Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville (; French: [buɡɛ̃vil]; 12 November 1729 – 31 August 1811) was a French military officer and explorer. After having served in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War, Bougainville later gained fame for his expeditions, including a circumnavigation of the globe in a scientific expedition in 1763, the first recorded settlement on the Falkland Islands, and voyages into the Pacific Ocean. Bougainville Island of Papua New Guinea as well as the flowering plant Bougainvillea are named in his honour.
Early life Bougainville was born in Paris on November 12, 1729, the youngest of three children to Marie-Françoise d'Arboulin and Pierre-Yves de Bougainville. His father had entered into the minor nobility due to his service as notary for the state and his mother died when he was five. He was then raised by his older brother Jean-Pierre with the help of an aunt. His father had pushed his sons to also take up a legal career and Bougainville enrolled in the University of Paris. While here, he took an interest in philosophy and mathematics, studying under mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert. At the age of twenty-five, Bougainville published the first volume of his treatise on integral calculus, Traité de calcul intégral. His work was presented to the French Academy of Sciences and he received the patronage of Academy member and War Minister, the Comte d’Argenson. Several years later in 1756 he published the second volume and that same year he was made a member of the Royal Society of London while in England on a diplomatic mission. After graduating, Bougainville decided on a military career rather than a legal one and in 1750 he entered the French Army in the corps of Musketeers of the Guard. He was later made adjutant of the Régiment de Picardie and was recommended to General François de Chevert, serving as his aide-de-camp. In October 1755 he was appointed as the secretary of Maréchal de Lévis-Mirepoix on his diplomatic mission to London before returning to France in February 1756. He continued to serve under the command of Cheveret and was promoted to lieutenant in the Régiment d’Apchon.
Seven Years' War (French and Indian War)
In 1756, Bougainville was stationed in Canada as captain of dragoons and aide-de-camp to the Marquis de Montcalm. He took an active part in the capture of Fort Oswego in 1756 and the 1757 Battle of Fort William Henry. He was wounded in 1758 at the successful defense of Fort Carillon. He sailed back to France the following winter, under orders from the marquis to obtain additional military resources for the colony. During this crossing, he continued to learn about the ways of the sea, skills that would later serve him well. Having distinguished himself in the war against Britain, Bougainville was rewarded with the Cross of St Louis and promoted to colonel. When he returned to Canada the following year, he had gained few supplies. The metropolitan officials had decided that, "When the house is on fire, one does not worry about the stables".
During the pivotal year of 1759 (see Seven Years' War and French and Indian War), Bougainville participated in the defence of fortified Quebec, the capital of New France. With a small elite troop under his command, among which were the Grenadiers and the Volontaires à cheval, he patrolled the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, upstream from the city; he prevented the British several times from landing and cutting communications with Montreal. He did not have sufficient time, however, to rally his troops and attack the British rear when they successfully ascended the Plains of Abraham and attacked Quebec on 13 September. Following the death of the Marquis de Montcalm and the fall of Quebec on 18 September 1759 – after the colonel's aborted attempt to resupply the besieged city – Bougainville was dispatched to the western front by his new commanding officer, the Chevalier de Lévis. He attempted to stop the three-pronged attack against Montréal from his entrenchments at Île-aux-Noix. He was among the officers who accompanied Lévis to Saint Helen's Island off Montreal for the last French stand in North America before the general capitulation of September 1760. Of the war, Bougainville wrote in his journal: "It is an abominable kind of war. The very air we breathe is contagious of insensibility and hardness". Shipped back to Europe along with the other French officers, all deprived of military honors by the victors, Bougainville was prohibited by the terms of surrender from any further active duty against the British. He spent the remaining years of the Seven Years' War (1761 to 1763) as a diplomat, helping to negotiate the Treaty of Paris. Under this France ceded most of New France east of the Mississippi River to Great Britain.
Naval career
First French circumnavigation
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