, an accurate military geographer, the descendant of an ancient family,
, an accurate military geographer, the descendant of an ancient family, was born at Aix
in Issart in 1697, and at the age of nineteen went to Paris,
where he studied geography under the celebrated Sanson,
geographer to the king. His progress was so rapid, and
his reputation so high, that at the age of twenty-five he
was honoured with the same title. A perpetual almanac
which he invented, and with which Louis XV. was much
pleased, procured him the patronage of that prince, for
whom he drew a great number of plans and charts. But his
principal reputation rests on his topographical plans of the
military kind, particularly his “Description topographique
et militaire des campagnes de Flandre, depuis 1690 jusqu'en 1694,
” Paris, 1756, 3 vols. folio, drawn up from the
memoirs of Vaultier and the marshal Luxembourg. He
had also the honour of contributing to the education of the
dauphin, for which a pension was conferred on him in
1756, and, as he had talents of the political kind, he was
not unfrequently employed in negociations by cardinal de
Fleury and Amelot. He died at Paris, Feb. 11, 1771. His
son, the chevalier de Beaurain, who appears to have inherited his father’s talents as a military draftsman, published
“Cartes des campagnes de grande Conde
” en Flandre,"
Paris, fol. 1774; and in 1781, those of Turenne, with the
descriptions of Grimoard, compiled from Turenne’s original
papers, the correspondence of Louis XIV. that of his ministers, and several other authentic memoirs, a most splendid folio, enriched with a great number of charts and plans,
executed with uncommon fidelity, precision, and. minuteness, so as to describe every motion of the armies in the
most distinct manner.