The first French circumnavigation

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville · 1766 CE – 1769 CE · Earth

The first French circumnavigation — Louis-Antoine de Bougainville · 1766 CE – 1769 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Hand the Falklands back to Spain, then cross the Pacific and carry the French flag round the world.

Historical context

France had just lost Canada and India and was looking to the Pacific for consolation and for naval prestige. Bougainville’s two ships carried a botanist, an astronomer and a writer as well as guns, and the book that came out of the voyage gave Europe its lasting myth of the South Seas.

The voyage, step by step

  1. The Boudeuse sails

    November 1766

    In November 1766 Bougainville leaves Nantes in the frigate Boudeuse, to be joined later by the storeship Étoile.

  2. Giving back the Malouines

    1767 CE

    At Port Louis, the colony Bougainville founded and paid for himself, he lowers the French flag and hands the settlement to Spain.

  3. Fifty-two days in the strait

    1767 CE

    The two ships take almost two months to work through the Strait of Magellan against williwaws and tide.

  4. Nine days at Nouvelle-Cythère

    April 1768

    In April 1768 the ships anchor off Hitiaa; Bougainville names the island New Cythera and stays nine crowded days.

  5. Turned back by the breakers

    June 1768

    In June 1768 the lookouts hear surf ahead in the dark; Bougainville hauls off and misses the east coast of Australia by a day’s sail.

  6. The Louisiades and the rats

    1768 CE

    Working north-west along a new archipelago he names for Louis XV, the crews are eating rats and boiled leather.

  7. An island and a strait

    1768 CE

    Passing between two large, mountainous islands, Bougainville charts a strait and a coast that carry his name today.

  8. Home to Saint-Malo

    March 1769

    In March 1769 the Boudeuse anchors at Saint-Malo, the first French ship to have gone round the world.

Outcome

Completed the circuit in two and a half years, brought back Ahutoru and a book that made Tahiti famous in Europe.

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville

French officer and mathematician who led the first French circumnavigation and whose account of Tahiti shaped European ideas of the Pacific.

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Sources

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