Gribeauval, Jean Baptiste Vaquette de

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Gribeauval, Jean Baptiste Vaquette de

GRIBEAUVAL, JEAN BAPTISTE VAQUETTE DE. (1715–1789). French artillery general. While Gribeauval was captain of artillery in 1752, Minister of War Comte Marc-Pierre d'Argenson sent him to study the use of light cannon in Prussian infantry batallions. In 1776 Saint-Germain named him first inspector of artillery. His system of artillery development, gradually adopted in France between 1764 and 1776, called for lighter, smaller, more mobile guns and more precise calculations in their use; therefore, more highly trained artillerists were required. The adoption of his system in France made vast stocks of effective but heavy, outdated matériel available for the Americans through agents such as Beaumarchais.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rosen, Howard. "The Système Gribeauval: A Study of Technological Development and Institutional Change in Eighteenth-Century France." Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1981.

Trenard, G. L. "Gribeauval." In Dictionnaire de biographie française. 19 vols to date. Edited by J. Balteau, et al. Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1933–.

                         revised by Robert Rhodes Crout