Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu
Encyclopedia
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
– 18 August 1810) was a French explorer, hydrographer and politician. He was Minister of the Navy under Louis XVI, and a member of the Institut de France
Institut de France
The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, the most famous of which is the Académie française.The institute, located in Paris, manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and chateaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which...
, as well as the brother of the botanist Marc Antoine Louis Claret de la Tourette.
Ancien Regime
Fleurieu was born in LyonLyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
. Engaged in the Toulon
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
company of the Garde-marine from the age of 13 and a half on 31 October 1755, he subsequently took part in the campaigns of the Seven Years' War
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...
— which ended in 1763— participating in the battles of Mahon
Battle of Minorca
The Battle of Minorca was a naval battle between French and British fleets. It was the opening sea battle of the Seven Years' War in the European theatre. Shortly after Great Britain declared war on the House of Bourbon, their squadrons met off the Mediterranean island of Minorca. The fight...
, Lagos
Battle of Lagos
The naval Battle of Lagos between Britain and France took place on August 19, 1759 during the Seven Years' War off the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and is named after Lagos, Portugal. For the British, it was part of the Annus Mirabilis of 1759.-Origins:...
, and Les Sablettes and rising to brigadier in the gardes de la marine company, and then enseigne de vaisseau. In suggesting de Fleurieu's promotion to ensign, on 23 March 1762, the Minister wrote to the king :
On 1 July 1765 he was made Enseigne de port, and on 27 July he went to Paris to study horology
Horology
Horology is the art or science of measuring time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, clepsydras, timers, time recorders and marine chronometers are all examples of instruments used to measure time.People interested in horology are called horologists...
with Ferdinand Berthoud
Ferdinand Berthoud
Ferdinand Berthoud was a Swiss chronometer-maker.-Career:He was born at Plancemont, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Having served his apprenticeship with his brother, Jean-Henri, a pendulum maker, he set up a clockmaking business in Paris in 1745 and gained a great reputation for the excellence and...
.
He took part in a one-year sea campaign to test Berthoud's first marine chronometer
Marine chronometer
A marine chronometer is a clock that is precise and accurate enough to be used as a portable time standard; it can therefore be used to determine longitude by means of celestial navigation...
, in an attempt to beat Britain in the race to find a reliable way to calculate longitude
Longitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
. The chronometers he thus refined with Ferdinand Berthoud for their later experiments were the object of major struggles with the king's horologer, Pierre Le Roy
Pierre Le Roy
Pierre Le Roy was a French clockmaker. He was the inventor of the detent escapement, the temperature-compensated balance and the isochronous balance spring. His developments are considered as the foundation of the modern chronometer...
. Finally Claret de Fleurieu and Berthoud were entrusted with the task, setting out on the testing expedition from autumn 1768 to 11 October 1769 on the frigate Isis under Fleurieu's command. The chronometers almost invariably indicated the hour as accurately after the ship had left port, as if they were still on land. Knowing the actual local time at each present location by astronomy, they could easily determine the ship's exact position and longitude on a chart. The results of their observations was published in 1773 under the title Voyage fait par ordre du roi, pour éprouver les horloges marines ("Voyage made by order of the king, to test marine chronometers"). We can also cite among his major works le Neptune du Nord or l'Atlas du Cattegat et de la Baltique, an atlas
Atlas
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a map of Earth or a region of Earth, but there are atlases of the other planets in the Solar System. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats...
of the Kattegat
Kattegat
The Kattegat , or Kattegatt is a sea area bounded by the Jutland peninsula and the Straits islands of Denmark on the west and south, and the provinces of Västergötland, Scania, Halland and Bohuslän in Sweden on the east. The Baltic Sea drains into the Kattegat through the Øresund and the Danish...
and the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
that took him 25 years.
Made lieutenant de vaisseau on 1 October 1773, then deputy inspector of naval charts and plans, he also became deputy inspector of the naval academy
Académie de Marine
The Royal Naval Academy of France was founded at Brest by a ruling of 31 July 1752 by Antoine Louis de Rouillé, comte de Jouy, Secretary of State for the Navy...
on 15 May 1776. He was presented to the king and named capitaine de vaisseau on 5 December 1776 and soon afterwards director of ports and arsenals in January 1777, a post heading the fleet's organization of matériel, works and movements created specially for him by Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
and one he held for 15 years. In it he directed nearly all planning for naval operations in the 1778-83 war against England as part of France's involvement in the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, as well as all the French voyages of discovery such as that of La Pérouse
Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse
Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse was a French Navy officer and explorer whose expedition vanished in Oceania.-Early career:...
.
