French Consul Research Articles

Rumänien und das europäische Modell der Organisierung in der Zeit des Fürsten Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1859-1866)

Abstract : Romania and the European Political Model during the Prince Al. Ioan Cuza’s Reign (1859-1866). The organization of the United Principalities according to the Convention of Paris (August 7-19, 1859) imposed a difficult administrative system and gave electoral rights to a small part of the country’s population, especially to those who were not interested in introducing reformative measures. With the help of the French consul in Iasi, Victor Place, Al. I. Cuza elaborates, in November 1859, a program, influenced by the 1852 French Constitution, concerning the judicial, financial, industrial, commercial, administrative, military, public works and educational organization in the recently constituted state. The respective program is amplified in a new document presented before the Parliament by the prince on December 6/ 18, 1859. Using the organizational model provided by the French system, Al. I. Cuza and his main collaborators managed to turn the United Principalities into a modern and European state, because during the seven years of his reign absolutely all the human activity domains were reformed.

The Turkish Pendulum between Globalization and Security: From the Late Ottoman Era to the 1930s

The primary goal of this article is to understand the historical dynamics which led in Turkey to the emergence of a pendulum between liberalization/ globalization at the time perceived as integration with the modern and popular west, in particular, Europe and national security, seen as the preservation of the Ottoman lands against both external (ironically the large European powers and Russia) and internal enemies (internal in the sense of those nations and ethnic groups which aspired to be independent of Ottoman rule and which were, again ironically, open therefore to the manipulation of the external enemies). To understand these dynamics requires two main missions. First, by looking into the political liberalization initiatives of the late Ottoman era (seen in the most general sense as those attempts to share political power with the Sultan) and their relation with the tremendous public concern over the empire's security, the article explores the genealogy and formation as well as the overwhelmingly shared perception of a dichotomous relationship between security and liberalization.' Second, by carrying out a detailed analysis of the two attempts to introduce multi-party politics during the republican era, I try to show how the previously identified dichotomy between liberalization and security developed into a 'national security syndrome', through which the democratic liberalization process would be systematically administered, managed and, ultimately, contained. It can be argued that the Ottoman state was, by and large, a garrison state, in which the waging of war was one of the main factors behind its construction and resulting structure.2 At a time in history when the rule of the day was conquest, power, alliances and geopolitics, the Ottoman state was a true example of a geopolitical state/empire. This primacy of geopolitics made the Ottoman state a largely centralized and highly hierarchical power apparatus at the hands of the sultans, and for the most part, security issues were able to be handled quite efficiently.

Monumenta Proximi-Orientis, V: Egypte (1591-1699) (review)

Proximi-Orientis, V: Egypte (1591-1699). By Charles Libois, S.J. [Monumenta Historica Societatis Vol. 152; Missionum Societatis Vol. LXV.] (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu. 2002. Pp. lxii, 593. Paperback.) This book, in keeping with the plan of the collection Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, publishes archival documents concerning the Jesuits who set foot in Egypt in the seventeenth century. Except for Father Marciano Manieri, a Neapolitan, who devoted himself to ransoming captives, the documents as a whole concern the efforts of Jesuits to enter Ethiopia setting out from Cairo. It was, therefore, not Egypt that interested them but rather Abyssinia to the point that their first residence was called Residence of the Missionary Fathers for Ethiopia. The mission of Ethiopia, begun in the sixteenth century, at the outset had as the center of interest only the chaplaincy of the Portuguese who had established themselves in Tigre on the shore of the Red Sea. Subsequently it developed into attempts to lead the Church of Ethiopia back into the bosom of the Church of Rome. The Jesuits who then tried to reach Ethiopia were Portuguese, and for the most part they set out from Goa to try to reach Eritrea by way of Mocha. Because of the almost insurmountable difficulties of these journeyings the Jesuits, taking advantage of the good relations existing between France and the Sublime Porte during the reign of Louis XIV, tried with the help of the French consuls in Cairo to make contact with Ethiopia through the north, the valley of the Nile. Three expeditions mark off the century. The first, in 1627, was an abortive attempt; the four Jesuits who began the journey did not get beyond Guirga, approximately 500 kilometers south of Cairo. Denounced as spies by a Maltese, a slave merchant, the four Jesuits were arrested by the police, brought back to Cairo with a heavy escort, and thrown into a dungeon. They were not set free until the French consul, Gabriel Fernoux, paid a large ransom, which the Society of Jesus afterwards had to repay. A second attempt was made in 1698. A French physician, Charles Poncet, before going to Abyssinia, agreed to take Father Charles de Bredevent along as a factotum. They departed from Boulac, the port of Cairo, on July 10, 1698, but Father Brevedent, who had already been stricken with dysentery even before his departure, succumbed to the fatigue of the journey and died at Barko, a half-day's journey from the capital of Abyssinia, on July 9, 1699, one year after their departure. Charles Poncet for his part seems to have reached the court of the King of Kings at Congar and even to have returned to Egypt. A third attempt took place in 1700 with the journey of Fathers Louis Grenier and Antoine Faulet, who set out in search of Father Bredevent, of whom they had had no news. …

