French astronomer. Studied at the Collège Louis-le-Grand. Named adjoint astronome to the Académie des Sciences (1759). Traveled to Tobolsk, in Siberia (1761), and to California (1769) to observe the passage of Venus over the sun. His observations, which served to determine the parallax of the sun, were recorded in his Mémoire du passage de Vénus sur le soleil, … (St. Petersburg, 1762) and in the posthumous work, Voyage en Californie … (Paris, 1772), edited and published by Cassini. His Voyage en Sibérie fait en 1761 (Paris, 1768), was criticized by Catherine II in Antidote, ou Examen du mauvais livre intitulé: Voyage en Sibérie (Amsterdam, 1772).

Born at Mauriac.