François Mingaud

Personal life Mingaud was born in 1771 in Le Cailar near Nîmes in the Département of the Gard in France. He joined the army under Napoleon and served as a captain.

After his release from prison in Paris during 1807 he toured France and Europe demonstrating his 'trick shot' prowess.

In 1822 Mingaud settled on the Hoogstraat in Rotterdam and by 1835, when he was 64, he had remarried.

Billiards French archives show Mingaud was arrested in the Netherlands for "involvement in the conspiracy of Cadoudal," (referring to Georges Cadoudal) and labeled an "adventurer whose presence in society can only be dangerous." He was imprisoned in Bicêtre, a men's prison in Paris which is now the site of Bicêtre Hospital. In or about 1790 a new practice of rounding off the entire tip further decreased slippage. Some publications credit Mingaud with not just the invention of the leather cue tip but with the practice of rounding off a cue's terminus, while other publications ascribe the practice to no particular author. Application of or "twist" (sometimes called "English", especially in North America) was at the time an unknown artform.

Impact on the game In 1807, Mingaud was released from Bicêtre. Mingaud then began to demonstrate his invention and technique in the cafés of Paris. The patrons of the cafes were astonished by the displays of control and manipulation of the cue ball that they had never seen nor imagined possible. Soon after the introduction of cue tips in France Carom billiards, requiring heavy manipulation of spin, became popular and the scoring by way of "hazards" or pockets was gradually abolished. However, a digitized version of the 1831 second edition of Thurston's translation is now freely available.

Death and commemoration He died in 1847 and his grave is in the churchyard at Kralingen-Crooswijk, a suburb of Rotterdam.

In the 1990s, Cees Sprangers, Dongen, The Netherlands, began to research the 'lost mystery' that Mingaud had become. His results were for a first time published in the Dutch monthly magazine 'Biljart' in May 1991 and November 1992, later on in essay form in 1994 in Victor Stein and Paul Rubino's Billiard Encyclopedia. He revealed many details of Mingaud's life, including his first name, fleshed out his personal history, and to a large extent, clarified the details on his role in the invention of the leather cue tip.