The French Australian Review – No 63 Australian Summer 2017-2018

ELAINE LEWIS, Foreword

THIERRY VINCENT, An Exploration of the Fate of the Australian and Tasmanian Ethnographic Collections brought back by the Baudin Expedition, following the 1804 French Scientific Voyage to Australia [Australian and Tasmanian objects deposited at the Château de Malmaison]

Explorer Nicolas Baudin was entrusted with assembling a collection of plants and animals for the Empress Josephine, some of which were delivered to the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle and the rest to her château at Malmaison. However, on 29 May 1804 some Australian and Tasmanian objects were delivered to Malmaison to join the collection of other objects already stored there. This article explores the fate of these collections and suggests a new approach to determine the quality and importance of the ethnographic objects deposited at Malmaison, where they were kept during Josephine’s life-time and what may have happened to them after 1819 when many were sold to ‘enlightened and passionate amateurs’.

Keywords: Baudin expedition, Empress Josephine, Malmaison, ethnographic objects, Musée des Antiquités

YANNICK LAGEAT and LES HETHERINGTON, The Adventurous Life of Juliette Lopès-Rastoul-Henry

Juliette Henry was born in Laon, France in 1840 in poor circumstances. She died in Sydney, Australia in 1898 and in her lifetime was successively the companion of two figures from the Paris Commune, was once suspected of threatening the peace of the Colony of New Caledonia and late in life felt justified in appealing to the President of the French Public to intervene on her behalf. In 1898 she was described as ‘one of the most large-hearted and intellectual women in Australia’.

Keywords: Juliette Lopès-Rastoul-Henry, Lucien Henry artist, French Commune, New Caledonia, Henri Rochefort, Cercle Littéraire Français, Victor Hugo

TRANSCRIBED BY IVAN BARKO, Excerpts from ‘Behind the Scenes at SBS French Radio’: Danièle Ney-Kemp at the Melbourne Salon

SBS broadcaster Danièle Ney-Kemp in conversation with Christophe Mallet and Jean-Noël Ducasse, chaired by Kerry Mullen at The Melbourne Salon Wednesday October 1 2014. A glimpse behind the scenes at SBS French Radio. Daniele Kemp joined SBS in 1986 and was Executive Producer of SBS French Radio when she retired in 2011. She has received the prestigious decorations of Officer of the French Order of Merit and Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour for her services to the French-speaking community.

Keywords: Danièle Ney-Kemp, Christophe Mallet, Jean-Noël Ducasse, SBS French Radio, Executive Producer of SBS French Radio

MEAGHAN MORRIS, Introducing Ross Chambers

A reprint of Meaghan Morris’s outstanding tribute to Ross Chambers first published in Cultural Studies Review, volume 20 no 1, March 2014.

Keywords: Ross Chambers, Meaghan Morris, Untimely Interventions, Professor of French, University of Sydney, University of Michigan, Atmospherics of the City

MARGARET SANKEY, Obituary: Ross Chambers (1932–2017)

An obituary of Ross Chambers Distinguished Marvin Felheim Professor of French and Comparative Literature Emeritus at the University of Michigan. An inspired educator, working in the areas of French Studies, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. He received the French award of Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes academiques.

Keywords: Ross Chambers, Marvin Felheim Professor of French, French Studies, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies

CHARLES SOWERWINE, Obituary: Jacques Adler (1927–2017)

Jacque Adler was a member of the Jewish Communist underground in Paris and was active during the second World War. He was involved in the Resistance takeover of the offices of the UGIF (Union générale des Israélites de France) and it was to the UGIF records he would return when writing his PhD thesis at Melbourne University in the early eighties. A version of his thesis was published by Calmann-Lévy in France and another by OUP, The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution. His research was ongoing.

Keywords: Jacques Adler (1927–2017), UGIF (Union générale des Israélites de France), The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution

JAMES GRIEVE, Obituary: Jacqueline Mayrhofer (1936–2017)

Jacqueline Laure Georgette Lécorcher, known to students and teachers of the ANU as Jacqueline Mayrhofer, was born in Troyes, Champagne. She spent most of her life in Australia and taught for decades at ANU. A highly-regarded teacher who inspired the teaching of Introductory French at university level and published the text and tapes, À vous maintenant (River Seine, 1984).

