FULMINANT by HAIIAPHNK - French stern castle

[HAIIAPHNK]

I decided to make a small addition, it’s on a completely different topic.
When I translated the last post and began to read it, I involuntarily smiled. And I noticed this sentence:

22 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

I do not think there is anything inherently wrong with an effigy of Zeus as your figurehead,

The fact is that the translator conscientiously translated this word

22 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

effigy

 and it amused me. The fact is that the literal translation means this:

 

 

 

 

or that:

 

 

 

 

And I immediately thought what the rest are reading when I write. It is clearly noticeable that I am unable to communicate in short phrases. And to get my point across, I need to write a lot of text. This means that it may end up containing a lot of not very correct words and expressions. So I apologize if I am difficult to read and sometimes some sentences may be strange or funny. This is not on purpose.

[Hubac's Historian]

Ha - yes, I suppose “effigy” wasn’t the best choice of word, on my part.  “Sculpture” is more to the point, I think.

 

Don’t fret over language, you are making yourself clear.😀

[HAIIAPHNK]

2 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

Ha - yes, I suppose “effigy” wasn’t the best choice of word, on my part.  “Sculpture” is more to the point, I think.

 

Don’t fret over language, you are making yourself clear.😀

 

This is by no means a complaint. I understood exactly what you were trying to say. Any language has its own nuances and different words are perceived differently in different countries. I know that my English is very weak. And I can only communicate through an interpreter. Which means I can't be sure exactly how it translates my words. And I want to warn you in advance, so that I don't get into an awkward situation.

P.S. You should have seen what a battle was formed on the Russian forum just around the very name Fulminant. This word in Russian is not used in ordinary life, and literal translation can convey several completely different meanings. And even between people speaking the same language there are cases when there are misunderstandings and everyone sees different meanings in one word.

I am very glad that you are helping to understand this topic.

 

[Hubac's Historian]

I am very glad to be here, and this will be a fascinating project - a type, of which, is near and dear to my heart.

[mtaylor]

I find this fascinating.    It seems the lion was a very common figurehead for French frigates during the Napoleon era and some (but not all) ships of the line.   I'm not sure why unless it was some standard but I've not seen any reason.  I do note that the French did use other figureheads on the frigates than the lion but it just seems to more common than other types.

[HAIIAPHNK]

I have a very important message! 
Thanks to Russian and Ukrainian modelers and a similar topic on the Russian forum found data, which revealed that sketches for the Fulminant exist. They were created in the 17th century to coordinate with Louis 14 to build a new ship. Moreover, they were preserved and registered in the French archive. And it was these very registration numbers that were found.

And the customer made a request for these sketches. We've already received a reply from the archive. They said that they will satisfy this request. Moreover, it turned out that since the 17th century no one has touched these sheets. I'm sitting here imagining that the last time Louis saw these drawings. It's a joke, of course, but it's close to the truth.
So very soon I will be able to see what I have been thinking about and trying to imagine. What is really there? Have we collectively deciphered the available data correctly or not? Is there a Zeus or a lion or something else?

So now we just have to wait a little longer. I really hope it all works out. There are fears and worries that over such a long period of time the sheets with sketches have deteriorated and it will be impossible to use them. 

I realize that working with archives is not something unique. That this is the norm. But for me this moment is unique.

[Hubac's Historian]

It is ironic because just the other day I was scanning through documents I had saved to my Google Drive.  Here among them:

 

Oh, and what have we here:

I’m sorry that this did not occur to me sooner.  Anyway, it will be exciting to see what turns up.

[HAIIAPHNK]

This is the moment. Got the photos of the sketches. They are published for the first time. 

I want to say thank you to everyone who participated and left comments. To everyone who offered their versions and helped to think over an interesting question. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because it was this discussion that made it possible to find these photos. 
The thing is that originally it was planned to put a ready-made figure on the breakwater. It was a very high quality sculpture, but it was very far from the meaning of this ship. So I want to say thank you to everyone. And in the end, the customer was so interested in the search that he decided to change his mind and decided that it made sense to make a new figure that would be made specifically for this model.
And I want to say a big thank you to him. Thank you for being able to find these sketches. Now what's left is to make the main figure so that it's of sufficient quality. And it's worthy. 

