An Engineer's Notebook.
Finely executed series of architectural, mechanical, celestial, and topographical drawings, executed by A. Davonay in 1840-1841, while Davonay was a student at the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris.
The drawings cover a range of subjects that would have been taught to an engineering student at a military school like the École Polytechnique. The first few drawings cover machinery and hydraulics workings. Other drawings cover various types of colonnades and classical architecture. Finally, a few plans show detailed topographical maps of unnamed areas.
We find a record of Davonay passing his second year at the École Polytechnique in 1840, suggesting that these drawings were made during the third year at that institution. He is listed as coming from the Jura region of France. Later, during the 1870s, a Davonay is listed as an engineer in the corps of artillery, suggesting that he may have served in the Franco-Prussian War.
École Polytechnique
The École Polytechnique is one of the best-known French universities and located in Palaiseau, France, specializing in science and engineering. The school was founded in 1794 by mathematician Gaspard Monge during the French Revolution and was militarized under Napoleon I in 1804. It is still supervised by the French Ministry of Armed Forces. The school was originally located in the Latin Quarter in central Paris, the institution moved to Palaiseau in 1976, in the Paris-Saclay technology cluster.
After the Revolution of 1789, the royal engineering schools were closed. Jacques-Élie Lamblardie, Gaspard Monge and Lazare Carnot, the founding fathers of the École Polytechnique, were charged with organizing a new “École centrale des travaux publics” (Central School of Public Works), which opened in 1794. The aim of the school was to train civil and military engineers.
In 1814, students participated in the fighting to defend Paris against the Sixth Coalition. After the restoration of 1816, the number of students was reduced to about seventy-five and the 'military arts' course was abolished. In 1817, King Louis XVIII demilitarized the École Polytechnique and placed it under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior. Later, the school was put back into the care of the French military.