Charles-François BEAUTEMPS-BEAUPRÉ (1766-1854) hydrographic - Lot 257

Charles-François BEAUTEMPS-BEAUPRÉ (1766-1854) hydrographic engineer and cartographer. L.A.S., Seins August 9, 1817, to a general; 4pages in-fol. Very interesting letter on his work on the Breton coasts, the Chaussée de Sein and the Pointe du Raz. He describes the difficulty and danger of his mission, due to the bad weather and contrary winds ravaging the region... The winds have finally changed and given him the favorable opportunity he had been waiting for for six weeks "to go and take cognizance of the western part of the dreadful Chaussée des Seins". But bad weather has returned, and he must once again wait to "complete a very difficult work". He should already be in Ouessant, if he wants to finish "what I have undertaken on the Raz and on the Chaussée de Seins [...] In order to work safely", we need the winds to calm down... During his inspection of the Grande Cornue on the Chaussée de Sein, he discovered "a fairly extensive rock, on the top of which only 14 feet of low-water remain. I had the good fortune to be able to determine exactly the position of this danger, unknown to navigators, which is, given its situation, the most formidable of all the dangers that exist at the end of the Chaussée des Seins"... Finally, he pleads at length the cause of the engineers and student hydrographers under his command, whose zeal and courage he praises, and with whom he is extremely pleased. He asks the General to impress upon the Minister of the Navy "the justice due to them", by granting them some of the honorary awards granted this year to the Navy, by His Majesty. "The Corps des Ingénieurs, Hydrographes, few in number and recently reorganized, needs, to obtain the consideration it deserves by its work [...], to be treated as are treated, with justice, the other corps of Engineers attached to the Navy and War"...