Daniel-Charles Trudaine
Encyclopedia
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
– 19 January 1769) was a French administrator and civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
. He was one of the primary developers of the present French road system.
He is also known for the monumental Atlas de Trudaine ("Trudaine Atlas", also known as "Trudaine Road Maps"), made under his direction.
Life
Son of Charles Trudaine, prévôt des marchands de Paris (provost of the merchants of Paris), Daniel-Charles Trudaine was a conseiller in the ParlementParlement
Parlements were regional legislative bodies in Ancien Régime France.The political institutions of the Parlement in Ancien Régime France developed out of the previous council of the king, the Conseil du roi or curia regis, and consequently had ancient and customary rights of consultation and...
of Paris, then intendant
Intendant
The title of intendant has been used in several countries through history. Traditionally, it refers to the holder of a public administrative office...
of the Auvergne
Auvergne (province)
Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....
from 1730 to 1734. In 1743, he was named an honorary member of the Académie des sciences
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
. In the following year, he was made director of the Assemblée des inspecteurs généraux des ponts et chaussées (Assembly of General Inspectors of Bridges and Roads), a title he held until his death. He founded the École nationale des ponts et chaussées
École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Founded in 1747, the École nationale des ponts et chaussées , often referred to as les Ponts, is the world's oldest civil engineering school...
(School of Civil Engineering) in 1747, with Jean-Rodolphe Perronet
Jean-Rodolphe Perronet
Jean-Rodolphe Perronet 27 October 1708, Suresnes – 27 February 1794, Paris) was a French architect and structural engineer, known for his many stone arch bridges. His best known work is the Pont de la Concorde .-Life and career:...
, engineer of the généralité
Généralité
Recettes générales, commonly known as généralités , were the administrative divisions of France under the Ancien Régime and are often considered to prefigure the current préfectures...
of Alençon
Alençon
Alençon is a commune in Normandy, France, capital of the Orne department. It is situated west of Paris. Alençon belongs to the intercommunality of Alençon .-History:...
, as its head.
As head of civil engineering for the French state, Trudaine demonstrated his brilliance, creating several thousand kilometres of royal routes (now known as the "routes nationales") linking Paris to France's frontiers and main seaports. This network was one of the best designed in Europe, with routes built as straight as possible, laid out "de clocher à clocher" (from steeple to steeple), 60 feet (19.4 m) wide, bordered with trees and bound with ditches that were linked to rivers.
Trudaine was also responsible for the planning and construction of the Place Royale in Reims
Reims
Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....
and other urban projects.
His son, Jean-Charles-Philibert Trudaine de Montigny, succeeded him in his official position.
Atlas de Trudaine
The Trudaine Atlas, created from 1745 to 1780, was the most accurate set of cartographicCartography
Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...
plans of roads and topography
Topography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
of France made during its period. The scale of the maps show far more detail than is found on the famous maps made by César-François Cassini de Thury
César-François Cassini de Thury
César-François Cassini de Thury , also called Cassini III or Cassini de Thury, was a French astronomer and cartographer.- Biography :...
and family. The 62 bound volumes contain more than 3,000 plates prepared by the central bureau of draftsmen. Each one was artistically hand-rendered with watercolor to show the presence and characteristics of the land, waterways, and vegetation; castles, private dwellings, and ruins; churches, convents, and cemeteries; extant roads, as well as planned road projects. Map plates were augmented with designs for locks, bridges, and other civil engineering projects where future improvements were deemed necessary.
Trudaine did not lived to complete his atlas for all of France; only the 22 regions governed by intendants were completed. (Maps in the atlas do not extend to Burgundy
Bourgogne
Burgundy is one of the 27 regions of France.The name comes from the Burgundians, an ancient Germanic people who settled in the area in early Middle-age. The region of Burgundy is both larger than the old Duchy of Burgundy and smaller than the area ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy, from the modern...
, Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
, Languedoc
Languedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
, and Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
or to regions recently conquered by Louis XIV, except for Metz
Metz
Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...
– 3 map sets, and the Upper-Cambrésis (Cambrai
Cambrai
Cambrai is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Cambrai is the seat of an archdiocese whose jurisdiction was immense during the Middle Ages. The territory of the Bishopric of Cambrai, roughly coinciding with the shire of Brabant, included...
region) – also 3 map sets.) However, more than half of France was covered by his work.
Today, Trudaine's immense atlas remains one of the most significant achievements in the development of cartography.
External links
- BibliOdyssey: Atlas de Trudaine, a variety of examples of plates from the atlas Atlas de Trudaine at ARCHIM, website of the French Ministry of Culture