Un Consulat français dans la tourmente révolutionnaire

Pierre-Olivier Chaumet, A French Consulate in the Revolutionary Turmoil : Nice prior to Annexation (1789-1792). In 1793, France annexes the earldom of Nice. But the Revolution has had repercussions in this province of the Sardinian kingdom for years. As sole official representative of the new regime in Nice, the french consul « Le Seurre » uses his diplomatic role in order to become the informant of Paris. In a regular correspondence the French official keeps the new authorities informed about the ever increasing schemings of the counter revolution in Nice and its region. Soon the French aristocrats in exile denounce the consul's doings and complain to the king Victor-Amédée III. In spite of threats, le Seurre remains in place. However the pressure put by the enemies of the Revolution on the Sardinian authorities became effective. In October 1792, a few days before the country was invaded, the French consul's prerogatives are restricted (his letters are opened, spies are placed in his surroundings). Because such mesures infringe on his diplomatic community, the consulate is forced to close down. Le Seurre himself is confined to his residence and is finally released after the general of Anselme, Chief commander of the French armies in War, interceded. That consular correspondence written on the eve of the invasion of the earldoms forms a valuable testimony. It reveals the impact of the Revolution, and the overthrows triggered by this event abroad.

Letters from Turkey by Mikes Kelemen Bernard Adams (review)

