Biography
Born from a noble family of the province of Soule, his father Michel was born in Arrast-Larrebieu and his mother was Irish. His grandfather Jean-Pierre was an abbot and a notary in Soule.
The family moved to France in 1818 where the brothers received a careful scientific education.
At his return from Ethiopia, he married Virginie Vincent de Saint Bonnet in 1848, and settled in Hendaye where he purchased 250ha to build a castle, and became the mayor of the city from 1871 to 1875.
Abbadie was a knight of the Legion of Honour and a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He died in 1897, and bequeathed the Abbadi domain and castle in Hendaye, yielding 40,000 francs a year, to the Academy of Sciences.
Read more about this topic: Antoine Thomson D'Abbadie
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