The French Australian Review

Explorations


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JANE GILMOUR & ELAINE LEWIS, Foreword

Vale Colin Nettelbeck

Colin Nettelbeck was a co-founder of ISFAR and its journal Explorations (now The French Australian Review). He served in various roles (including president) in ISFAR from 1985 to 2000 and returned as president from 2011 to 2018. A Colin  Nettelbeck  Scholarship  was  set  up  in  2021  to  recognise  the central  role  Colin  played  in  founding  the  Institute  and  his  longstanding commitment  and  invaluable  contribution  to  all  its  public  and  research activities. Colin passed away on October 21, 2022 after a long illness.

OPINION PIECES

DAVID CAMROUX, AUKUS and its Aftermath

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In this transcript of his talk presented at an ISFAR seminar in the series ‘After the Elections: Is a Reset possible in French-Australian Relations?’, the author comments on the political situation in France following the French elections in May 2022 and then examines the response to the AUKUS decision in France and the import of the AUKUS decision in terms of Indo-Pacific geopolitical relations. He then comments on the positive response to the visit to France by newly-elected Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and surmises that a return to the relationship that flourished in the 1990s and early 2000s may evolve.

Keywords:  AUKUS, French-Australian relations, Macron, Albanese, Indo-Pacific, South-East Asia.

IVAN BARKO, Australians’ Love-Hate Relationship with the French in the Last Two Centuries

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An exploration, drawing on newspaper articles as well as other material, of the contradictory dispositions that have prevailed in Australian attitudes towards the French over the past two hundred years. The author explores the concept of what he calls the ‘Archibald syndrome’—dreaming of being French, the historical references that have coloured Australians’ views of the French, and the shared affinities between the two countries.

Keywords: francophilia, francophobia, the French in the Pacific, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides Question, Consul Biard d’Aunet, John Feltham Archibald, Stella Bowen.

ARTICLES

KERRY MURPHY, Henri Kowalski (1841–1916) in the Antipodes and His Comic Opera Queen Venus

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French virtuoso pianist and composer Henri Kowalski visited Australia in 1880 and then returned in 1885 when he settled in Sydney for twelve years. In 1881 he wrote a comic opera, Queen Venus. with a libretto by Marcus Clarke. This paper traces the transformation of Queen Venus into a French fantaisie-bouffe called La Guerre aux hommes, ten years later. It reveals a story of unusual cultural entanglement across two countries.

Keywords: Cultural transfer, opera, travelling artists, Australian colonial music, nineteenth century France.

VERONIQUE DUCHÉ AND AMANDA LAUGESEN, ‘Somewhere in France: Language, Place and Remembrance in Australian Soldiers’ Periodical Culture

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An exploration of the thesis that while for contemporary Australians Villers-Bretonneux is the main ‘lieu de commémoration’ (place of remembrance), for the First World War diggers, ‘lieux de mémoire’ (sites of memory) were created from a much wider and varied list of place names— places where they had been, and fought, Villers-Bretonneux being for them just one of many. Focusing on the 1918–1929 period, this article explores the Australian experience and memory of the First World War by analysing how the concept of place was constructed within trench journals and returned soldier periodical print culture.

Key words: World War 1, ‘places of commemoration’, ‘places of memory’, trench journals, returned soldiers journals, returned soldiers’ periodicals.

EDOARDO BRUNETTI, An Australian Perspective on Occitan and Breton Ethnoregionalism in the Post-war Period to 1981

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In France, the student occupations and strikes of May ’68 are well known, but the period was also of immense significance to the country’s ethnoregionalist movements, who sought to increase power and self-determination. From a period of rebuilding following the Second World War, the Breton and Occitan movements, which campaigned against the perceived oppression of their regions by the central French state, were able to find new audiences and grow significantly in the 1960s and 1970s. Through an analysis of primary and secondary sources, this article charts the history of the movements throughout the era, demonstrating how the growth of the movements was linked to the broader societal politicisation of the era. As the period of radicalism waned, so did the Breton and Occitan movements, which saw many of their key demands implemented following the election of François Mitterrand as President, depriving the movements of their key reasons for existence. Nevertheless, the movements left a significant legacy in this period, through both the acceptance of regionalist political demands by the national left, and the ideological refoundation of Breton and Occitan ethnoregionalism. The author reflects on how these movements have some parallels in Australian history.

Keywords: Brittany, Occitania, ethnoregionalism, Occitanism, Emsav, regionalism, nationalism.

DOCUMENTS NOTES AND REVIEWS

EMILY DOTTE-SAROUT, The Matilda Effect in Archaeology

The transcript of an interview first published in French in the AFRAN newsletter about the history of women archaeologists in the Pacific region. The article explores the fate of women who sought to pursue careers as archaeologists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and how their work has been consistently overshadowed by that of their male peers. She details the exploits of one of these women in particular, Adèle de Dombasle, a number of whose illustrations are held in the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.

Keywords: Pacific archaeologists, women in archaeology, Adèle de Dombasle, Edmond Ginoux de la Coche, Musée des Explorations du Monde, ethnographic illustrations.

KATHERINE HAMMITT, The Colibri of Pacific Publishing: Interview with Au vent des îles Founder, Christian Robert

This article is published in French. In an interview conducted in July 2022, Christian Robert talks about his role as founder and manager of the largest publishing house in francophone Oceania, Au vent des îles. From his position as editor and president of Tahiti’s editors’ association, Robert speaks to the history and outlook of publishing and disseminating francophone literature across the Pacific and throughout Europe. Though the corpus he promotes does not yet have the global visibility it merits, Robert ultimately foresees a hopeful future for Oceanian literature, as well as for expanding publishing across the Pacific.

Keywords: Oceania, publishing, literature, francophone, Transpacific, Au vent des îles.

PETER HODGES, French-Australian Encounters Number 8: French-Australian Exchanges in Literary Périgord: A personal Insight through the Translation and Promotion of a Memoir

Through a chance encounter, an Australian writer and translator embarks on a privileged journey into the world of literary Périgord as he translates into French and promotes his memoir, previously published in English.

Keywords: literary Périgord, Académie des Sciences, des Beaux-Arts et des Belles-Lettres du Périgord-Dordogne, Dad’s Diary: the wanderlust chronicles, Le Journal de papa : l’esprit d’aventure, Librairie Marbot, Périgueux.

TOM THOMPSON, Frank Moorhouse’s French Connection: A Tale of Reciprocity

The author, who is an Australian publisher, explores Australian author Frank Moorhouse’s lifelong interest in France and, in particular, his friendship with translator and publisher Jean-Paul Delamotte.

Keywords: Association Culturelle Franco-Australian (ACFA), Fictions 88, Festival Les Belles Étrangères, League of Nations Trilogy.

EDWARD DUYKER, A False Portrait of Lapérouse

The author, who is currently researching a biography of Jean-Francois de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, examines a portrait in the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts, which is claimed to be a portrait of Lapérouse and through comparison with other existing known portraits of Lapérouse, suggests that it may well not be as stated.

Keywords: Lapérouse, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Musée Lapérouse in Albi.

THE ANNUAL IVAN BARKO PRIZE

Awarded to Patricia Clarke, for her article ‘Australian Connections with the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of Paris, 1871’, published in Issue Number 71 (Summer 2021–2022).

Keywords: Ivan Barko prize, ISFAR.

BOOK REVIEWS

Charlotte Mackay, Book Review: Jane Tuttle, My Sweet Guillotine

In her latest novel, Tuttle returns to the city that nearly killed her—the city to which she fled after the death of her mother and which attracts many of the artistic type by virtue of the intrinsic value it seems to place on the arts—in an attempt to rebuild her life post-accident.

Keywords: Jayne Tuttle, Paris, guillotine, trauma and survival.

Andrew Montana, Book Review: Jean-Claude Lesage, Australian Painters in Étaples, translated by Pauline Le Borgne

Lesage’s Australian Painters in Étaples may be a springboard for curious minds to take this English translation as a cue for further research into these artists working abroad in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Keywords: Australian painters, Étaples, artists ‘colonies, late nineteenth century, early twentieth century art.

Andrew McGregor, Book Review: Gemma King, Jacques Audiard

Jacques Audiard is without doubt one of France’s most celebrated contemporary filmmaking auteurs. It is, therefore, most timely and appropriate for Gemma King’s outstanding and definitive volume on the filmmaker to be published in the prestigious French Film Directors series by Manchester University Press.

