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Claude Chappe (December 25, 1763 – January 23, 1805) was a French inventor who in 1792 demonstrated a practical semaphore system that eventually spanned all of France. This was the first practical telecommunications system of the industrial age, making Chappe the first telecom mogul.Fact: date=March 2008
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Wikipedia About Claude Chappe
Claude Chappe (December 25, 1763 – January 23, 1805) was a French inventor who in 1792 demonstrated a practical semaphore system that eventually spanned all of France. This was the first practical telecommunications system of the industrial age, making Chappe the first telecom mogul.Fact: date=March 2008
Life
Chappe was born in Brûlon, Sarthe, France, the grandson of a French Baron. He was raised for church service, but lost his sinecure during the French Revolution. He and his four unemployed brothers decided to develop a practical system of semaphore relay stations, a task proposed in antiquity, yet never realized.
Claude's brother, Ignace Chappe (1760-1829) was a member of the Legislative Assembly during the French Revolution. With his help, the Assembly supported a proposal to build a relay line from Paris to Lille (fifteen stations, about 120 miles), to carry dispatches from the war.
In 1792, the first messages were successfully sent between Paris and Lille. In 1794 the semaphore line informed Parisians of the capture of Condé-sur-l'Escaut from the Austrians less than an hour after it occurred. Other lines were built, including a line from Paris to Toulon. The system was widely copied by other European states, and was used by Napoleon to coordinate his empire and army.
In 1805, Claude Chappe committed suicide in Paris by throwing himself down a well at his hotel. He was said to be depressed by illness, and claims by rivals that he had plagiarized from military semaphore systems.
In 1846, the government of France committed to a new system of electric telegraph lines. Many contemporaries warned of the ease of sabotage and interruption of service by cutting a wire.
Popular culture
The Chappe semaphore figures prominently in Alexandre Dumas, père's The Count of Monte Cristo. The Count bribes an underpaid operator to transmit a false message.
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