 

I'm also very happy that it actually turned out to be Zeus. To be honest, I'm very pleased that I was able to correctly decipher the clues and guess what was actually on Fulminant.

The first page in the history of this project can be considered completed.  
Now we can move on. Based on the new images, the design and construction of the stern ensemble can begin. Build balconies and side galleries. So that in the future it is possible to proceed to the decoration itself. So some construction time is needed to continue publishing.

What else would you like to note? One mystery is solved, but there are others. And I'll voice the other riddles a little later. So I'll be glad if the communication continues.

[Hubac's Historian]

Well, there you have it!  Awesome!

[druxey]

How satisfying!

[dafi]

Just to keep up the discussion. Not having had finished yet the reading, my preferences immediately came up with a male musculous figure, either Zeus, Poseidon, Mars, Hercules, Arnie or soemthing alike: FULMINAT !

 

If I remember well, this was the time when the name of the ship was still symolised in a very special figure on the bow and not yet an anonymous design. One of the old and mighty gods would do for me 😉

 

XXXDAn

Edited September 8, 2023 by dafi

[HAIIAPHNK]

Decided to add this material. It's not a response to anyone's comment. 
And I should start by explaining the situation. This is a response from a customer from our correspondence with him. It is quite possible that for many people the content will not be something useful, as it was primarily directed to me, as a person for whom French speech and mentality is not native. And therefore not always understandable. So you can read about something that for you does not require additional explanations.  In this case, let it be a small note that I leave in the topic for myself. So that in case of need, I know exactly where I can return to this material. It is much easier to lose in correspondence, there are a lot of letters, and it will be harder to find it later.

Besides, the letter was translated into Russian by the author and I have to translate it again. And because of this, some nuances can be lost.

So why was this letter needed, and what did I personally see the benefit in?
It is absolutely logical that Latin is much more closely connected with many European languages than with Russian. Today, none of us speak this ancient language. But you may encounter words in it that have passed into your languages over time and are familiar to you. Which is much less common in my language.  And the word "Fulminant" is not found in Russian in ordinary life. It may be known to doctors or physicists, in their terms this word occurs. But I'm neither a doctor nor a physicist. So I needed a translator.

 

And that's where a little detective work begins. The translator gave me the result that in Russian the name of the ship means "lightning-fast". I'm not sure the translator translated what I was trying to say correctly. So I'll say it again, in a slightly different way. It's a word that consists of two words: zipper + carries, or "one who has zippers". But in Russian, this word is primarily used when they want to talk about very high speed. For example: this boxer has a lightning-fast reaction. That is, he reacts or attacks very quickly. Or: she answered his question with lightning speed. 
In short, in Russian, this word is primarily compared to the speed of lightning. 
And in our case, it is doubtful that the name of the ship was meant to indicate its swiftness. Such a meaning would be a mockery. A huge, clumsy giant that has the name Speed. Army humor has come up with much funnier sarcasm as well. But no one would joke like that on an official level. So the name "Fulminant" must mean something else. And if there was a connection to lightning here, it was not because of its speed, but because of its power. So the ship was saying with its name: I have a power that only the destructive power of Zeus can match. 
And here around the name of the ship on Russian forums began a real discussion, what exactly means the name. What the builders in the distant 17th century wanted to say, and how one could guess who should stand on the breakwater. There were so many different opinions.   

 

That was before the long-awaited sketches from the archives arrived. And that's when my customer read the arguments on the forum and sent me an explanation. Below I quote his words in full. And I really hope that the translator will do a good job (if there are grammatical or semantic errors in the text, it's not the customer's fault, but the translator's):

 

Hi, Sasha;

Fulminant means "burning flame" in Latin.  I have circled all the symbols with flames in the original plan.  It is interesting to note that these flames are very often elevated above the sphere.  The combination of sphere and flame clearly represents a military grenade.  I also took a closer look at the lions' heads: at the rear of the ship, they are indeed lions, as two protruding teeth are visible.... but on the sides (on the flanks) the figures no longer have teeth.  These figures are called "fauns" or "grotesques" and are very characteristic of the rocaille style established by the naval sculptor Bérin during the reign of Louis XIV.

 

 

 

 

 

That's the kind of writing that's going on. It was a very good addition for me. And thanks to him I now see and understand a little more. Before, I didn't pay attention to how many images of flames there are. It's even funny, I saw the small lightning bolts, but I missed the flames that were nearby.

