Félix Julien

Félix Honore Sauveur Julien (1 Jan 1824, Toulon, France-1890) was a French navy officer (Lt de vaisseau) and author of biographies related to the history of the French Navy.

An alumnus of Ecole Polytechnique (Promotion 1842), where he befriended Doudard de Lagree, he started his naval career on board Neptune and frigate Belle-Poule, later serving during the Crimea War and the siege of Venice. Captain of the Castor, he became aide-de-camp of Admiral Bouet-Willaumez in Toulon, and retired from the Navy in 1868. 

He wrote about naval history, oceanography [1] and, later in his life, his fervent Catholicism.

Publications

• Courants et révolutions de l’atmosphère et de la mer, 1860.
• Souvenirs d’Orient, 2t (​“Corinthe et Athènes”, ​“Pendant la guerre”), 1862.
• Harmonies de la mer: courants et revolutions, Paris, 1864.
• Les commentaires d’un marin, Paris, Plon, 1870.
• L’amiral Bouet-Willaumez et l’expédition dans la Baltique, 1872.
• Échos de Lourdes, notes d’un pélerin, 1873.
• Voyage au pays de Babel, 1876. 
• Papes et sultans, 1879
• Un marin: le contre-amiral Bön Grivel, 1883.
• Lettres d’un precurseur: Doudart de Lagree au Cambodge et en Indo-chine, 1885 and 2^d. ed. 1886.
• L’amiral Courbet d’apres ses lettres, Paris, 1889.

[1] In French, the term was coined only in 1889 by J. Thoulet in Revue maritime.

(Photo: wood reproduction of Belle-Poule frigate, ages-of-sail)