Louis-Antoine de Bougainville

After studying law and mathematics, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville published Traité de calcul intégral (1754–56) and was elected to the Royal Society (London). Having entered the military in 1750, he was posted to Quebec in 1756 as aide-de-camp to Montcalm. In 1758, he wrote a remarkable document recommending reforms that would free New France from the restrictions of mercantilism.

Bougainville was involved in the campaigns of the Seven Years' War leading up to the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Although he failed to bring reinforcements in time to alter the outcome, some considered Bougainville one of Montcalm's abler officers.

In 1763, he entered the French navy and proceeded to found a short-lived colony composed mostly of Acadians on the Falkland Islands. His scientific expeditions in 1766–69 were written up in Voyage autour du monde in 1771 (translated as A Voyage Round the World in 1772). The tropical vine "bougainvillea" was also named after him. He saw action in the French navy during the American Revolution. (See also American Revolution – Invasion of Canada.) Despite his royalist sympathies, he survived the subsequent French Revolution and received the patronage of Napoleon.