146 SEER, 8o, I, 2002 happiest place on earth'?Formuch of the eighteenth century serious British writers cloaked Peter's image in Enlightenment terms (Voltaire'shistory of Peter, firstpublished in full in English in I763, was particularlyinfluential), against a background (with a few crises in Catherine II's reign) of good relationssealedby commercialagreements.The CrimeanWaronly temporarily dented British 'Petrolatry'.The most popular nineteenth-centuryEnglish history of Peter was John Barrow'sMemoir of theLifeofPetertheGreat (I 832), which arguedthatPeter's'greatdesign'forimprovinghis countryallowedone to forgive 'excesses and little eccentricities' (p. I09). But it was anecdotes, mostly adapted and recycled from German and French originals, which capturedthe imagination. Anthony Cross examines a wealth of material. Peterappearsas an unlikely role model forchildren(MaryPilkington,Parental Care Producing Practical Virtue, I8 Io), for example, and as a characterin such boys' adventurestoriesas Fred Wishaw's BoristheBearHunter(I894). The book ends with chapters on Peter on the British stage (where he was variouslypresented as a dashing hero, 'a monster of cruelty and vice', and a comic opera figure) and British Petrirne iconography. This is an enjoyable book not just for the Peter addict like this reviewer, but also for those interested in Britishviews of Russia generally. It makes a useful contribution to the growing literatureon travel writing, even though its author does not specificallylocate it in this theoretical context. It contains a wealth of references to rare publications (although no separately listed bibliography)and thirty-twoillustrations,including such curiosities as the 'Czar of Muscovy' tavern sign. Unfortunately, at ?35 it will probablynot reach many general readers, who would find much in it to inform and entertain. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies LINDSEY HUGHES University College London Kelemen Mikes, Chamberlain of the Last Prince of Transylvania.Lettersfrom Turkey. Translated and edited by BernardAdams. Kegan Paul International , London and New York, 2000. XX + 268 pp. Plates. Maps. Notes. [65.00. KELEMEN MIKES served in the court of the Transylvanianprince, Ferenc II Rak6czi. In I7I I, following the defeat of Transylvanian resistance to Habsburg rule, Mikes accompanied his master into exile firstin France and then, after I 7I 7, in Turkey. Mikes remained for the rest of his life in Turkey servingas a steward(kamaras) in the prince's household, and he outlived both the 'old Rak6czi', who died in I735, as well as Rak6czi's less than illustrious son,J6zsef. AfterMikes'sdeath in I76 I, copies of some 200 letterspurportedly sent to an aunt living in the Pera suburbof Constantinople were discovered among his effects by a former Hungarian galley-slave. Exchanging hands severaltimes, the letterseventuallymade theirway to Vienna. They were first publishedin theiroriginalHungarianin Szombathelyin I 794, and have, since the mid-nineteenth century,been in almostcontinuousprint. REVIEWS 147 Mikes's Letters from Turkey are composed in a simple, elegant and concise style. Moreover, ever since the mid-nineteenth century, when they firstcame to popular and scholarly attention, the letters have served to define some of the supposed attributesof the Hungarian 'character':fortitude in adversity, an abiding love of one's homeland notwithstandingyears of exile, disengagement from this present life's vicissitudes,and spiritualand moral endurance. Despite their literary,historical and even psychological significance,Mikes's Turkish Lettershave never previously been rendered, excerpts apart, into English.BernardAdamshas now done so and hasprovideduswith a masterful and most readable translationwhich is well supported by notes, portraitsof the principalprotagonists,and much otherusefulinformation. Mikes'slettersare difficultto interpret.As earlyasthe i 86os, itwas realized that the aunt to whom the letters are addressed was, almost certainly, fictional- a contrivance employed by the author to make his work conform to the fashionableFrenchgenre of epistolarybiography.At the same time, the autobiographical nature of Mikes's writings is entirely in keeping with the tradition of memoir-writing already developed in seventeenth and early eighteenth century Transylvania. Beyond this, however, the work clearly consists of two parts. The first is a largely introspective study which recounts the labours of exile, items garnered from news-letters (obtained mostly from the French consul), local intrigues, as well as the various deficiencies of Turkish and Greek women: the former smoke too much; the latterare too fond of dresses.The second part,which occupies the lastquarter of the text, is a much more thorough...

A Token of Personal Religion brought to Cyrene c. 525 BC

AbstractThis paper reconsiders a scarab seal inscribed in the Cypriote syllabary and acquired at Cyrene in the mid-nineteenth century by the French consul Vattier de Bourville. The circumstances and period of its acquisition rule out the possibility of forgery, and the scarab is stylistically datable to the late sixth century BC. The flight of Queen Pheretima to Cyprus, and her subsequent return to Cyrene, are suggested as a possible context in which the seal may have arrived at Cyrene—perhaps as a token of personal religion of the queen herself. The seal shows Bes as Master of the Animals, reflecting a fusion of Levantine and Egyptian influences in Cypriote iconography.

Mischief in the Old Regime: Provincial Dragomans and Social Change at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

This worthy man combined in his single person the various characters of diplomatist, husbandman, merchant, manufacturer, and master of a privateer. To be more explicit-he was drogueman to the French consul at Chios; in town he kept a silkloom at work; in the country he had a plantation of agrumi (citrus); he exported his stuffs and fruits to the principal sea-ports of the Archipelago, and, in the first Russian war, he employed all his spare money in fitting out a small vessel to cruise against the enemy-for so he chose to consider the Russians, in spite of all their amicable professions towards the Greeks. As a loyal subject of the Porte, and an old servant of the French government, he felt no sort of wish to be delivered from the yoke of the Turks; and he looked upon those barbarians of the north, who cared no more for the Patriarch of Constantinople than for the Pope of Rome, as little better than rank heretics, not worthy of being treated even like his silkworms, which he got every year carefully exorcised before their spinning time. (Hope, 1819, vol. 1:2)

Holy and Unholy Alliances: Clerical Participation in the Flow of Bullion from Brazil to Portugal during the Reign of Dom João V (1706-1750)

Holy and Unholy Alliances: Clerical Participation in the Flow of Bullion from Brazil to Portugal during the Reign of Dom João V (1706-1750)

Jak viděl český národ Alfred-Louis Méroux de Valois, první francouzský konzul v Praze v letech 1897–1903

