Dr. Abel Hureau de Villeneuve was an aeronautical experimenter, and ran a major French aeronautical society and journal in the late nineteenth century.

Aviation research

In the 1870s, Dr. Hureau de Villeneuve was the permanent secretary-general of the Aerial Navigation Society ("Société de Navigation Aérienne") and editor of its journal L'Aéronaute.
He worked with aeronautical experimenters Alphonse Penaud

Alphonse Pénaud

Alphonse Pénaud , was a 19th-century French pioneer of aviation, inventor of the rubber powered model airplane Planophore and founder of the aviation industry.-Biography:...

 and Etienne-Jules Marey

Étienne-Jules Marey

Étienne-Jules Marey was a French scientist and chronophotographer.His work was significant in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinematography and the science of labor photography...

.

Hureau de Villeneuve had promoted the use of flapping wings ("ornithopter designs") with perhaps 300 experimental models for 25 years since the 1860s, according to Octave Chanute

Octave Chanute

Octave Chanute was a French-born American railway engineer and aviation pioneer. He provided the Wright brothers with help and advice, and helped to publicize their flying experiments. At his death he was hailed as the father of aviation and the heavier-than-air flying machine...

, who discussed an 1872 model in particular.

Vegetarianism

In 1880 Dr. Hureau de Villeneuve founded the Vegetarian Society of Paris (la Societé Vegétarienne de Paris) and became its president.

Lexicography

His name is generally alphabetized under "Villeneuve, Abel Hureau de" but at other times it is written as if his last name were "de Villeneuve" or "Hureau de Villeneuve"