David Rivault de Fleurance

David Rivault de Fleurance, who lived from 1571 to 1616, was a French mathematician and royal servant, born probably at La Cropte near Laval in Mayenne. He served as a gentleman of the bedchamber to Henry IV and as a teacher of Louis XIII. In his treatise on artillery of 1605 he reported that water confined in a bombshell and heated would burst the shell, writing that the water is converted into air and its vaporization is followed by violent explosion. This observation is seen as one of the steps leading toward the invention of the steam engine. He died in Tours in January 1616.