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