PATRICK TOURNEBOEUF / BLURRED TREND FOR “THE WORLD”
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InvestigationDu Pont de Nemours, a Franco-American saga (1/6). How did a French family name come together with that of a multinational chemical company, DuPont? Through the economist Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a little-known figure of the Age of Enlightenment. First part of a story that straddles the ages.
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For sale: ten hectare estate, with mansion, 100 kilometers south of Paris, near the village of Chevannes (Loiret). The classified is published in The world, early 1974. Despite its strange roof, typical of the 1920s, the house caught the attention of Raymond Veyriac. This banker, who has a large clientele of innkeepers from Aveyron, has plenty to invest: business concluded.
While clearing his new property, he discovers the cherub of a fountain, the steps of a staircase … A French-style garden straight out of the Age of Enlightenment is emerging before his eyes. “My grandfather bought from an electronics manufacturer, tells the grandson of Mr. Veyriac, Jean-Bernard Bouchard, who inherited the land when he died in 2018. This entrepreneur was planning to move his factories here, in the heart of the Gâtinais countryside. Fortunately, he had to sell before, in a hurry by the tax authorities. “
A romantic life
To restore what can be restored, Veyriac digs into the history of the place. A neighbor finally lets go: if there are few traces of his passage – except the garden – it is mainly here that Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817) lived from 1774 to 1815. . “We forgot him a little, but he was an important economist, with a very romantic life, pleads Mr. Bouchard, lawyer by profession. His friends, the Mirabeaus, lived nearby. It was from them that he acquired the Domaine du Bois-des-Fossés, as Pierre Samuel called what is today our property. “
Du Pont, Bois-des-fossés… Names that foreshadow his destiny in sawtooth, straddling classes, centuries and countries. Like his models, Beaumarchais and Rousseau, Pierre Samuel is the son of a Protestant watchmaker. Like the first, he grew up in Paris, made a place for himself at Versailles, experienced exile and imprisonment. Like the second, he soothes his torments in contact with nature. However, he will pass on to posterity not through his work, but through his heirs.
Discoveries that revolutionize textiles
In 1802, his eldest son, Eleuthère Irénée, founded a gunpowder factory in the northeastern United States, in Delaware. It was to this company – spelled DuPont, without space – that the du Pont family owed their fortune. “Across the Atlantic, their descendants have erected sumptuous French-inspired châteaux. They gave them exotic names: Nemours, Chevannes or Bois-des-Fossés! “, laughs Jean-Bernard Bouchard.
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