Étienne-Nicolas de Calon (Grandvilliers, 3 November 1726 – Paris, 4 June 1807)
A geographical engineer from 1750 on, he was a member of the Legislative Assembly, where he sat in the centre, and of the Convention, where he sat with the Mountain. Brigadier in 1793, Director of the War Depot (rebaptized General War Depot for War and Geography) from 1793 to 1797. He opened that institution to the different branches of geography (ancient, modern, physical), arranged a training course at the Depot in order to recruit new geographical engineers and set up a division of scientists. The Depot also started to send copies of its maps to the generals on campaign (Cf. Bret, Patrice. 1991. Le Dépôt général de la Guerre et la formation scientifique des ingénieurs-géographes militaires en France (1789–1830). Annals of Science, 48: 114–157, Binois, Grégoire. 2023. Les cartes en mains. Le travail des topographes et la construction de la géographie militaire dans la France du XVIIIe siècle, doctoral thesis, Paris-1 University: 323-324).