Written by expedition scientist and church canon Jean-André Mongez to a married Normandy noblewoman named Louise Victoria Le Cloustier, the veiled love letters describe the grueling toll of the royal voyage. Mongez expressed sorrow over her marriage and recounted the violent deaths of several crew members before noting that the expedition had taken a sad turn. The two mission ships, carrying 225 crew members and scientists across vessels named La Boussole and L'Astrolabe, eventually vanished in 1788 after departing Botany Bay.
Key points
The recovered correspondence offers an exceptionally rare personal viewpoint from an 18th…: The recovered correspondence offers an exceptionally rare personal viewpoint from an 18th-century maritime mission whose surviving archives are almost exclusively scientific.
Jean-André Mongez documented severe psychological strain, difficult shipboard living cond…: Jean-André Mongez documented severe psychological strain, difficult shipboard living conditions, and the loss of comrades before his own death.
The expedition sent geographical reports from regions including Alaska, California, Russi…: The expedition sent geographical reports from regions including Alaska, California, Russia, and Samoa before disappearing entirely after leaving Botany Bay in March 1788.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
As he prepared to climb the scaffolding to be publicly executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, Louis XVI is reported to have asked: “Is there news of Monsieur de la Pérouse?”
He was referring to Jean-François de Galaup, the count of Pérouse, a naval officer and navigator whom the French king had dispatched in 1785 on a round-the-world scientific mission to rival discoveries made by the English explorer Captain James Cook.
The two ships under La Pérouse’s command, La Boussole and L’Astrolabe, disappeared three years later after leaving Botany Bay in Australia. The wrecks were only formally identified in 2005 and exactly what happened to them remains a mystery to this day.
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Ludovic Miran, a book and manuscript expert for the auctioneers selling the letters…
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