, plaque on
Place Broglie Dietrich came from an old Protestant family of bankers and foundry owners in
Niederbronn, in the Lower Rhine, and
Reichshofen. The family was established in Strasbourg, with the 1549 birth of Dominique Didier, who was also known in this bi-lingual territory as Dominick Dietrich. His father, Jean Dietrich (1719–1795, comte Ban de la Roche), was the son of Johann von Dietrich, a foundry owner in Reichshofen. His mother, Amélie Hermanny (Anne-Dorothee Hermanni) (1729–1766), was the daughter of a prominent banker. He had one brother, Jean (1746–1805), who married Louise-Sophie de Glaubitz (1751–1806), and established the family's ironworks in
Saint Domingue. His own son, Jean-Albert Dietrich (1773–1806), was counselor of
Bas-Rhin; he married Amélie de Berckheim (1776–1855). His granddaughter married the nephew of his successor as mayor of Strasbourg, William Turckheim (1785–1831), colonel of cavalry in the French army. Dietrich attended the Protestant
gymnasium in Strasbourg and from 1772 continued his study through European travel. An encyclopaedist, and a
Freemason, he embraced the
Enlightenment ideals the development ideas of science and technology, gender differences in men without religion or origin, international understanding and peace among peoples. He married Louise Sybille Ochs, sister of
Peter Ochs, who became mayor of Basel and a militant supporter of the French-styled revolution in Switzerland in 1798–99. He received the position of secretary and
charge-de-affaires of
Swiss and
Grisons, bought by his father in 1771. This charge required him to reside in Paris half his time. In 1775, he demonstrated the volcanic origins of the
Kaiserstuhl, near
Freiburg im Breisgau, and was admitted to the
Academy of Sciences in 1786. In 1777 he participated in experiments conducted by
Alessandro Volta in Strasbourg, on
marsh gas, and brought him membership into the Academy of Sciences, aided by
Antoine Lavoisier. They wrote joint articles on the subject. On 11 January 1785, he was appointed commissioner of the king's factories, foundries and forests of the kingdom, a position he shared with Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond. The creation of this function was necessitated by the depletion of forests and the need to replace wood with
coal and
coke. In the course of his duties, he compiled the
Description of ore bodies and mouths to fire the kingdom in three volumes: the Pyrenees (1786), Upper and Lower Alsace (1788) and the southern Lorraine (written in 1788 but published in 1799). ==Activities during the Revolution==