Background
Claude Chappe was born on December 25, 1763 in Brûlon, Sarthe, France.
Claude Chappe was born on December 25, 1763 in Brûlon, Sarthe, France.
Claude Chappe was educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen.
Claude Chappe's device consisted of an upright post, on the top of which was fastened a transverse bar, while at the ends of the latter two smaller arms moved on pivots.
The position of these bars represented words or letters; and by means of machines placed at intervals such that each was distinctly visible from the next, messages could be conveyed through.
50 leagues in a quarter of an hour.
The machine was adopted by the Legislative Assembly in 1792, and in the following year Chappe was appointed ingenieur-teUgraphe-, but the originality of his invention was so much questioned that he was seized with melancholia and (it is said) committed suicide at Paris in 1805.
Ignace was the author of a Histoire de la telegraphie (1824).