Keywords: Jacques Audiard, French Film Directors.

Elaine Lewis, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes including a note on the latest journals in France relating to French-Australian Studies.

The French Australian Review

Explorations


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Foreword

KERRY MULLAN, Preface

IVAN BARKO, Tribute to Colin Nettelbeck

ALEXIS BERGANTZ AND ELIZABETH RECHNIEWSKI, ISFAR@35: Australia and France in a Regional Global Context: Past Engagements and Future Research Directions

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The authors review the work of ISFAR, The French Australian Review and The ISFAR Research Committee in the light of recent political events. Since Australia’s geographical position affords ISFAR a close window onto its Pacific neighbourhood, ISFAR and FAR are uniquely placed to play a crucial role in providing the historical and contemporary perspectives from which to evaluate and document French Australian relations in this region.

Keywords: French-Australian relations, Indo-Pacific and France, New Caledonia, French Polynesia.

BARBARA SANTICH, ISFAR Research Project: French-Australian Exchanges in Viticulture and Winemaking

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British colonists very quickly saw the potential in Australia for growing grapes and making wine, and naturally looked to France as their model. Early vignerons, such as Gregory Blaxland and William Macarthur, visited France to study vineyards and winemaking practices, and often returned with cuttings of French vines. In the second half of the century French vignerons, such as Camille Réau and Jean-Pierre Trouette, established vineyards in Australia. In view of their significance, ISFAR has initiated a project to produce entries for the FADB and a book highlighting the significance of these exchanges. This paper gives an outline of the aims and scope of the project, together with potted biographies of several of the more influential individuals.

Keywords: ISFAR, Australia, France, wine viticulture, William Macarthur, Louis Edouard Bourbaud, Bill Hardy.

Elizabeth Rechniewski, Beatrice Grimshaw: Traveller, Writer and Advocate for Australian Imperialism in the South Pacific

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The author argues that Beatrice Grimshaw was not only a traveller but a prolific writer, of novels, pamphlets and cruise brochures, newspaper and magazine articles that were highly influential in forming the contemporary public’s representations of the Pacific islands and their inhabitants. She also sought to intervene in the political affairs of the nascent Australian nation, encouraging and seeking to facilitate through her writings and her contacts with leading Australian politicians its imperialistic ambitions over the neighbouring islands, including those partly or wholly claimed by France, the New Hebrides and New Caledonia.

Keywords: Beatrice Grimshaw, France, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Alfred Deakin.

Nicole Townsend, ‘Kangaroos’ and ‘Froggies’: Australian-French Relations and the Allied Invasion of Lebanon and Syria, 1941

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This article focuses on Australia’s war with France during the Second World War, when Australian troops partook in the invasion of the Vichy French mandates of Lebanon and Syria in June 1941. It uses various sources, including oral history interviews, memoirs, diaries, and unit histories, to elucidate how Australian troops negotiated relations with the French, who were both friend and foe. In doing so, it sheds light on a lesser-known period in the Australian-French relationship.

Keywords: Australian-French relations, Operation Exporter, Syria, Lebanon, Second World War, Vichy France, Free France. 

Chantal Crozet, Convergence and Divergence on Gender Inclusive Language in France and Australia

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This article aims to reveal some rich points of ideological divergence and convergence of gender inclusive language (hereafter GIL) between France and Australia as found in scholarly literature and the written press. French and Australian societies are both being challenged by the push for more gender inclusive language. However, linguistic challenges to achieve gender inclusivity in French are much more complex and extensive than they are in English. This explains in part the much more intense level of public debate on GIL in France than in Australia, a point of divergence between the two countries.

Keywords: Gender inclusive language, inclusive writing, The Académie Française.

Kerry Mullan, French-Australian Relations: Une Entente Glaciale Revisited

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In light of last year’s deterioration in French-Australian relations, this article will examine the AUKUS exchanges between former Prime Minister Scott Morrison and President Emmanuel Macron, with a particular focus on the underlying French and Australian English cultural values and assumptions which influenced their communications. It will be argued that these different ways of seeing the world were largely responsible for the decline in relations between the two leaders. The author comments that some benefits of multilingualism, such as better understanding of other worldviews (and one’s own), intercultural communication skills, connection with others, and access to more knowledge, are often considered secondary—and yet, they are indispensable.

Keywords: French-Australian relations, cultural values, interactional style, AUKUS, multilingualism

DOCUMENTS, NOTES AND REVIEWS

Danielle Clode, Book Review: Jean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby (eds), Roaming Freely Throughout the Universe: Nicolas Baudin’s Voyage to Australia and the Pursuit of Science

This book focuses on science and the role of François Péron in Nicolas Baudin’s voyage to Australia and its lasting effects. Péron was one of only three scientists to complete the journey out of the fourteen who originally embarked. There are four sections: the first on the scientific context of voyaging, the second on Péron himself, the third on the scientific records from the voyage and the fourth which, initially, seems to be about participants who were not Péron. In the reviewer’s opinion, the book is ‘not simply a collection of essays’ because the essays have been skilfully situated to foreshadow later developments, gradually layering and revealing detail, nuance and complexity and giving the collection an unexpected narrative structure that is, at times, positively thrilling’.

Keywords: Baudin, Péron, Le Havre Museum, Malmaison, Naturaliste, Géographe.

Andrew Montana, Book Review: John Drury, Two French Sisters in Australia: 1888–1922: Berthe Mouchette and Marie Lion, Artists and Teachers

John Drury’s tribute to the two French sisters, Berthe Mouchette and Marie Lyon reinforces their contributions to French-Australian relations through both their teaching and their cultural activities in both Melbourne and Adelaide. Drury’s meticulous research adds depth to our knowledge of their work, especially of their artistic practices and Lion’s writing. They are also remembered for their post-war charitable work and the ongoing connections with Dernancourt and the Somme.

Keywords: Berthe Mouchette. Marie Lion, Oberwyl, Lady Loch, Annie Besant, Theosophy Adelaide.

Edward Duyker, Book Review: Suzanne Falkiner, Rose: The Extraordinary Voyage of Rose de Freycinet

Suzanne Falkiner’s Rose is an engaging account of the life of Rose de Freycinet, née Pinon (1794–1832). The book is also a biography of Rose’s husband Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet (1779–1842) on whose Uranie expedition 1817–1820 she was secreted, in male guise, at the age of twenty-two. Falkiner has used Rose’s manuscripts and the various edited and published versions of her journals and letters (and those of her husband and fellow voyagers) with discernment and skill.

Keywords: Rose de Freycinet, Uranie, Louis de Freycinet, Académie des Sciences.

Briony Nielson, Book Review: Andréas Pfersmann, La littérature irradiée : Les essais nucléaires en Polynésie française au prisme de l’écriture

In La littérature irradiée: Les essais nucléaires en Polynésie française au prisme de l’écriture, Andréas Pfersmann, a literature academic at the Université de la Polynésie française, explores the interplay of issues relating to France’s nuclear testing in the Pacific, as reflected in the work of literary writers in French Polynesia, as well as in metropolitan France and in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Keywords: littérature irradiée, nuclear tests Pacific, Pfersmann, French Polynesian literature.

Edward Duyker, Book Review: Margaret Cameron-Ash, Beating France to Botany Bay: The Race to Found Australia

Reviewer Edward Duyker argues that the idea that Lapérouse was engaged in a race with Arthur Phillip and had secret orders to establish a French colony at Botany Bay, in 1788, is not based on available research.

Keywords: Lapérouse, Arthur Phillip, Botany Bay, French in Australia.

Elaine Lewis, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

The French Australian Review

Explorations

JANE GILMOUR & ELAINE LEWIS, Foreword

PATRICIA CLARKE, Australian Connections with the Franco-Prussian War 1870 and the Commune of Paris 1871
WINNER OF THE 2022 IVAN BARKO AWARD

In 1870 the Sydney Morning Herald published reports of the fast-moving Franco-Prussian war from its Paris correspondent Anna Blackwell culminating in her forced departure from the city as it was about to be besieged by Prussian forces. Her graphic eyewitness account of her escape by train to Boulogne was followed in 1871 by an equally graphic account of the operation of the short-lived Paris Commune by Irish-born London-based journalist, Frances Cashel Hoey. Hoey’s eyewitness account, first published in the English periodical the Spectator was widely republished in Australian capital city newspapers leading to her appointment in 1873 by the Victorian weekly the Australasian to write a regular women’s column ‘Society and Fashion’ from London. The Franco-Prussian War was the greatest overseas news story in the Australian press in 1870 and the revolutionary Paris Commune made the city the centre of world interest. Both Anna Blackwell and Frances Cashel Hoey were great reporters who saw immediately that they were witnessing events that would live in history.