Keywords: Jacqueline Mayrhofer (1936–2017), ANU French Department, À vous maintenant

JULIET FLESCH, Obituary: Olive Wykes Mence (1921–2016)

Olive Wykes, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur taught French in the Faculty of Education at Melbourne University. Her survey, Foreign Language Teaching in the Australian Universities: a report prepared by Olive Wykes, with recommendations by the Sub-Committee on Foreign Languages was published by the Australian Humanities Research Council in 1963 and in 1968 she and M. G. King published Teaching of Foreign Languages in Australia with the Australian Council for Educational Research.

Keywords: Olive Wykes, Foreign Language Teaching in the Australian Universities, Teaching of Foreign Languages in Australia

KERRY MULLAN, Melbourne Salon and ISFAR events 2017

Melbourne Salons 2017: (1) Mobilities and Migrations in the Bordeaux Wine Trade: From Regional Rivalries to International Icons by Jacqueline Dutton; (2) Flanders in Australia: A Personal History of Wool and War by Jacqueline Dwyer; (3) Les masculinités de la Révolution : L’hercule jacobin, le muscadin, la femme virile by Jean-Marie Roulin.

The first presentation of French and Australian Dialogues, Alliance Française de Sydney, Fraught or Friendly Relations: New Perspectives on Australia and New Caledonia.

Award of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques to Elaine Lewis, French Consulate General Melbourne.

Bastille Day 2017, Diggers and Poilus: Shared Memories from the First World War by Pauline Georgelin.

Keywords: Kerry Mullan, Jacqueline Dutton, Jacqueline Dwyer, Jean-Marie Roulin, Alliance Française de Sydney, French and Australian Dialogues, Pauline Georgelin, Elaine Lewis

BOOK REVIEWS

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

The French Australian Review – No 57 Australian Summer 2014–2015

IVAN BARKO, Foreword

COLIN NETTELBECK, French-Australian Relations – Towards an Historical Perspective

The author argues the need for the construction of a full-scale historical overview of French-Australian relations. In analysing a broad range of the achievements of French-Australian studies as a field of scholarship, it sketches out some of the areas where work still needs to be undertaken, and proposes some general structures to guide the development of the synthesis.

Keywords: French voyages of discovery in the Pacific, French presence in Australia, migration, relationship through trade, diplomacy, Alliance Française, academic study, arts and culture

MARGARET SANKEY, Mirroring the Archives – the Writing of Australian History and the Baudin Expedition

Using her expertise as one of the leaders of the Baudin Legacy Project, the author recounts the history of work on both British and French archival material relevant to Australian history. The use of digital technology has expanded the availability of archival resources to researchers in this country and elsewhere.

Keywords: archival resources, Baudin expedition, Comte Alphonse de Fleurieu, Société de Géographie, Joint Copying Project, Baudin Legacy Project, microfilm, digitization, Archives Nationales

THIERRY VINCENT, The Charles-Alexandre Lesueur Special Collections Before, During and After the Second World War

This article focusses on one of the most significant components of the archives of the Baudin expedition, namely the invaluable Lesueur special collections, and tells the story of their fate before, during and after the Second World War.

Keywords: Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Baudin expedition, Muséum d’histoire naturelle of Le Havre, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (Paris), World War II

CLAIRE EDWARDS and KERRY MULLAN, Migration of Young French Professionals to Australia

This article presents the results of a research project on the reactions of young French professionals in Australia on a working visa to their new surroundings. The project explores both the economic outcome of their venture and the psychological aspects of their integration, or lack of it, into the Australian working environment.

Keywords: economic migration, lifestyle, liveability, workplace culture, working holiday visas, Temporary Work (skilled) visas

STEPHEN ALOMES, Le Mal napoléonien and the Global Malaise. A Jospin Festival in Melbourne

This article reflects on former French socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin’s visit to Australia in December 2014 and his recently published book, Le Mal napoléonien.

Keywords: Lionel Jospin, Paul Keating, Napoléon’s myth and legacy, Tom Nairn, European imperialism, political disengagement, the legacy of the Enlightenment.

MARGARET SANKEY, The State Visit to Australia of the French President, François Hollande

A report on the first French presidential visit to this country in November 2014, by François Hollande, focusing on his visit to Sydney and the lunch held in his honour at Kirribilli House.