On the basis of research in French archives, the author of the essay seeks to examine closely the personality and activities of the first French Consul in Prague, and also lo characterize the period and conditions under which this professional diplomat worked in Prague. The author also turns his attention to the Czech political scene and to the political situation in the Austrian monarchy, based on concrete examples (e.g. the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Victor Hugo, the reaction of the press to the Dreyfus affair, disputes between the so-called “Young Czechs” and “Old Czechs”, the Badeni reforms or conflicts between the Czech and the German population).The French consulate in Prague was opened at the very end of the 19th century. Its objective was to promote bilateral Czech-French economic relations. However, the Austrian authorities lived with the assumption right from the start that here an endeavour was becoming evident to attribute to Prague a significance going beyond that of the capital of a province. That is why they tried to deny permission for its opening so that legally the German consulate was set up earlier.The author uses in his essay quotations from documents of that time to illustrate the way Valois’ views concentrated on the Czech nation. But he is said to have discovered later that the Czechs under no circumstances deserved the sympathy they enjoyed in France. After initial favourable judgements of the Czechs, the first French Consul made a 180 degree about-turn in the course of only a few years, which in some cases meant a shift, if not to hatred, at least to condescending high-handedness. This occurred at a time when a new place was explored in the context of the era when two nationalisms – the French and the Czech – combined in their common opposition to the German threat and when the Dreyfus affair, with international repercussions that cannot be ignored, had whipped up emotions not only in France hut throughout Europe to the great detriment of the 3rd republic whose foundations were still unstable and whose prestige was seriously jeopardized in the eyes of the world.

Book Reviews

Australian Journal of Politics & HistoryVolume 46, Issue 2 p. 288-308 Book Reviews First published: 18 December 2002 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8497.00096AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract Books reviewed: Marc Serge Rivière (trans. and ed.), The Governor’s Noble Guest. Hyacinthe de Bougainville’s Account of Port Jackson, 1825 Patricia Clancy and Jeanne Allen (trans. and introduced), The French Consul’s Wife. Memoirs of Céleste de Chabrillan in Gold-Rush Australia John Murdoch, Expediency or Principle: Liberalism in Commonwealth Politics 1901-1917 A.W. Martin, Robert Menzies: A Life. Vol. 2 1944-1978 Ann-Mari Jordens, Alien to Citizen. Settling Migrants in Australia,1945-75 Tim Batten and Graham Maddox eds., Socialism in Contemporary Australia Rodney Tiffin, Scandals: Media, Politics & Corruption inContemporary Australia J. Mohan Malik ed., Australia’s Security in the 21st Century Neville Meaney, Towards a New Vision: Australia and Japanthrough 100 Years By Allison B. Gilmore, You Can’t Fight Tanks with Bayonets: Psychological Warfare Against the Japanese Army in the Southwest Pacific Tadhg Foley and Seán Ryder eds., Ideology and Ireland in the Nineteenth Century Joseph M. Siracusa, Into the Dark House: American Diplomacy andthe Ideological Origins of the Cold War Peter Gowan, The Global Gamble. Washington’s FaustianBid for World Dominance John MacFarlane, Ernest Lapointe and Quebec’s Influence onCanadian Foreign Policy Jonathan Schell, The Gift of Time: The Case for AbolishingNuclear Weapons Now Ariel Salleh, Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and thePostmodern Davis McCaughey, Tradition and Dissent Volume46, Issue2June 2000Pages 288-308 RelatedInformation

Les premières photographies archéologiques : Victor Place et les fouilles de Ninive

The first archaeological photographies : Victor Place and the excavations at Niniveh. In charge of the new campaigns of excavations on the site of Niniveh, Victor Place, the French consul in Mossoul, was, between 1852 and 1854, one of the first users of photography for the sake of archaeology. Around fourty of his printings on paper (the list of which is added to the paper), illustrating one of his mission accounts sent to the orientalists of the Academy, shows the seriousness of his documentary and scientific intentions. To put « Assyria itself » under the erudites’ eyes, to give them a concrete visual information on the way the works went on, and to bring the proof on the historical and esthetical values of the discovered objects — but also to contribute to the interpretation of inedite items and constructions — such are the functions given to these views taken in situ. The angle of shooting, but above all the treatment of presentation of the shots (reframing, colouring, cutting), as well as their narrow association with the description, give to the archaeologist the means of a semiotic mastership which constitutes a new object of knowledge, and which tends to question the bookish erudition to the benefice of field testimonies.