Once again I repeat that maybe for you all this was clear and well seen. But maybe you have not considered so detailed drawings, this information will be useful for you. 

 

 

P.S. The words in the letter about lion heads and fauns referred to specific discussions on the forum. One of the opinions concerned decorative elements on the lower tier of the aft windows. The person wondered if they were definitely lions. Maybe they are portraits of Louis 14? Such a symbol was widely used in this period. And that's what one of the panelists saw in the drawing. That would explain a little bit about why the letter said lions. It also shows how heated the debate was. 

[HAIIAPHNK]

So, the drawings have arrived and now the huge part with coming up with the decor is solved. I now have the exact details of the decoration. But along with that came questions about the Fulminant's construction. 
Let's take a look at what the stern looks like on L’Ambiteaux ship. I want to draw attention to the construction of the side galleries. The upper tier with the dome is made in the form of a false overlay. The dome is flat, the window is actually an imitation. 
And the total thickness of the whole structure is quite small. 

 

 

And now let's look at the historical sketch of this ship.

 

 

 

 

Here it is difficult to say for sure that the same dome is flat. And you can argue for a long time how it should have looked in reality?  Flat or voluminous? 

On different museum exhibits one can see both fully volumetric constructions, where there are several tiers of closed balconies. And in the form of simplified flat domes, as the authors of the book decided to do.

Now let's take a look at some fresh, hot drawings by Fulminant. The first thing to note is that the drawings were done in the same period. You can see that the ships were built at the same time and they were designed together and approved by the king also together. One can even combine the drawings with each other and see that in many respects they are very much the same in design. Only the decorations are different, and even then, they are made in the same style. But as for the drawings of the side galleries, they are different. 
Fulminant has a strange deformation in the vertical lines. The windows of the lower and upper tiers stand at different angles. 

 

 

 

And it's definitely not a defect in the scanning of the document. It's the way it was drawn. So why is the drawing different? L’Ambiteaux doesn't have this distortion. What was the artist trying to show?
It seems to me that by using such distortions the artist wanted to show a volumetric dome. That both the lower tier and the upper tier were to be made in the form of closed lodges. And this is exactly what it would be more correct to do on the model. What do you think?

I don't feel like doing just based on my opinions. I believe modeling should be based on correct knowledge. If it is about assembling a model ship out of the box, then there can be no claims. But serious work should be based on knowledge. And here I face the fact that book drawings will not help. It is necessary to find other information about how volume domes were properly made. For example, I have a question how should the wall on the balcony itself stand? Should it be one level line with the stern? Or at an angle? 

 

 

If someone has photos from museums where you can see this assembly closer, please show me. Or maybe you know threads on some forums where similar ships were built? Maybe someone has already shown how they solved this issue at their shipyard? 

[HAIIAPHNK]

Or am I wrong after all and there really should be a flat option there?

[druxey]

The lower and upper tier of Fulminant look deliberately shown at different angles. Odd, I agree, but deliberate!

[Javelin]

I'd say the upper tier is voluminous, not like the model shown above. If it were flat, with a balcony around, the maker of the drawings shouldn't/wouldn't have put a shadow zone on the forward part of the top tier. The shadow should have stopped at the balcony in that case. 

Of course he could have made a mistake as well. 

I believe the line distortion may also be a sign of the voluminous dome.

[bruce d]

Fascinating. 

My only potential contribution is to look at the word FULMINANT when translated into English. The modern translations all steer us to 'angry', 'furious' or 'quick like lightning' but the older translations included 'splendid'. 

The magnificent drawings have a theme of bundled lightning and flaming spheres.  They follow military decorations and emblems of grenadiers of the period so closely that it cannot be a co-incidence. These decorations would have suited a bomb vessel. 

 

[druxey]

Fulmen is Latin for lightning.

[Hubac's Historian]

This is always, IMO, the difficulty of interpreting Berain drawings - even among known sets of drawings that are signed and dated by the arsenal intendant of the time, e.g. Desclouszeaux circa 1690s, there are often weird incongruities between the stern and quarter view; the stern or quarter drawing may not always support the logic of the one or the other.  More on that in a minute.