Keywords: François Hollande, G20 meeting in Brisbane, French businesses in Australia, relationship between France and Australia

PATRICIA CLANCY, Pierre Ryckmans, China Specialist, Public Intellectual and Author of a Minor Literary Masterpiece

PATRICIA CLANCY, Colin Thornton-Smith, a Scholar of French Language and Literature, Astralian Catholicism and French-Australian History

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES

Michael Pembroke, Arthur Phillip: Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Edward Duyker, Dumont d’Urville: Explorer & Polymath, reviewed by John Dunmore

Paul de Pierres, Allies Forever / Alliés pour toujours: A record of war service by Frenchmen and Belgians from Australia, note by Elaine Lewis

Ben McCann, Ripping Open the Set: French Film Design, 1930–1939 (New Studies in European Cinema), note by John Emerson

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

Explorations – No 51 Dec 2011

IVAN BARKO, Foreward

PETER RICKWOOD, CHARLES ABELA & IVAN BARKO, A 1788 French Sighting of Evidence for Volcanism in the Sydney Basin – Columnar Sandstone at La Perouse

A discussion of the identification by the French explorers of columnar sandstone at Botany Bay and the recent discovery of samples of this sandstone on the shipwreck site of the Boussole on Vanikoro Reef in the Solomon Islands

Keywords: columnar sandstone, La Pérouse, Botany Bay, Boussole, John Hunter, Anglo-French contact, Solomon Islands, volcanic activity

MARGARET BARRETT, Jean Trémoulet: The Unloved Consul-General

Based on new research, this article discussed the controversial career of French Consul-General Jean Trémoulet, who represented his government, including the Vichy government in Sydney from 1937 to 1941 when he was required to leave Australia.

Keywords: Jean Trémoulet, diplomatic and consular relations between France and Australia, WWII, Vichy government, Free French movement, Allied war effort, Émile Doucet

JOHN DUNMORE, Anglo-French Contacts in 1788: The Knowledge of English on Board La Pérouse’s Ships

By reviewing the backgrounds and education of officers on board the French ships, the author who is an international authority on La Pérouse, surmises that they were probably able to communicate in rather broken English with the British. However, for any official business, and in written communication, each side used their own language.

Keywords: La Pérouse, Captain Phillip, communication, Botany Bay

EDWARD DUYKER, Timothée Vasse: A Biographical Note

A discussion of the various legends surrounding Timothée Vasse, a sailor on the Baudin expedition, who is supposed to have drowned at the Wonnerup Inlet in Western Australia in 1801.

Keywords: Timothée Vasse, Baudin expedition, François Péron

JANA VERHOEVEN, French Forum: A Melbourne Initiative

A brief note about the establishment of a Forum for French scholars from the various universities in the Melbourne region to discuss teaching and research.

KERRY MULLAN, The Second Text: A Feminist Approach to Translation

A report of a presentation at RMIT University by the two translators of a new translation of The Second Text.

Keywords: translation, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, Constance Borde, Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, Caroline Norma, gender studies

KERRY MULLAN, Georges Perec: The Australian Connection, Thirty Years On

An account of the fifth ‘Melbourne Salon’ devoted to the legacy of Georges Perec, who visited Australia thirty years previously, shortly before his death in 1982. The presentation was preceded by a literary workshop demonstrating Perec’s self-imposed experimental forms of constrained writing.

Keywords: Georges Perec

Podtour
A brief note about an educational downloadable audio tour of Melbourne.

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES

Robert Nash (ed.), The Hidden Thread: Huguenot Families in Australia, reviewed by Wallace Kirsop

Christine Béal, Les interactions quotidiennes en français et en anglais : de l’approche comparative à l’analyse des situations interculturelles, reviewed by Kerry Mullan

Jean-François Vernay, The Great Australian Novel — A Panorama (Panorama du roman australien des origines à nos jours), book note by Elaine Lewis

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

Explorations – No 40 Jun 2006

(issued June 2008)

WALLACE KIRSOP, Foreword

COLIN NETTELBECK, What is This Thing Called France?
In his valedictory lecture delivered on his retirement in 2005 from the A.R. Chisholm Chair of French at the University of Melbourne, Colin Nettelbeck reflects on various aspects of French culture, history and geography and how they have determined France’s destiny and characterised concepts of freedom and individual liberty in French society.

Keywords: General de Gaulle, Alexis Léger, Saint-John Perse, the European Union, freedom, cultural autonomy, secularism, islam and muslims, anti-semitism, Algerian war, post-colonialism, film culture, ‘otherness’

COLIN NETTELBECK, ISFAR: A Recollection
As one of its founders, Colin Nettelbeck recalls the circumstances of the establishment of the Institute for the Study of French-Australian Relations at Monash University in 1985 and the publication of the first issue of Explorations.

Keywords: Colin Nettelbeck, Wallace Kirsop, Dennis Davison, Anny Stuer, Monash University, ISFAR.

