Bruno Chanetz (ed). A tribute to Abbé Bertholon - Abbé Bertholon: his life, his work and his successors in the 21st century. Comptes Rendus. Mécanique, Volume 353 (2025). doi: 10.5802/crmeca.sp.3

Bertholon was undoubtedly an illustrious figure in the last decades of the 18th century, at the height of the Age of Enlightenment. Born in 1741 and died in 1800, the “learned Abbé Bertholon”, a priest of Saint Lazare and holder of the chair of experimental physics at the Etats généraux de Languedoc in Montpellier, was one of the most prominent “electricians” at a time when the physics of static electricity was gaining ground. He was a member of numerous provincial academies, including those of Montpellier and Béziers, and was considered an authority. The bulk of his work appeared in three books: De l'électricité du corps humain dans l'état de santé et de maladie (1780); De l'électricité des végétaux (1783); De l'électricité des météores (1787).

The “Franklin of Languedoc” was the promoter of lightning rods, the first of which he installed in several French cities, including Paris. The great mathematician Monge asked him to edit for him the first volume of the Dictionnaire de physique of the Encyclopédie méthodique. He wrote himself a large number of the articles.

But Bertholon is undoubtedly unknown today, and is only mentioned in passing in rare scholarly works on lightning rods.

This collection, a follow-up to a symposium held in Montpellier in 2024, aims to recall Bertholon's life and work, as well as the intellectual milieu in which he lived in Montpellier.

The remainder of this issue is devoted to the latest scientific developments in the fields of physics in which he worked: electric fields, lightning and plasma, with articles from Sorbonne University, the Toulouse Aerology Laboratory, the University of Montpellier and ONERA (0ffice national d'études et de recherches aérospatiales). Although aviation was not yet a reality in the 18th century, aerostation made its debut in 1783, sparking a general craze that physicists of the time also succumbed to, by proposing on-board experiments in these first aircraft, as Bertholon did. Bertholon would have been fascinated by contemporary work in these fields. We hope they will delight our readers.