French Revolution
The king made him Ministre de la Marine et des Colonies on 26 October 1790. He and the king wanted to separate the naval and colonial ministries, but the Assemblée nationaleNational Assembly (French Revolution)
During the French Revolution, the National Assembly , which existed from June 17 to July 9, 1789, was a transitional body between the Estates-General and the National Constituent Assembly.-Background:...
thought otherwise, and he resigned on 15 April 1791. Later that year he was made guardian of the Dauphin, later Louis XVII
Louis XVII of France
Louis XVII , from birth to 1789 known as Louis-Charles, Duke of Normandy; then from 1789 to 1791 as Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France; and from 1791 to 1793 as Louis-Charles, Prince Royal of France, was the son of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette...
. He remained in the Tuileries on 10 August 1792
10th of August (French Revolution)
On 10 August 1792, during the French Revolution, revolutionary Fédéré militias — with the backing of a new municipal government of Paris that came to be known as the "insurrectionary" Paris Commune and ultimately supported by the National Guard — besieged the Tuileries palace. King Louis XVI and...
, in support of Louis XVI right up until the critical point, but fortunately the revolutionaries did not discover this. In the midst of the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
, in September 1793, Charles Pierre was arrested due to a letter of recommendation Louis XVI had sent to the Assemblée nationale, published in the Universal Monitor on 17 April 1791, in which he first demanded Charles' nomination as the Dauphin's governor. He remained imprisoned with his wife in the Madelonnettes for 14 months; they were finally released to find their homes, furniture, lands and resources dispersed and destroyed. A letter to the section des piques in the prison. discovered in Robespierre's house. speaks of a first arrest, which may suggest Charles was arrested several times and transferred from prison to prison. After the fall of Robespierre he was made a member of the Bureau des longitudes
Bureau des Longitudes
The Bureau des Longitudes is a French scientific institution, founded by decree of 25 June 1795 and charged with the improvement of nautical navigation, standardisation of time-keeping, geodesy and astronomical observation. During the 19th century, it was responsible for synchronizing clocks...
and of the Institut after M. de Bougainville's resignation in 1795. In 1797 (year V) he was elected deputy for the Seine in the Council of Ancients
Council of Ancients
The Council of Ancients or Council of Elders was the upper house of the Directory , the legislature of France from 22 August 1795 until 9 November 1799, roughly the second half of the period generally referred to as the French Revolution.The Council of Ancients was the senior of the two halves of...
under the name Claret-Fleurieu. He remained so until the coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
of 18 Fructidor when he was excluded from the Council. He was elected a member of the Conseil d'État on 24 December 1799.
First French Empire
On 30 September 1800, as minister plenipotentiary, he signed a treaty of friendship and commerce between France and the USA at MorfontaineMorfontaine
Morfontaine is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France....
alongside Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph Bonaparte
Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte was the elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made him King of Naples and Sicily , and later King of Spain...
. A member of the Conseil d'État in 1800, he presided over its navy section and was interim naval minister many times in 1803 and 1804. He was named intendent général of the emperor Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
's household in July 1804 and intendant général of the imperial civil list on 10 July 1804. On 24 July 1805 he was elected a member of the Sénat conservateur
Sénat conservateur
The Sénat conservateur was a body set up in France during the Consulate by the Constitution of the Year VIII. With the Tribunat and the Corps législatif, it formed one of the three legislative assemblies of the Consulate...
and made a grand officer of the légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
. On 1 August 1805, he was made governor of the Tuilleries and the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, taking the oath before the Emperor on 8 September that year. On 2 February 1806 he was elected one of the seven senators who composed the council of administration of the senate for that year. In 1808 he was made conseiller d'État for life and comte d'Empire, and on 7 September that year Napoleon put him in charge of the investigation into the French defeat at the battle of Trafalgar
Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....
. He died in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
from a devastating cerebral hemorrhage, a few seconds after embracing his two daughters. Napoleon rewarded his services by giving him a state funeral and having his remains transferred to the Panthéon
Pantheon
-Mythology:* Pantheon , the set of gods belonging to a particular mythology* Pantheon * Pantheon, Rome, now a Catholic church, once a temple to the gods of ancient Rome* Any temple dedicated to an entire pantheon-Other buildings:...
.
Marriage and issue
At 54 he married Aglaé-Françoise Deslacs d'Arcambal; they had one son who died young, Caroline (Madame de Saint-Ouen, from whom his descendants trace their line) and a second daughter.Works
- Mémoires sur la construction des navires, 1763 ;
- Histoire générale des navigations de tous les peuples ;
- Examen critique d'un mémoire publié par Mr Leroy, horloger du roi, sur l'épreuve des horloges propres à déterminer les longitudes en mer, et sur les principes de leur construction, London and Paris.