Keywords: Franco-Prussian War 1870, Paris Commune 1871, Anna Blackwell, Frances Cashel Hoey, female foreign correspondents, Sydney Morning Herald, Australasian.

WILLIAM A. LAND, The Légion d’Honneur in Australia

The history of the Légion d’honneur in Australia dates back to the first award which was made to Sir William Macarthur in 1855. The Légion d’honneur is situated in the context of other French awards and its significance in terms of French-Australian relations. An appendix provides an overview of the history of the Société des Membres de la Légion d’honneur.

Keywords: Légion d’honneur, l’Ordre du mérite, military awards, Société des Membres de la Légion d’honneur (SMLH).

DEIRDRE GILFEDDER, Australian Film Festivals in France: Interviews with the Founders of Three Festivals of Australian and New Zealand Cinema

While Australian cinema occupies only a niche market in France it has found a place with French audiences and in French film culture. The role of three festivals of Australian cinema in making Australian films more widely available is highlighted with the three founding (and current) directors of these festivals.

Keywords: Festival du Film Australian, Le Bout du Monde (Pézenas), Festival du Cinéma Aborigène Australien à Paris, Festival des Antipodes Saint Tropez, Helen Buday, Greta Morgan Elangué, Bernard Boriès, Festival Rochefort Pacifique Cinéma et Littérature, La Rochelle.

ELAINE LEWIS, Australian Art in Paris: Gallery Arts d’Australie Stéphane Jacob

Stéphane Jacob established Arts d’Australie in Paris in 1996, after a visit to Australia when he first became acquainted with Aboriginal art. The interview that forms this article was based on an article in Le Figaro that appeared in March 2020. The interview covers Jacob’s passionate interest in and extensive knowledge of Aboriginal art and his promotion of this and other Australian art through his gallery in Paris and his links with other cultural institutions in France and Europe.

Keywords: Stéphane Jacob, Guy Cogeval, Isabelle de Beaumont, John Kelly, Musée des Confluences Lyon, Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Editions Arts d’Australie Stéphane Jacob.

MARIE-THÉRÈSE JENSEN, The Droulers Family in Australia

The links between France and Australia that arose in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the wool industry are many. This article tells the story of the author’s grandfather, Jean Drouler, who came to Australia in 1912 as a junior buyer for Masurel Fils. He and his wife settled in Australia after the First World War and became an integral part of the French community in Sydney. One hundred years later, their descendants now number over one hundred.

Keywords: Masurel Fils, Jean Droulers, French Chamber of Commerce (Sydney), Société de Bienfaisance (French Benevolent Society) (NSW), Jean Trémoulet, French Consul, Playoust family.

PETER MCPHEE, French Australian Encounters no 7: Finding Traces of the French Revolution in the Landscape

Physical traces of the French Revolution are few and far between in the built environment. Renowned historian of the French revolution recounts his voyages of discovery across France as he has located some of these vestiges.

Keywords: liberty tree Tamniès, Camps-sur-l’Agly, Saint-Julien du Sault, the church during the Revolution, Robespierre, autels de la patrie, ‘vandalism’.

EDWARD DUYKER, Revealing Père Receveur; A Portrait Beneath our Noses

Claude-François-Joseph Receveur, later known as Père Laurent, was a chaplain and naturalist on board the Astrolabe during Lapérouse’s fateful expedition. He died at Botany Bay, NSW in 1788 and was the first Catholic priest be buried in Australia.

Could he be the friar depicted in two images of the expedition? The author argues that the visual evidence would suggest yes.

Keywords: Lapérouse expedition (1785–1788), Macao, Brazil, Monterey, Gaspard Duché de Vancy.

The Annual Ivan Barko Prize

Awarded to Andrew Montana for his article in The French Australian Review, number 70., ‘Virtue and Sentiment: Madame Mouchette’s Art and Teaching in Melbourne 1881–1892’.

Key words: Andrew Montana, Berthe Mouchette.

BOOK REVIEW

GEMMA KING, Alexis Bergantz, French Connection: Australia’s Cosmopolitan Ambitions

The influence of cultural practices and motifs from France on nineteenth century Australian life.

Keywords: ‘Frenchness’, Alliance Française de Melbourne, New Caledonia, French convicts, World War 1.

BOOK NOTE

ELAINE LEWIS, Paul Wenz, A Coral Eden (Le Jardin des coraux) translated by Maurice Blackman, Sydney, Exile Bay ETT Imprint

A new publication in the Sydney-Paris Link series from ETT Imprint, A Coral Eden was first published in French in 1929.

Keywords: Jean-Paul Delamotte, Paul Wenz, Maurice Blackman, Tom Thompson, Sydney-Paris Link series.

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

Including: a note on a collection of Australian children’s fiction translated into French that has been donated recently to the State Library of Victoria by Dr Helen Frank; and a note on new translations and readings/performances of Australian plays by the Maison Antoine Vitez, Paris, within the context of ‘Australia Now’, an Australian government promotional program in France.

The French Australian Review

Explorations

ELAINE LEWIS, JANE GILMOUR, Foreword

ROBERT ALDRICH, Keynote Speech: ISFAR 2021 35th Anniversary Symposium, From the French East Indies Company to the French in the “Indo-Pacific”

Robert Aldrich gives a concise overview of four centuries of the French presence in the Indo-Pacific region. The political and commercial idea of an ‘Indo-Pacific’, it seems, came to attention with a statement by the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2007, then was taken up by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in 2010. In 2013, the idea appeared in the Australian Defence White Paper. In the words of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, at the virtual meeting of the Quadrilateral group of powers of the region—Australia, the United States, Japan and India, though not including France—held in March 2021: ‘It is the Indo-Pacific that will now shape the destiny of our world in the 21st Century.

Keywords: Indo-Pacific, French presence in Indo-Pacific, 21st Century, Australia and France in a Regional and Global Context

ANDREW MONTANA, ‘Virtue and Sentiment: Madame Mouchette’s Art and Teaching in Melbourne 1881–1892’
WINNER OF THE 2021 IVAN BARKO AWARD

Australia in the early 1880s welcomed the professional artist and art teacher Berthe Mouchette from France, accompanied by her husband and her sister. Mouchette’s artistic and cultural influence was strong for well over a decade in Melbourne but she is absent from Australian art history, which has prioritised modernism and shunned flower painting, history painting and portraiture, subject genres in which Mouchette excelled.  This article provides a feminist perspective of Mouchette’s work and her contemporary impact. It reveals her French teaching methods and highlights her social networks to promote French culture and language. It shows how she fostered an appreciation of women’s art through her own example, and her student exhibitions, and how she expanded the public sphere in which women operated in an evolving society in Melbourne, prior to her departure for Adelaide due to the depression of the early 1890s.

Keywords: Berthe Mouchette, Australian art in the nineteenth century, Alliance Française de Melbourne

LYNN EVERETT AND RUSSELL CHEEK, ‘The Influence of the Lecoq School on Australian Theatre’

Lecoq School devotees in Australia have created popular and visually rich theatre that has widened the scope of audience appeal to include and embrace new spectators, taking theatre to people who would not ordinarily attend mainstream theatre performances. Through the acting, teaching, directing and devising work of its former students working in Australian theatre, the École Jacques Lecoq continues to influence theatre training and practice in this country.

Keywords : Lecoq School, L’École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq, influence of Lecoq school, Australian theatre

NATALIE EDWARDS AND CHRISTOPHER HOGARTH, ‘The Teaching Research Nexus: French-Australian Migrant Literature in the First-Year French Classroom’

 This article details the ways in which the authors bring their research into their pedagogical practise. Their research project is entitled ‘Transnational Selves: French Narratives of Migration to Australia’ and aims to discover, analyse and disseminate texts written by migrants in the French language from the nineteenth century to the present day. In this article, they discuss how they incorporate this important French-Australian cultural element into a beginner level language course, reminding students of the history and persistence of French-Australian cultural connections.

