Paul-Marie Leroy

Career

Of 1752 with 1765, Leroy worked with Lorient as assistant engineer for the Compagnie of the Indies. In 1766, it was affected by the Marine with the service of the Mast with Bayonne. It was then sent in the Vallée of Winder, in Béarn.

It made arrange ways of mast in the Forêt of Isseaux for the evacuation of the masts, and a saw mill with the port of Athas. In 1768, it obtained its patent of engineer of the ports and arsenals of the Navy.

The major work of Leroy is the installation of the Chemin of the Mast of Pact, opposite the Fort of Portalet, extraordinary technical exploit for the time, which allowed the exploitation of the Forêt of Pact of 1774 1778.

The activity of the Mast ceased in 1783 in the Vallée of Winder. Leroy then directed work in the Vallée of Ossau until their suspension in 1792. He was chief engineer since 1784. He died in Oloron in 1795.

The " Mémoire" on the Mast

Paul-Marie Leroy wrote a report on work of the Mast which it directed. In 1775, it sent the manuscript to Malesherbes, first president of the Cour of the Assistances of Paris and director of the Bookstore. Malesherbes, which had come in the the Pyrenees in 1767 and had visited and appreciated work of the Mast, communicated it to the general inspector Finances, his friend Turgot, who gave the order at once to print it with the expenses of the State. But the engraving of twelve very beautiful boards per Pierre-Claude de Lagardette took delay so that the disgrace of Turgot obliged Leroy to make print its report in London with its frais :

Memory on work which has report/ratio with the exploitation of the Mast in the Pyrenees , London, 1776,136 p. and 12 boards inset plate.

The Minister for the Navy, Sartine, made some buy 100 specimens by his services and offered a gratification of 1 200 pounds with Leroy.

The work starts with a description of the Pyrenees, which is one of very first to be published. It describes then in a detailed way the various operations of the mast, while insisting particularly on the transport of the masts by the Way of the Mast, then by rafts, while descending the gaves and the Adour until Bayonne.

It was reproached Leroy for having omitted to mention its predecessors, to allot all the merit of the operations of the Mast of the Pyrenees. Thus appeared, two years later:

Réfutation of a report that Mr. the King, Engineer of the Ports & Arsenals of the Navy, gave in 1776, on work which has report/ratio with the exploitation of the Mast of the Pyrenees, by a former clerk in this part , Amsterdam, 1778,26 p.

The anonymous author particularly underlines the role of the intendant of Étigny in the success of the exploitation of the Mast of the Pyrenees.

Sources

Jacques Dumonteil, “ Mast out of Winder with the mast with the armées ”, Genealogy of the Yrénées-Atlantiques , n° 50, June 1997, p. 5-12.

It should be noted that the old and modern Biographie (Michaud) allots by error, in its two editions (1819 and 1842) the Mémoire on work… with a naval officer named Jean-Jacques-Sebastien Leroy (1747-1825).

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