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Nom
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Villebressieu, Etienne de
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Lieu de naissance
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Grenoble
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Couverture temporelle
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1626-1659
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Biographie
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In an undated pamphlet publicising his new water-raising machine, Villebressieu describes himself as 'Ingénieur du Roy' and 'de la ville de Grenoble'. Nothing is kown of his family or education but he must clearly have been a competent mathematical practitioner by 1629 when Baillet states that 'il s'étoit donné à M. Descartes'(1). At this date Villebressieu was in Paris where he assisted in the construction and the deployment of the elliptical mirrors used by Mersenne, Mydorge and Descartes for experiments in the winter of, probably, 1626/7 (2). For some years thereafter Villebressieu assiduously frequented Descartes with whom, according to Baillet, 'il avoit fait des progrés merveilleux dans la méchanique et dans la perspective. Il avoit une génie tout particulier pour appliquer heureusement les réfléxions que M. Descartes lui faisoit faire sur les régles qu'il lui donnoit pour travailler'. If this implies that Descartes taught Villebressieu some basic theory of mechanics and optics, it should not disguise Villebressieu's natural mechanical ability which allowed concrete applications of these precepts - applications which were subsequently useful to Descartes (3).
Villebressieu seems to have lived with, or close to, Descartes for some years (4), and together they travelled from the Low Countries through Germany to Denmark where Villebressieu remained while Descartes returned to Deventer and Amsterdam. Alongside with the catoptic work that Villebressieu effected for Descartes he developed several new machines, particularly the water-lifting machine for which he would publish a promotional pamphlet, and for at least twelve years worked on the mutation of metals (5). Villebressieu clearly had some interests in alchemy and chemical medicine, and as might be expected from their mutual interest in optics and their frequentation of Descartes, was friendly with Pierre Borel whom he supplied with information for his life of Descartes (6). Apart from his water-raising machine which, ' par sa figure, par son mouvement et par sa situation est diifférente de toutes celles qui ont esté conçuës et mises en usage jusqu'à présent…', and was moreover simpler (7), Villebressieu devised several other devices. Six of these were listed by Descartes (8) :
1 La spirale double pour descendre d'une tour en bas sans danger
2 Les Tenailles de bois pour monter par une corde menuë
3 Le Tour fait avec deux bâtons ou morceaux de bois pour monter et descendre
4 Le Pont roulant pour escalader une place qui a un profond et large fossé
5 Le Bateau à passer les rivières fait de quatre ais de bois, qui se plioit et se portoit sous le bras
6 Un Chariot-chaise… fort utile à tout le monde, et particulièrement aux soldats blesséz.
In 1642 Descartes gave a character of Villebressieu in a letter to Mersenne (9) '…c'est vn homme fort curieux, qui sçauoit quantité de ces petits secrets de chymie qui se debitent entre gens de ce mestier, dés lors qu'il estoit auec moy; s'il a continué, comme il semble, il endoit sçavoir maintenant beaucoup davantage. Mais vous sçauez que ie ne fais aucun estat de tous ces secrets: ce que i'estime en luy est qu'il a des mains pour mettre en pratique ce qu'on luy pourroit prescrire en cela, & ie croy d'assez bon naturel'. At the time when Descartes wrote this, Villebressieu was proposing to return to his service, a proposition to which Descartes was not averse if it was not at once. Thereafter for a decade and a half rather little is known about him except that he may have spent some time in Castres with Pierre Borel, and seems to have tried to commercialise his water-raising machine. In August 1656, letters patent were granted to 'Etienne de Villebressieu, ingénieur du Roi, de faire édifier sur toutes sortes d'eaux courants et dormants,, les machines hydrauliques de son invention pour l'élévation des eaux' (10). By 1659, however, he was re-established in Paris working now on dioptric lenses as Henry Oldenberg reported to Samuel Hartlib. At first Oldenberg was negative:
'As for Mr Bresseaux, ye opticall workman, he is knowne here to be no great master, and esteemed to be one of those, yt talke of more yn they well know, and promise things, they never performe' (11).
A month later Oldenburg could find no news of Bressieux, but on 8 November he reported rather more positively to Hartlib that 'We have seen this morning Monsr Bressieux a great Artist for working Hyperbolicall glasses and the Machines wch he hath in a manner ready to begin to worke. If ye practise proove as easie, as ye demonstration is said to be cleere, I doe not doubt we shall be made more acquainted with ye celestiall bodies, then hitherto we have been' (12 ). Four days later Oldenburg was requesting Hartlib to find 'some pieces of good glasse, cleare & fine', in England for Bressieu who is having difficulty in finding 'good stuff' and that Venetian glass is declining. If Hartlib could help with this Oldenburg thinks that Bressieux would send him 'some of those Spherical glassing serving in Windowes for a faire prospect'. 'He hath in a manner ready machines for both hyperbolicall & Spherical glasses; & he carried us, since my last, to his lodging, for to see them. Where he shewed us three machins for concave hyperbolicall, three others for convexe hyperbolicall, & one more for to work ye sphericall glasses wth more exactness yn hitherto'.13 Although Oldenberg offers no further information about Villebressieu, it is likely that he is to be identified as the Stephanus Brisseus of Grenoble whom Bonnani mentions as a microscope-maker in 1691.
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Notes biographiques
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1 Adam Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes, 2 vols, Paris 16, i, 163 & 258-62. Further references to Baillet refer to this source.
2 Corr. Mersenne, i, 334-5.
3 Eg. Villebressieu's work on the camera obscura as described by Baillet.
4 'Two whole years' according to Samuel Hartlib (Letter to Robert Boyle, 29 November 1659 in Boyle's Works, edited Birch,1744 , v, 296). but this need not perhaps be considered precise.
5 Descartes to Villebressieu, summer 1631 in Œuvres, i, 216.
6 Vitæ Renati Cartesii, Paris 1656.
7 Plaquette Grenoble, Bibliothèque Municipale V. 56.
8 Baillet i 257-8.
9 Endegeest, 7 December 1642. Œuvres iii, 598; Corr. Mersenne.
10 E. H. Goosselin, Documents…pour servir à l'histoire de la Marine Natioinale et du commerce rouennai…, Rouen 1876.
11 Old. Corr. i, 270.
12 Idem. 8 November 1659, i, 327.
13 Idem. 12 November 1659, i, 329.
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Bibliographie
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[Sur l'art d'élever les eaux], n.d.; n.p. [c. 1640].
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Identifiant
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1256
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ark:/18469/1ssm9