"Minard would likely be unknown today, if Marey had not so aptly said his flow map of Napoleon's March on Moscow "defied the pen of the historian by its brutal eloquence." Funkhouser picked this up, and then Tufte anointed it as "the greatest graphic ever drawn". But in his time, Minard was just an engineer working for the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees (School of Bridges and Roads) in Paris. The corpus of his work lay buried in the archives of the ENPC."
"The corpus of his work lay buried in the archives of the ENPC. Today, Paris celebrates its intellectual and artistic heroes with place names, like Rue Descartes, Place Monge, ...but there is nothing named for Minard. Not even his burial place was known until Antoine discovered this in Montparnasse Cemetery, and Les Chevaliers met for lunch and a celebration at his grave, where a small plaque was installed."
Charles-Joseph Minard produced a celebrated flow map of Napoleon's March on Moscow that later gained acclaim for its clarity and impact. Marey described the map as having a brutal eloquence, Funkhouser highlighted that praise, and Tufte called it the greatest graphic ever drawn. During his lifetime Minard worked as an engineer at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees, and much of his work remained buried in the ENPC archives. Paris honors many intellectual and artistic figures with place names, but Minard has no such recognition, and his grave was only recently located and marked with a small plaque.
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