Consul de France in Mid-Nineteenth-Century China

What was it like to be a French Consul in newly opened up China of the 1850s? What sort of people served in that risky yet challenging job in an exotic, yet remote and isolated place like mid-nineteenth-century China? How did they discharge their duties both vis-à-vis the puzzled Chinese who did not quite know how to handle the ‘Western Devils’ who thrust themselves into the Middle Kingdom, and their Western colleagues who, like them, were scrambling for Chinese concessions and for commercial and diplomatic rights for their countries, in pursuance of ever-elusive gains in prestige and diplomacy? What kind of matters did they deal with, what were they concerned with, and how well did they perform their consular duties? Under what bureaucratic and hierarchical constraints, both French and Chinese, did they operate? What was their personal contribution to advancing the cause they were delegated to promote?

French Labour recruiting in the Pacific islands: an early episode

In 1857 — years before the mainstream of Oceanian labour recruiting — 52 Gilbertese and 14 Solomon Islanders were abducted for work in the French colony of Réunion. British protests brought the reply from the French Ambassador that the recruits had been regularly obtained under the supervision of a government délégué. It was a 'cover-up': the French consul in Sydney had in fact refused to comply with the request of the Governor of Réunion that authorize a délégué to accompany the expedition. The incident, however, appears to have had the effect of making the French government more sensitive to the possibility of such abuses in Oceania. The fate of the sixty-six Pacific Islanders in Réunion is not known.

Les souvenirs de Saint-John de Crèvecœur sur Mme d'Houdetot

Bernard Chevignard : Saint-John de Crèvecœur's Homage to the countess d'Houdetot. In 1813, shortly after the Countess d'Houdetot's death, Crevecœur devoted his last sketch (some fragments of which were published by Robert de Crèvecœur in 1883) to his memories of the d'Houdetot circle. Recently purchased by the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, this manuscript briefly relates the Countess's life and death, before giving an autobiographical account of the years (1781-3) during which the influence of Mme d'Houdetot and her friends transformed the American Farmer into a French Consul. This text provides an insight into Crèvecœur's state of mind while writing the French version of his famous Letters.

Jerusalem Arabic Lexicon

JERUSALEM ARABIC as distinct from the non-specific and of a wider range 'Arabic spoken in Jerusalem' falls under the gami, or Syrian dialectal area. In compiling his comprehensive Arabic-French dictionary, Barthelemy, who had held the office of French Consul in Aleppo, which was under Ottoman rule, had based it primarily on the Arabic of Aleppo, which included a large bulk of Turkish elements due to a conglomeration of cultural, administrative, and geographic factors. The last two of the five fascicles of his dictionary (pp. 599-919) were posthumously edited by Henri Fleisch, who under 'addenda et corrigenda' (ibid., p. 921-22) attested that the following sources had3 been adduced passim by the author, specifically for Jerusalem urban (abbr. J) and rural (abbr. J-Campagne) Arabic, in square brackets: Ba., Pal.3, Driv., Litt., Lohr, and S.H. (v. Denizeau's list, pp. XI-XIII). Following the publication of the first fascicle by the author, F.-E.B. in his review of Barthelemy in Me'langes, Universite' St. Joseph. Beyrouth, 19 (1935), pp. 175-76 stated: 'Quant au vocabulaire luimeme, il est fourni surtout par la Syrie (Syrie moyenne et Syrie du Nord) que l'auteur paralt connaitre mieux que le Liban'. Prior to the publication of Denizeau's dictionary supplementing and updating Barthelemy's in 1960, Mahmud Ali Ghul in his review of the 5th. fascicle of Barthelemy's (ed. H. Fleisch) in BSOAS 19 (1957), p. 630, stated: 'the vocabulary is far from adequate in the case of the dialect of Jerusalem' [of which he is native], without denigrating the fact that it is the largest and by far the best dictionary for the whole Syrian dialectal area. Inasmuch as Barthelemy uses a very elaborate transcription describing the phonetic system of the Arabic of Aleppo, inapplicable to items for J and J-Campagne, one may find fault in his dictionary considering it less reliable for Jerusalem Arabic. Actually, his phonetic system represents the phonemic system of Jerusalem Arabic, described

Historique des Béni Amer d'Oranie, des origines au Senatus Consulte.

