Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet (August 7, 1779 – August 18, 1841) was a
FrenchThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
navigator. He circumnavigated the earth, and was one of the first to produce a comprehensive map of the coastline of
AustraliaAustralia , 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...
.
Biography
He was born at
MontélimarMontélimar is a commune in the Drôme department in southeastern France. It is the second-largest town in the department after Valence.-History:...
,
DrômeDrôme , a department in southeastern France, takes its name from the Drôme River.-History:The French National Constituent Assembly set up Drôme as one of the original 83 departments of France on March 4, 1790, during the French Revolution...
. Louis-Claude de saulces de Freycinet was his full name (many calling him Louis de Freycinet). He had three brothers, Louis-Henri de Saulces de Freycinet, Andre Charles de Saulces de Freycinet and the youngest, Frederic-Casimir de saulces de Freycinet (Louis-Claude was the second oldest). In 1793 he entered the French navy. After taking part in several engagements against the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, he joined in 1800, along with his brother (Louis-Henri de Freycinet (1777–1840), who afterwards rose to the rank of admiral), an expedition to explore the south and south-west coasts of
AustraliaAustralia , 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...
. It set out under
Nicolas 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...
in the ships
NaturalisteThe Naturaliste was a Salamandre class bomb-corvette of the French Navy.She was launched in 1795 as La Menaçante. She was renamed to La Naturaliste in June 1800 and under Jacques Hamelin, she took part in the exploration of Australia of Nicolas Baudin.Following her return in 1802, she saw service...
and
GéographeThe Géographe was a 20-gun Serpente class corvette of the French Navy.She was named Uranie in 1797, and renamed Galatée in 1799, still on her building site, as her builder refused to launched her, as he had not been paid...
. Much of the ground already gone over by
Matthew 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...
was revisited, and new names imposed by this expedition, which claimed credit for discoveries really made by the English navigator. In the end, Baudin and Freycinet managed to have their map of the Australian coastline published in 1811, three years before Flinders published his.
An inlet on the coast of
Western AustraliaWestern Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
is called Freycinet Estuary.
Cape FreycinetCape Freycinet is a point on the coast between Cape Leeuwin and Cape Naturaliste in the south west of Western Australia.It is within the Augusta-Margaret Local Government Area, and the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park....
between
Cape LeeuwinCape Leeuwin is the most south-westerly mainland point of the Australian Continent, in the state of Western Australia.A few small islands and rocks, the St Alouarn Islands, extend further to the south. The nearest settlement, north of the cape, is Augusta. South-east of Cape Leeuwin, the coast...
and
Cape NaturalisteCape Naturaliste is a headland in the south western region of Western Australia at the western edge of the Geographe Bay. It is the northernmost point of the Leeuwin-Naturaliste Ridge which was named after the cape...
and the
Freycinet PeninsulaFreycinet Peninsula is a large peninsula in eastern Tasmania, Australia. It is located north of Schouten Island, at . It is the site of Freycinet National Park....
with
Freycinet National ParkFreycinet is a national park on the east coast of Tasmania, Australia, 125 km northeast of Hobart. It occupies a large part of the Freycinet Peninsula, named after French navigator Louis de Freycinet, and Schouten Island....
in
TasmaniaTasmania 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...
also bear the explorer's name.
In 1805, he returned to
ParisParis 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...
, and was entrusted by the government with the work of preparing the maps and plans of the expedition. He also completed the narrative, and the whole work appeared under the title of
Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes (Paris, 1807–1816).
Circumnavigation in the Uranie
In 1817, he commanded the
Uranie, in which
Louis Isidore DuperreyLouis Isidore Duperrey was a French sailor and explorer.Duperrey joined the navy in 1800, and served as marine hydrologist to Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet aboard the Uranie...
,
Jacques AragoJacques Étienne Victor Arago was a French writer, artist and explorer, author of a Voyage Round the World.-Biography:...
,
Adrien Taunay the YoungerAdrien Taunay the Younger was a French painter and draftsman.He was born in Paris in 1803, the son of history and genre painter Nicolas-Antoine Taunay . Adrien moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1816, accompanying his father, who was a member of the French Artistic Mission...
and others went to
Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, to take a series of pendulum measurements as well as a larger scheme for obtaining observations, not only in
geographyGeography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
and
ethnologyEthnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
, but in
astronomyAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, terrestrial magnetism, and
meteorologyMeteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
, and for the collection of specimens in natural history. Freycinet also managed to sneak his wife
Rose de FreycinetRose de Freycinet, born Rose Pinon, was a Frenchwoman who, in the company of her husband, Louis de Freycinet, sailed around the world between 1817 and 1820 on a French scientific expedition on a military ship, initially disguised as a man. While not the first woman to circumnavigate the world, she...
aboard, with a guard of 17 officers.
For three years, Freycinet cruised about, visiting Australia, the
Mariana IslandsThe Mariana Islands are an arc-shaped archipelago made up by the summits of 15 volcanic mountains in the north-western Pacific Ocean between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east...
,
Hawaiian IslandsThe Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...
, and other Pacific islands,
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, and other places, and, notwithstanding the loss of the
Uranie on the
Falkland IslandsThe Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
during the return voyage, returned to France with fine collections in all departments of natural history, and with voluminous notes and drawings of the countries visited.
The results of this voyage were published under Freycinet's supervision, with the title of
Voyage autour du monde sur les corvettes Uranie et la Physicienne en 1824–1844, in 13 quarto volumes and 4 folio volumes of plates and maps.
Freycinet was admitted into the
French Academy of SciencesThe French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
in 1825, and was one of the founders of the Paris Geographical Society. He died at
FreycinetFreycinet may refer to:People*Charles de Freycinet , French prime minister*Louis de Freycinet , French navigatorPlaces*Cape Freycinet, Western Australia*Henri Freycinet Harbour, Western Australia*Freycinet Island, Western Australia...
,
DrômeDrôme , a department in southeastern France, takes its name from the Drôme River.-History:The French National Constituent Assembly set up Drôme as one of the original 83 departments of France on March 4, 1790, during the French Revolution...
.