Louis Jean de la Couldre, Comte de La Bretonnière, 6/8 July 1741, to 25 November 1809, was a French naval officer and engineer, who designed
Cherbourg Harbour
Cherbourg Harbour (French: ''rade de Cherbourg''; literally, the "roadstead of Cherbourg"), is a harbour situated at the northern end of the Cotentin Peninsula, on the English Channel coastline, in Normandy, northwestern France. With a surface ...
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.
Life
He joined the navy aged 14, becoming an officer two years later and fighting in the
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754†...
and
American War of Independence
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
. He was made a captain aged 40 as a reward for his bravery. He was born a viscount, made a count by royal decree in 1787 and made a member of the Order of Cincinnatus, on the recommendation of
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
in charge of perfecting the mapping of the coast between
Dunkirk
Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Granville. In 1777 La Bretonnière filed his report, giving
Cherbourg
Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...
as the best site for such a port and proposing closing off its harbour with a 4 km breakwater made of stone, 4 km from the coast. Sartine then De Castries backed this plan in 1780.
Three years later, those in charge of construction had still not decided on the construction method. La Bretonnière backed sinking old warships and building stone around them, with masonry round the upper part. However, work initially proceeded according to the more innovative plan of
Louis-Alexandre de Cessart
Louis-Alexandre de Cessart (25 August 1719, Paris – 12 April 1806, Rouen) was a French road and bridge engineer.
He served in the "gendarmerie de la Maison du Roi", fighting at the battles of Fontenoy and Raucoux in 1745 and 1746. In 1747 he ...
to sink 90 wooden tree trunks into 20 m high piles and cladding them with stone. In 1784 Cessart was made chief engineer of the project and La Bretonnière returned from America as Cherbourg's naval commander. In June 1786 he received Louis XVI, who had come to take part in sinking the ninth tree trunk of the breakwater. However, Cessart's technique proved unable to bear up to storms and only 20 trunks ended up being sunk before the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
. The project thus returned to La Bretonnière's initial construction method in 1788 and he took over sole control of the project after Cessart and governor Dumouriez left in 1789. In September 1791 the post of naval commander disappeared, forcing La Bretonnière to resign on 8 March 1792.
Denounced by the Montagnards of
Valognes
Valognes () is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France.
Geography
Valognes is situated in the Cotentin Peninsula, southeast of Cherbourg. Valognes station has rail connections to Caen, Paris and Cherbourg.
History ...
, he was imprisoned for two weeks in 1793. Le Carpentier offered to let him rejoin the navy as an ordinary seaman, but he refused and left for Paris. Bonaparte, then first consul, let La Bretonnière back into the navy at the rank of captain in 1803 but refused to let him return to the building project at Cherbourg, instead putting him in command at