Born, 1755; died, 1839.
One of the greatest engineers of France. In 1787 he commenced the
bridge, first called _Pont Louis XVI._, and now _Pont de la
Concorde_, which was completed in 1791, when Prony was appointed
chief engineer of France. The same year he undertook the composition
of new tables of trigonometry adapted to the decimal division of the
circle. Prony completed his work in three years, and in 1798 became the
Director of the _École des Ponts et des Chaussées_ and professor
of mechanics and mathematics at the _École Polytechnique_.
Bonaparte made every effort to induce Prony to abandon this appointment
and accompany him to Egypt, but was unsuccessful. During the Consulate
and Empire, Prony’s word was considered law in all that concerned civil
engineering in France, and after the restoration he retained his post
at the _École Polytechnique_. In 1818 he was sent to Italy to
carry out improvements in the Ports of Genoa, Pola, and Ancona, and to
give an opinion upon the possible regularisation of the course of the
Po, and in 1827 he carried out works which successfully stopped the
annual floods in the Rhone valley, for which service Charles X. created
him a Baron.
He died at the age of eighty-four.