It was created in 1968 following the split of the Seine-et-Oise department. In 2019, Val-d'Oise had a population of 1,249,674.< ...

Early years

Vaillant went to school at the age of four and by the age of five, he was collecting plants and transplanting them into his father's garden. At the age of six, he was sent to a boarding school at

Pontoise Pontoise () is a commune north of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the "new town" of Cergy-Pontoise. Administration Pontoise is the official (capital) of the Val-d'Oise '' département'', although in reality the ' ...

. He suffered with a fever for four months which he claims to have cured using

lettuce Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae mostly grown as a leaf vegetable. The leaves are most often used raw in Green salad, green salads, although lettuce is also seen in other kinds of food, such as sandwiche ...

seasoned with vinegar. He was sent to study with the organist of the Pontoise Cathedral. When the organist died, Vaillant succeeded him at the age of eleven. Vaillant studied medicine and surgery at the hospital in Pontoise (medicine then included studies in botany). He left Pontoise for

Évreux Évreux () is a commune in and the capital of the department of Eure, in the French region of Normandy. History Antiquity In late Antiquity, the town, attested in the fourth century AD, was named '' Mediolanum Aulercorum'', "the central town ...

at the age of nineteen. He was at the battle of Fleurus in 1690 as a surgeon. While still a surgeon in 1691, he was in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

when he took as his master of botany

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (5 June 165628 December 1708) was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants. Botanist Charles Plumier was his pupil and accompanied him on his voyages. Li ...

(1656–1708). Tournefort used Vaillant's talents while writing (''History of the plants that are born around Paris''), published in

1698 Events January–March * January 1 – The Abenaki tribe and Massachusetts colonists sign a treaty, ending the conflict in New England. * January 4 – The Palace of Whitehall in London, England is destroyed by fire. * January 23 – ...

. Vaillant also took lessons in

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

with Joseph-Guichard Du Verney and

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

with Antoine de Saint-Yon.

Botanist

Guy-Crescent Fagon, the king's physician and botanist, noticed Sébastien Vaillant and made him his secretary. Vaillant was therefore able to devote himself to the study of plants for which he obtained unlimited access to the Royal Garden. Fagon appointed him director. Fagon himself was a teacher and sub-demonstrator The sub-demonstrator, according to Boerhaave

, had more privileges than the demonstrator. at the Royal Garden. The garden collections grew considerably under the leadership of Vaillant. Even though Vaillant himself was based in Paris and is remembered for his work on the Parisian flora, the garden had several contributors outside Paris, in particular in the colonies. Fagon obtained from Louis XIV an authorization to build a "Cabinet of drugs" in the Royal Garden and charged Vaillant to furnish it and to provide security. Charles Bouvard had the first greenhouse built: the Garden had plants from hot countries, and in 1714 Vaillant obtained the authorization to build another one. He became ill and too poor to publish his (alphabetically or Enumeration of plants that grow in and around Paris) illustrated by Claude Aubriet. A fruit of 36 years of work, he left his work at Herman Boerhaave's home, . The work contained engraved illustrations and was published in 1727. It is a work of particular importance in the history of botany and one of the first to describe the flora known. Vaillant introduced the terms of stamen, ovary, and egg in their current direction. All his life, Vaillant opposed the theses of

. As a mark of respect

Carl von Linné Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organi ...

named a genus Valantia after Vaillant in the

Rubiaceae Rubiaceae () is a family (biology), family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with Petiole ( ...

. His herbarium is now kept at the

National Museum of Natural History, France The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the ...

References

External links

* * * Vaillant, Sébastien (1727
''Botanicon Parisiense, ou Denombrement par ordre alphabetique des plantes''
- digital facsimile from the

Linda Hall Library The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, on the grounds of a urban arboretum. It claims to be the "largest independently funded public library of sc ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaillant, Sebastien 1669 births 1722 deaths Botanists with author abbreviations 18th-century French botanists French mycologists Pre-Linnaean botanists Members of the French Academy of Sciences National Museum of Natural History (France) people 17th-century French botanists