Godin Luis (1704-1760)

Godin Louis
GODIN, Louis, French astronomer, born in Paris, 28 February, 1704; died in Cadiz, Spain, 11 September, 1760.
He was graduated at the College of Louis le Grand, and studied astronomy under Delisle. His astronomical tables (1724) gave him reputation, and the academy elected him a pensionary member. He was commissioned to write a continuation of the history of the academy, left uncompleted by Fontanelle, and was also authorized to submit to the minister, Cardinal Fleury, the best means of discovering the truth in regard to the figure of the earth, and proposed sending expeditions to the equator and the polar sea.
The minister approved the plan and appropriated the necessary means, the academy designating La Condamine, Bouguer, and Godin to go to Peru in 1734. The expedition sailed from Rochelle, 16 May, 1735, touched at Cadiz to take two naval lieutenants, whom Philip V. had ordered to accompany it, and proceeded to Santo Domingo, where they remained six months to take observations.
They arrived in Quito in February, 1736, immediately crossed the Andes to establish their stations in the interior, and remained two years. When they had finished their task in 1738, at the invitation of the viceroy of Peru, Godin accepted the chair of mathematics in Liana, where he also established a course of astronomical lectures.
When in 1746 an earthquake destroyed the greater part of Lima, he took valuable seismological observations, assisted the sufferers, and made plans by the use of which the new buildings would be less exposed to danger from renewed shocks.
In 1751 he returned to Europe, but found that he had been nearly forgotten, and superseded as pensioner of the academy ; and, as his fortune had been lost in unfortunate speculations, he accepted the presidency of the College for midshipmen in Cadiz in 1752.
During the earthquake of Lisbon, 1755, which was distinctly felt at Cadiz, he took observations and did much to allay the apprehensions of the public, for which he was ennobled by the king of Spain.
In 1779 he was called to Paris and reinstated as pensionary member of the academy ; but he died on his return to Cadiz.
He was the author of "Appendix aux tables astronomiques de Lahire " (Paris, 1724); " Histoire de l'acaddmie des sciences, 1680g '99 " (11 vols., 1728); " [aa connaissance des temps " (1730-'3) ; "El temblor de tierra de Lima, sus causas, efectos y consecuencias " (Lima, 1748) ; " Curso de matematicas para el uso de mis discipulos " (1750) ; "Observations astronomiques au Perou" (2 vols., Paris, 1752)" " Des tremblements de terre en general, de ceux de Lima et Lisbon en particulier" (1753); and " Les possessions Espagnoles dans l'Amdrique du Sud; le Perou, sonhistoire, ses richesses, et moeurs de ses habitants" (1755).
His cousin, Jean Godin des 0donais, French naturalist, born in St. Amand, Cher, France, in 1712; died there in 1792, embarked in 1735 with the expedition for measuring a degree on the equator. To be distinguished from his relative Godin, he added to his surname that of his mother, Odonais.
When the commission returned to France, Godin des Odonais became professor of astronomy and natural science at the College of Quito, 1739. At the same time he studied the Indian languages and the flora of Ecuador, and when, in 1743, a marriage with an heiress gave him the means, he resigned his chair and gave his whole time to natural science and the Indian language.
He explored Ecuador and the northern provinces of Peru, and collected an herbarium containing" more than 4,000 species of plants.
He also made drawings of over 800 species of animals.
Having lost the greater part of his wife's dowry in speculations, he resolved to try his fortune in Cayenne, where he arrived in May, 1750, and settled on the banks of the River Oyapok.
For fifteen years he explored Cayenne and the Brazilian Guiana, north of the Amazon, and collected nearly 5,000 species of plants. From 1765 till 1773 he explored the Amazon.
In the latter year he finally returned to France, and settled on his estate of St. Amand.
He gave his botanical collections to the museum of natural history, where they are still preserved.
