Julien François Desjardins

Who was Julien François Desjardins?

Julien François Desjardins was a French zoologist, the son of Julien Jouan Desjardins and Henriette Émilie Marcotte.

He studied in Paris from 1822 to 1824 under Cuvier, and was influenced by Louis Jacques Thénard, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, Pierre André Latreille, René Desfontaines and others. He embarked on a career in civil engineering, but soon realised that he should return to his original passion of natural history and studied at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle.

With Charles Telfair, Wenceslas Bojer, and Jacques Delisse, Desjardins took part in founding the Société d'Histoire Naturelle de l'Île Maurice on 11 August 1829. He was the first secretary of this Society and editor of the publication Rapport annuel sur les travaux de la Société d'histoire naturelle de l'Île Maurice until 1839, when he left for France to publish his observations. His premature death led to his manuscript's acquisition from his widow, Julie Renée Adélaïde Maréchal, by Félix Édouard Guérin-Méneville, but was never published. An excerpt from the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London of a meeting held on 23 October 1838 reads: