François Belin
Contributions
- De la Vérité ou Méditations sur les moyens de parvenir à la vérité dans toutes les connaissances humaines has translation bookseller
- Essai sur la régénération physique, morale et politique des juifs, ouvrage couronné par la Société royale des sciences et des arts de Metz, le 23 août 1788, par M. Grégoire, curé du diocese de Metz, actuellement de la même société has translation has paratext publisher
- Nouveau précis de l'histoire d'Angleterre, depuis les commencemens de cette monarchie, jusqu'en 1783 translation has paratext publisher
Knows
- Félicité Brissot de Warville translator
- Jean-Nicolas Démeunier civil servant freemason jurist politician translator writer
- Pierre Jacques Duplain bookseller civil servant publisher
- L. Le Charlier bookseller
- Simon, Claude II publisher
Notes
François Belin (also spelled Bélin) was born in Genevrières, near Langres, to an education officer and customs tax collector. He must have moved to Paris before 2nd October 1770, the date on his university certificate.
Belin took up an apprenticeship in December 1773 and became a bookseller on 10th March 1777. He received funding from Denis Humblot to set up a printing house in partnership with his neighbour Claude II Simon in the summer of 1792. He is recorded as a printer for the first criminal tribunal of the département of Paris the same year.
He was a National Guard officer - a lieutenant in the infantry of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont - between 1789 and 1790, and a member of the first Electoral Assembly of Paris, which met from October 1790. From 12th April to 8th August 1794, he was imprisoned for heading an edition of the Constitution with "subversive" preliminary views. In year 2 of the Republican calendar (1793-1794), he was a member of the Civil Committee of the Section de Marat. He became a Paris elector again in 1796.
Belin handed his printing house over to Jean Gratiot in 1804 and retired to Sceaux, where he'd acquired a country house in 1801. He died in Paris on 10th December, succeeded by his wife. His inventory after death was made on 19th December, and his library was sold in 1810.