 

I agree that your observations of the shading along the forward edge of the upper quarter gallery, as well as the oddly broken plane of the quarter deck window, would seem to indicate a fully closed quarter gallery.  However, I will do my best to articulate why I think the quarter gallery upper finishing is actually a shallow trompe l’oeil amortisement.

 

When it comes to Berain drawings, one conceit of his style appears to be that when he draws the stern view - whatever details of the quarters that may still be visible from the stern, in real life, are simply not included.  Let’s begin by looking at your work-up of Le Fulminant’s stern:

Focus first on the lower tier of lights.  At the corners, where the stern wraps around to the quarters, this is shown as completely open.  In reality, though, this lower corner is the functional seat of ease; there would certainly be a false window panel, integral to the quarter gallery and visible from the stern.  This whole lower level of the quarter galleries would be enclosed with false lights.

 

Now, look at the upper tier of lights, where the stern wraps to the corners.  There is what appears to be an open, pass-through archway.  Whether the design intent be a trompe l’oeil amortisement - which, in reality, would still be visible through this stern archway - or a fully rounded upper finishing, Berain has not drawn any representation of either.

 

Consider, now the stern and quarter view for Le Brillant of 1690:

Here, it is a somewhat different story.  On the lower wrapping corner, there is an oval frame for a shaded blank panel, concealing the functional toilet.

 

On the upper wrapping corner - rather than a pass-through archway, there is a scrolled buttressing bracket that clearly delineates the boundaries of the upper stern balcony as being within the five lights of the stern, as opposed to wrapping to the quarter galleries.  The quarter view confirms this interpretation.

 

Interestingly, though, Berain’s quarter view of Le Brillant appears to show an open and walkable stern balcony at the counter level.  This simply would not have been the case, at this later stage in the development of stern architecture.  By the 1680s, these fragile structures, which were vulnerable to following seas, were done away with completely.  The stern counter facade, on the other hand, continued to be decorated with pilasters and reliefs that were consistent with the balcony decor on the levels above; it became, in other words, a kind of shallow “false” balcony to support only carved figures or brackets.

 

I believe that Tanneron’s model of Le Brillant interprets this architecture correctly:

Although, it must be noted that Tanneron makes interesting departures from the drawing, with his interpretation of the big carving below the tafferal.

Next, consider the drawing set for L’Agreable:

Again, we see the open archway at the top corner.  Interestingly, the balcony overhang shadows do not continue to the quarters, which would seem to indicate that the balcony only extends to the ship sides, as opposed to wrapping around to the corners.

The quarter view seems to confirm this as the side of the upper balcony is noticeably shaded, as though set-in from the sides of the quarters.  If the upper finishing of this quarter gallery is fully rounded, it seems to me like an awkward transition, beginning at the balcony level caprail and diminishing at the sheer rail.  Perhaps Tanneron thought the same and preferred to represent the upper finishing as a Tromp L’oeil amortisement:

The model is damaged, but Tanneron’s intent of a wrapping and walkable balcony through the now missing pass-through arch is clear.

 

This interpretation is consistent with that of Tanneron’s contemporary, the Court Marine painter (1830’s), Theodore Gudin.  Here is a famous painting of the LaSalle expedition of 1684, featuring a consort warship, Le Joli, of the same class as Le Brillant and L’Agreable:

The structure of the quarters and stern is very close to that of Tanneron’s L’Agreable.  It is impossible to know exactly what sources were available to these two artists, who were recording structures from 145, or so, years prior, but their agreement on the matter must carry some weight, IMO.

 

One last example comes from a slightly earlier time, and from a rigorously detailed artist.  Puget painted, below, not a proposal for decor, but the actual refit appearance of Le Dauphin Royal in the early 1680s:

Here, the pass-through archway and wrapping upper balcony to a shallow amortisement upper finishing are plainly decipherable.  Interestingly, the lower level of the quarter gallery is open on it’s sides - an artifact of the early First Marine (1670s) stern architecture, but closed-off from the stern view with buttressing brackets.  I maintain that by the late 1680s, this level would have been completely closed up with false/removable lights.  Another possible artifact of this earlier time may be a small “Juliet” balcony at the center of the stern counter.  It is hard to know whether that is actually a place where someone can stand.  Personally, I doubt it.

