My search for historic microscope makers has crossed to Paris and there's a polymath who's leading me a merry dance. His real name was Alexandre François Gilles, but pretty much everything he did (ranging from microscope lens design to developing shale oil extraction methods and book publishing) was done under the pseudonom "Selligue". This is a synthetic name, and the first 6 letters are his surname, reversed, but I have no idea what the e and u might refer to. It's not part of his forenames, or his wife's name.

Can anyone whose french is better than my ancient GCE on modern french and self-taught huguenot french suggest anything? A rank or title, perhaps? Of course, he could have picked them out of the air. The time is the 2nd half of the 18th and 1st half of the 19th centuries.

I don't actually need the info for my research, but the man's irritating me. His interests were so diverse that if he hadn't used his synthetic name, I (and others) would not have realised that it was the same guy. However, once you get past the hassle of tracking patents, it's the same (real) name and address on all of them. Also, I think that I'm possibly the first genealogy addict who's taken an interest in him.

I can hear ghostly sniggering!