The French Australian Review – No 73 Australian Summer 2022-2023

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JANE GILMOUR & ELAINE LEWIS, Foreword

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 The author explores the concept of what he calls the ‘Archibald syndrome’—dreaming of being French, the historical references that have coloured Australians’ views of the French, and the shared affinities between the two countries.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
This article is free access for one month, expiring Fri 14 April 2023.

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 – No 72 Australian Winter 2022

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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 – No 69 Australian Summer 2020-2021

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 – No 68 Australian Winter 2020

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 19^th 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

Explorations – No 34 Jun 2003

(issued February 2004)

IVAN BARKO, Foreword

MARIE AND JOHN RAMSLAND, Visitors with “an unusual charm”: French Celebrities at the Australia Hotel, 1891–1932

The authors, both of the University of Newcastle, explore the French associations of the now-defunct Hotel Australia in Castlereagh Street in Sydney, focusing on its foundation late in the nineteenth century and its status as the pre-eminent destination for sophisticated European travellers into the early decades of the twentieth.

Keywords: Hotel Australia, Sarah Bernhardt, Castlereagh Street

IVAN BARKO, French-Australian Relations in the Pacific during Bill Hayden’s Term as Minister for Foreign Affairs 1983–1988
This paper gives an account of the fluctuations of French-Australian relations during Bill Hayden’s term as Minister for Foreign Affairs. The 1980s were a period of ostensible conflict between France and Australia, the result of disagreements on nuclear policy in the Pacific and decolonisation in New Caledonia. Drawing on personal recollections and retrospective assessments by Bill Hayden and unpublished material specially released by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, the investigation challenges certain idées reçues.

Keywords: Bill Hayden, Minister for Foreign Affairs, New Caledonia, decolonisation, French-Australian relations, nuclear testing, Rainbow Warrior

BOOK REVIEWS

John Dunmore, trans. & ed., The Pacific Journal of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville 1767-1768, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Philippe Godard & Tugdual de Kerros, Louis de Saint Aloüarn, Lieutenant des vaisseaux du Roy: un marin breton à la conquête des Terres Australes, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Voyage of Discovery to the Southern Lands: Second Edition, 1824. Book IV, comprising chapters XXII to XXXIX by François Piron; continued by Louis Freycinet, translated by Christine Cornell, reviewed by Edward Duyker