Louis-Antoine Beaunier

Louis -Antoine Beaunier (* January 15, 1779 in Melun, † August 26, 1835 in Paris) was the founder and first director of the École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint- Étienne as well as the first licensee of a French railway line.

Youth and Education

Louis -Antoine Beaunier was born as the first son of the notary and senior officials Antoine Beaunier. His three years younger brother Firmin- Hippolyte (1782-1824) devoted himself to the fine arts. One of his most famous works is the painting " Duguesclin recevant of envoyes de Charles V, l' Epée de connetable " and hangs in the Musée des Beaux -Arts in Rennes.

Louis -Antoine matriculated in 1794 at age 16 at the Paris University École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris, eleven years after the founding of the institute. The semester consisted of 40 students. He graduated on March 9, 1795. Subsequently, he made ​​two extensive educational trips, in 1796 with Jean Baptist Duhamel in the Pyrenees and the Languedoc, in the following year with Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu in the Italian Alps and in the Alpes- de -Haute -Provence.

Profession

Already during his studies, his exceptional abilities were noticed in the field of metallurgy. He entered the civil service. No later than 1809, he was responsible for the mines in the Saar mine surveyor and assistant of Duhamel, and later his successor as director of the School of Mines practique École des Mines de la Sarre in Geislautern. They created in their joint service a wide range of maps of coal seams between Geislautern and the mining town of Neunkirchen. This so-called Duhamel - Atlas, whose completion was announced on April 5, 1810 in Paris, bears witness to the high- quality of the French School of Mines in Paris and thus also in Geislautern. The Duhamel - Atlas was the foundation for all mining activities - concessional questions on the Saar River for over 100 years.

1984 was unveiled at the site of the former mining school Geislautern a commemorative plate that keeps alive the achievements of these two men.

Unrest, triggered by the Napoleonic wars 1814/1815 led Beaunier to leave the Saar. Until 1824 he worked on the determination of the mining rights in the department of Loire, and later on the Rhône and Gard. At the same time he continued his metallurgical studies. Focus was the problem of it for cementing. He also conducted experiments for the generation of melting steel.

In 1820 he traveled to England to take the starting there in railway inspection. The concession for the first French first 23 km long railway line of Saint- Étienne- Andrézieux near Lyon, was to Louis -Antoine Beaunier. So he could be transported to the Loire River from August 1827 coal between the mining Saint-Étienne and the inland port in Andrézieux.

In 1830 he founded the Mining Academy in Saint -Etienne and its first director. In the same year he was appointed to the Supreme Administrative Court ( Conseil d' État ). He was Inspector General of the mining authority, when he died in Paris in 1835.