Louis Feuillée

Louis Feuillée (1660 to 1732), sometimes spelled Feuillet, was a French member of the Order of the Minims, explorer, astronomer, geographer and botanist. Born at Mane in Provence in 1660, he was educated at the Minim convent there, and Jean Mathieu de Chazelles taught him astronomy and cartography while Charles Plumier, who had described some 6,000 plant species on a voyage to the Caribbean, taught him botany. He attracted the attention of members of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1699 the king sent him to the Levant with Giovanni Domenico Cassini to fix the geographical positions of seaports and other cities. The success of that voyage led to a similar journey to the Antilles in 1703, from Marseille on 5 February to Martinique on 11 April. In the following September he cruised along the northern coast of South America making observations at many ports. In the Antilles he collected new plants, drew a map of Martinique and explored the Venezuelan coast, returning to France in June 1706. He received the title Royal Mathematician from Louis XIV and sailed again from Marseille in December 1707 for the western coast of South America, rounding Cape Horn and reaching Concepción in Chile in January 1708.