Voyage et aventures de François Leguat et de ses compagnons en deux îles désertes des Indes orientales (review)

Abstract

168 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 8:1 [François Léguât]. Voyage et aventures de François Léguât et de ses compagnons en deux ties désertes des Indes orientales. Présenté par Jean-Michel Racault et Paolo Carile. Paris: Les Éditions de Paris, 1995. 269pp. ISBN 2-905291-34-6. In 1689, Henri Duquesne, son of Abraham Duquesne, the famous Huguenot admiral of Louis xrv, published a series of proposals he had made to the Dutch authorities and to die Dutch East India Company concerning the establishment of a Huguenot colony somewhere in the Indian Ocean, perhaps on the He Bourbon (now known as the He de la Réunion) or the Ile Rodrigue, not far from Madagascar. His aim was to found a new Garden of Eden, a New Jerusalem, away from the horrors of exile brought about by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It is this brief document, of which only one copy has been found, and which bears the tide, Recueil de quelques mémoires servant d'instruction pour l'établissement de l'île d'Eden, that is admirably reproduced, introduced and annotated by Paolo Carile (pp. 227-64), who highlights the unique features of this text. He discusses, for example, the biblical style and visionary ambitions that ignore the practical details of the venture. He contrasts the fundamentally elitist attitude to the selection of suitable candidates with the democratic approach to the nature of the proposed system of government. For a variety of reasons, the expedition did not take place, so Duquesne compromised by sending, as an advance party, a small frigate carrying only ten passengers among whom was the comparatively elderly François Léguât whose two-part account of their experience, from 1690 to 1698, excellently edited by Jean-Michel Racault, forms the bulk of this new publication (pp. 5-226). The ship left Holland in July 1690 and, after a series of contretemps, the captain decided to deposit his passengers on the uninhabited but bountiful He Rodrigue, promising to return in two years, in 1693. Somewhat like Robinson Crusoe, though obviously less isolated, and partly in the manner of Rousseau's natural man, the colonists began their new life. Much of the first part of Leguat's text is devoted to a description of the island's flora and fauna. After two years, however, when no ship turns up, the younger settlers, bored with a Utopia that includes no women, decide to make for the Dutch colony of Mauritius (l'île Maurice). Leguat feels obliged to accompany them, and the second part of his account details the results of this fateful decision. At first, the Governor of Mauritius welcomes them, but when one of their party tries to sell a large piece of ambergris, contrary to the regulations established by the Dutch who had a monopoly of this commodity, Leguat and the others are exiled to a neighbouring rocky and barren island where, in sharp contrast to the life on the He Rodrigue, they are forced to eke out a miserable existence for three years until they are sent to Batavia to be conscripted into the army. After a year, they leave for the Cape of Good Hope, and thence to Europe. Interspersed in the recital of these adventures are descriptions of Mauritius, Batavia, and the Cape. Since its publication, the authenticity of Leguat's récit de voyage has been, and still is, a subject of controversy, ranging from the two extremes in this century of G. Atkinson, The Extraordinary Voyage in French Literaturefrom 1700 to 1720 (1922), who considered the whole account fictitious, to A. North-Coombes, The Vindication ofFrançois Leguat (1979), who believed implicitly in its accuracy. At first, the very existence of Leguat was questioned, but his identity has now been firmly established along with the fact that the voyage did take place and that Leguat was on board. But was he responsible for the text? Racault, in his balanced and prudent analysis of the problem, as befits the author of the magisterial, L'Utopie narrative en France et en Angleterre (1675-1761) (1991), agrees, on the basis of external...