Jean-Jacques de Marguerie (Mondeville

Mondeville

Mondeville is the name of two communes in France:*Mondeville, in the Calvados département*Mondeville, in the Essonne département...

, 12 April 1742 – Grenada

Grenada

Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

, 1779) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 naval officer and mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

.

Life

He began his studies at the collège at Caen

Caen

Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located inland from the English Channel....

, discovering Euclid

Euclid

Euclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I...

's Elements aged around 18 and soon moving to study mathematics alone. He made such progress in this area that the geometer Alexis Fontaine

Alexis Fontaine des Bertins

Alexis Fontaine, known as Alexis Fontaine des Bertins was a French mathematician...

, who he met in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, offered to become his patron. He stayed with him so long that he edited several papers for the Académie des sciences.