The Beni Amer who came to the Maghreb during the Hilalian invasion are settled by Yarmoracen, south of Tlemcen. Throughout the Middle Ages, they acted as makhzen for the Abd el-Wadid. Accumulating honours and wealth, they were finally to gain control over the entire kingdom; at that time, the ethnic unity of the Confederation wa already compromised. The arrival of the Turks and the Spaniards relegated them into the background. Certain tribes, clinging to their status of makhzen, entered the service of the Spaniards. The remaining groups abandoned their warfaring way of life and merged with the Berber populations of the area. This accordingly reinforced the position of the marabouts and when, during the XVIIIth century, the Turks sought to treat the Beni Amer as «raïa», the latter were entreated to unite by the Derqawiya. They participated in the great revolt of 1803 and emigrated to Morocco for the first time. Having followed Abd el-Kader only with reticence, the Beni Amer were to yield in 1842. Faithful to the Derqawyia, they attacked thegarrisonof Sidi bel Abbés in 1845. On the behest of the Emir, the majority of the Beni Amer emigrated to Morocco the following year, only to abandon the former the year after and ask the French Consul in Tangiers to facilitate their return to Algeria. The land of the emigrants having in the meantime been sequestrated, their return proved to be a serious problem for the administration. The situation was to be aggravated when the Moroccans crushed at Ressifa, the large contingent of Beni Amer who had revolted against the Sultan, and the completely forlorn survivors of this defeat appeared at the border. The sequestrations were proportionate to the number of emigrants; certain tribes thus found themselves in a tragic situation. Land value (in the case of wheat lands open to colonization) was, however, quickly to become a more important criterion of confiscation than emigration up until the moment when the sequestration procedure was laid down by the Senatus Consult.

Some new Syriac inscriptions and archaeological finds from Edessa and Sumatar Harabesi

During a journey in the Near East I spent some days in Urfa, the ancient Edessa, in the south-east of Turkey, and from there I visited Sumatar Harabesi in the Tektek mountains on 27 and 29 January 1971. The object was to study all known Syriac inscriptions in Urfa and its surroundings, which date from the first three centuries of our era, in situ for their republication in a small corpus. In Sumatar Harabesi my attention was primarily directed upon the inscriptions published by Segal, all situated upon the so-called Central Mount, clearly an ancient cult site. I also visited the cave with bas-reliefs and inscriptions discovered by Pognon. It is now inhabited by a Bedouin family, but in spite of the inconveniences caused by this circumstance, it was possible to read the inscriptions, blackened as they were, by the light of a pocket torch and an oil-lamp, and it was impressive to observe once more how able an epigrapher this French consul was.

The French in Sumatra and the Malay world, 1760-1890

When a large Dutch Army finally conquered the dalam (citadel) of Atjeh in January 1874, after two costly campaigns, it found little documentary evidence within of Atjeh's illustrious past. The exception was a beautifully-written letter within a blue and gold border, signed by Louis Philippe of France and his Foreign Minister Guizot in January 1843. The French Consul in Batavia confirmed its authenticity, but could shed no further light on why it should have been addressed to the Atjehnese Sultan. Writing forty years later, E. S. de Klerck repro duced it 'as a curiosity ? the letter lacks any political importance'.1 The present attempt to unravel the motives behind this letter, and other mysterious French appearances on the Sumatran scene, has not entirely succeeded in removing the air of unreality about them. France never had an important share in the riches of the Archipelago spice trade, and appeared slow to understand the importance of Portuguese, Dutch and British commerce there. Consciously or otherwise she appeared drawn rather towards policies and commitments on the Asian mainland. The ambitions the French occasionally entertained for the Archipelago tended to focus at its extremities, Sumatra or the Sulu Basilan area, which they perceived as serving more important activities in the Indian Ocean and China respectively. Such initiatives as were taken in the Archipelago were motivated as much by the desire to maintain the status of a great power, or to pursue chimerical visions both material and spiritual, as by a sober calculation of practical advantage. The boldest ventures were all left to languish after a few years. The more modest ones (the French Catholic Mission in Malaya, and some minor commercial enterprises), which did build an unobtrusive basis for permanent French influence in the Malay world, appeared incapable of exciting the French imagination.

