1802 births

Casimir Lefaucheux (French: [kazimiʁ ləfoʃø]; 26 January 1802 – 9 August 1852) was a French gunsmith. He was born in Bonnétable, France and died in Paris, France.
Casimir Lefaucheux obtained his first patent in 1827. In 1832, he completed a drop-barrel sporting gun with paper-cased cartridges.Lefaucheux is credited with the development of one of the first efficient self-contained cartridge systems. This 1835 invention, featuring a pinfire mechanism, followed the pioneering work of Jean Samuel Pauly in 1808-1812. The Lefaucheux cartridge had a conical bullet, a cardboard powder tube, and a copper base that incorporated a primer pellet. Lefaucheux thus proposed one of the first practical breech-loading weapons.In 1846, Benjamin Houllier improved on the Lefaucheux system by introducing an entirely metallic cartridge of copper brass.In 1858, the Lefaucheux pistolet-revolver became the first metallic-cartridge revolver to be adopted by a national government, becoming the standard sidearm of the French Navy.In May 1866, Ferdinand Cohen-Blind attempted to assassinate Otto Von Bismarck with a Pepper-box in Lefaucheux pistol
A 7 mm Lefaucheux revolver, used by Paul Verlaine to shoot and wound Arthur Rimbaud in 1873, sold for €435,000 at a 2016 Paris auction.It is thought likely that the gun with which the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh fatally shot himself in a field in 1890 was a 7 mm Lefaucheux pinfire revolver. The pistol was found, extremely corroded, in 1960 and is on display at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Louis-Marie Michon (2 November 1802 in Blanzy, Saône-et-Loire – 6 May 1866 in Paris) was a French surgeon.
He studied medicine in Paris, where in 1826 he became an interne (interne provisoire the preceding year). From 1830 he served as aide d’anatomie to the medical faculty, attaining his agrégation in surgery in 1832 with the thesis De la carie et de la nécrose. During the same year he was appointed as surgeon to the "Bureau central", followed by chirurgien des hôpitaux in 1835. As a physician, he distinguished himself during the Revolution of 1848.
In 1843 he was a founding member of the Société nationale de chirurgie (today known as Académie nationale de chirurgie), and in 1863 was admitted to the Académie de Médecine. Posthumously (1873), he was praised at the annual meeting of the Société nationale de chirurgie by Felix Guyon (1831–1920).He was the author of an early treatise on tumors of synovial tissue titled Des tumeurs synoviales de la partie inférieure de l'avant-bras, de la face palmaire du poignet et de la main- 1851 (Synovial tumors of the lower part of the forearm, the volar wrist and hand).He was an officer of the Légion d'Honneur, and the father of politician Joseph Michon (1836–1904). He is buried in Montcenis, Saône-et-Loire.

Henri Lecoq (18 April 1802 – 4 August 1871) was a French botanist. Charles Darwin mentioned this name in 1859 in the preface of his famous book On The Origin of Species as a believer in the modification of species. Darwin wrote:
A well-known French botanist, M. Lecoq, writes in 1854 ('Etudes sur Géograph. Bot.,' tom. i. p. 250), 'On voit que nos recherches sur la fixité ou la variation de l'espèce, nous conduisent directement aux idées émises, par deux hommes justement célèbres, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire et Goethe.' Some other passages scattered through M. Lecoq's large work, make it a little doubtful how far he extends his views on the modification of species.
The work referenced by Darwin is Lecoq's "Étude de la Géographie Botanique de l’Europe", published in 1854.
A number of plants carry the name of Lecoq in their descriptive names (see IPNI search). Also in 1829, botanist DC. published Lecokia, a monotypic genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Apiaceae with its name honouring him.In addition a museum in his home town of Clermont Ferrand (France) is named after him.

Joseph Octave Delepierre (12 March 1802 – 18 August 1879) was a Belgian lawyer, archivist, diplomat, author and antiquary. He spent his later life in the United Kingdom, and is best known for his studies of macaronic language and literature.

Félix Antoine Philibert Dupanloup (3 January 1802 – 11 October 1878) was a French ecclesiastic. He was among the leaders of Liberal Catholicism in France.

Benoît Fourneyron (31 October 1802 – 31 July 1867) was a French engineer, born in Saint-Étienne, Loire. Fourneyron made significant contributions to the development of water turbines.
Benoît Fourneyron was educated at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, a nearby engineering school that had recently opened. After he graduated in 1816, he spent the next few years in mines and ironworks.
Around this time, a number of French engineers—including some of Fourneyron's former teachers—were starting to apply the mathematical techniques of modern science to the ancient mechanism called the waterwheel.
For centuries, waterwheels had been used to convert the energy of streams into mechanical power, mostly for milling grain. But the new machines of the Industrial Revolution required more power, and by the 1820s there was enormous interest in making waterwheels more efficient.

Antoine Jérôme Balard (30 September 1802 – 30 April 1876) was a French chemist and one of the discoverers of bromine.

Adolphe Niel (4 October 1802 – 13 August 1869) was a French Army general and statesman.
He was born at Muret, Haute-Garonne and entered the École Polytechnique in 1821. Niel entered the engineer school at Metz, became lieutenant in the Engineers Corps in 1827, and captain in 1833. He fought in the French conquest of Algeria, participating in the storming of Constantine. There Niel led the engineer detachment with one of the storming parties, and his conduct gained for him the rank of chef de bataillon in 1837. Niel was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1840 and to colonel in 1846. His next war service was as chief of staff to General Vaillant during the 1849 siege of Rome, after which he was made general of brigade and director of engineer services at headquarters.In 1851, Niel became a member of the Committee of Fortifications. He became a member of the council of state in 1852 and in 1853 was promoted to general of division. In the first part of the Crimean War, Niel was employed in the expedition to the Baltic Sea and directed engineering operations against Bomarsund. Early in 1855 Niel was sent to the Crimea, where he succeeded General Michel Bizot as chief of engineers. For some years Niel had been the most trusted military adviser of Napoleon III, and he was now empowered to advise the generals on the spot in accordance with the wishes of the sovereign and the home government.Niel managed to carry out this delicate and difficult task with as much success as could be expected, and he directed siege operations at the Battle of Malakoff. His reward was the grand cross of the Légion d'honneur. From 1855 to 1859 Niel was employed at headquarters and also served in the French Senate. In the war against the Austrians, Niel commanded the IV Corps and took part in the Battle of Magenta and the Battle of Solferino. Niel was made a marshal of France on the field at Solferino.After he served for some years in a home command, Niel became minister of war and held the position from 1867 to 1869. In this capacity he drafted and began to carry out a far-reaching scheme of army reform, based on universal service and the automatic creation of large reserves which needed only time to mature. Under his system, those men who had purchased exemption from conscription into the army would nonetheless be called up into a new service, the Garde Mobile. He also was able to rearm the whole of the army with the chassepot rifle, but not the Garde Mobile. He did not live to complete the development of his system.Niel died in Paris during an operation for a bladder stone, and a year later the Franco-Prussian War destroyed the old imperial army upon which the new formations were to have been grafted.