From L'Abbé Antoine-Francois Prévost d'Exiles (1697–1763) 'Histoire des Voyages', volume VIII. Prevost was a French novelist, perhaps best known as the author of 'Manon Lescau't, although, according to Diderot, his lifetime's output amounted to some 200 volumes. The' Encyclopedie' relates the unusual manner of Prevost's death: Prévost had been walking in the woods near his country house in Saint Firmin, near Chantilly when he suffered a sudden attack of apoplexy. Some locals found him and summoned the Gendarmerie who, in turn, summoned a doctor, who pronounced Prévost dead. As foul play was suspected, the doctor was asked to perform an autopsy on the spot. The doctor then plunged a scalpel into Prévost's stomach, who, being still alive, let out a great cry and then expired, victim of the doctor's stab wound!

The success of the 'Histoire des Voyages' was such that it was copied and republished in French, in the Netherlands and, in one form or another, in German, Dutch, Italian, Danish, Russian, and Spanish, including copies of the maps by Bellin in those languages. The series was republished by J.F. La Harpe as 'Histoire générale des voyages de M. l'abbé Prévost, abrégée et rédigée sur un nouveau plan', 1780–1801 in a 32 volume, 8vo version, and a 126 volume, 12mo version.

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin the elder (1703–1772) joined the "Dépôt des Cartes et Plans de la Marine" in 1721, at the age of 18, one year after it had been established, as the first "Ingénieur hydrographe de la Marine", a post he held until his death in 1772.

Bellin's output was enormous, and his maps were copied throughout Europe for decades. In addition to the maps included in the 'Histoire des Voyages', he produced, among other works, 'Le Neptune Françoise' (1755) and 'Le Petit Atlas Français' (1763), reissued as 'Le Petit Atlas Maritime' in 1764.