Jean-Louis Giraud Soulavie

Soulavie was an active participant in the French Revolution, joining the Jacobin club, and survived despite being in favour of Robespierre.

Born in Ardèche, France, he began his career at the Saint-Nicolas college and the Saint-Esprit seminary being ordained a priest in 1776.

Despite his ecclesiastical office, he spent much of his time studying the geology of his home in Southern France until he moved to Paris in 1778.

[2] In 1780, with the backing of the Académie des Sciences, he began publishing volumes of his Histoire naturelle de la France Méridionale (1780–1784), which documented his geological and natural studies.

Having established himself in the literary world after compiling and publishing memoirs and correspondences of notable French historical figures, he earned the task of doing the same for the then recently dethroned King Louis XVI.