Joseph Pilgrim

Joseph Pellerin (1684-1782) was a intendant-general of the Naval armies French, first clerk of the Marine, famous numismatist.

(extracted the Universal Biographical Dictionary, article by Chaudon and Delandine):

" French numismatist, born on April 27th, 1684, in Marly, close Versailles, dead on August 30th, 1782, in Paris (sic, in fact he died in his castle of Plainville). The old and modern languages were the main object of its studies. It was even to this knowledge that it had, in 1706, its admission in the offices of the navy, or it was employed with the correspondence. Having succeeded in 1709 reading without any key, several letters quantified, seizures on board a Spanish frigate and concerning the archduke of Austria, it gained, by this effort of penetration, the good graces of Pontchartrain, which chooses it for secretary of its cabinet.

He enjoys the same favor near the ministers who succèdérent to him: the count of Toulouse appointed it police chief of the navy (1718), and Maurepas, general police chief, then first clerk.

Having obtained its retirement in 1745, it devoted the remainder of its life to the study of antiquity. The cabinet which it had formed, richest and most invaluable which had ever belonged to a private individual, contained 33,500 medals; in 1776 Louis XVI acquired of it at the costs of 300.000 FR.

Pilgrim made make great progress with the numismatics: he singularly lit it by the interesting collection which he published under various titles (Paris, 1762-1778, 10 vol. in-4º. pl), and which forms the reasoned catalog of its own collection. It adopted a method as simple as logical, and showed in its explanations a large smoothness of observation and a rare perspicacity. One can say that it cleared the road in famous Eckhel. Some errors which had escaped him were raised by Khell, Barthélemy, Swinton and the Leblond." abbot; (end of quotation) Become gradually blind the last forty years of its life, he had written his numismatic colossal work on a thin paper ribbon which he unrolled of a reel while identifying the parts that he treated by the key only. The portrait on the right in bottom on this page comes from the one of volumes of its collection.

Pilgrim married, in 1714, Marianne Delalande, niece of the famous type-setter of Versailles Michel-Richard Delalande; his/her Joseph son accepted from the king of the noble letters in 1740, and his/her Marianne daughter was the woman, into 1737 of Arnaud of the Door (or Delaporte, of Laporte) which inherited his/her father-in-law his loads in the administration of the Navy, and which, with his/her brother Jean-Baptiste de Laporte-Lalanne, had a great influence on the development of the French colonies, in particular of Quebec and Santo Domingo, whose Jean-Baptiste was police chief and of the Isles-under-the-Wind from where he was Intendant.

The grandson of Pilgrim, Arnaud de Laporte, became, in his turn, Ministre for the Navy in 1789, then Intendant of the civil list in 1790. Large friend of Louis XVI, it tried, in vain, to moderate the Revolution and was the second victim of the guillotine, his head carried like macabre gift of birthday to the king, imprisonné in the Temple, on August 23rd, 1793. Its sacrifice was worth with its family at the time of the Restoration a title of baron, still carried.

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