Guillaume Le Gentil: An Astronomer and His Tragic Story
He was erased from history
Guillaume Le Gentil was born in Coutances, France, and was an astronomer by profession. He discovered some of the galaxies, constellations of stars, and also the nebulosity of interstellar clouds in M8. His discoveries include what is now known as the Messier objects M32, M36, and M38. Additionally, he was the first to catalog the dark nebula sometimes known as Le Gentil 3 (type of constellation).
Gentil was also a member of the international collaborative project organized by Mikhail Lomonosov to measure the distance to the Sun, by observing the transit of Venus at different points on the Earth.
Edmond Halley was the one who suggested this idea, to measure the distance carefully from different places on the Earth. This project was launched with more than a hundred observers. As a part of the French expedition, Le Gentil set out for Pondicherry, a French possession in India.
Thus, in 1761, Le Gentil came to India to observe the transit of Venus. However, he was delayed in his journey and some thugs stole his wallet. Unfortunately, the day he arrived at his destination, the Venus transit had already occurred.
The next transit was to occur after eight years in 1769. Gentil decided to stay in India until the next transit as it was believed that after 1769, the next transit of Venus would occur after 100 years.
During this time he also wrote letters to the Royal Academy of Science and also to his family. He informed them that he would continue his research from India until the following transit.
In 1769, on the day of the transit, there was a heavy downpour with dense clouds. Unfortunately, even after eight years of wait, Gentil could not see the transit of Venus.
So, he then decided to return back to France. But his return trip wasn’t easy. At first, his entire team suffered from diarrhea and dehydration, due to which they could not go back for some time. This was probably due to their increased consumption of spicy food, as they were happy to go back.
Later, when they departed by ship, there were tsunamis and heavy storms in the ocean. Somehow the ship crossed the storms and after coming out of winds, they noticed that the captain was missing. It was believed that the captain sailed back to India in one of those storms.
Later, the ship crashed and the team got landed at Île Bourbon (Reunion, an overseas department). There Gentil had to wait until a Spanish ship took him home. Finally, he arrived in Paris in October 1771. He was now back in his nation after 11 years.
Very soon, he learned that he was considered dead in France. His wife had married his friend. His relatives had shared his ancestral land among themselves. And his student had got all his research printed in his name and married Gentil’s daughter. His name was also erased from the Royal Academy of Sciences.
He was erased from history and declared dead.
Actually, all this happened because none of the letters written by him had reached France. The ferryman, or the messenger who used to carry the letters to France, never came to France. He kept taking money from him to deliver the letters, but never delivered them.
After that, Gentil fought court cases for a long time. But his wife and relatives, upon hearing the news, sold the property so that Gentil would not get it back. In the end, the King of France had to come in the middle and he was then given a separate estate. His name got recast at the Royal Academy of Sciences and the name of his son-in-law was removed, with Gentil’s research finally being attributed to its rightful owner.
Then, he married his ex-girlfriend with whom he had had an affair during his first marriage. When his ex-wife came to know, she filed a case against Gentil for cheating, but the court dismissed the case since she herself was married to someone else. Additionally, she had also had an affair with another man while married. Adding insult to injury she had also been a great force behind the rumor of Gentil’s death in France!
Gentil never thought of going back to India again. Firstly because the transit of Venus would no longer be visible for the next hundred years, and secondly, his second wife was very beautiful (wink).
