Jean-Marie-Joseph Coutelle (3 January 1748, in

Le Mans Le Mans (; ) is a Communes of France, city in Northwestern France on the Sarthe (river), Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the Provinces of France, province of Maine (province), Maine, it is now the capital of ...

– 20 March 1835, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

) was a French engineer, scientist and pioneer of ballooning.

Life

He got to know the physicist Alexandre Charles and, in the wake of the experiences of the

Montgolfier brothers The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (; 26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (; 6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the Communes o ...

, Coutelle and Charles became interested in balloons. On 2 April 1794 the

National Convention The National Convention () was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the ...

made Coutelle a captain and first officer of the Company of Aeronauts and ordered him to build balloons to aid the French Revolutionary armies. In this role Coutelle was attached to the

French invasion of Egypt The French invasion of Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) was a military expedition led by Napoleon Bonaparte during the French Revolutionary Wars. The campaign aimed to undermine British trade routes, expand French influence, and establish a ...

of 1798 under

Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

, but he was unable to function in this role in Egypt since the warship carrying his materials was severely damaged by fire during the

Battle of the Nile The Battle of the Nile (also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay; ) was fought between the Royal Navy and the French Navy at Abu Qir Bay, Aboukir Bay in Ottoman Egypt, Egypt between 1–3 August 1798. It was the climax of the Mediterranean ca ...

. Instead he became one of the scholars of the

Commission des Sciences et des Arts The Commission des Sciences et des Arts (''Commission of the Sciences and Arts'') was a French scientific and artistic institute. Established on 16 March 1798, it consisted of 167 members, of which all but 16 joined Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign ...

. In November 1800 Coutelle and the mining engineer Rozière were authorised to accompany the great caravan of Tor, which was heading to Sinai with 1,800 camels. A member of the Costaz commission, he began to admire the two obelisks at

Luxor Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt. Luxor had a population of 263,109 in 2020, with an area of approximately and is the capital of the Luxor Governorate. It is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited c ...

and suggested to the Institut d'Égypte a new way of transporting one of them to France - 30 years later, a similar method to his suggestion was used to transport one to the

Place de la Concorde The Place de la Concorde (; ) is a public square in Paris, France. Measuring in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées. It was the s ...

in Paris, where it now stands. Robert Solé, ''Les savants de Bonaparte'', Paris, Seuil, 1998,p. 130-131 He also used his ballooning expertise for Napoleon's planned invasion of Britain. He became a member of the Légion d’honneur on 17 January 1805, then a Chevalier de l’Empire on 28 June 1809. He died in 1835 and was buried in the 11th division of the cimetière du Père-Lachaise - his tomb was restored in 2004 by the " Souvenir français".

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coutelle 1748 births 1835 deaths Recipients of the Legion of Honour People from Le Mans Commission des Sciences et des Arts members French knights French balloonists 18th-century French engineers Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery