Renier Hubert Ghislain Chalon

From the French Wikipedia page 
Renier-Hubert-Ghislain Chalon, born in Mons (Belgium) on 4 December 1802 and died on 23 February 1889 in Brussels, was a Belgian numismatist, photographer and collector.
==Biography==
Born in a bourgeois family of Mons, Renier Chalon married a direct descendant of the painter David Teniers, Victoire Taintenier (1806-1840). He had two daughters, Elise and Sophie; Sophie's daughter married Gustave Stinglhamber, First President of the Brussels Court of Appeal. Graduated in 1824 from the law faculty of the State University of Louvain, he defended a thesis on civil marriage. He embraced the career of contributions and was appointed tax collector at Cuesmes (Hainaut), to finally occupy an important office in Brussels. After having a layoff of seventeen months, he retired on December 11, 1867. Unfortunately widowed in 1840, he shared his free time between his two daughters and many passions, new at the time: archeology, numismatics, and, in particular photography.
==A bright spirit==
Shortly after the death of his wife Victoire, his private activities multiplied through several learned societies and some pastiches of secret societies, such as the Society of Agathopeds, scholarly society, burlesque and gastronomic.
He participated in the founding of the Society of Sciences, Arts and Letters of Hainaut (in 1833), the Society of Flemish bibliophiles (1839); he also helped to found the Belgian Numismatic Society, which was definitively established in Brussels on November 28, 1841; the first, he becomes the president and will be re-elected several times. He was the author of two monographs on the numismatics of the County of Hainaut and the County of Namur, the first study of this kind in Belgium. In the competition of 1851, the Institute of France (Academy of inscriptions) awarded him the honorable mention. The Royal Academy of Letters, Sciences and Fine Arts of Belgium receives him among its effective members on May 4, 1859. In 1860, he publishes his major work, known under the title of Research on the coins of the counts of Namur. Finally, he was elected president of the Belgian Academy of Archeology in January 1874.
==Letter writer==
Renier Chalon maintained an epistolary relationship with other Belgian scholars such as the numismatists Baron Jean de Witte (1808-1889), Baron Kervyn Lettenhove (1817-1891) and Baron Stassart (1780-1854).
==Master hoax==
The Royal Museum of Mariemont, Belgium, dedicated an exhibition in 2008 to the facetious aspect of Chalon. Merry spoilers, he had the idea to make fun of European bibliophiles by performing a fake sale of single-issue books, all fanciful . Published in the summer of 1840, Count Fortsas Library Catalog sparked a riot in European scholarly circles, before the deception was unveiled by Chalon. The government of the day would have even considered releasing special funds for the acquisition of certain works. It seems that only the fear of ridicule convinced his victims not to take legal action against him; it is also said that his kindness and his humor soon extinguished the wrath of bibliophiles thus duped. No doubt, the death of his wife, a few months earlier, has played an important role in the investment of Chalon in this hoax. Chalon still amused himself by publishing false archaeological discoveries, such as a Roman vase discovered at Onnezies, in Hainaut, or a stone bust discovered at Spiennes - both false, of course.
==Distinctions and tributes==
He was decorated and named successively knight, officer and commander of the order of Leopold.
A street and a playground for children bear his name in Ixelles.
Category:Biographies