Keywords: Pedagogy, first-year language learning, literature in language teaching, migrant writing, travel writing, transnational literature

DOCUMENTS, NOTES AND REVIEWS

JANET LILLEY, French-Australian Encounters Number 6

The story of Janet Lilley’s meeting with Pâquerette (Totte) Feisselthe French translator of Mrs Jeannie Gunn’s classic book, The Little Black Princess.

DOCUMENT, Australian Theatre in France: 1994 and 2021

A brief account of two occasions when Australian playwrights were invited to France for readings and translations.

ELIZABETH RECHNIEWSKI AND ALEXIS BERGANTZ, The ISFAR Research Committee Report: ISFAR Research Committee Report on the ISFAR @ 35 Symposium, ‘Australia and France in a Regional and Global Context, Past Engagements and Future Research

ELIZABETH RECHNIEWSKI AND ALEXIS BERGANTZ, Travel Scholarship in Honour of Professor Colin Nettelbeck

KERRY MULLAN, Winner of the 2020 Ivan Barko Prize: Irene Rogers

LAUREN SADOW AND KERRY MULLAN, Obituary: A Tribute to Bert Peeters (1960–2021)

BOOK REVIEWS
PHOEBE WESTON-EVANS, Book Review: Crossed Lines by Marie Darrieussecq, translated by Penny Hueston

KIRSTY CARPENTER, Book Review: New Zealand Journal of French Studies

NICOLE STARBUCK, Book Review: Dumont d’Urville : L’homme et la mer by Edward Duyker

ELIZABETH RECHNIEWSKI, Book Review: Paris Savages by Katherine Johnson

BOOK NOTES, Paris Savages, Cast Among Strangers, a Paris auction and L’Exposition coloniale de 1931, Paris

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

A NOTE FROM LE HAVRE

From June 5 to November 7, 2021, the City of Le Havre celebrates Australian life and culture with the event ‘Le Havre, Australian stopover’

The French Australian Review

Explorations

JANE GILMOUR, ELAINE LEWIS, Foreword

CAROLINE WINTER, Com-Memoration of the Great War: Tourists and remembrance on the Western Front

Social memory changes in response to the characteristics and needs of each generation, thus it can often present a somewhat more favourable perspective on past events, compared with historical reality. In the lead up to the centenary of the Great War, 1914-1918, the Australian government sought to intensify its commemorative focus in Europe to the battles around the village of Villers-Bretonneux, the site of the Australian National Memorial in France, and since 2018, the Sir John Monash Centre. This appears to have initiated a process of sight sacralisation, which may lead to the creation of a ‘commemorative bubble’ that narrows Australians’ views of the war. It remains to be seen, whether or not the site at Villers-Bretonneux leads to the development of a broader understanding by Australians of the Great War, or in fact narrows it. Other nations in Europe have also changed their focus, but moved towards an international perspective, that acknowledges a common war experience for all of the nations involved.

Keywords: commemorative bubble, commemoration, social memory, tourism, Great War, remembrance, forgetting.

PAULINE GEORGELIN, ‘The fighting in France’: French-Australians report from the front.

This article examines the experiences of French-Australians fighting with the French army in the First World War, via reports sent to Australia and published in the press. French-Australians sent back personal accounts of their experiences in iconic battles such as Verdun, and their letters performed multiple functions. In addition to informing and entertaining the Australian readership, the firsthand accounts provided a sense of immediacy and authenticity, and helped to strengthen feelings of connectedness between Australia and its French ally, therefore underpinning pro-war rhetoric.

Keywords: French-Australian relations, French army, Verdun, World War One.

DOCUMENTS, NOTES AND REVIEWS

GILLES PRILAUX, Underground Traces of the Great War at Naours: Some Australian Soldiers and their Stories

This article documents the discovery in 2014 of a concentration of inscriptions in a network of underground caves and tunnels under Naours in the Somme. Almost 3,200 of these inscriptions date from the First World War, with 2,200 inscriptions by Australian soldiers identified. An historical overview of the site is presented along with the personal biographies of a selection of the soldiers who inscribed their names, drawing on the National Archives of Australia and family records, including personal diaries. The article contains many images of the underground signatures as well as photos of the soldiers.

Keywords: Naours, the Somme, World War One, the ‘souterrains’.

YVONNE DELACY, French Australian Encounters Number 5

Yvonne DeLacy connects the story of the ‘Sunnysiders’—a group of artists, poets and writers in Kallista, Victoria—with the First World War battlefields in Picardie, where she visited the grave of one of group, Frank Roberts and a sculpture by Sunnysider Web Gilbert, that was erected at the site of the battle only to be demolished at the order of Hitler during the occupation of France during the Second World War.

Keywords: the ‘Sunnysiders’, Kallista, Villers-Bretonneux, Frank Roberts, Web Gilbert.

ELIZABETH RECHNIEWSKI, ALEXIS BERGANTZ, The ISFAR Research Committee

The authors are the joint chairs of the ISFAR Research Committee and report on its program of activities including two new research projects—one on the French influence on the wine industry in Australia and the second on the development of a walking tour of the sites of French presence in Sydney. They also draw attention to the aim of holding a biennial conference the first of which will be held 8–9 April 2021 in Melbourne.

Keywords: French-Australian Dictionary of Biography, ISFAR 2021 Symposium, Colin Nettelbeck, Indo-Pacific region.

KERRY MULLAN, The Annual Ivan Barko Prize
This note congratulates Angela Giovanangeli as the recipient of the 2019 Ivan Barko Prize for her article ‘Communal Luxury and the Universal Republic in the Designs of Lucien Henry’ published in Issue 67 of the French Australian Review.

Keywords: Ivan Barko Prize, Lucien Henry, Angela Giovanangeli.

WALLACE KIRSOP, Obituary: Meredith Sherlock, 1955–2020
Wallace Kirsop pays tribute to Meredith Sherlock who died in November 2020, and who, for many years, was the Technical Editor of the Australian Journal of French Studies and from 1992 to 1996 of Explorations. More recently she was editor for Ancora Press and the Centre for the Book at Monash University.

Keywords: Meredith Sherlock, Ancora Press, Centre for the Book, Monash University, Harold Love, the Early Music Society.

KERRY MULLAN, Melbourne Salon and ISFAR Events

This note reports on the events held by the Melbourne Salon and ISFAR during 2020. Two on-line Salons were held, the first in September with author Juliana de Nooy speaking about her recently published book, What’s France Got to do with it: memoirs of Australians in France. The second was held in November with Professor Frédéric Thomas of the CNRS (France) and Professor Beata Ujvari of Deakin University reporting on their joint research project Unravelling the cancer puzzle from an ecological and evolutionary perspective: an Australian and French International Associated Laboratory.

Keywords: Juliana de Nooy, Frédéric Thomas, Beata Ujvari, facial tumours in Tasmanian devils.

BOOK REVIEWS
ELIZABETH RECHNIEWSKI, Book Review: Romain Fathi, Our Corner of the Somme: Australia at Villers Bretonneux

This book is an examination of the commemorative agenda of the Australian Government at Villers-Bretonneux, challenging some of the assumptions underlying that agenda and the increasingly exclusive focus, manifest particularly in the new Sir John Monash Centre, on the role of the Australian troops.

Keywords: World War One, Villers-Bretonneux, Sir John Monash Centre, commemoration, the Western Front.

PATRICIA CLANCY, Book Review: Alistair Kershaw, Village to Village

This review documents the third reprint of a book first published in 1993. It recounts the life of Alistair Kershaw, Australian journalist, writer, reporter and editor, who arrived in Paris in 1948 and fell in love with the city. From down and out times when he first arrived to his retreat from the city to a village in the Berry, he describes, with wit and youthful enthusiasm, his personal relationship with French life and the many people he has known over forty-five years.

Keywords: Paris, Max Harris, the ABC, Sury-en-Vaux, foreigners in Paris, modernisation of Paris.

ROBYN STERN, Book Review: Juliana de Nooy, What’s France got to do with it? Contemporary Memoirs of Australians in France

This book explores what the author describes as a ‘contemporary publishing phenomenon’ – the recent ‘proliferation of memoirs by Australians about their experience of living in France and the seemingly insatiable demand for them’. De Nooy concludes from her research and analysis that these books are less about France itself, than about France as a backdrop to a project of self-renewal by the authors. The author seeks to identify reasons for this, examining the difference in gender constructions between the two countries.

