Lalande, Joseph‐Jérôme

Born Bourg‐en‐Bresse, (Ain), France, 11 July 1732

Lalande organized and reduced observations from the 1769 French transit‐of‐Venus expeditions, prepared a great star catalog and important astronomical bibliography, and taught many astronomers.

Lalande's father was Pierre Lefrançois, director of a tobacco warehouse, who married Marie‐Anne‐Gabrielle Monchinet. Their son was educated by the Jesuits at Bourg and then at Lyons. Sent to Paris to study law, he frequented the observatory of Joseph Delisle at the Hôtel de Cluny and attended his lectures and those of Pierre-Charles Le Monnier at the Collège royal (now Collège de France). Then he named himself Lalande. A bachelor, in his 50s he adopted his nephew Michel Lefrançois, who married Amélie Harlay, whom he considered both