In the maritime domain, the appearance of steamships is roughly equivalent to the passage from the horse-drawn carriage to the thermal car in the road domain: a revolution! This story began shortly before our French Revolution, on the banks of the Saône in Lyon.
An unknown inventor
The man who imagined, elaborated and conceived the plans of the first steamboat was the Marquis Claude François Dorothée de Jouffroy d'Abbans. Like others before him, his name was forgotten, as was his body, which was thrown into a mass grave after his death in Paris during a cholera epidemic in 1832.
History will remember some of his successors, notably the American Robert Fulton, who designed the first Nautilus.
An inconclusive first attempt
It is said that the idea of a steamboat came to Claude de Jouffroy d'Abbans while he was imprisoned in the Lérins Islands following a brawl over the eyes of a duchess.
Back home, he joined forces with other researchers to build his first boat, the Palmipède, in 1776. This boat was equipped with oars, powered by a steam engine. If the whole works, the boat is not powerful enough to navigate against the current and its oars, on each side, prevent it from passing the locks. It is thus a relative failure.
Second successful attempt
Without getting discouraged, he started building a 46-meter long boat weighing 150 tons that he named the Pyroscaphe, combining the Greek words "fire" and "nave". Unlike the paddle oars of the first prototype, this one uses a system of paddle wheels driven by a rack.
On July 15, 1783, the Pyroscaphe sailed up the Saône against the current from the Saint-Jean cathedral to the Ile-Barbe, in about fifteen minutes. It was a victory for Claude de Jouffroy d'Abbans, the steam boat was born.
A journey full of pitfalls
In spite of the success of the Pyroscaphe, Claude de Jouffroy d'Abbans is not at the end of his troubles. He had to repeat his feat on the Seine, in front of the commissioners of the Academy of Sciences. However, between ruin and exile during the Terror that followed the French Revolution, the marquis had many difficulties to persevere.
He built a new ship, the Charles-Philippe, in 1816, but the death of his wife in 1829 put an end to his finances and his ambitions. He died in anonymity.
