Portrait of Bougainville

Count Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811) was a French naval officer, explorer and writer.
From 1766 to 1769, he captained the first round-the-world voyage commissioned by the French government. His account of the voyage, published in 1771 as *Voyage autour du monde* (A Voyage Round the World), caused a sensation in European society at the time. This work would inspire many navigators, artists, writers and philosophers (notably Diderot, who published his *Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville* in 1772); it is one of the main sources of what would later be called the ‘noble savage’ myth.
Arrested as a suspect during the Reign of Terror, he was saved and released following the fall of Robespierre. A member of the Institut de France and the Bureau des longitudes, he published a ‘Historical Note on the Savages of North America’ in 1799.
A few years later, Napoleon Bonaparte showered him with honours: senator in 1799, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1804, Count of the Empire in 1808.