Daniel-Charles Trudaine
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Drawing of a bust of Trudaine in Le Magasin pittoresque in 1833.
Daniel-Charles Trudaine (3 January 1703, Paris - 19 January 1769) was a French administrator and civil engineer. He was one of the creators of the present French road network.
[edit] Life
Son of Charles Trudaine, prévôt des marchands de Paris, he was a conseiller in the Parlement de Paris, then intendant of the Auvergne from 1730 to 1734. In 1743, he was named an honorary member of the Académie des sciences and, the following year, director of the Assemblée des inspecteurs généraux des ponts et chaussées (Assembly of General Inspectors of Bridges and Roads), a title he held until his death. He founded the École nationale des ponts et chaussées in 1747, with Jean-Rodolphe Perronet, engineer of the généralité of Alençon, as its head.
As administrator of bridges and roads, Trudaine showed himself an enlightened economist and created several thousand kilometres of royal routes (now the "routes nationales") linking Paris to France's frontiers and main sea ports. This network was considered one of the best in Europe, with routes as straight as possible, laid out "de clocher à clocher" (from steeple to steeple), 60ft (19.4 m) wide, bordered with trees and and with boundary ditches linked into rivers.
His son, Jean-Charles-Philibert Trudaine de Montigny, succeeded him as head of the Assemblée des inspecteurs généraux des ponts et chaussées.
