Jacques d'Allonville

Who was Jacques d'Allonville?

Jacques Eugène d'Allonville, Chevalier de Louville par Fontenelle was a French astronomer and mathematician.

He was born in the Château de Louville, and studied mathematics before joining the navy, fighting at the Battle of La Hogue in 1690. He transferred to the army, and after spending two years as a prisoner of war after the Battle of Oudenarde, achieved the rank of colonel in the Dragons de la Reine before retiring from military service in 1713, following the peace of Utrecht.

He thereafter took up the study of astronomy and is noted for determining a method for precisely calculating the occurrence of solar eclipses. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1715 after he had travelled to London to observe a solar eclipse.

In 1717 he moved to a country house at Saint-Jean de Bray, near Orleans, where he died in 1732.

The crater Louville on the Moon is named after him.