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250 The Mediterranean of Louis XV
Fig. 10.2. ‘Projet d’une Carte reduite de la Méditerrannée
assujetie aux Observations Astronomiques les plus certains
Comparée avec la carte du Sr. Berthelot hydrographe du Roy,
le 15 Jan 1735’. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cartes
et Plans, portefeuille 64, pièce 12. (Permission of the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France.)
1759. After several years of work, he would contend that:
‘Quoique la Méditerranée ait été le théâtre des premières navigateurs,
elle n’en étoit pas pour cella mieux connue; on peut dire
même que cette partie de l’Hydrographie étoit demeurée jusqu’a
nos jours la plus imparfaite de toutes & celle qui avoit le
plus besoins d’être rectifiée.’ 33
According to Chabert, only the work of Chazelles was significant;
all attempts by mariners to survey the Mediterranean were
regarded as deficient and inaccurate since their observations
were made on board ships with defective equipment and not
from stable points of reference on land with the best astronomical
instruments. The methods of the caboteur or coastal pilot
who was guided by memory and the visual impressions of coasts
were to be replaced by the scientific principles employed by the
navigateur, based on the more difficult but invariable laws of
astronomy. Subjective, individual experience was to be replaced
with uniform principles of observation guided by the most advanced
technology. The complexity of the operations demanded
the most sophisticated methods. Chabert concluded: ‘je ne dissimule
point que la rectification des cartes de la Méditerranéene
soit une entreprise des plus étendues & des plus délicates.’ 34
As a young officer in the French Navy, Chabert was involved
in a number of campaigns in the 1740s during which he collected
astronomical and geographic data for correcting maps of
Acadia and Newfoundland. During the intervals between his
trans-Atlantic voyages, he received a special dispensation from
the Comte de Maurepas to study astronomy and surveying in
Paris. His first work on the Mediterranean was part of a cam-
33
‘Hydrographie. Sur la rectification des cartes marines de la Méditerranée’,
HAS, 1766, Hist. 123–7.
34
Joseph-Bernard, marquis de Chabert, ‘Projet d’observations astronomiques
et hydrographiques pour parvenir à former pour la Mer Méditerranée
une suite de cartes exactes’, HAS, 1759, Mém. 484–94. Chabert became a
member of the academy on 25 September 1758.