In 1784 he was elected a member of the Academy of science, and he labored thenceforth to arrange the notes taken during the many years of his explorations, and published " Flore raisonnee du Perou, comprenant 4,000 especesdont plus de 1,500 nouvelles" (6 vols., Paris, 1776, with two volumes of illustrations containing over 750 plates); "Les plantes de la Guayane" (17'77) ; "Faune du Perou" (4 vols., 1778, with two volumes of illustrations); " Plan de navigation libre de l'Amazone, dedie au Due de Choiseul " (1779);" Flore de la Guayane, explication de l'herbier ddpose au museum d'histoire naturelle " (5 vols., 1779, with three volumes of illustrations) ; "Flore de l'Amazone, explication, etc." (4 vols., 1780, with one volume of illustrations) ; " Grammaire de la langue Quichua ou des Incas" (1782) ; " Dictionnaire de la langue Quichua" (1782) ; " Vocabulaire des dialectes Indiens de la Guayane" (1783) ; and " Grammaire comparee des langues Indiennes de l'Am6rique du Sud " (2 vols., 1784).
His wife, Isabel, born in Riobamba, Peru, in 1728 : died in St. Amand, France, was the daughter of Don Pedro Emanuel de Grandmai-son, who was corregidor of Otabnla at the time of her birth. At the age of fifteen she married Godin des donais.
When her husband decided in 1750 to establish himself on the banks of the Oyapok, he asked for passports from the court of Portugal to enable him to return by the Napo and Amazon for his family, which he did not receive for some years afterward.
Finally the Portuguese government placed a vessel at his disposal in 1758, but as he was about to embark he fell sick, and employed a man named Orcasaval to act in his behalf. Instead of discharging this mission, the latter remained in the Portuguese settlements to trade on his own account, and Madame Godin, guided by rumor, finally set out alone.
On arriving at Canelos. where she was to embark, she found it deserted on account of the small-pox.
The thirty Indians composing her escort had successively abandoned her on the route, and she had with her only her son, her two brothers, and four servants. They attempted to row to the mission of Andoas, about 450 miles, from which she could easily reach the Portuguese transport, but lost their guide, and were reduced to the most frightful sufferings in the desert.
At the end of three days they all died except Madame Godin, who, after wandering for several weeks through a dense wood, was taken by an Indian to the mission at Andoas. All attempts to find Orcasaval were unsuccessful, and so she never profited by the transport which the Portuguese government furnished her.
She had still to travel over 3,000 miles to reach her husband, and, after a long time and much further suffering, she arrived at Oyapok, where he had remained several years waiting for his wife.
Afterward they embarked for France, and arrived in La Rochelle, 26 May, 1773. The rest of Madame Godin's life was passed on her husband's estate at St. Amand in Berry.
Prince Charles Bonaparte, the naturalist, has given Madame Godin's name to a remarkable species of South American birds, the "Chamaepelia Godinae [nda: errato, Oodinae]," " consecrated," he says, " to the memory, which can never be too much honored, of Isabel Godin des Odonais, who, alone and abandoned, traveled across the American continent in its greatest width, sustained by her greatness of soul end her martyrdom to duty."
See her life by Ferdinand Denis, based on family documents, in the "Magasin pittoresque" (1854), and "Les voyages dans les forets de la Guayane," by Halouet.

Louis Godin (February 28, 1704 – September 11, 1760) was a French astronomer and member of the Paris Academy of Sciences.
Godin was nominal leader of the 1735 expedition to the Royal Audience of Quito in the Spanish South American Empire, to a region which is today part of Ecuador. Its other members included Charles Marie de La Condamine and Pierre Bouguer. Its mission was to determine the length of a degree of the meridian in the neighbourhood of the equator. This would also determine whether the Earth's diameter were greater at the equator than at the poles, as had been conjectured by Isaac Newton. On his recommendation his cousin Jean Godin was also a member of the expedition.
Godin's leadership was worse than ineffective, and by 1740 he was effectively replaced by Pierre Bouguer. In 1744 he was offered the chair of mathematics at the University of San Marcos in Lima. While there, he oversaw the reconstruction of the city of Lima and the building of the Real Felipe fortress in Callao, after the two cities were destroyed in 1746 by earthquake and tsunami.
Expelled from the Academy of Sciences for his disastrous leadership, he moved to Spain where became director of the Royal Observatory and Academy of Naval Guards at Cadiz. While there, he witnessed the 1755 earthquake and tsunami that leveled Lisbon, but which largely spared Cadiz. He was subsequently reinstated into the Academy of Sciences.
As well as several Mémoires, he wrote the 11-volume Histoire de l'Académie des Sciences de 1680 à 1699, and Appendix aux Tables astronomiques de La Hire.
The lunar crater Godin and the asteroid 12715 Godin are named after him.

