Jean de Hautefeuille (, 20 March 1647 – 18 October 1724) was a French abbé,

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and inventor.

Biography

Hautefeuille was born in

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and Marie Anne Mancini Marie Anne Mancini, Duchess of Bouillon (1649 – 20 June 1714), was an Italian-French aristocrat and cultural patron, the youngest of the five famous Mancini sisters, who along with two of their female Martinozzi cousins, were known at the ...

Duchesse de Bouillon There have been duchesses of Bouillon, in present-day Belgium, since the tenth century. Lady of Bouillon Ardennes-Bouillon dynasty, ?-1100 :''Sold to the Bishopric of Liège'' House of La Marck, ?-1588 House of La Tour d'Auvergne, 1594� ...

, who became his patroness and brought him into her entourage. In this way, he was able to travel through Italy and England. Through the Duchess' patronage, he came to be

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...

as a

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. His passion, however, was for the sciences rather than religious matters, and he focused on the field of engineering design. One of Hautefeuille's most important achievements was his proposal to use a spiral spring with a balance wheel in place of a

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward th ...

to control a clock. In the 1670s, he was involved in a dispute with Christiaan Huygens, who along with Robert Hooke claimed priority. Huygens is today generally credited with the invention as he managed to perfect it and the first watch using one was made under his direction. Hautefeuille also conducted investigations in acoustics, investigating the action of speaking trumpets, and wrote an essay on the cause of echoes which was awarded a prize by the Academy of Bordeaux in 1718. He also made improvements in

lens A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements ...

es, and suggested a method of raising water using the explosive action of gunpowder. He was also interested in the phenomenon of the tides, and invented an instrument called a thalassometer to register them. In 1678 Hautefeuille proposed an early form of internal combustion engine, which was to use gunpowder as a fuel, but it seems unlikely that any such machine was ever constructed by him. He was, however, the first person to propose the use of a piston in a

heat engine In thermodynamics and engineering, a heat engine is a system that converts heat to mechanical energy, which can then be used to do mechanical work. It does this by bringing a working substance from a higher state temperature to a lower state ...

. Huygens proposed a similar device two years later in 1680 based on de Hautefeuille's suggestion and appears to have constructed some form of prototype. Though considered intelligent, Hautefeuille rarely perfected his inventions, and was inclined to prematurely publish ideas and then abandon them in favour of new pursuits. The Paris Academy of Sciences attested the value and usefulness of many of his discoveries, but it never conferred on him the honour of electing him as a member. He was however elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

of London in 1687. He was the author of a number of essays on a variety of subjects.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hautefeuille, Jean de 1647 births 1724 deaths Abbés 17th-century French inventors 18th-century French physicists French watchmakers (people) 17th-century French Roman Catholic priests 18th-century French Roman Catholic priests Catholic clergy scientists Fellows of the Royal Society Clergy from Orléans 17th-century French physicists 17th-century French writers French male essayists Scientists from Orléans