Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as an inhabitant of British Colonial India, "is an inhabitant of an oppressed country". Verne took the name "Nautilus" from one of the earliest successful submarines, built in 1800 by Robert Fulton, who later invented the first commercially successful steamboat. Fulton's submarine was named after the paper nautilus because it had a sail. Three years before writing his novel, Jules Verne also studied a model of the newly developed French Navy submarine "Plongeur" at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, which inspired him for his definition of the "Nautilus". The breathing apparatus used by "Nautilus" divers is depicted as an untethered version
Jules Verne and Hetzel, Jules Verne began publishing darker works. In 1888, Verne entered politics and was elected town councilor of Amiens, where he championed several improvements and served for fifteen years. Verne was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1870. He was promoted to an Officier de la Légion d'honneur in 1892. On 24 March 1905, while ill with diabetes, Verne died at his home in Amiens, 44 Boulevard Longueville (now Boulevard Jules-Verne). His son, Michel Verne, oversaw publication of the novels "Invasion of the Sea" and "The Lighthouse at the End of the World" after Jules's death. The