Explorations – No 49 Part I Dec 2010

IVAN BARKO, Foreword

JANA VERHOEVEN, Les deux noms and Petit journal de la fin de ma vie: Céleste de Chabrillan’s mémoires inédits

This former Paris courtesan was the wife of the first French Consul in Melbourne, Count Lionel de Chabrillan. After her husband’s death she became an author, much of her writing having been inspired by her experiences in Australia. The author gives an account of her re-discovery of some of Céleste de Chabrillan’s manuscripts (believed to have been lost) of the latter’s unpublished autobiographical writings. The article also analyses the significance of these memoirs.

Keywords: autobiography, Céleste de Chabrillan, Théâtre de Belleville, female perspective on events in France in the second half of 19th century

DENISE FISHER, Supporting the Free French in New Caledonia: First Steps in Australian Diplomacy

This article addresses the role of Australia in the ralliement of New Caledonia in 1940 to General de Gaulle’s Free French movement. The author, who is a former Australian Consul General in Noumea, argues that these events in the Pacific mark the birth of Australian diplomacy as an autonomous entity. The author demonstrates that the Australian government, mindful of the country’s interests, showed subtlety, flexibility and professionalism in its handling of a complex and fluid situation.

Keywords: Australian diplomacy in the Pacific, Australian perceptions of French in New Caledonia, World War Two, Vichy, Free France Movement, Georges-Marc Pélicier, Bertram C. Ballard, Henri Sautot

KENNETH DUTTON, Barrallier in the Hunter

A scholarly study on French explorer and surveyor Francis Barrallier and his two visits to the Hunter region in the early nineteenth century. The article contains some recently located material discovered by Newcastle researchers.

Keywords: Francis Barrallier, Hunter region, harbour of Newcastle, Coal River Working Party

BOOK REVIEWS

Rosemary Lancaster, Je suis Australienne: Remarkable Women in France, reviewed by Stephen Alomes

Stephen Dando-Collins, Pasteur’s Gambit: Louis Pasteur, The Australasian rabbit plague and a ten million dollar prize, reviewed by Maurice Blackman

Stephanie Anderson (tr. and ed.), Pelletier: The Forgotten Castaway of Cape York, reviewed by Judith Bishop

Shannon Bennett, Scott Murray & Friends, Shannon Bennett’s Paris: A Personal Guide to the City’s Best, reviewed by Patricia Clancy

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

Explorations – No 41 Dec 2006

(issued June 2008)

IVAN BARKO, Foreword

KENNETH R. DUTTON, Early Colonial Attitudes towards France and the French

This article surveys the attitudes of early colonialists, particularly governors, to the French as well as their knowledge of the French language, and indeed of its literature. The article draws on various sources to give examples, including court records and the autobiography of Lieutenant Colonel Charles George Gray.

Keywords: French explorers and naturalists, Captain Philip King, François Girard, Francis Barrallier, Francis Nicholas Rossi, Lieutenant Colonel Charles George Gray

PATRICIA HAMOU, De l’usage pseudo-scientifique de la taxinomie dans les thèses du racialisme français au XIXème siècle

This study traces the origins of racialist theories in France as they developed from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The emphasis is mainly on documents portraying Australian Aborigines: journals, memoirs, scientific publications and also literary essays.

Keywords: modern anthropology, racial hierarchy, taxonomic approach, Auguste Comte, Gobineau, Renan, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, ‘spectacles ethnologiques’, Carl Lumholtz, John Fraser, perversion of science for political purposes

IVAN BARKO, The Case Against the Allegation that Lapérouse’s Men Killed 20 Aborigines on 26 January 1788

This article refutes a statement made firstly in a book published in 1995 and then in a NSW Government draft report that the crew of Lapérouse’s ships had killed a number of Aborigines on 26 January 1788. The refutation is based on a more careful reading of the original source.

Keywords: The Myth of terra nullius – Invasion and Resistance: the early days, New South Wales Department of Environment and Conservation, Lapérouse, Newton Fowell, Sirius Letters, Samoa

Explorations – No 35 Dec 2003

(issued August 2004)

IVAN BARKO, Foreword

VALERIE LHUEDÉ, Francis Barrallier, Explorer, Surveyor, Engineer, Artillery Officer, Aide-de-Camp, Architect and Ship Designer: Three Years in New South Wales (1800-1803)

A major article by Valerie Lhuedé on Francis Barrallier, a protégé of Governor Philip King and more importantly a man of many talents, whose three years in the Colony were extraordinarily productive. The author is the grand-daughter of a Breton sailor and an architect by profession. She part-owns and has a
passionate interest in the old silver-mining village of Yerranderie in the area of the Blue Mountains first explored by Barrallier.

Keywords: Francis Barrallier, New South Wales, Yerranderie, Governor Philip King, nineteenth century, explorer

IVAN BARKO, “Le petit Condé”: the Death in Sydney in 1866 of Australia’s First Royal Visitor

This article recounts the little-known story of the young Louis d’Orléans’ visit to and death in Sydney in 1866. The prince, aged twenty, was almost certainly the first royal visitor to Australia and he was the last prince of the house of Condé.

Keywords: Le petit Condé, Louis d’Orléans, royal visitor

JANE SOUTHWOOD & EDWARD DUYKER, Frank Benson Horner (1917-2004). Obituary

BOOK REVIEWS

Victor Barker, Baudin’s Last Breath, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Stuart Macintyre and Richard Selleck, A Short History of the University of Melbourne, reviewed by Edward Duyker