c. 1610

Between November 1666 and June 1668, probably 1667 (Blanchard & Launay 2, col 3).

Beauvais ?

Paris

2/2 17th century

Paris

Ménard (Mesnard, Menard, Mainard, Maynard) was the son of a founder, Guillaume Menard working in Beauvais. Still a journeyman in 1631, when he married Anthoinette Coullombel 14 January 1635 he was described as a 'maître miroitier lunetier' (free mirror and lens maker). Although illiterate (1), Menard specialised in optical devices and was one of the extensive circle of men of varied learning focussed on Henri Justel (1620-93) whose 'Confèrences' he attended. He was considered by Pierre Borel to be one of the best lens makers in Europe (2. ) In November 1660 Huygens visited Ménard, perhaps for the first time, and thereafter saw him frequently during his stay in Paris in 1660/61. In his shop he would meet the Carmelite collector of optical instruments, Charles de Bryas - l'Abbé Charles (3) In 1661 Huygens showed him a one of his telescopes. The following year he told his brother Lodewyk, that he was 'assez entendu dans son mestier' (pretty well informed in his trade) but thought that he needed the assistance of someone like Pierre Petit or his assistant to find correct proportions for his lenses in the making of which otherwise he proceeded by empirical methods. Even so, Ménard seems to have been the optician from whom the Paris savants expected new and better instruments, as did Huygens in December 1664, impatiently waiting for Menard to finish a telescope in order to compare it with one by Campani. The following year a telescope that Henri Habert de Montmor had purchase from Monconys' son was compared with one by Menard and found wanting. In 1666, Huygens noted that Menard's first telescope had been sold, but that he would purchase the next one, if the tubes were improved, despite the fact that it would be expensive 'par ce que le bon Sieur Menard n'ignore pas que celle de Campani a esté venduæ cent escus' (Because good old Ménard is not unaware that Campani's telescope was sold for a100 écus). Even so, Huygens was not fully satisfied by Menard's work. He refers to him as deceased (feu Menard) on 1 June 1668 (4). In 1667 Menard charged 18 francs for a microscope far less than the best imported English models (those of Reeves). Menard was taken to to examine one of these, 'un [microscope] d'angleterre fort bon', and promised to make one as good (5).
Guillaume I had four children Catherine, Marie, Pierre and Guillaume II (6).

1. Blanchard & Launay 2.
2. Borel 15 .
3 HOC xxii 535 et ailleurs; Harcourt Brown 141.
4 HOC iv, 289; V;367; v. 459; vi 74; vi, 86-7; vi 151-2; vi 219; xv 70..
5. Letter from Henri Justel to P. D. Huet 30 March 1667 published by Harcourt Brown 277 & cp. 221.
6. Blanchard & Launay 2 col iii).

Quai des Orfèvres, 'opposite the Augustins', Paris 1655 'L'Ecu de France' (Blanchard & Launay, 2)

1362

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