In 1800, Freycinet was appointed to an exploration expedition to Southern and South-Western coasts of Australia under Nicolas Baudin, on Naturaliste and Géographe.

[2] Matthew Flinders was being held captive by the French on Mauritius, thus many of his discoveries were revisited and unintendedly claimed by François Péron, and new names were given by this expedition.

Uranie carried several members of the Navy scientific staff, notably marine hydrologist Louis Isidore Duperrey, artist Jacques Arago, and his junior draughtsman Adrien Taunay the Younger.

[citation needed] Uranie sailed to Rio de Janeiro by December 1817, taking a series of pendulum measurements gather information in the fields of geography, ethnology, astronomy, terrestrial magnetism, meteorology, and for collecting specimens in natural history.

[8] The results of this voyage were published under Freycinet's supervision, with the title of Voyage autour du monde fait par ordre du Roi sur les corvettes de S. M. l'Uranie et la Physicienne, pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820, in 13 quarto volumes and 4 folio volumes of plates and maps.