Christian Traces and a Franciscan Mission in the Central Sudan, 1700–1711

In 1700 reports from Tripoli reached the congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome that Christians, ‘little or uninstructed in the Faith’, were living in Bornu. Further enquiries revealed that these rumours related not to the kingdom of Bornu, but to a neighbouring, rival kingdom, that of ‘Gourourfa’ or ‘Carnorfa’. Two sons of the ruler of Bornu, interviewed in Cairo, stated that in ‘Canorfa’ there were people ‘who venerate the Cross and erect it over the houses and churches’, while the French Consul at Tripoli reported how he had seen slaves from ‘Gouroufa’ who made the sign of the Cross. In June 1710 two Franciscans, attempting to establish contact with these ‘Christians’, set out from Tripoli, passed through Murzuk and Agades, and were later reported to have died in Katsina in August 1711.Hausa and Bornu sources indicate that these reports almost certainly referred to the Kwararafa, who on several occasions in the seventeenth century attacked Kano and Bornu. It is then pointed out that a Maltese cross was one of the motifs still used in the twentieth century as a decoration by an Aku of Wukari, a ruler of the Jukun, who are among the principal survivors of the Kwararafa. At least a section of the inhabitants of Wukari also preserved a clearly remembered tradition of having taken part in a migratory journey from the Nilotic Sudan to the Benue. It is suggested therefore that the reports of the French consul and the Franciscans, although garbled and consisting in the main of second-hand evidence, strengthen the possibility that the Maltese crosses used among the Jukun, in Nupe and at Benin indicate an influence which emanated originally from Christian Nubia and is perhaps connected with the Kisra traditions.

Philippe Broyon Pioneer Trader in East Africa

Philippe Broyon Pioneer Trader in East Africa by NORMAN ROBERT BENNETT OLLOWING the Brussels Conference of 1876 leading to the formation of the Association Internationale Africaine, reports of a young European resident in East Africa reached those interested in the new effort to penetrate this area of the African continent. He signed his letters with the name, Philippe Broyon-Mirambo,' and he called himself a relation of the Sultan of Unyamwezi.2 The object of this study is to recount the activities of this adventurer who was the first independent European trader and plantation owner in the interior of East Africa. Philippe Broyon was born in Bex, Switzerland, in 1844. He chose the sea for a career, and made several voyages to Zanzibar as a sailor on French vessels from Marseilles between 1862 and 1866. Then he accepted employment from the French firm of Roux de Fraissinet in Zanzibar. After a time Broyon decided to enter into trade on his own account, and in 1872 he made his first inland expedition, accompanied by five Africans. His base of operations became the trading centre of Saadani on the coast opposite Zanzibar where he had early gone to study the routes inland and the local conditions of trade.3 Little is known of Broyon's early activities in what is now Tanganyika. A few travellers, however, did report seeing Broyon, or at least traces of his activities, as they passed through the area in which he worked. In 1875 Lt. Murphy of the Cameron expedition in search of Livingstone found Broyon settled near Mpwapwa, a village about 200 miles from the coast. He apparently was well-established there and living in peace with his African neighbours.' Direct evidence of Broyon's presence in the area comes in a letter of his in 1875 sent from there to the French Consul in Zanzibar; Broyon reported that he had purchased from an African a rifle lost by H. M. Stanley in a recent encounter with a native group. A later English traveller reported that Broyon had lived at this location near Mpwapwa for two years. Additional reports of Broyon's travels are mentioned by other European visitors. Mackay of the Church Missionary Society gave Broyon credit for being the first outsider to open a trade route through the Useguha region ; the Arabs in their journeys inland had not developed this route.' Pare Horner of the Roman Catholic mission at Bagamoyo said that the Swiss trader had opened a route to the Nguru region of Tanganyika where his order later established a mission.s While trading in the interior, Broyon entered into close relations with the Nyamwezi leader, Mirambo-the chief brought to the knowledge of the outside world as a result of his conflict with Stanley and the Arabs when the AngloAmerican explorer was in search of Livingstone.' Broyon apparently first reached Mirambo in 1875 when a lack of provisions motivated him to travel further inland.1 According to reports reaching Europe, probably from Broyon, he went to Mirambo's village, Urambo, with a group of Arab traders. Friendly