 

With all that said, and considering the Fulminant drawings, in particular, I will draw your attention to two small details.

 

Going back to the stern view:

The upper balcony casts a shadow beneath that extends fully to the ship sides - a point beyond the shadow that would be cast if the balcony ends were actually located between the second and third lion mascaroons.  This suggests that the balcony extends to the end of the quarters.

 

Now, take a closer look at the archway for L’Ambiteaux:

Notice the shading just visible beneath the pass-through archway.  The same is present for Le Fulminant:

Given the way that a fully-rounded upper finishing would scallop back towards the ship’s upper bulwarks, in the characteristically concave French Style, this would be a really weird and awkward transition, if one were to walk to the ends of that upper balcony and look through that open archway.

 

It’s not impossible, but it would not be very coherent.  The tromp l’oeil amortisement just makes more sense here.  I think that Boudriot’s monograph interprets this correctly.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Hubac's Historian

[Hubac's Historian]

This is the best execution of this kind of quarter gallery structure that I have yet seen:

 

[druxey]

So, in the last example, the upper quarter light is a dummy and the lower one partially so!

[Hubac's Historian]

In the view of that modeler.  Personally, I believe it likely that the main deck level would have had a real light there.  on the middle deck level, he may be referencing the possibility of a concealed gunport?

[HAIIAPHNK]

You beat me to it. I was going to follow up with a post listing my doubts, but never got around to it. It's a slow process for me. I have to first formulate everything in one language, then torture the translator a few times to make translations one way and then another. And only then do I have the peace of mind that I can be understood. And then there's the selection of photos. So I've already decided to leave the continuation until another day. I also thought about the arches, for a long time could not find how to call them correctly, once met a special nautical term for this particular element, but I no longer remember it. But you beat me to it. Thank you for that. You saved my time, and I could hardly explain it the way you did.

Oh, it's so hard to find the right and logical solutions. 
Thank you so much for participating so actively in the project. Your thoughts are very valuable!
 
Indeed, if you combine everything drawn on two projections, modern logic fails. It is impossible to combine contradictory information. And at the end you have to conclude that the artist took liberties, embellished something or on the contrary did not mention it. But where exactly is the mistake or fiction hidden?

Thinking about what arguments both versions have.
To begin with, let's curl our fingers, listing the evidence in favor of the "flat version". And then immediately offer criticisms to the same assertion.

 

1. Ancre has some wonderful specialists. Budrio showed in the monograph exactly the flat version. And this means a lot.

Criticism: The book version has discrepancies with Beren's grisaille. The decoration is not an exact repetition. Nor is the figure of the lion on the breakwater. Did Budrio have all the information on hand or was he making things up on his own? It is mentioned several times in the book that the technical description of the ship is not an exact repetition of the L’Ambiteaux, but rather an average of several sources that were brought together. How appropriate is it to rely entirely on the interpretation of this monograph? 

2- The arches on the balcony. This is a valid argument indeed. Why make such a structure when there will be a side wall of a commode immediately behind it, and there is nowhere else to go on the balcony?
 I was looking at everything I could find for references and noticed that fully voluminous side galleries are found on relatively small ships. There yes, they made ribs in the form of curved spandrels, stitched then planked and then decorated with bas-reliefs on top. But in all cases, when the ship had balconies that wrapped around the sides I saw only a simplified flat version of the dome at the side gallery. Plus wherever there are arches, there was also an open balcony.

Critique: I am not a strong connoisseur in the French school. And the fact that I haven't come across specific examples where the arches stand on a cul-de-sac may also speak to the need to look for more. Which is what I've been trying to do. Asked about building similar models at the same time. 

 

Criticism to criticism: It's fair to say that the search never led to otherwise. There is not a single case that I can cite as an example.

Now let's see what arguments the volumetric dome has.

I. The deliberate use of light and shadow has a special place in the sketch. The eye sees a voluminous figure. A flat design will not have such shadow patterns.

Criticism: It should be clearly understood that Beren's drawings are not sketches from nature, the artist did not draw, having before his eyes a ship in the harbor. It's a kind of fantasy taken from his head. It was necessary to make a drawing that had yet to be built. And hence the drawing of light and shadow may well be taken as an inaccuracy.

