Jean-Henri Fabre

When Jean-Henri Fabre bought the Harmas, he made it his open-air laboratory. At the age of 56, the "Virgil of insects" as Edmond de Rostand referred to him, realised his dream and was finally able to study "the plant and the bug" full-time.

An eminent naturalist—botanist and entomologist among others—considered to be one of the precursors of ethology, J.-H. Fabre was also a poet, writer, teacher, painter and musician. A self-taught man, he obtained two baccalaureates in literature and maths, followed by three degrees in maths, physics and natural sciences, before defending two doctoral theses in zoology and botany.

Some key dates

1823: birth in Saint Léons de Lévezou (Aveyron)
1843: After obtaining his teacher's diploma, Fabre teaches at Carpentras primary school.
1849: Appointed physics teacher at the college in Ajaccio.
1843: He is appointed professor at the lycée in Avignon.
1865: Pasteur comes to meet Fabre to understand silkworm disease.
1868: He was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur for all his educational work.
1870: Fabre resigned and moved to Orange after the scandal caused by his lecture on the sexuality of plants in an evening class attended by young girls.
1870-1910: He wrote around a hundred books for pupils and teachers.
1878-1910: 10 volumes of Souvenirs entomologiques published.
1879: He buys the Harmas.
1910: He receives the Linné Gold Medal from the Stockholm Academy of Sciences during the jubilee year.
14 October 1914: President Raymond Poincaré visits the Harmas.
11 October 1915: He died at l'Harmas at the age of 92.

A passion for insects

Until his death in 1915, J.-H. Fabre studied plant life and the habits of countless insects tirelessly at his Harmas. A scrupulous entomologist, he dedicated his life to hymenoptera and coleoptera. His scientific rigour as an observer was matched only by his lively writing style. He wrote thousands of pages in the service of his precious "bugs", collected in the ten volumes of his major work: Souvenirs Entomologiques.

A love of beautiful plants

As much a botanist as an entomologist, J.-H. Fabre carried out numerous experiments on his own property and on field expeditions. Thanks to Bernard Verlot from the Muséum and Théodore Delacour of the Vilmorin-Andrieux seed company in Paris, he received many cuttings and seeds to add to his garden and try to acclimatise plants to the harsh southern climate.

A man of science

Recognised by his peers, J.-H. Fabre enjoyed an extensive correspondence with John Stuart Mill, Louis Pasteur, Esprit Requien and Charles Darwin. The latter described him as "an inimitable observer" in one of the two letters preserved at the Harmas and thanked him for sending his Souvenirs Entomologiques. He added: "I do not believe that any one in Europe has more truly admired your investigations than I have done”.

Jean-Henri Fabre — Visite du président Raymond Poincarré à l'Harmas en 1914
© DR

The soul of an artist

Ever committed to science, J.-H. Fabre let his curiosity and artistic sensibility shine through. As a member of the Félibres collective, he penned poems in Provençal about mathematics and the cicadas he had so closely observed, and wrote music to accompany them. Unable to preserve mushrooms in his precious herbarium, he learned to paint in watercolour and produced almost 650 sheets, as precise as they were delicate.

The road to fame

A meeting with Dr G. Legros, around 1906, brought J.-H. Fabre's name out of obscurity. Before becoming his official biographer, Dr Legros organised a scientific jubilee in his honour at the Harmas in 1910, which was followed in 1913 by a visit from the French President, Raymond Poincaré, who expressed the nation’s gratitude. J.-H. Fabre had reached the height of his fame.