Georges Leclanché (9 October 1839 – 14 September 1882) was a French electrical engineer chiefly remembered for his invention of the Leclanché cell, one of the first modern electrical batteries and the forerunner of the modern dry cell battery.
Adolf von Rauch (22 April 1798 - 12 December 1882) was a German paper manufacturer in Heilbronn, where he was born and died and where he was a major builder of social housing.
Désiré Charles Emanuel van Monckhoven (1834–1882) was a Belgian chemist, physicist, and photographic researcher. He was also an inventor and author.
René Waldeck-Rousseau (27 April 1809 Avranches, Manche – 17 February 1882 Nantes, Loire-Atlantique) was a French politician, father of Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau who was a statesman during the Third Republic.
During the 1848 Revolution, he was elected as a Republican deputy of Loire-Inférieure to the Constituent Assembly of April 1848 to May 1849. He then became mayor of Nantes, from 1870 to 1871 and a second time from 1872 to 1874.
With Jules Simon, Louis Blanc and others he sat on the commission appointed to inquire into the labour question during the Second Republic, making many important proposals, one of which, for the establishment of national banks, was partially realized in 1850. After the election of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to the presidency he returned to his practice at the bar, and for some time after the coup d'état was in hiding to escape arrest.
He came back to political life in the crisis of 1870, when he became mayor of Nantes in August and took part to the proclamation of the Third Republic there on September 4. He shortly afterwards resigned municipal office in consequence of differences with his colleagues on the education question.
Jules Crevaux (1847–1882) was a French medical doctor, soldier, and explorer. He is known for his multiple explorations into the interior of French Guiana and the Amazon.
Alfred Dehodencq (23 April 1822 – 2 January 1882; born Edmé-Alexis-Alfred Dehodencq) is a French Orientalist painter known for his vivid oil paintings of Andalusian and North African scenes.
Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot (24 February 1817 – 16 August 1882) was a French general. Ducrot served in the Crimean War, Algeria, the Italian campaign of 1859, and as a division commander in the Franco-Prussian War.
At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Ducrot was tasked with overseeing the deployment of French forces due to his familiarity with the terrain near Wissembourg. His unsupported division was surprised and defeated by a large force of Prussians and Bavarians at the Battle of Wissembourg. At the Battle of Sedan on 1 September 1870, he succeeded to command of the French army when Marshal MacMahon was wounded early in the morning. By that time, it was obvious that a disastrous defeat was inevitable. Ducrot summed up the situation with the famous remark: « Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés. » ("We are in a chamber pot, and we're going to be shit on.")
Ducrot ordered the army to withdraw, but then General de Wimpffen presented a commission authorizing him to succeed MacMahon. Wimpffen overruled Ducrot, and ordered a counterattack that failed completely. Emperor Napoleon III, present on the battlefield, then surrendered the army to the Prussians.
With de Wimpffen having insisted on command, Ducrot refused to accept responsibility for signing the articles of surrender and was imprisoned by the Prussians. He soon escaped, and took part in the Siege of Paris. Ducrot commanded the most important French attack against the Prussian besiegers (the Battle of Villiers, 29 November–3 December 1870). After the defeat of this attack, Ducrot urged the French government to make peace. Cyclist Maarten Ducrot is his great-grandson.
Casimir-Joseph Davaine (19 March 1812 – 14 October 1882) was a French physician known for his work in the field of microbiology. He was a native of Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, department of Nord.
In 1850, Davaine along with French pathologist Pierre François Olive Rayer, discovered a certain microorganism in the blood of diseased and dying sheep. In the diseased blood, Rayer and Davaine observed the bacillus that is known today as Bacillus anthracis, the causative bacterium of anthrax. Soon afterwards, Rayer published a description of the bacillus in a paper titled, Inoculation du sang de rate (1850).In 1863, Davaine demonstrated that the bacillus could be directly transmitted from one animal to another. He was able to identify the causative organism, but was unaware of its true etiology. Later on, German microbiologist Robert Koch investigated the etiology of Bacillus anthracis, and discovered its ability to produce "resting spores" that could stay alive in the soil for a long period of time to serve as a future source of infection.Casimir Davaine is also credited for pioneer work in the study of sepsis (blood poisoning).