II. Why exactly does the sketch of the Fulminant show the distorted directions of the vertical lines? If it is not an attempt to show optical deception on a rounded volumetric form, it looks very strange. What prevented Beren from drawing even lines? This question will persist either way. Even if I settle on a flat version of the top tier, I will still have this very question hanging over me: why such curvature? Is it to preserve it on the model, or is it better to straighten the vertical lines? What was it about L’Ambiteaux that you could make it straight there, but Fulminant doesn't anymore? If I decide for some reason that it's right to do a volumetric 2 tier, I'm more likely to just ignore that curvature.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

 

[HAIIAPHNK]

What are the stronger arguments?
At first, it was simple. I saw a ready-made Budrio solution in front of me, just take the book schematics, change the shape and you can build. Then I was confused by this difference with curved windows and started looking for examples. I practically convinced myself that there is an embodied variant. But I could not find a hundred percent proof of it. And now I'm back where I started. Plus now I have a fairly well-reasoned opinion that the flat variant of the upper level is the only correct way....

But why are the windows there so crooked? Why didn't Beren repeat what he had already drawn on L’Ambiteaux?

[mtaylor]

 

Regarding your first part... Budriot was a good researcher as I understand.   The problem is that his monographs have never been updated so if there's new information, it's not in them.   The real problem is then learning what is correct.

 

I do have a question...  what is in the space behind the fake windows?   I  believe windows were reserved for senior officer spaces due to cost.  So, is that junior officers cabin since it doesn't have a balcony?  

 

 

[giampieroricci]

On 9/13/2023 at 5:01 PM, Hubac's Historian said:

This is the best execution of this kind of quarter gallery structure that I have yet seen:

 

I know this wonderful model: it belongs to a friend of mine from Naples, Italy! 🙂

[Hubac's Historian]

Your friend is extremely talented.  His sculpture work best exemplifies the French baroque style, and the model, itself, is beautifully made.

[HAIIAPHNK]

The question here is, what do you mean by junior officers? The lieutenants were on the lower decks. Only the captain was on the quarterdeck. The special honorable quarters could be used differently. The captain lived in one, and the other could be a wardroom for meetings and luncheons. In addition, the ship by rank could play the role of flagship in the squadron. Then there was also an admiral on it. Then one cabin was occupied by him and the other by the captain. They both had windows that looked out onto the keel. So the false windows were not so badly needed. 

The question about cabins could be continued. There was a period when I was concerned about another question. I counted 86 places for artillery on the model. Whereas according to different sources Fulminant and L’Ambiteaux had more than 90 guns. Further the data has a difference, according to some you can read about 92 cannons in L’Ambiteaux, and Fulminant 96 or 98, according to other data both ships had 96 pieces. 

 

 

 

 

And that's where to place another 10! cannons?
In any case, you have to find a place somewhere aft. Which means some guns will be in the officers' quarters. Which really messes up the layout of the quarters. And there was the huge question of how to reconcile the book schematics and the lack of space for the guns. And how would that affect the appearance of the side galleries? So waiting for the historical sketches was very exciting.

 

However, later I realized that I made a mistake in the calculation and did not take into account 4 barrels, which should have been in front, and look at the course of the ship. So it is necessary to add not 10, but 6 guns, which is already easier. The sketches clearly show that there are no cannon windows in the side galleries area. Which immediately took the extra pressure off me. At least this problem has passed me by. But cannons still need to be added somewhere, which means they'll still end up in the officers' quarters. Which would change the layout of the quarters that Budrio suggested quite a bit. 

 

 

You should see where and how I tried to put those extra 10 seats....
It's both funny and scary to think about now.

[HAIIAPHNK]

4 hours ago, giampieroricci said:

I know this wonderful model: it belongs to a friend of mine from Naples, Italy!

 

Give your friend a big bow from me. I was very much influenced by his work at one time. I was very much impressed and for a long time I dreamed of making a main figure from this ship. At that time, I was doing carving on purpose in an accelerated mode in order to be on time for the Universities Cup, which is held in St. Petersburg. It was a wonderful time. 
To this day, this sculpture remains one of my favorites!

[malachy]

Oh my, these late 17th century french SoL were beautiful. And your model is too

Interesting that Le Fulminant had 'just' two tiers of lights at the stern while the similiar sized Le Foudroyant had three.