Louis-Sébastien Lenormand

After returning to his natal town, he worked in his father's clock shop while immersing himself in the intellectual community and starting his experiments with parachuting, inspired by the performance of a Thai equilibrist who used a parasol for balance.

When during the French Revolution he had to renounce his priesthood and marry, he moved to Albi to teach technology at a college newly founded by his father-in-law.

During his time at the excise office, Lenormand started publishing in technology journals and filed patents for a paddle boat, a clock successfully installed at the Paris Opera and a public lighting system.

When he was removed from his job in 1815, Lenormand got involved even more in publishing, first establishing Les annales de l’industrie nationale et étrangère (The Annals of National and Foreign Industry) and Le Mercure technologique (The Technological Mercury), and, starting in 1822 and continuing until his death in 1837, twenty-volumes of Le Dictionnaire technologique (The Technologic Dictionary).

In 1830, Lenormand returned to Castres and, following his estrangement from his wife and her family, renounced his marriage and resumed his religious life as "Brother Chrysostom".