Louis Pierre Mouillard (September 30, 1834 – September 20, 1897) was a Frenchman who worked on flight in the second half of the 19th century. His thesis, partly based on the investigation of birds in Alexandria, were later adopted by the Wright brothers as their own.
He published numerous essays. His most famous work, L'Empire de l'Air, in which he proposed fixed-wing gliders, was published in France in 1881 and soon became a widely recognized classic. It was reprinted by the Smithsonian Institution in English in 1893 as The Empire Of The Air.
Mouillard had been experimenting with gliders since 1856, and although his own gliders were unsuccessful, he realized the importance of gliding to the future of aviation - a perspective that was later shared by Otto Lilienthal.