Nicolas-Jacques Conté

Nicolas-Jacques Conté (1755-1805) was a French engineer, scientist and inventor best remembered for the modern pencil lead. During the period when the French Republic was under economic blockade and could not import graphite from Britain, Lazare Carnot asked him to devise a pencil that did not depend on imported material. After several days of research Conté mixed powdered graphite with clay and pressed the mixture between two half-cylinders of wood, and he received a patent for the invention in 1795. He formed a company, la Société Conté, to manufacture the pencils, and he also invented the conté crayon. He served as demonstrator and administrator at the Conservatoire from 1794 to 1805. A dividing engine he designed in 1803, built by Antoine Clerc Gallet to engrave series of accurately spaced lines on printing plates, is on display at the Musée des Arts et Métiers. He proposed the engraving machine to cut the cost of plates for the publication on Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, the Description de l'Égypte, which appeared in twenty volumes between 1808 and 1822.