The veiled love letters sent by Jean-Andr\u00e9 Mongez to Louise Victoire Le Cloustier were discovered in a book of engravings. Photograph: Daguerre Paris<\/p>\n
The two ships under La P\u00e9rouse\u2019s command, La Boussole and L\u2019Astrolabe, disappeared three years later after leaving Botany Bay in Australia. The wrecks were only formally identified in 2005 and exactly what happened to them remains a mystery to this day.<\/p>\n
Now rare letters written by an illustrious scientist who perished in 1788 have resurfaced, giving a new and personal account of the voyage. They are described as veiled love letters addressed to the married daughter of an aristocratic family, and were discovered hidden in a book of engravings being examined in preparation for auction.<\/p>\n
Ludovic Miran, a book and manuscript expert for the auctioneers selling the letters next month, described the find as \u201ca miracle\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a certain number of documents from the expedition but they are almost all scientific, so these personal letters are extremely rare,\u201d Miran told the Guardian. \u201cThey throw a completely new light on what is in France<\/a> an extraordinary scientific and historical event.\u201d<\/p>\n The La P\u00e9rouse expedition was launched at a time when Britain and France were in a period of intense rivalry over colonial expansion. La P\u00e9rouse was a great admirer of Cook and his maritime mapping and scientific discoveries, but Louis XVI had more political and trade ambitions. The French wanted to create trade routes and discover whether the secret information they had that Britain was planning to establish a permanent base at Botany Bay, giving it access to unexplored areas of the Pacific region, was correct.<\/p>\n La P\u00e9rouse\u2019s ships, carrying 225 crew, officers and scientists, sailed from Brest on France\u2019s Atlantic coast on 1 August 1785 and for almost three years sent reports during stopovers including from Alaska, California, Asia, Russia and Samoa, where the captain of the Astrolabe and 11 men were killed.<\/p>\n At the time of Louis XVI\u2019s execution, there had been no news of the frigates since their departure from Botany Bay in March 1788. To La P\u00e9rouse\u2019s dismay, Captain Arthur Phillip<\/a> and Britain\u2019s First Fleet had beaten him to the Australian coast \u2013 inhabited by an Indigenous population for tens of thousands of years \u2013 by just six days.<\/p>\n A map of the voyage taken by La Boussole and L\u2019Astrolabe, an expedition commissioned by Louis XVI. Photograph: Daguerre Paris<\/p>\n La Boussole and L\u2019Astrolabe are believed to have foundered on coral reefs at Vanikoro east of the Solomon Islands during a tornado a few months later. Wreckage was discovered in 1826 and 1964 but only formally identified in 2005.<\/p>\n The letters were written by Jean-Andr\u00e9 Mongez, a brilliant scientist, director of an illustrious science revue and church canon who was with the expedition, to Louise Victoire Le Cloustier, the daughter of a minor noble family from Rouen, Normandy.<\/p>\n Miran said Mongez used the letters to express his unhappiness at her marriage and appears to repent for previous bad behaviour. \u201cHe writes several times: \u2018I will be back, I will be another man, a better man\u2019,\u201d Miran said. \u201cOne has the impression he has not behaved well towards her and she has put him in his place.\u201d<\/p>\n Captain Arthur Phillip raises a British flag at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788. Photograph: Hulton Archive\/Getty<\/p>\n This may, he added, have been behind Mongez\u2019s decision to undertake such a long and perilous journey. \u201cThe references are often veiled, but they seem to have had a very close relationship but he seems to have caused some offence at some point. They are intimate, very personal letters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe tells her he is leaving \u2018a bit for the love of fame and the desire to acquire new knowledge\u2019, but he already had scientific glory and a good career and they would have all read James Cook\u2019s works before leaving so they knew about the dangers.<\/p>\n
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