According to the official genealogies from the Banque de France, the surname Mallet is likely derived from either the name of the city of Saint-Malo in Brittany or the parish of Saint-Maclou in Rouen, both namesakes of the 6th century Saint Malo of Aleth.

[16][17][18] In the mid—late 16th century, religious civil war in France drove many Calvinist Huguenots, such as the Mallets, to seek refuge in Geneva, which had declared itself Lutheran in 1536.

After the death of his first wife, Jacquemine Favre, Jacques married Laure Sartoris, daughter of Jean-Léonard, former secretary to Charles III, Duke of Savoy.

[22] He resided in the city until 1792, when he was enlisted by Louis XVI, who saw du Pan as his political ally, as a special envoy charged with gathering military support from neighboring leaders.

His work was largely neglected until after World War II, when it was rediscovered and championed by historians and philosophers such as Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves and Jacques Godechot.

[40][41] After he had completed his duties in Denmark, Mallet journeyed to England to visit the royal family, which included Caroline Matilda, the betrothed of his former pupil, Christian.

[44] However, over the next few years, the wealth Mallet had accumulated, including his pensions from the nobility, was essentially dissolved due to ongoing political turmoil.

When the occupying French government found out about his poor financial state, however, Mallet was supplied with a generous allowance, which he took advantage of for a brief period until his death in 1807 from an acute attack of paralysis.

His pursuit of knowledge brought him next to Basel in 1760, where he studied with Daniel Bernoulli, and in 1765 to England and France, where he was inspired by astronomers Jérôme Lalande, John Bevis, and Nevil Maskelyne, among others.

Mallet was subsequently invited by Catherine II and the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences to travel to Russia to observe the 1769 transit of Venus from Lapland.

[59][60] As director of the observatory, Jacques-André and his students, which included Marc-Auguste Pictet and Jean Trembley, conducted research concerning planetary movements, solar eclipses, and other celestial phenomena.