The Comet of 1729, also known as C/1729 P1 or Comet Sarabat, is discovered in the constellation of Equuleus by Father Nicolas Sarabat, a professor of mathematics, at Nîmes in the early morning of August 1, 1729.

Observing with the naked eye, Sarabat sees an object resembling a faint, nebulous star: he is at first unsure if it is a comet or part of the Milky Way.

Moonlight interferes with Sarabat's observations until August 9, but after recovering the object and attempting to detect its motion without the aid of any measuring instruments, he becomes convinced that he has found a new comet.

A non-periodic comet with an absolute magnitude of −3, the brightest ever observed for a comet, it is therefore considered to be the largest comet ever seen.

A secret meeting in March 1787 between a Brazilian revolutionary and Thomas Jefferson, United States minister to France, in Nîmes, has been little noticed by historians.

The Brazilian, Dr José Barbalho Da Maia, who is studying medicine in Montpellier, tells Jefferson that potential insurgents in Brazil have a war chest of twenty-six million dollars promised from secret backers and asks if the United States will support them.

Jefferson tells him that his personal view is that ‘… we were not in a condition at present to meddle nationally in any war, yet a successful revolution in Brazil could not be uninteresting to us’.

Jefferson reports the conversation to Congress through John Jay, the New York lawyer and politician.

In a letter to James Madison, Jefferson writes, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them.

An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much.

It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of the government.”