Pierre - François Bouchard Pierre - François Bouchard ( 29 April 1772 , Orgelet – 29 April 1832 ) was an officer in the French Army engineers who is most famous for discovering the Rosetta Stone , an important archaeological find that allowed Ancient Egyptian writing to be understood for the first time in centuries . Life . Early life . He was born in 1771 to Pierre Bouchard ( a master joiner , then a businessman , then a merchant and finally a teacher ) and his wife Pierrette Janet de Cressia , the youngest of their four daughters and 3 sons , all born in Orgelet . Pierre - François studied in the collège in Orgelet up until the classe de rhétorique , then spent two years studying philosophy and mathematics in the collège at Besançon . His military career began in 1793 as a sergent - major in a battalion of the Grenadiers de Paris . He was one of these famous " soldiers of Year II ' and fought in Champagne and Belgium , before being sent to the École Nationale d ' Aérostatique in 1794 . He was made ' lieutenant des aérostiers ' and taught maths as sous - directeur of this École , then based in Chalais - Meudon . There his right eye was badly damaged when a gas flask exploded during an experiment to produce hydrogen gas to inflate observation balloons – the experiment was led by Nicolas - Jacques Conté who lost his left eye . Conté held Bouchard in very high esteem and recommended him to Claude Louis Berthollet , one of the four founding fathers of the École Polytechnique , which Bouchard entered on 21 November 1796 . There he studied descriptive geometry under Gaspard Monge and learned the art of fortification , until his studies were interrupted when he was taken on by the Ministry of War and attached as a lieutenant to the Egyptian expeditionary force on 20 April 1798 . Egypt . Before embarking for Egypt , he married Marie Élisabeth Bergere on 23 April 1798 – she was a young woman from Meudon , five years his junior , with whom he much later had two children . He then went to Toulon and on 19 May the same year board the " Franklin " . He landed in Egypt on 4 July after the capture of Alexandria and was then made a member of the Commission des Sciences et des Arts . Still under Conté ' s command , he was attached to a group of mechanical artists and ordered to investigate Egyptian crafts and techniques . He left Alexandria for Cairo on 7 September and , after a few weeks in Cairo , was on 3 October put under Antoine - François Andréossy ' s command as part of a team of geographers sent to investigate lake Menzalé between Damiette and Port - Saïd . Bouchard was only on this mission for forty days before going before the exit - panel of the École Polytechnique presided over by Monge , graduating in mid November . He was then promoted to engineer lieutenant , second class on 28 November 1798 and left the Commission des Sciences et des Arts to train in the army . He was then put in charge of rebuilding of Fort Julien , an old Mamluk fortification near the port city of Rosetta ( present - day Rashid ) which Bonaparte had renamed after Thomas Prosper Jullien , recently assassinated in Egypt . During these works he discovered the Rosetta Stone on 15 or 19 July 1799 . He was immediately convinced of its importance , an enthusiasm he passed on to generals Menou and Bonaparte . He found himself caught up in the fiasco which led to the fall of the fort of El - Arish , which he and general Cazals were defending against the Ottomans . He was sent as an envoy to the Grand Vizir but was arrested , disarmed and imprisoned in Damascus for forty two days . On his release he was promoted to captain on 1 May 1800 and attached again to the force at Rosetta , where he was again captured when the small French garrison Fort Jullien had to capitulate to the 2 , 000 British and 4 , 000 Ottoman troops sent against them . He was released at the end of the war in Egypt and got back to Marseille on 30 July 1801 . Saint Domingue and Spain . At Marseille he joined the Saint - Domingue expedition , embarking in December accompanied by his wife , who came with him at her own expense in imitation of Pauline Bonaparte , wife of the expedition ' s commander Leclerc . Bouchard and his wife both caught yellow fever on the island , though she was repatriated and gave birth to their daughter in 1802 , without Bouchard receiving news until much later . Bouchard was captured on the island ' s surrender and interned on Jamaica before being released on parole in August 1804 , after which he went back to France . He convalesced there for a few months before joining Napoleon in September 1805 , upon which Bouchard was put in charge of construction works in the town of Vendée ( later renamed Roche - sur - Yon ) , which Napoleon had founded to reestablish civil and military authority on a civilian population who he thought might be encouraged to resume the War in the Vendee by the British naval presence in the area . Bouchard was in the town for two years with his wife , who gave birth to a son . After a brief stay in La Rochelle , in 1807 Bouchard joined an expeditionary force which Napoleon was sending against Spain and Portugal after the Treaty of Tilsitt . Bouchard then spent seven years in the Peninsular War under Dupont , Soult , Massena and Marmont , fighting bravely at the battle of Alcolea on the Guadalquivir . Even so , after Dupont ' s surrender at on 22 July 1808 , Bouchard was yet again captured . When he was released he went to join Soult ' s army and was present at the battle of Corogne and the capture of Oporto , distinguishing himself at the head of the sappers in the crossing of the fortified bridge at Amarante . He was promoted to chef de bataillon on 24 November 1809 , but left his wife in such great want she had to beg for an advance of 500 francs from his pay , which he had otherwise entirely devoted to buying equipment and new horses after the French pulled out of Portugal . In 1810 and 1811 he fought under Massena in a new expedition to Portugal , which once again ended in retreat . He was made a Knight of the Légion d ' Honneur and attached to the defence of Astorga in Spain under the command of Marmont then Clauzel . There he was again captured on the city ' s surrender and sent to England in September 1812 , leaving his children and his parents in the care of his wife , who was again impoverished now she did not have his income . Restoration . Bouchard only got back to France after the treaty of Paris in July 1814 and the Bourbon Restoration saw him made an Officer of the Légion d ' Honneur , a knight of the order of Saint Louis and chief engineer of Orléans . During the Hundred Days he sided with Napoleon , who put him in charge of defending Laon . He was denounced after for this action and put on half - pay , until requesting in July 1816 that his service record be amended to play down his actions during the Hundred Days . He thus rejoined the army and was attached to the fortified cities in northern France . His classmate Prevost de Vernois recommended him for the rank of lieutenant colonel , but died in Givet in 1822 as Engineer in Chief there after a long and painful illness – his daughter died just before him , aged 13 . His widow ' s friends convinced the king to accord her a 450 franc pension , only a quarter of the pension Bouchard himself had received .