Editing Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (section)

=== Family background ===
[[File:Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, comte Carnot, général (1753-1823).jpg|thumb|Portrait of Sadi's father, Lazare Carnot (1753–1823) as a [[Napoleon]]ic general, by an unknown artist, ''ca''. 1815, [[Musée de l'Histoire de France (Versailles)|Museum of French History]], Versailles]]

Sadi Carnot was born in [[Paris]] on the 1st of June 1796, at the [[Petit Luxembourg]] palace, where his father [[Lazare Carnot|Lazare]] resided as one of the five members of the [[French Directory|Directory]], the highest governing body of the [[French First Republic]] in the immediate aftermath of the [[Thermidorian Reaction]].  His mother, Sophie ''née'' Dupont (1764-1813), came from a wealthy family based in [[Saint-Omer]].

Sadi was named by his father Lazare after the 13th-century Persian poet [[Saadi Shirazi|Sadi of Shiraz]].  An older brother, also named Sadi, had been born in 1794 but died in infancy the following year.  "Sadi" is the only given name that appears in the second-born's civil birth certificate, dated 14 [[prairial]], year IV in the [[French Republican calendar]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Birembaut|1974|p=362}}</ref>  On 11 July 1796 the child was baptized in the Catholic church of [[Saint-Louis-d'Antin]] as "Nicolas-Léonard Dupont".  The principal witness at that baptism was his maternal grandfather, Jacques-Antoine-Léonard Dupont.  The father is wrongly identified in the baptismal record as Jacques-Léonard-Joseph-Auguste Dupont (who was, in fact, the child's maternal uncle).<ref>{{Harvnb|Birembaut|1974|pp=365–366}}</ref>  Following the biographical notice published long after his death by his brother Hippolyte, most sources now give his full name as "Nicolas Léonard Sadi", but there is no evidence that he ever used any name other than "Sadi".<ref>{{Harvnb|Birembaut|1974|p=362}}</ref>

Sadi had a younger brother, [[Hippolyte Carnot]], who was born in 1801 in Saint-Omer and who would later become a prominent politician.  Hippolyte's eldest son [[Marie François Sadi Carnot]] served as [[President of France]] from 1887 to 1894.  Another of Hippolyte's sons was the chemist, mining engineer and politician [[Adolphe Carnot]].  Sadi himself would remain a bachelor and left no descendants.