WALLACE KIRSOP, Surviving Volumes from the Shipboard Libraries of the Baudin Expedition

This brief note recalls the extraordinary size of the libraries carried by the Baudin expedition, the captain’s personal library consisting of no less than 1,125 items and the uncertainty surrounding the fate of these books on the conclusion of the expedition. Reference is made to the inclusion of a copy of one such book, with a proven provenance from the collection of Le Naturaliste, in an Antiquarian Book Fair held in Los Angeles in February 2006.

Keywords: Baudin expedition, Thévenot’s Relations de divers voyages curieux, antique book auction catalogues

BOOK REVIEWS

Karlene Dimbrowsky, The Mysterious Baron of Castle Hill: The Life and Times of Chevalier Verincourt Declambe, reviewed by Edward Duyker and including the translation of Duyker’s entry about Pierre Lalouette de Vernicourt (dit De Clambe) for the Dictionnaire de Biographie mauricienne, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Colin Dyer, The French Explorers and the Aboriginal Australians 1772-1839, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Bruce Poulson, Recherche Bay: A Short History; Bob Brown, Tasmania’s Recherche Bay, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Paul de Pierres, Loyalty Sustained: The Story of the de Pierres Family in Australia and New Zealand, 1903-2003, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Henrietta Taylor, Veuve Taylor, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Mary Moody, Au revoir, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Damien Pignolet, French, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Elaine Lewis, Left Bank Waltz: the Australian Bookshop in Paris, reviewed by Patricia Clancy

Explorations – No 39 Dec 2005

(issued June 2006)

IVAN BARKO, Foreword

KENNETH R. DUTTON, A Colonial Entrepreneur: François Girard (1792?-1859)

Kenneth Dutton’s substantial paper is devoted to the life of François Girard, an early French settler and successful businessman in New South Wales. His activities centered on Sydney and the Northern Rivers. As was the case with so many of his contemporaries, Girard’s business career was not without tribulations, thus illustrating the volatility of conditions in the young colony. The Girard story was going to be told jointly by Professor Dutton and Harry Morris, a descendant of François Girard, who at the time was working on a family history, but sadly Harry Morris passed away early during the project and so this study is dedicated to his memory.

Keywords: François Girard, French settler, New South Wales, colony, Harry Morris

EDWARD DUYKER, Uncovering Jean Piron: In Search of d’Entrecasteaux’s Artist

Edward Duyker’s study of Jean Piron, the artist with d’Entrecasteaux’s expedition in the closing decade of the eighteenth century, follows his biography of the naturalist Labillardiere. This article will appear almost simultaneously with Francois Péron — An Impetuous Life: Naturalist and Voyager, an important and much-awaited study for the Miegunyah Press of one of the senior figures of the Baudin expedition. The Piron article is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the life and achievements of an artist who is insufficiently known as well as an object lesson in archival research.

Keywords: Jean Piron, d’Entrecasteaux expedition, Labillardière, Baudin expedition, eighteenth century.

BOOK REVIEWS

Kerry Greenwood, Murder in Montparnasse, reviewed by John Ramslan

Explorations – No 31 Dec 2001

(issued April 2002)

WALLACE KIRSOP, Foreword

WALLACE KIRSOP, Colette Reddin 1920-2000. Obituary

MARGARET SANKEY, The Baudin Expedition in Port Jackson, 1902 Cultural Encounters and Enlightenment Politics

The article is adapted from a paper given at the 2001 conference at the University of Western Australia on the ‘Cultural Encounters in the Indian Pacific Region 1200-1800. The paper explores the cultural encounters and exchange that occurred when two French vessels, the Naturalist and the Géographe stopped in for five months at the English colony of Port Jackson in 1802.
Keywords: Baudin Expedition, Port Jackson, cultural encounters, Indian Pacific, Naturalist, Géographe

WALLACE KIRSOP, Paul Maistre’s First Farewell

A note on Paul Maistre’s personal file in the archives of the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères in Paris. Maurice Brodsky’s column text extends Colin Thornton-Smith’s account of Maistre and his failure to reform the Alliance Française.

Keywords: Paul Maistre, French Consul, Alliance Française, Maurice Brodsky

BOOK REVIEWS

Anthony J. Brown, Ill-Starred Captains: Flinders and Baudin, reviewed by Elliott Forsyth

Brian Andrews, Australian Gothic: The Gothic Revival in Australian Architecture from the 1840s to the 1950s, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Henri Gilbert, Colin Dyer (ed. and trans.), A Frenchman’s Walk Across the Nullarbor: Henri Gilbert’s Diary, Perth to Brisbane, 1897-1899, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Helen Hewson, Australia: 300 Years of Botanical Illustration, reviewed by Edward Duyker