Keywords: memoirs, gender constructions, Australian identity, French identity.

MARGARET SANKEY, Book Review: Danielle Clode, In Search of the Woman Who Sailed the World

The author of this book is a trained biologist and the daughter of a boat builder. She has sailed with her family around the coast of Australia and, since her childhood, has devoured books about maritime adventures. She became aware of the number of women who participated in early French sea voyages when she was researching and writing her earlier award-winning book, Voyages to the South Seas: In Search of Terres Australes. This book tells the story of Jeanne Barret who, dressed as a man, accompanied her partner the naturalist Philibert Commerson on Bougainville’s voyage in 1766-1768 to circumnavigate the globe. The reviewer finds the book rigorously researched, beautifully written and full of interesting facts both historical and scientific.

Keywords: Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, Philibert Commerson, Jeanne Barret, Île-de-France, Henriette Dussourd, Glynis Ridley.

BOOK NOTES
GEOFFREY DE Q. WALKER, Book Note: A Translation Project

This note provides details on five new translations now available on-line at the State Library of New South Wales. Through these translations, Geoffrey de Q Walker has made available to the public five studies of early Australia written by nineteenth century French authors.

Keywords: Ernest de Blosseville, Alexis de Tocqueville, Jules de La Pilorgerie, M. Mazois, Thomas Muir, Paul Merruau, penal colonies, convicts, the Scottish martyrs, State Library of New South Wales.

ELAINE LEWIS, Book Note: A Publication Project

This note announces the publication of two new editions of the translations by George Mackaness of the memoirs of two French-Canadians transported to Australia in 1840. The publications are by ETT Imprint.

Keywords: Léon (Léandre) Ducharme, François Xavier Prieur, the rebellions of 1838, Canada, political exiles, French-Canadian ‘patriotes’, Canada Bay.

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

The French Australian Review

Explorations

ELAINE LEWIS, JANE GILMOUR, Foreword

IRENE ROGERS, ‘A Gift for France’: the Australian Bluebird nurses of the Great War
WINNER OF THE 2020 IVAN BARKO AWARD

In July 1916, a group of twenty one Australian trained nurses known as the Bluebirds left Australia for the Western Front. They were under contract with The New South Wales Division of the Red Cross Society (ARC) to work for the French Red Cross Society (FRC) or the French military authorities and called the Bluebirds because of their distinctive uniforms. The Bluebirds became the only group of trained and registered nurses sent to France by any Red Cross branch in Australia during the Great War, making them unique. Whilst some of their achievements have been acknowledged, little is known about the connections they made with French people, culture and institutions. This paper explores those relationships through the evidence they left behind in journals, diaries and letters and provides a humanised view of their experiences.

Keywords: History of nursing WW1, Australian Bluebird nurses, Australian Red Cross nurses WW1, Microhistory and nursing, Humanitarian nursing.

HANNAH STEEL, Dr Helen Sexton’s Hôpital Australien de Paris, July–December 1915

Dr Helen Sexton, a highly skilled surgeon from Melbourne, along with five other Australian women, all volunteers, established and ran the  ‘Hôpital Australien de Paris’. During its six-months tenure Dr Sexton and her team developed close personal relationships with the French doctors at the hospital and with the French soldiers they cared for. Although three of the women received French medals, there was little acknowledgement from Australian authorities and Dr Sexton and her team were not recognised for their service on Australian War Memorials.

Keywords: Dr Helen Sexton, Australian women doctors in WW1, Hôpital Australien de Paris, Australian Hospital in Paris

DOCUMENTS, NOTES & REVIEWS

COLIN NETTELBECK, French-Australian Dictionary of Biography
This note describes the French-Australian Dictionary of Biography (FADB), an initiative of the Research Committee of the Institute for the Study of French-Australian Relations. It is an on-line resource and can be found at www.isfar.org.au/fadb. It describes how biography was an early strand in the ISFAR journal with scholarly articles on those individuals who have made important contributions to relations between France and Australia. The FADB is modelled on the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Entries provide essential biographical information and are normally 600 to 1000 words in length.

Keywords: French-Australian Dictionary of Biography, biography, French-Australian relations.

PETER BROWN, Jacqueline Dwyer (1925–2020): A Tribute

Peter Brown’s tribute to Jacqueline Dwyer celebrates the life of this inspiring woman whose personal and family connections with France as well as her work as an historian earned her high esteem amongst the French-Australian community. She was the granddaughter of Georges Playoust who came to Australian in the late 19th century and established a very successful wool-buying business, supplying the textile mills back in France. Jacqueline decided, some 60 years after she had graduated from university to enrol in a PhD. She had already published Flanders in Australia, the story of her family and their involvement in the wool business in Australia.

Peter Brown was her PhD supervisor at the Australian National University and became a close friend as well as colleague. This tribute is as much about the woman as it is about the historian.

Keywords: Georges Playoust, French wool merchants in Australia; WWI, French Lives in Australia.

JOHN PRESLEY, French-Australian Encounters Number 4

John Presley, who was named by his parents Jean-Pierre Presle when he was born in Melbourne, recounts his exploration of his French ‘heritage’ for the first time when he spent six months in France at the age of twelve. His father was French, and his mother Australian. The marriage did not last and John was brought up by his mother and grandmother. At the age of 12 his maternal grandfather took him back to France to meet his relations there and to connect with his French heritage.

Keywords: Claude Presle, Peter Richardson, Smacka’s Restaurant, Balzac restaurant, Mirka Mora, Bandol, Lisieux, garlic growing.

PATRICIA CLANCY, Speech at the Book Launch of Stan Scott’s Chis: The Life and Work of Alan Rowland Chisholm (1888–1981)

Patricia Clancy was the guest speaker at the launch of the long-awaited biography of A. R. Chisholm in November 2019. The launch was held at the Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne. Stan Scott was Chisholm’s colleague and disciple at the University of Melbourne from the mid-1950s until his retirement in 1984. Thanks the University of Melbourne Archive the biography was preserved after Scott’s death and subsequently edited by Wallace Kirsop, Adjunct Professor at Monash University and an Honorary Fellow of the Baillieu Library. The article is a transcript of Dr Clancy’s speech.

Keywords: A.R. Chisholm, Stan Scott, Wallace Kirsop, Patricia Clancy, the Baillieu Library, The University of Melbourne French Department, World War 1, French Symbolists, Mallarmé, the ‘Melbourne School’ of literary criticism.

BOOK REVIEWS
KERRY MULLAN, Book Review: Robert Macklin, Castaway: The extraordinary survival story of Narcisse Pelletier, a young French cabin boy shipwrecked on Cape York in 1858

This book joins two others previously written about Narcisse Pelletier and the seventeen years he spent with the Night Island (Uutaalanganu) people in Far North Queensland, after being shipwrecked as a fourteen year-old cabin boy. The author has combined meticulous research with evocative and imaginative descriptions, creating a strong sense of place and culture as well as a ‘ripping yarn’. This is the final book in the author’s Australian History Quartet and the author alternates the story of Narcisse with the recounting of the corruption and brutality of the Queensland Frontier Wars.

Keywords: Narcisse Pelletier, Robert Macklin, Night Island (Uutaalanganu) people, frontier wars, Queensland, Saint-Nazaire, colonialism.

CHANTAL CROZET, Book Review: Christine Mathieu, Voyages Syntastiques: A Comparative-narrative Method for Teaching French Grammar to English Speakers

This book draws on the author’s extensive experience as both a learner and teacher of foreign languages.  The author advocates for the use of a comparative-narrative approach to the teaching and learning of French in Australian compulsory schools. The author laments the shortcomings of the Natural Method based on her own experience of teaching languages, recognising the need to teach grammar explicitly and from a comparative perspective. The review identifies both theories and practices about which she would have welcomed discussion. The reviewer highlights that the book’s main strength lies in the author’s rich experience of classroom practice and this is particularly relevant in the second part of the book which maps the essentials of French grammar based on her comparative-narrative approach.

Keywords: Christine Mathieu, language teaching, classroom practice, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), Intercultural Language Teaching (ILT), Second Language Acquisition (SLA).

