Émiland Gauthey


Émiland Marie Gauthey was a French mathematician, civil engineer and architect. As an engineer for the États de Bourgogne, he was the creator of a great deal of the region's civil infrastructure, such as the Canal du Centre between Digoin and Chalon-sur-Saône, bridges including those at Navilly and Gueugnon, and buildings such as the Eglise Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul at Givry and the theatre at Chalon-sur-Saône.
Gauthey became Chief Engineer of the États de Bourgogne in 1782, on the death of his predecessor and close collaborator, Thomas Dumorey. After the French Revolution, he held several important posts in the Haute administration des Ponts-et Chaussées in Paris. He was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1804 on its creation by Napoleon Bonaparte. From 1805 until his death, he was the highest-ranked engineer in France.

Biography

Émiland Marie Gauthey was born at Chalon-sur-Saône on 3 December 1732 into a provincial petty bourgeois family. His father, Pierre Gauthey, was the local doctor: and his mother, Louise née was born at Chagny on 27 August 1700 as the dauter of Emiland Lafouge, a company lawyer and Official Receiver for the salt store in Toulon-sur-Arroux.
From 1740 to 1748, he studied with brilliance at the Jesuit college in Chalon. At the age of sixteen, after his father died, he continued his studies at Versailles under the auspices of an uncle who was Professor of Mathematics at the École des pages du roi.
He continued his education under the architect Gabriel Dumont before entering the École royale des ponts et chaussées, which had been newly created and was under the direction of the notable engineer Jean-Rodolphe Perronet. He met with the Dumont architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot, and started a lifelong friendship. He consulted Soufflot on the construction of the dome of Sainte-Geneviève, which became the Panthéon.
Graduating in 1758, he was awarded the post of deputy engineer at Chalon-sur-Saône, under Thomas Dumorey. He would wait twenty-four years, until Dumorey's death in 1782, to become the Chief Engineer of the États de Bourgogne and to makeDijon his home. Shortly after, he was named Director.General of Burgundy Canals in 1783.
A brilliant technician, he was an exponent of the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment and of the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, as evidenced by his investigative Essay on Philosophical Language of 1774 – in which he envisages a kind of language of universal graphical signs like stenography –; and in his use of scientific advances in the building trade. His monumental works on building, Mémoire sur l’application de principes de mécanique de la construction des voûtes et des Dômes and Mémoire sur les canaux de navigation posthumously published by his nephew, became standard reference works.
His civil engineering works, such as the bridges of Gueugnon, Navilly and Chalon-sur-Saône, helped to transform transportation methods and accelerated the Industrial Revolution in 19th-century Burgundy. It was in this forward-looking spirit that he participated in improving river navigation and building canals. He collaborated in the project to build a canal in Burgundy between the River Yonne and River Saône and he puis se consacre au canal de Franche-Comté de Saint-Jean-de-Losne/Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône à Dole : this part of the project to connect the River Rhine with the River Rhône, built between 1783 and 1803, is also known as the canal de Monsieur because it was opened by Louis V Joseph de Bourbon-Condé, lately Prince and Governor of Burgundy.
But his master work, "The greatest public work of the 18th Century", was the Canal du Centre, between Digoin and Chalon-sur-Saône. Over with 62 locks, it connected the River Loire to the River Saône, thus creating the primary route for boats from the English Channel to the Mediterranean Sea.
Gauthey remained interested in development in Chalon-sur-Saône, his home town, where he rebuilt the quayside and built a theatre. These constructions are among many examples of neoclassical style in the area, including the dome of the pharmacy in the town, the churches at Givry and Louhans, the town hall at Tournus and the Château de Clermont-Montoison at Chagny.
Changes after the French Revolution brought Émiland Gauthey honours and high office: he was named the first Inspecteur Général des Ponts et Chaussées in 1791. At the age of 60 he moved to Paris, married his cousin and adopted his nephew Claude-Louis Navier, one of the most brilliant mathematicians and engineers of the early 19th century. in 1801 he became a member of the Conseil général des ponts et chaussées en 1801 and in 1805 its vice-president. He worked on Somme-Escaut link and several developments in Paris, such as a new water supply which would become the Canal de l'Ourcq), and projects on the Seine bridges and the Passerelle des Arts, built by Jacques Dillon.
The French Consulate awarded him the civil Légion d'honneur on its first issue on, and he was to be promoted to Commander but died suddenly, in Paris, on. Perhaps surprisingly, his place of death is unknown, but it is likely to be in a Parisian cemetery.

Works

Bridges