Jean Bureau

Jean Bureau (c. 1390–1463), born in Champagne, trained as a lawyer in Paris before he and his brother Gaspard offered their services as gunners to Charles VII in 1434. By 1439 Jean was master gunner of French artillery, and their batteries shaped the Normandy campaign of 1449–1450, from the fall of Rouen to the victory at Formigny.

In 1453 Bureau deployed 300 guns at Castillon, where cannon fire destroyed John Talbot's army and effectively ended the Hundred Years' War, after which he forced Bordeaux to surrender. He was knighted in 1461.