Isabel Godin des Odonais - Jean Godin
Isabel Godin des Odonais née Gramesón was the daughter of Don Pedro Gramesón y Bruno, an administrator in Riobamba, a Spanish colonial city in the Viceroy of Peru. She was well-educated and spoke fluent French, Spanish and Quechua, as well as knowing Quipus, the Inca method of communicating information using colored strings and knots.
Jean Godin des Odonais was a French cartographer who had joined the world's first geodesy expedition to the equator, lead by Charles Marie de La Condamine. He had been recommended to La Condamine by the expedition's chief astronomer, his cousin Louis Godin. The team worked in the Quito region from 1735 to 1744, during which time Jean and Isabel met. They married on December 27, 1741, when Isabel was fourteen years old.
Separation
At first Jean decided to remain in Riobamba with his new wife, but in 1743 he offered to accompany La Condamine on his next endeavor, eventually staying behind because Isabel was pregnant. However, when he heard of his father's death in March 1749 Jean decided to return to France with his family. He planned to first travel alone to Cayenne, French Guiana via the Amazon to test whether the journey would be safe for them to take, and to make the necessary arrangements with the French authorities.
Upon arriving in Cayenne, Jean found the Portuguese and Spanish colonial authorities would not let him — a Frenchman of no importance — return through their territory. Unwilling to return to France without his family he became a reluctant resident of French Guiana, constantly writing pleas to Europe to allow for his return to Riobamba. Eventually, La Condamine wrote on Godin's behalf to the Portuguese king, who due to changing political circumstances was now eager to befriend the French. He ordered a galiot, crewed by thirty oarsmen, to take Jean back to his wife. However, Jean had imprudently written some incendiary letters against the Portuguese, and was extremely suspicious of the offer of passage up the Amazon, abandoning the ship at its first port. The captain of the galiot decided to continue up river without Jean, to fetch the Frenchman's wife as ordered.
For most of their 20 year separation Isabel received no news of her husband, while enduring the death of her children from smallpox. She moved to the smaller community of Guzman. When she heard rumors that a ship was waiting to take her down the Amazon she sent her servant Joachim and a handful of Indians to investigate. The party returned after two years having discovered the waiting ship, four years after its initial departure. Isabel's father, Don Pedro, went ahead to the ship to make arrangements and to wait for Isabel.
Isabel's Journey
On October 1, 1769 a 42 person party set out for the ship: Isabel, Joachim, Isabel’s two brothers Antoine and Eugenio, Isabel’s ten year old nephew Joaquin, three servants Rosa, Elvia, and Heloise, thirty-one Indians, and three Frenchman. The route across the Andes mountains and Amazon Basin was an arduous one, made worse by the recent devastation by smallpox of the mission station at Canelos (in the present day Pastaza Province), depriving the party of valuable support nine days into their journey. They found two Indian survivors who agreed to repair a forty-foot canoe, in which they continued down the Amazon.
The river journey proved difficult, with the canoe unmanageable, the Indians from Canelos deserting them, and one of the party drowned trying recover the hat of one of the Frenchmen. With the canoe weighed down by supplies, the party set up camp and sent Joachim and one of the Frenchmen ahead in the canoe, so they could return with extra transport. Waiting for Joachim to return, the others began to suffer from infected insect bites. Infection killed Joaquin, then Rosa and Elvia, the remaining Frenchmen and Isabel's brothers. Heloise wandered off in the middle of the night never to be seen again. With the others dead, Isabel was left wandering alone in the jungle.
When Joachim arrived back at the camp, he found only the corpses of the deceased travelers. Unable to identify Isabel's body, he sent word of her death to Don Pedro — news which later reached Jean. Isabel wandered alone and starving for nine days. Half-crazed, she met four Indians who offered her help in reaching Cayenne. With their help, she was able to reach the waiting ship. The story of her incredible journey soon spread, and she was treated to an increasingly grand reception as she made her way downriver.
Reunion
On July 22, 1770, Isabel and Jean were reunited in the town of Oyapock after over 20 years of separation. They remained in Cayenne for a few years. On April 21, 1773, Isabel, her husband and her father decided to leave Guiana and finally make their way to France. Don Pedro, having been severely unhinged by the events leading up to their arrival in France, died on November 28, 1780. Jean Godin died in their home on the Rue de l’Hotel-Dieu, Paris on March 1, 1792. Isabel died in Cher on September 28 that same year.