Nicolas-Antoine Sanson (Paris, 7 December 1756 – Passy, 29 October 1824)
Son of a trader from Paris, he studied at Jean-Jacques Bachelier’s École Royale Gratuite de Dessin. He was a teacher of architecture and fortification at the École de Sorèze from 1778 to 1793. He then embarked on a military career in the engineering corps, becoming a brigadier and commander-in-chief of the engineering corps in Egypt. He became Director of the General War Depot in 1802. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1807 and made a count of the Empire in 1808. He was taken prisoner in Russia in 1812 and came back in 1814, when he was made a knight of Saint-Louis. He was a commander of the Legion of Honour as of 1804 (Cf. Birembaut, Arthur. 1986. Les écoles gratuites de dessin, in Enseignement et diffusion des sciences en France, ed. René Taton. Paris: Hermann (orig. ed. 1964): 460).