[1] Built privately on the personal funds of François-César Le Tellier de Courtanvaux, she was commissioned by the French Navy[2] and used for scientific purposes.

In practice, this was achieved by keeping the time of the latest point of departure by mean of hourglasses, and by tracking the moment the sun was seen at its zenith.

Finding Le Roy's invention promising, the Academy started studying ways to test it in real conditions at sea.

[7] Ozanne designed her as a pleasure craft, and the scientists involved in the expedition had quarters of an unusually high quality for the time.

[6] On 21 May, Aurore attempted the first leg of her journey, bound for Calais, but a gale forced her to return to Le Havre and wait several days for more clement weather.

[8] At Brielle, Le Roy stated that after testing, the second prototype seemed more reliable than the first, and he offered it to La Chapelle's consideration.

Aurore was trapped by unfavourable winds that had prevented navigation for a week, and in the night of 6 July, she attempted to seize a passing opportunity to depart; however, a man went overboard, to be saved in the nick of time by a fellow sailor, then Aurore collided with a Dutch merchantman, and eventually the wind pushed her to the shore.

She finally left on 8 July, arriving in Amsterdam on 11 after sustaining such bad weather that her guns would touch the water and that Le Roy measured a 25° list.

[8] On 22 July, Aurore departed Amsterdam, bound for Den Helder, while Courtanvaux pursued his touristic endeavours ashore.

The narration was edited by Pingré and Messier, illustrated by Ozanne (with notably a representation of the launch of the frigate and a map of the journey), and published in 1768.

[6] Le Roy's chronometer was found to have accumulated an error of 4 minutes and 52 seconds in the 52 days of the outbound journey, and 51 on the return leg.