Count Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811) was one of the most famous navigators of the 18th century. The son of a notary public, he was interested in mathematics as a young man, then joined the military, seeing action in Quebec in 1756 during the unsuccessful war against the English. In December 1766, Bougainville left the French port of Nantes in command of two ships, the ºLa Boudeuseº and the ºL'Etoileº. During his voyage, he did not actually discover any new territoiries. In fact, when he landed in Tahiti in April 1768 and took possession of it in the name of the king of France, another navigator, British explorer Samuel Wallis (1728-95), had already discovered the island. Bougainville owes his fame to the book ºVoyage autour du mondeº (Voyage Around the World), published when he returned to France in 1769. The book was an immediate success and gave rise to the Western European belief in the "noble savage".
