Brault, Louis Désiré Léon
Louis Désiré Léon Brault (January 7, 1839 - August 27, 1885) was a French naval officer, meteorologist, and cartographer. Born in Vendôme, he attended the École Polytechnique beginning in 1859. He joined the French Navy in 1861, eventually rising to the rank of capitaine de frégate. He fell ill from dysentery in 1868, and during his convalescence began contemplating how wind is represented on maps. With this new fascination in mind, he requested a transfer to the Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine, which was granted. He began working at the Dépôt on March 17, 1869, but, after the French declaration of war beginning the Franco-Prussian War, Brault requested to be sent back to sea. He was assigned to the Invincible, an ironclad frigate. A recurrence of dysentery forced him to convalesce for the entirety of 1871. After regaining his health in January 1872, Brault asked to be reassigned to the Dépôt des cartes to finish his work on the wind maps. In 1874 Brault published the first set of wind map, a set of our maps of seasonal winds of the North Atlantic. He was named the Director of Meteorology at the Dépôt des cartes in 1878, a post he held until his death. Brault also published several books, including Traité d'astronomie et de la météorologie appliquées à la navigation. Brault eventually created wind maps for the Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.
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