Jean-François Champollion field of work Egyptology
Political trouble during the Napoleonic Wars
During the Napoleonic Wars, Champollion was a young bachelor and thus liable to compulsory military service, which would have put him in great danger due to the extremely high mortality of soldiers in Napoleon's armies. Through the assistance of his brother and the prefect of Grenoble Joseph Fourier, who was also an Egyptologist, he successfully avoided the draft by arguing that his work on deciphering the Egyptian script was too important to interrupt. First skeptical of the Napoleonic regime, after the fall of Napoleon in 1813 and the institution of the royalist regime under Louis XVIII, Champollion came to consider the Napoleonic state the lesser of two evils. Anonymously he composed and circulated songs ridiculing and criticizing the royal regime – songs that became highly popular among the people of Grenoble. In 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from his exile on Elba and landed with an army at the Côte d'Azur and marched directly on Grenoble where he was received as a liberator. Here he met with Champollion, whose many requests for exemption from the draft he remembered, and he asked him how his important work was progressing. Champollion replied, that he had just finished his Coptic grammar and dictionary. Napoleon requested that he send the manuscripts to Paris for publication. His brother Jacques joined the Napoleonic cause, putting both of the brothers in danger at the end of the Hundred Days when Napoleon was finally defeated, Grenoble being the last city to resist the royalist advances. In spite of the risk to themselves, having been put under Royalist surveillance, the Champollion brothers nonetheless aided the Napoleonic general Drouet d'Erlon who had been sentenced to death for his participation in the Battle of Waterloo, giving him shelter and helping him escape to Munich. The brothers were condemned to internal exile in Figeac, and Champollion was removed from his university post in Grenoble and the faculty closed.Under the new Royalist regime, the Champollion brothers invested much of their time and efforts in establishing Lancaster schools, in an effort to provide the general population with education. This was considered a revolutionary undertaking by the Ultra-royalists, who did not believe that education should be made accessible for the lower classes. In 1821 Champollion even led an uprising, in which he and a band of Grenobleans stormed the citadel and hoisted the tricolore instead of the Bourbon Royalist flag. He was charged with treason and went into hiding but was eventually pardoned.Legacy
Champollion's most immediate legacy is in the field of Egyptology, of which he is now widely considered as the founder and father, with his decipherment the result of his genius combined with hard work.Figeac honors him with La place des Écritures, a monumental reproduction of the Rosetta Stone by American artist Joseph Kosuth (pictured to the right). And a museum devoted to Jean-François Champollion was created in his birthplace at Figeac in Lot. It was inaugurated on 19 December 1986 in the presence of President François Mitterrand and Jean Leclant, Permanent Secretary of the Academy of Inscriptions and Letters. After two years of building work and extension, the museum re-opened in 2007. Besides Champollion's life and discoveries, the museum also recounts the history of writing. The whole façade is covered in pictograms, from the original ideograms of the whole world.In Vif near Grenoble, The Champollion Museum is located at the former abode of Jean-François's brother.Champollion has also been portrayed in many films and documentaries: For example, he was portrayed by Elliot Cowan in the 2005 BBC docudrama Egypt. His life and process of the decipherment of hieroglyphics were narrated by Françoise Fabian and Jean-Hugues Anglade in the 2000 Arte documentary film Champollion: A Scribe for Egypt. In David Baldacci's thriller involving the CIA, Simple Genius, the character named "Champ Pollion" was derived from Champollion.
In Cairo, a street carries his name, leading to the Tahrir Square where the Egyptian Museum is located.Also named after him is the Champollion crater, a lunar crater on the far side of the Moon.
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