JANE GILMOUR, Book Review: Jayne Tuttle, Paris or Die: a Memoir

This book recounts the adventure of the author’s two-years in Paris, while she was studying at the Le Coq International Theatre School. It is a lively story—of friendships, falling in love with a French man, of life as a student in Paris, of her love of being in Paris. But it is also a reflection on cultural dislocation, on loss, on passion. The writing style is vivid and the book is both funny and also very moving. After ten years moving back and forth between Paris and Australia, the author and her (Australian) husband have now settled in Victoria, where they run a bookshop.  The author continues to work as a copywriter for French clients.

Keywords: Jayne Tuttle, Le Coq International Theatre School, the Centre des Recollets, cultural differences, Paris.

ALEXIS BERGANTZ, Book Note: François Vantomme ed. & Bernard Le Boursicot, Le Courrier Australien, 1892–1945: Creating the French-Australian Connection since 1892

This is the first volume of a two-part bilingual collector’s edition that offers a historical window onto the French-Australian connection from 1892 to 1945. Le Courrier Australien is the oldest foreign language newspaper in Australia. This is a beautiful coffee-table book, richly illustrated with reprints of past issues and photographs of the period. It is a compendium of historical documents that are a testament to the strength and complexity of the relationship between France and Australia over those years. While the reviewer suggests that the volume could have benefitted from a deeper engagement with existing historical scholarship, that would have helped readers interpret the documents and ponder their significance, he concludes that this is an ambitious and important publication that is both entertaining and stimulating, highlighting the role of the Courrier as a key institution binding the histories of France and Australia.

Keywords: Le Courrier Australien, François Vantomme, Bernard le Boursicot, Emeritus Professor Ivan Barko.

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

ELIZABETH RECHNIEWSKI & ALEXIS BERGANTZ, Call for Papers: ISFAR 35th Anniversary 101 Symposium, 8–9 April, 2021

The French Australian Review

Explorations

JOHN WEST-SOOBY, Foreword

ANGELA GIOVANANGELI, Communal Luxury and the Universal Republic in the Designs and Pedagogy of Lucien Henry
WINNER OF THE 2019 IVAN BARKO AWARD

Lucien Henry, Paris Communard and Australian artist, has been described by art historians as the most productive and influential artist working in Sydney from 1879 to 1891. He was hailed as one of the first artists to advocate a national art through his use of motifs, symbols and patterns found in the local fauna and flora. Meanwhile, some studies on the Paris Commune refer to the continuing influence of the Communards who, following the popular uprising, worked on projects in various parts of the world and continued the legacy of the Commune. This paper examines some of the ideology and designs of Henry, notably through the letters and articles written by the artist in journals and letters during his period in Australia, to argue that Henry’s artistic and teaching practices in Australia represent the ontology of transculturation as a result of his experience in France during the Paris Commune.

Keywords: Lucien Henry, Paris Commune, Australian decorative arts, transculturation, Australian nationhood, Communal luxury, Universal Republic

Elizabeth RECHNIEWSKI, The Reception of Louise Michel in Australia

This article explores the representation of Louise Michel’s ideas and activism in the Australian press, in a period when newspapers played such an influential role in the transmission of news and the formation of opinion. The Australian press devoted over two thousand articles and items of news to her in the twenty-five years from late 1880 to early 1905, from her return to France from deportation to the year of her death. In a period of rapid political and social change in Australia, Michel became a reference point and a touchstone for discussion about key issues of the day: the rise of the workers’ movement, the new ideologies of anarchism and socialism, and women’s rights. Moreover, in a period of Franco-British imperial rivalry the papers did not hesitate to use Michel’s case to criticise the ‘illiberal’ political regime in France or that nation’s bellicose intentions. The article focuses on the significance accorded to this controversial figure in the debate over women’s rights in Australia, when Michel was often cited as an example of a ‘political woman’ to be feared, or, more rarely, as a model to be emulated.

Keywords: Louise Michel, women’s rights, Australia, press history

NATALIE EDWARDS AND CHRISTOPHER HOGARTH, French Migrant Writing in Australia: Australianness in Two Female Memoirs from the 2000s

This article reads the work of Catherine Rey and Marie-Paule Leroux as examples of French-Australian migrant literature. It compares the way these two writers, both of whom moved to Australia from France in mid-life, portray their migration in their literary texts. Reading their work through the lens of recent migration theory, it argues that these texts depart from paradigms that position France as the centre, that place Paris or an alternative urban space as the ultimate destination, or that stage movement between former colony and colonial power. The two writers practise, in different ways, a strategic exoticism that renders their texts attractive to specific audiences within France and Australia.

Keywords: Catherine Rey, Marie-Paule Leroux, migration, transnationalism, exoticism, Global French Literature

DOCUMENTS, NOTES AND REVIEWS

KERRY MULLAN, Melbourne Salon and ISFAR events
2 May 2019, French Cinema, The New Wave and its Legacy, Dr Andrew McGregor
30 May 2019 (Sydney) Communal Luxury in the Designs of Lucien Henry, Angela Giovanangeli
8 August 2019, Book launch: Castaway, author Robert Macklin in conversation with Elaine Lewis
22 October 2019 (Sydney) First Contacts: The Australian Aboriginals and the Artwork of the Baudin Expedition, Emeritus Professor Margaret Sankey
4 November, Dr Emmanuelle Crane, An Intercultural Dialogue: When linguistics are involved in the current French-Australian submarine project

TOM THOMPSON, Obituary, Jean-Paul Delamotte, 1931–2019

Jean-Paul Delamotte devoted 40 years of his life to promoting French-Australian relations, particularly through his translating and publishing of Australian writers and his sub-titling of Australian films. He and his wife, Monique lived and worked in Australia from 1974–76. Back in Paris, he established the Association Culturelle Franco-Australienne (ACFA) in 1980 and also set up a small publishing house, La Petite Maison. They welcomed many visiting Australian writers over the ensuing twenty-plus years. In 1992 Delamotte was made a Member of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his contribution to the promotion of Australian culture.

Keywords: Jean-Paul Delamotte, Association Culturelle Franco-Australienne, La Petite Maison, Editions Tom Thompson, Sydney-Paris Link Series, Paul Wenz

ANGELIQUE STASTNY, Book Review, Hamid Mokkadem, Yeiwene Yeiwene : construction et revolution de Kanaky (Nouvelle Calédonie)

This book published in French in 2018, details the political journey of Yeiwene Yeiwene (1945–1989), one of the leaders of the Kanak independence movement in New Caledonia. The biographer presents him first and foremost as a man of action, close to the people who initiated action at the grassroots level, as well as being a man who took on high positions within institutions and companies. The reviewer acknowledges the importance of this book in documenting the life of this important Kanak leader and encouraging readers to learn more about the struggle for independence in New Caledonia.

Keywords: Yeiwene Yeiwene, New Caledonia, Agency for the Development of Kanak Culture (ADCK), FLNKS, Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the Loyalty Islands

JANE GILMOUR, Book Review, Amanda Curtin, Kathleen O’Connor of Paris

Amanda Curtin is a fiction writer who has adapted her skills as a fiction writer to recreate the story of the life of Kathleen O’Connor. O’Connor left Perth in 1906 and spent many of the next 40 plus years of her life living and working as an artist in Paris. Her work gradually achieved recognition in Paris and she exhibited in the Salons as well as in private galleries. She supplemented her income by working as a decorative artist taking commissions for fabric, wallpaper and furniture designs. She was the author of a regular column for the Perth newspaper in which she described the fashions and social activities in Paris and provided recommendations for people visiting. The biography documents the later years of her life as she struggled to resettle back in Perth. Her work was recognized in Perth with two smaller exhibitions and then a major solo exhibition in 1967 at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Kathleen O’Connor died in 1968.

Keywords: Kathleen O’Connor, C.Y. O’Connor, Australian artists in Paris, Montparnasse, the Salons, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Town Talk

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

The French Australian Review

Explorations

JANE GILMOUR, Foreword

MICHAEL TYQUIN, Revisiting the French Campaign in the Dardanelles, 1915

The article begins with a brief discussion of the commemoration and memory of Gallipoli in France, before proceeding to the reasons behind sending a French force there in 1915. Then follows an analysis of this campaign with a focus of the Corps Expéditionnaire d’Orient under different commanders. Finally, the author draws some conclusions about French participation in both the Dardanelles and Salonika campaigns – and how both were the result of political, rather than military, imperatives. The article raises the question of why the French involvement in this campaign has been neglected both by the French and the Australians.

