Jean-Michel Racault : Pingré's voyage to the Indian ocean. In view of the great scientific interest of the eclipse of the sun by Venus in 1761, the Académie des Sciences organised three distant expeditions, the least-known of which is that of the abbé Pingré to Rodrigez Island in the Mascarenes, an observation site finally decided on after lengthy discussions. His account, still unpublished, covers three subjects : firstly, the scientific investigation in which, curiously, the problem of longitude overshadows the astronomical observations ; secondly, an account of events on the trip and during the stay on Rodriguez, longer than foreseen due to Franco-British conflicts ; and thirdly a documentary report, interesting above all for what it says about the economic, political and human state of the French colonies in the Indian Ocean.

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