Louis-Sebastien Lenormand (1757–1837) was the first man to make a parachute jump before witnesses, from the tower of the astronomical observatory in Montpelier on St. Stephen's Day of 1783. His parachute was shaped like a large umbrella with a rigid wooden frame.
Lenormand was a hermit in the Belvezer Charterhouse in Saïx until the expulsion of the Carthusians during the French Revolution. He then entered secular life, working as a scientist and inventor.