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Nom
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Chorez Daniel
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Date de naissance
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pre 1585
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Date de mort
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1659
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Lieu de mort
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Paris
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Couverture temporelle
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1/2 17th century
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Biographie
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Chorez is first heard of in 1616 when he engraved an illustration for Henrion's treatise on the sector (1). He also made this instrument of which one example signed by him has survived (2). The earliest maker known to have produced optical instruments in France, Chorez published a broad-sheet advertising his telescopes and microscopes, which included binocular varieties, in 1625, although he had apparently been working on the subject for at least five years before this as he had presented an example of his production to the King in 1620 . According to Chérubin d'Orleans [Michel Lassère], who contested Chorez' ability to make a satisfactory binocular microscope and claimed that it was his (Chérubin's) invention and not Chorez' (3), the latter had nonetheless made a 'lunette binocle' of silver in 1625 for Habert de Montmor (c.1600-1679), and at least one other. Early in 1640, Chorez published a pamphlet concerning 'les forces mouuantes' which may have related to perpetual motion (Descartes dismissed it as a 'charlatanerie' although he had seen neither the pamphlet nor the machine), but was probably concerned with magnetism as a source of motion. Chorez at this time was much engaged with the properties of lode-stones and their armature (4). He was known to the community of natural philosophers active in Paris during the middle decades of the century (5) and at some point he made a pedometer of his own design (6). In 1655 Borel mentioned him as one of the practical opticians who succeeded best in polishing lenses (7). This opinion was shared by Dr Rasch who told Samuel Hartlib that although over 70 years old and self-taught, Chorez was the most ingenious (schaffsinnigsten) maker in Paris for all kinds of mathematical instruments, telescopes, microscopes, clockwork, automata, and similar devices (8). A Latin summary of the same letter in Nicholas Mercator's hand adds the information that Chorez was unmarried. For a small (21mm x 28mm maximum dimensions) uncapped lodestone capable of lifting two or three times its own weight, Chorez asked Mersenne 30 écus. For another of 3 grains weight which, unarmed lifted 18 times its own weight of iron, but being armed lifted 200 times as much, the price was 100 livres (9).
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Notes biographiques
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1 Denis Henrion, L'Usage du compas de proportion, Paris 1618. The engraving is separately dated.
2 It is now in the Royal Institute of British Architects in a composite box of drawing instruments assembled during the 18th century. For a reproduction see Maya Hambly, Drawing Instruments , their History, Purpose and Use for architectural drawing, London 1982, 44.
3 Chérubin d'Orléans, La Dioprique oculaire ou la théorie, la positive et la méchanique de l'oculaire dioptrique, Paris 1671. Chérubin d'Orléans, La Vision partfaite, 2 vols Paris 1677-81. Following the appearance of the 1680 précis/re-issue of Chorez broadsheet on the binocular telescope, Chérubin in La vision parfaite ii, 184, accused Jacques Borrelly of having helped attribute the invention to Chorez rather than to himself. This accusation was repudiated by Borelly in a sceance of the Académie Royale des Sciences 16 March 1681. See Procès verbaux de la'Académie des Sciences, vol x, f. 63bis, 16 March 1681, where an example of the 1680 issue of the sheet is preserved, and 18 June 1681.
4 Corr. Mers. ix 87-8, 134-37, 279-80, 305.The pamphlet was likened by Henry Oldenburg, who sent a copy to Samuel Hartlib, to an invention of Cressy Dymock's. Oldenburg also noted that 'for want of assuring him of a recompence for putting it into practise and for discovering it to others, he took it with him into his grave'. Op cit. (n. 1) 278. Oldenburg, who was sufficiently impressed by Chorez' paper to have contemplated translating it also wondered whether Chorez had not travelled in England and perhaps been acquainted with Dymock.
5 He is mentioned by Gassendi in a letter to Neuré in 1643, Opera, vi, 169a. Three years earlier following a report by Mersenne of the quality of Chorez lode-stones, Jean Brun, an apothecary at Bergerac and a friend of the chemist Jean Rey, replied that he had never encountered anything as good as Mersenne described and would like to buy an example. Corr. Mers. letter 851 22 April 1640.
6 Ibid. ix. 87 n 6.
7 Petrus Borel, De vero Telescopio invento,1655.
8 22 May 1655. Hartlib papers, Sheffield University Library 26/41/2a. I am grateful to Dr Anita McConnell for this and the following references in the Hartlib Papers. Despite this praise, and his specific statement that Chorez was especially notable for his optical works, two months later Rasch was telling Hartlib that Chorez' microscopes and telescopes were nothing special, although his astrolabe(s) were remakable.
9 Mersenne to Haak 25 February 1640. Corr. Mers.ix, 134 & 136.
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Bibliographie
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Les admirable lunettes d'approche réduites en petit volume, avec leur vray vsage et leur utilitez préferables aux grandes et le moyen de les accomoder à l'endroict des deux yeux..., Paris, 1625
(Single-leaf broad-sheet published by Chorez himself at the address Ruede Perigeux) (1).
Another issue with address 'L'Isle Notre Dame, Au compas (2)
L'Ancienne et facile constrvction dv Binocle Inuenté et presenté au Roy en 1625 par D. Chorez, et remis au jour par M. Comiers prevost de tenant; jouxte la Feüille imprimée en 1625. qu'il a mit en depost dans l'Académie Royalle des Sciences..., 20 novembre 1680.
Another issue with the note 'Vn original … 1681 (3).
Le Binocle Inuenté et presenté au Roy en 1625 par D. Chorez, et remis au jour par M. Comiers prevost de ternant; jouxte la Feüille imprimée en 1625. Un original de l'imprimé de Chorez signé de Mr Justel a esté remis dans les minutes de Mr Lefranc notaire au Chastelet par acte du 17 juin 1681 …, broadsheet, n.d but post 1681.
1 Copy among the papers of Peiresc in BN ms fonds fr 9531 f 281.
2. A copy of this issue is reproduced as plate 1 in Heymann. Two other copies in the Bibliothèque Nationale have the shelf-marks Vp. 764 and Vz 1239.
3. L'Intersigne, livres anciens, Catalogue June 2013, n° 6.
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Adresse ; enseigne ; période ; source
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Rue de Periguex au Marais Paris (Les admirables lunettes d'approche 1625).
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L'Isle Notre Dame Paris Au Compas Bn ms fr 9531 f 281 (post 1625).
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Identifiant
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1399
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ark:/18469/1rc8v