Key words: Gallipoli, Salonika, Corps Expéditionnaire d’Orient, Albert d’Amade, Henri Gourard

MAGGIE TONKIN, Meryl Tankard’s French connection: Régis Lansac

Australian choreographer Meryl Tankard’s work is suffused with French cultural references, due in part to her ballet training but more significantly to her partnership with French photographer and visual artist, Régis Lansac. Together they have created works in which movement and music are fused with such rich design elements that they speak to the Wagnerian notion of ‘total theatre’ or Gesamtkunstwerk. However, while Lansac is frequently acknowledged as Tankard’s chief collaborator, the full extent of his input to her work has never been recognized. This paper seeks to redress this omission by exploring his multi-faceted contribution to their collaboration, which extends beyond the camera to encompass research, lighting and visual design, music selection, and the design of programs, posters and ephemera. Most importantly, it demonstrates how through her connection with Lansac, Tankard has been able to access aspects of French culture that have enriched her essentially instinctive creative practice.

Keywords: Meryl Tankard, Régis Lansac, Australian dance, French influences, Design language, Gesamtkunstwerk

DOCUMENTS, NOTES AND REVIEWS:

CLEM AND THERESE GORMAN, Intrepid: Australian Women Artists in France in the Early Twentieth Century

The authors chose twenty-eight Australian female artists from the 300 or so who travelled to France in the first half of last century to live and work as artists and learn from the world centre of art.  These are representative of the 300, and there the artists about whom enough is known to include them. Some of them embraced Modernism, and brought it back to an Australia which knew relatively little about its techniques and its theories … Others painted traditionally but greatly improved their skills, which they also brought home to the benefit of Australian artists. Many of these women have slipped into obscurity and this book may help rehabilitate their reputations. They were chosen for their skill, their boldness, and their success—many of their paintings were displayed in the Salons or in private galleries, both in Paris and back home.

Keywords: Australian women artists in France, Australian women artists, Paris Salons, early twentieth century Australian women artists

ELAINE LEWIS, Interview: Chris Cody, French-Australian Pianist and Composer

An interview with Chris Cody about his life in Paris and his latest composition, Astrolabe-Suite for La Pérouse. Cody talks about his early influences, his life as a jazz pianist in Paris and his return to Australia where, as well as performing, he has composed and directed performances of Astrolabe–Suite for La Pérouse in a number of Sydney venues and in Paris.

Keywords, Chris Cody, jazz pianist and composer, Australian jazz musicians, Australian musicians in Paris, Astrolabe–Suite for La Pérouse

ÉRIC BERTI & CRISTINA SAVIN, The Story of the Allier Sailors

On 6 July 2015, as French Consul-General to Sydney, M. Éric Berti carried out an official mission in Cooktown, at the north of Cape York in Queensland, to acknowledge the historical sites and participate in a wreath-laying commemorative ceremony at the Allier monument. He explores an ‘urban myth’ to tell the true story of the sailors of the French ship Allier which was on its way to New Caledonia when the captain sought urgent relief at Cooktown, because of the ill health of his crew. A quarantine station was set up on the north coast of the Endeavour river, where vessels had been received in the past.

Keywords, French ship Allier, Cooktown, Gulf of Carpentaria, quarantine station, Endeavour river, M. Éric Berti, French Consul-General to Sydney

KAREN VIGGERS, French-Australian Encounters Number 3

Australian writer Karen Viggers has sold more than 800,000 copies of her books in France. The French translation of her novel The Lightkeeper’s Wife (La Mémoire des Embruns) was on the French national bestseller list for more than forty-two weeks and in 2016 was shortlisted for the Livre de Poche Readers’ Prize. She writes about her recent visit to promote her latest novel and her appreciation of the literary culture she found in France.

Keywords: Karen Viggers, Australian writers in France, The Lightkeeper’s Wife (La Mémoire des Embruns)

ELAINE LEWIS, Translator Julie Rose wins the 2018 Australian Academy of the Humanities Medal for Excellence in Translation

Internationally renowned translator Julie Rose was recently awarded the ‘2018 Australian Academy of the Humanities Medal for Excellence in Translation’ for her translation of Simon Leys: Navigator Between Worlds by Philippe Paquet, published by La Trobe University Press and Black Inc. (Melbourne). In this short article Julie Rose talks of translating the ‘urbane, elegant prose of Paquet, but also the subtle, witty voice of Simon Leys/Pierre Ryckmans and the various styles he employed in diverse writings at different stages of his life, as well as the voices of the numerous French authors quoted in the text (Victor Hugo, Raymond Queneau, Roland Barthes, etc.’.

Keywords: Julie Rose, translator, Pierre Ryckmans, Philippe Paquet, Australian Academy of the Humanities Medal for Excellence in Translation

KERRY MULLAN, Visit to Australia by renowned French archaeologist Gilles Prilaux

Kerry Mullan documents the visit to Australia by French archaeologist Gilles Prilaux, whose research into the underground caves below the city of Naours in the Somme has revealed thousands of scrawled signatures of World War One soldiers, many of them Australian. Following this discovery he has embarked on a project to investigate the lives of the men who left their names and regiment numbers on those cave walls one hundred years ago.

Keywords: French archaeologist, Gilles Prilaux, Naours, caves at Naours, Somme, Australian soldiers, The Silent Soldiers Of Naours: Messages From Beneath The Somme

BOOK NOTES:

ELAINE LEWIS, Tom Thompson (ed.), Australasian Artists at the French Salons, Exile Bay (NSW), ETT Imprint, June 2019, 138 pp., rrp AU$ 30.00, ISBN 978-1-92570-670-3.

Jacques Ober, Jules Ober & Felicity Coonan, The Good Son: A Story From the First War, Told in Miniature, USA, Candlewick Studio, May 2019, 104 pp., rrp AU$ 22.00, ISBN 978-1-53620-482-7.

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

The French Australian Review

Explorations

ELAINE LEWIS, Foreword

ELIZABETH RECHNIEWSKI, Voyage of the Pilgrims
WINNER OF THE 2018 IVAN BARKO AWARD

In June 1902, a small group of prospective settlers set out from Sydney for the New Hebrides. They were accompanied by A. B. Paterson–‘Banjo’ Paterson–who had been hired by the Sydney Morning Herald to report on their progress and the nature of the territory to which they were venturing. This article draws on contemporary French and Australian newspapers, including Paterson’s articles for the Herald, and parliamentary debates, to explore the significance of this settlement project in the context of the decades-long dispute between France, Britain and Australia over the future of the New Hebrides. It pays particular attention to the years immediately following Federation, when the new nation of Australia offered government and private support to boost British settlement of the islands.

Keywords: Australian colonisation, New Hebrides, Vanuatu, Banjo Paterson, Pacific imperial rivalry, Annandale settlement

BRIONY NEILSON, Convict Suffering and Salvation in New Caledonia and Australia: the Life and Writing of French Bagnard-Poet, Julien de Sanary

This article offers a contextualised analysis of the published writing of the French convict-poet Julien de Sanary. Transported from France to the penal colony in New Caledonia in 1881, Sanary spent almost forty years of his life incarcerated in the archipelago before his case was taken up by an Australian woman, Wolla Meranda, who successfully petitioned for his release in 1920. The first extended study of Sanary’s life and work–and the first ever in English–this article discusses the meaning of the act of writing for the French convict and provides an analysis of some of the major themes of his poetry. In addition it points out the greater significance of Sanary’s life and poetry, arguing that his experiences and relationship with Meranda are illustrative of a prevailing trope in the early twentieth century concerning the backwardness of New Caledonia as a European settler colony relative to Australia.
Keywords: bagne, convict poetry, bagnard-poète, prison writing, New Caledonia, convict transportation, Julien de Sanary, Wolla Meranda, penal colony, criminal justice

Speeches delivered at the ISFAR/Alliance Française de Sydney event, ‘French and Australian Dialogues‘ (May 2018) and at the Melbourne Salon (November 2018):

ROBERT ALDRICH, The 2018 New Caledonian referendum

This article provides us with a sweeping history of both the colonial legacy in New Caledonia and the various ‘ideologies that have underlain campaigns for change in status’, thus supplying the reader with a perspective from which to view present and future options.

