Reputed to be the last illegitimate son of Louis XV, he abandoned the bar for pharmacy and was appointed ordinary pharmacist to the Emperor in 1809. With Larrey he embalmed the body of Marshal Lannes. The man could not be contained in a pharmacy: he wrote a Cours gastronomique and songs for the goguettes, the singing clubs of Paris.
The story
Charles-Louis Cadet de Gassicourt, the future pharmacist to Napoleon, was born in Paris in 1769, officially the son of the chemist Louis Claude Cadet de Gassicourt. Baron Thiébault, his friend, tells in his memoirs how his mother yielded to the advances of Louis XV, and how the furious husband refused every compensation the king offered. All his life, Cadet passed for the last bastard of the old king.
A barrister first — he grew up among the scholars who filled the house, d'Alembert, Buffon, Condorcet — he gave up the bar for pharmacy. Compromised in the 13 Vendémiaire, the royalist rising that Bonaparte crushed in Paris in 1795, and outlawed, he hid for three years in the Berry before returning to practise in Paris, where his reputation had him appointed pharmacist in ordinary to the Emperor in 1809.
He followed Napoleon on the Austrian campaign and embalmed, with the surgeon Larrey, the body of Marshal Lannes. After the abdication he was called several times to the bedside of the Emperor, who had tried to poison himself.
The man did not fit inside a pharmacy: he wrote a dictionary of chemistry, a formulary reprinted for decades, a Cours gastronomique, a dissertation on coffee, a bestseller on the Templars — and songs, which he went off to sing in the goguettes, the singing clubs of the back rooms. He died in 1821 and lies in Division 39, with his son Félix, a pharmacist like him, and his grandson Ernest, a children's doctor: three generations under one slab.
On site, do not miss
A vault of a medical dynasty: the Emperor's pharmacist and the paediatrician who succeeded him in the same stone.
Visitors' questions
Where is Cadet de Gassicourt's grave?
In Division 39 of Père-Lachaise, in a family grave. The Division gathers several figures of early nineteenth-century science and pharmacy, among them Antoine Parmentier and the surgeon Guillaume Cullerier.
Antoine Parmentier, Division 39Was Cadet de Gassicourt really a son of Louis XV?
The descent was never officially established, but most historians accept it. It rests on the testimony of Baron Thiébault, a friend of Cadet's, who tells the story in his memoirs — and on the favours granted to the deceived husband.
Sophie Cottin, Division 39What was his role with Napoleon?
Apothecary in ordinary to the Emperor from 1809, he followed him on the Austrian campaign and, with the surgeon Larrey, embalmed the body of Marshal Lannes. After the abdication he was called to Napoleon's bedside, when the Emperor had tried to poison himself.
Pierre-André Latreille, Division 39What is a goguettier?
A singer of the goguettes: the singing clubs that met in the back room of a tavern to run through verses, often political ones. Cadet de Gassicourt, the Emperor's apothecary by day, was a valued regular.
Jean-Baptiste Clément, songwriterAudio guide to Père Lachaise: the best unusual guided tour!
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