Jouffroy d'Abbans, CLAUDE, MARQUIS DE

Jouffroy d'Abbans, CLAUDE, MARQUIS DE (1751-1832), claimed by the French as the inventor of steam-navigation, served in the army, and did in 1783 make a small paddle-wheel steamboat sail up the Rhone at Lyons—the connection between piston and paddle-wheel axle being rack-and-pinion. Compelled to emigrate by the Revolution, he failed, on account of financial ruin, to float a company till after Fulton had made his successful experiments on the Seine in 1803. See the article SHIPBUILDING; and a monograph on him by J. C. A. Prost (Paris, 1889).