Keywords: Referendum, New Caledonia, French Pacific territory, French outre-mer, événements of the 1980s, self determination

DENISE FISHER, The Referendum in New Caledonia

Denise Fisher writes a detailed description of events in New Caledonia during the week of the referendum and her incisive comments demonstrate its complexity, as well as its importance to Australia.

Keywords: New Caledonia 2018 independence referendum, 1988 Matignon/Oudinot Accords, Noumea Accord, Groupe de dialogue sur le chemin de l’avenir

CARRILLO GANTNER, Mirka Madeleine Mora 1928-2018 (Tribute at State Funeral, September 2018)

This tribute to Melbourne artist Mirka Mora, delivered at her State Funeral in September of 2018, farewells a woman who ‘has been at the very heart of Melbourne’s creative life and popular esteem for many decades’.

Keywords: Mirka Mora, Honoured Artist of the City of Melbourne, State Funeral

ELAINE LEWIS, Barry John McGowan 1945–2018

Barry McGowan’s article, ‘Convicts and Communards: French-Australian relations in the South Pacific, 1800–1900’, appeared in The French Australian Review issue 64. Barry was a prodigious researcher who published sixteen books as well as many reports, articles and papers.

Keywords: Barry McGowan, ‘Convicts and Communards’, French Australian Review issue 64, ANU, Medal of the Order of Australia

PHILIPPA HETHERINGTON, Leslie John Hetherington 1955–2018

Les Hetherington MA (University of Sydney), B. Litt (Australian National University) was a scholar of Australian social and migration history. In particular, he examined the history of the French community in Australia, as well as Australian history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries more broadly. He was particularly committed to biographical approaches to the past, authoring a number of articles for the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Keywords: Les Hetherington, Leslie John Hetherington, social and migration history, French community in Australia, Australian Dictionary of Biography

KERRY MULLAN, Melbourne Salon and ISFAR events, 2018

10 May 2018 ‘Were it but for a lemon’ – Dr James Tibballs,
17 May 2018 ISFAR event in Sydney: The Referendum in New Caledonia: what is at stake? The second in the series, ‘French and Australian Dialogues’ – Professor Robert Aldrich and Ms Denise Fisher,
2 August 2018 French convicts and the case for freedom in Australia – Dr Alexis Bergantz,
27 September 2018 French Contributions to Australian Life. ISFAR Colloqium, University of Adelaide, Reflections on the Commemorations of the Great War,
8 November 2018 The Referendum in New Caledonia: what is at stake? – Professor Robert Aldrich and Ms Denise Fisher, – Emeritus Professor Colin Nettelbeck,
14 July 2018: Bastille Day
26 November 2018 Presentation – Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes académiques to Dr Kerry Mullan,
27 November 2018 ISFAR end-of-year gathering

PAULINE GEORGELIN, French Australian Encounters no 2: Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux 2018

On April 2018 Pauline Georgelin was one of 8,000 people, mostly Australians, who gathered at Villers-Bretonneux for the Anzac Day Dawn Service, commemorating the centenary of the battle of Villers-Bretonneux in 1918 – a personal description of an annual commemoration.

Keywords: Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux, Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux, World War 1 commemorations, Édouard Philippe, Wéo TV

BOOK NOTES:

IVAN BARKO, 101 mots pour comprendre l’Australie, by Peter Brown & Jean-Yves Faberon (eds), published by the Centre de documentation pédagogique de Nouvelle Calédonie. The 101 topics are grouped into ten chapters, namely First Peoples, Explorers, History, Economics and Development, Cultures, Institutions and Politics, External Relations and (Relations with) New Caledonia.

Keywords: 101 mots pour comprendre l’Australie, Peter Brown & Jean-Yves Faberon, New Caledonia, Centre de documentation pédagogique de Nouvelle Calédonie

CAROL NETTELBECK, Mirka and Georges: a Culinary Affair, published by The Miegunya Press and Museum of Modern Art Heide contains black and white family photos and coloured photos of Mirka’s artworks, a profusion of French recipes and an engaging text, all of which pay homage to two extraordinary personalities.

Keywords: Mirka and Georges: a Culinary Affair, Melbourne artist, Miegunya Press, Museum of Modern Art Heide

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

The French Australian Review

Explorations

JANE GILMOUR, Foreword

BARRY McGOWAN, Convicts and Communards: French-Australian Relations in the South Pacific, 1800–1900

An examination of the impact on French-Australian relations of the decision by the French government to establish a penal colony in New Caledonia. The article documents Australian reactions to the colony drawing on press reports and official documents. The transportation of some 4,000 Communards in the 1870s was a particular cause of concern and various escapes and attempted escapes are documented. Reference is made to the possible influence of one of these escapees on the character of the hero of Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life. The treatment of convicts on New Caledonia is described as well as incidents between the Melanesian inhabitants and the French colonists.

Keywords: New Caledonia, penal colony, Communards, Marcus Clarke, Michel Sérigné, Henri Rochefort

COLIN NETTELBECK, French Awareness of Australia: The Role of Albert Métin (1871–1918)

Drawing on two articles which appeared in Le Petit Parisien in July and September 1918, the author presents a case for the importance of Albert Métin’s role in raising awareness of Australia in France and of the potential for France to establish closer economic ties with Australia following the First World War. The article documents Métin’s career, including his study visit to Australia in 1899, his subsequent publication of Le socialisme sans doctrines and his appointment to lead the French Economic Mission to Australia in late 1918. The two articles are included as Appendices in the original French and in English.

Keywords: Albert Métin, French Economic Mission to Australia, Le socialisme sans doctrines, World War One, musée social

WILLIAM A. LAND, France-Australia by air

This article documents the role of French aircraft and pilots in Australian aviation history. Reference is made to a small number of key figures who were active in the air forces of both countries. An appendix lists the aircraft of French origin that were used by all three of the Australian armed forces.

Keywords: aviation history, Walter Oswald Watt, Marcel France Dekyvere, Maurice Guillaux

YANNICK LAGEAT and LES HETHERINGTON, Juliette Lopès-Rastoul-Henry

This brief note in an addendum to an article that appeared in Issue 63. It documents the recent discovery of a letter from Juliette to Victor Hugo. It also includes the reproduction of a photograph of Juliette, which is held in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Powerhouse Museum, in Sydney.

Keywords: Juliette Lopès-Rastoul-Henry, Victor Hugo

WALLACE KIRSOP, A Hitherto Unnoticed Image of Francis de Castelnau, French Consul General in Melbourne 1863–1877

The recent purchase by the Baillieu Library of the University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria, of the former Ploos van Amstel collection of nineteenth-century illustrated Australian newspapers, has brought to light a previously unknown image of Francis de Castelnau. The note documents the occasion and transcribes the text of the accompanying article in The Argus of 11 July 1863.

Keywords: Francis de Castelnau, Ploos van Amstel

NATALIE EDWARDS, An Interview with Catherine Rey: Écrire entre deux langues/Writing between two languages

This note is the transcription of an interview with the French writer now living in Australia who has recently published her first novel in English. Two previous novels had been translated into English. The interview explores issues of translation, voice and how it is defined to a certain extent by voice and the creative process.

Keywords: Catherine Rey, translation, The Lovers, Stepping Out, The Spruiker’s Tale

JANE GILMOUR AND ELAINE LEWIS, The Morning Star Tapestry in the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux

This note documents the opening of the Sir John Monash Centre in Villers-Bretonneux on 24 April 2018 and the creative process and production of the Morning Star Tapestry, designed by artists Charles Green and Lyndell Brown and produced by the Australian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne, for permanent display in the Centre.

Keywords: Sir John Monash Centre, Australian Tapestry Workshop, Villers-Bretonneux, Morning Star tapestry

PETER HODGES, French-Australian Encounters, Number 1

This encounter describes a chance meeting with l’Association Internationale des Amis de Pierre Loti when they came to visit the grave in a nearby neighbour’s field, where the wife of Pierre Loti was buried.

Keywords: Pierre Loti, Blanche de Ferrière, La Birondie

BOOK NOTES

Their Fathers’ Land: For King and Empire, by Paul Wenz, introduced and translated by Marie Ramsland and The Thorn in the Flesh, by Paul Wenz, with an introduction by Helen Garner translated by Maurice Blackman, notes by Ivan Barko

Food for Friends, by Babette Hayes with illustrations by Francis Yin, notes by Patricia Clancy

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographic Notes