Gaston de ROCQUEMAUREL (1804-1878) naval officer and politic - Lot 572

Gaston de ROCQUEMAUREL (1804-1878) naval officer and politician. Autograph manuscript, Notes sur le vaisseau le Montebello, de 120 c. armé à Toulon en 1834; 9 pages in-fol. Attached are various autograph notes (approx. 20 pp. various formats and some twenty drawings or sketches, defects). Plus a L.A. (draft), Macao October 25, 1851, to his friend Marenge (2 pages large in-8, one edge gnawed). Technical description of a 120-gun ship. A former student of the École polytechnique, Gaston de Rocquemaurel served in the Levant, then took part in the 1830 blockade and expedition of Algiers. He was interested in maneuvering techniques and artillery. Promoted to lieutenant in January 1834, he wrote these notes on the Montebello, a 120-gun vessel built in Toulon and commissioned in 1813. [Rocquemaurel later served as Dumont d'Urville's first officer on the Astrolabe during the expedition to the South Pole and Oceania (1837-1840)]. All the ship's technical specifications are given here: draught, length, beam, thickness, height, mast, iron ballast, ballast position, water hold, plans and platforms, provisions, large hold, taps, sail locker, prison, spare carriages, pump house, oakum locker, basins, ball pit, general store, vegetable locker, cookie locker, galley, powder locker, powder passage, steerage, 36, 24 and 18 battery, deck, mature, sails, roles (breakdown of crew by positions, total of 1,071 men), etc. Attached are various autograph notes (approx. 20 pp. various formats and some 20 drawings or sketches, defects), 1829-1833 and n.d., on bombs, mortars, bombardes, bomb galiotes, and gun carriages; and reading notes from reports by Las Cases, on the establishment of Holland, the Illyrian provinces and French ports (8 p. in-fol., defects). Plus a L.A. (draft), Macao Oct. 25, 1851, his friend Marenge (2 pages large in-8, one edge gnawed), on his navigation in China.