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Authors: Robert Whitaker
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months, hounding Turkish authorities until they finally admitted their mistake. Upon his return to France in 1732, he presented the academy with an engaging account of his trip, which, Delille wrote, “earned him the reputation of a competent mathematician, an observant traveler, and a good storyteller.”
Neither Bouguer nor Godin had publicly taken sides in the debate over the earth’s shape. Bouguer had tried to reconcile Newtonian and Cartesian views, while Godin had published a paper in 1733 describing how the distances between lines of latitude would vary depending on whether the earth was flattened or elongated at the poles. Either was possible from Godin’s point of view. But La Condamine had jumped into the fray on the side of the rebels. Maupertuis and Clairaut counted him as an ally, and Voltaire had written him a fan letter, hailing him as“an apostle of Newton and Locke.” In 1733, La Condamine had floated the idea of mounting an expedition to the equator to solve the debate, but since he was a friend of the scorned Maupertuis and a junior member of the academy, Cassini and the other Cartesians had ignored him. It took someone of Louis Godin’s status to get the academy’s leaders behind the idea. Once they were, La Condamine, more than anyother member, lobbied to be named to the expedition. The academy, a colleague said,“sensed that his zeal and courage would serve the enterprise well.”
Charles-Marie de La Condamine.
By Louis Carmontelle. Musée Conde, Chantilly, France. Lauros-Giraudon-Bridgeman Art Library .
La Condamine, who had spent much of the previous sixteen months organizing the voyage, was the first to arrive in La Rochelle, having come in mid-April. The other seven members of the expedition were expected to assist the academicians, except perhaps for Joseph de Jussieu, who had his own scientific duties. Jussieu’s two brothers, Antoine and Bernard, were botanists and academy members, and they had requested that Joseph, a doctor at the medical school of Paris, be named the expedition’s botanist, charged with gathering plants and seeds from the New World. Joseph, however, had a fragile temperament, and everyone knew that he would have to be treated gently. His peers in Paris often spoke about his“vivid imagination,” which was a polite way of saying that at times he was haunted by demons and prone to horrible bouts of melancholy.
Most of the others in the crew were professionals as well. The surgeon Jean Senièrgues would attend to the team’s medical needs, ready to bleed and purge at the first sign of sickness. Jean Verguin was a naval engineer and draftsman expected to draw maps. The watchmaker Hugo would be responsible for the care and maintenance of the scientific instruments, while Morainville, an engineer, would help build the observatories for their celestial measurements. The final two members of the expedition were younger men who would be general assistants: Couplet and Jean Godin des Odonais. Couplet was the nephew of the academy’s treasurer, Nicolas Couplet, and it was rumored that his uncle had twisted an arm or two to get him on the expedition. As for Jean Godin, he was Louis’s twenty-one-year-old cousin, and the minute he had heard about the expedition, he had hurried to Paris to volunteer.
The son of Amand Godin and Anne Fouquet, Jean was born on July 5, 1713, in Saint Amand, a village in the central region of France about 165 miles south of Paris. He was the seventh of eleven children, but only four of his siblings—two brothers and two sisters—survivedpast infancy. Jean’s family was fairly prosperous. Amand was an attorney, and he also owned a property, Odonais, in the parish of Charenton, which provided Jean with the descriptive name—“des Odonais”—listed on the expedition’s travel documents. The countryside around Saint Amand was quite beautiful, the river Cher flowing through the fertile fields, and Jean would spend hours walking here, lost
Neither Bouguer nor Godin had publicly taken sides in the debate over the earth’s shape. Bouguer had tried to reconcile Newtonian and Cartesian views, while Godin had published a paper in 1733 describing how the distances between lines of latitude would vary depending on whether the earth was flattened or elongated at the poles. Either was possible from Godin’s point of view. But La Condamine had jumped into the fray on the side of the rebels. Maupertuis and Clairaut counted him as an ally, and Voltaire had written him a fan letter, hailing him as“an apostle of Newton and Locke.” In 1733, La Condamine had floated the idea of mounting an expedition to the equator to solve the debate, but since he was a friend of the scorned Maupertuis and a junior member of the academy, Cassini and the other Cartesians had ignored him. It took someone of Louis Godin’s status to get the academy’s leaders behind the idea. Once they were, La Condamine, more than anyother member, lobbied to be named to the expedition. The academy, a colleague said,“sensed that his zeal and courage would serve the enterprise well.”
Charles-Marie de La Condamine.
By Louis Carmontelle. Musée Conde, Chantilly, France. Lauros-Giraudon-Bridgeman Art Library .
La Condamine, who had spent much of the previous sixteen months organizing the voyage, was the first to arrive in La Rochelle, having come in mid-April. The other seven members of the expedition were expected to assist the academicians, except perhaps for Joseph de Jussieu, who had his own scientific duties. Jussieu’s two brothers, Antoine and Bernard, were botanists and academy members, and they had requested that Joseph, a doctor at the medical school of Paris, be named the expedition’s botanist, charged with gathering plants and seeds from the New World. Joseph, however, had a fragile temperament, and everyone knew that he would have to be treated gently. His peers in Paris often spoke about his“vivid imagination,” which was a polite way of saying that at times he was haunted by demons and prone to horrible bouts of melancholy.
Most of the others in the crew were professionals as well. The surgeon Jean Senièrgues would attend to the team’s medical needs, ready to bleed and purge at the first sign of sickness. Jean Verguin was a naval engineer and draftsman expected to draw maps. The watchmaker Hugo would be responsible for the care and maintenance of the scientific instruments, while Morainville, an engineer, would help build the observatories for their celestial measurements. The final two members of the expedition were younger men who would be general assistants: Couplet and Jean Godin des Odonais. Couplet was the nephew of the academy’s treasurer, Nicolas Couplet, and it was rumored that his uncle had twisted an arm or two to get him on the expedition. As for Jean Godin, he was Louis’s twenty-one-year-old cousin, and the minute he had heard about the expedition, he had hurried to Paris to volunteer.
The son of Amand Godin and Anne Fouquet, Jean was born on July 5, 1713, in Saint Amand, a village in the central region of France about 165 miles south of Paris. He was the seventh of eleven children, but only four of his siblings—two brothers and two sisters—survivedpast infancy. Jean’s family was fairly prosperous. Amand was an attorney, and he also owned a property, Odonais, in the parish of Charenton, which provided Jean with the descriptive name—“des Odonais”—listed on the expedition’s travel documents. The countryside around Saint Amand was quite beautiful, the river Cher flowing through the fertile fields, and Jean would spend hours walking here, lost
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