Henri de La Blanchère

Born in 1821 at La Flèche, Pierre René Marie Henri Moulin du Coudray de La Blanchère was a French naturalist who often published as Henri de La Blanchère. Sources identify him as an ichthyologist, naturalist, and photographer, and record that he died in Le Havre in 1880.

Reference records and biographical notices connect him with studies at the forestry school in Nancy and with work in the French forestry administration before he turned more fully to writing and photography. His books and articles show a wide interest in the living world, especially fish, fishing, fish culture, and birds, and his work appeared both in books and in periodicals for a broader reading public.

Today he is remembered as one of those 19th-century figures who helped make natural history feel close at hand: observant, useful, and written for curious readers rather than specialists alone. His surviving works suggest a writer who cared as much about how people understood nature as about the facts themselves.