Joseph Pellerin

In his youth his principal studies were in the modern and classical languages, which included French, English, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Syriac as well as others, and it was to his precocious expertise in these that he owed his admission to the offices of the Ministry of the Marine (as the Navy was called in France) in 1706, where he became employed in correspondence.

In fact he remained on as a greatly valued expert consultant for several years afterwards, his positions having gradually been formally assumed by his son Joseph Jr., who received letters-patent of nobility in recognition of two generations' of his family's service to the crown in 1740.

He found, however, a way to turn this handicap to profit, working on the succeeding volumes of his opus by day as easily as by night, writing his text on a thin ribbon of paper that he pulled off one spool only to be wound back up onto another to be later transcribed by his secretary.

Pellerin married into another Versailles family in 1714 when he wed Marie-Anne, niece of Michel-Richard Delalande, court composer to Louis XIV and one of the great exponents of the French baroque motet, among his many other masterpieces.

Despite a close collaboration with Mirabeau, and especially due to the latter's premature death, La Porte's efforts proved to be in vain, and he was arrested and convicted of treason against the Revolution becoming, on 23 August 1793 the second political victim of the guillotine.

His services and ultimate sacrifice were recalled during the restoration by the King's younger brother who had been crowned as Louis XVIII, and Pellerin's great-grandson Arnaud III de La Porte was created a baron in recognition, in 1822.