- Voyage entrepris en 1768 et 1769 pour éprouver les horloges marines (2 vols., Paris, 1773);
- Une carte du grand Océan Atlantique, 1776 ;
- Découvertes des Français en 1768 et 1769 dans le sud-est de la Nouvelle-Guinée, et reconnaissance postérieure des mêmes terres par des navigateurs anglais qui leur ont imposé de nouveaux noms ; précédées de l'abrégé historique des navigations et des découvertes des Espagnols dans les mêmes parages, Paris, 1790, with 12 maps
- Longitude exacte des divers points des Antilles, et de l'Amérique du Nord (1773);
- Les Antilles, leur flore et faune (1774);
- Le Neptune Américo-septentrional, 1780 ;
- Découvertes des Français dans le Sud Est de la Nouvelle-GuinéeNew GuineaNew Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
en 1768 et 1769, Paris, 1790 ; - Précis de l'affaire relative à la dénonciation de Fleurieu, ministre de la marine, par un commis de la marine, Paris, 1791.
- Voyage autour du monde par Étienne Marchand, précédé d'une introduction historique ; auquel on a joint des recherches sur les terres australes de Drake, et un examen critique de voyage de Roggeween, avec cartes et figures, Paris, years VI-VIII, 4 vol.
- Le Neptune des mers du Nord, 1794.
- Histoire des aventuriers espagnols, qui conquérirent l'Amérique (1800).
- Sous sa direction, rédaction par Rigobert Bonne du Neptune américo-septentrional, 1778-1780, et par Buache du Neptune du Cattégat et de la Baltique, 65 f., 1809
- He also revised Jean Nicolas Demeunier's 1775 translation of Voyage de Phipps au pôle boréal, and edited the Notes géographiques et historiques printed with accounts of La Pérouse's voyage.
- He died before finishing his Histoire générale des Navigations.
He also edited the Voyage autour du monde which was written in 1790 and 1792 by Étienne Marchand, year VI (1798).
Namesakes
- the Fleurieu PeninsulaFleurieu PeninsulaThe Fleurieu Peninsula is a peninsula located south of Adelaide in South Australia, Australia. It was named after the French explorer and hydrographer Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu by the French explorer Nicolas Baudin as he mapped the south coast of Australia in 1802.Towns of interest in the...
to the south of AdelaideAdelaideAdelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
in AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
was named after him by the French explorer Nicolas BaudinNicolas BaudinNicolas-Thomas Baudin was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer.Baudin was born a commoner in Saint-Martin-de-Ré on the Île de Ré. At the age of fifteen he joined the merchant navy, and at twenty joined the French East India Company...
as he mapped the south coast of Australia in 1802. - an island (discovered in 1798 by Matthew FlindersMatthew FlindersCaptain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...
, then explored by Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet) at the northwest extremity of TasmaniaTasmaniaTasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
was also named after him.
Sources
- "M. le Comte de Fleurieu" by M. Frédéric Chassériau
- Archives nationales, 2 JJ 92 à 103. – Fastes de la Légion d'Honneur.
- Delambre, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte de Fleurieu. –
- Discours sur Fleurieu par Raillon, 1810.
- Notice sur Fleurieu par Salverte, s. d. et par. Chassériau, 1856.
- Archives biographiques françaises, I, 403, p. 354-377
- Bulletin des voyages, de la géographie et de l'histoire, N° XXXVI, p.373, by Eusèbe Salverte --
- Annales des voyages, de la géographie et de l'histoire, vol. 4 of the 3rd subscription, and 12th of the collection. Article from the bulletin signé Eusèbe Salverte.
- Annales maritimes coloniales, p. 85-102, by the Chevalier Delambre. Recueilli par M. Bajot.
- Journal de l'armée navale, journal "le moniteur", Archives nationale de la marine.
- Biographie nouvelle des contemporains [1787-1820] de Antoine-Vincent Arnault page 170-171
- Dernières années du règne et de la vie de Louis XVI, de François Hue, René Du Ménil de Maricourt, Henri de L'Epinois (p. 328-329)
- La vie et les mémoires du général Dumouriez, de Charles François Du Périer Dumouriez, p. 175-177.
- Mémoires secrets pour servir à l'histoire de la dernière année du règne de Louis XVI, d'Antoine François Bertrand de Moleville
- Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus reculés à nos jours, par P. Levot
- Mémoires inédits de madame la comtesse de Genlis pour servir à l'histoire des XVIIIème et XIXème siècles.