The French Australian Review – No 62 Australian Winter 2017

JANE GILMOUR, Foreword

JEAN FORNASIERO AND JOHN WEST-SOOBY, The French Revolution and the Politics of Sea Voyaging

This article provides details on an international research project, bringing together eight researchers from three continents, into State-sponsored French voyages in the Revolutionary era. It seeks to set these voyages within their intellectual and political contexts. The article provides insights into some of the early findings of this research—the similarities and differences in the voyages undertaken between 1789 and 1804, with particular reference to two voyages led by Nicolas Baudin, the first in 1796 and the second departing in 1800.

Keywords: French Revolution, voyages of scientific discovery, Nicolas Baudin, the Belle Angélique, the Géographe

ALEXIS BERGANTZ, The Culture and Politics of Frenchness in Australia (1890–1914): Reflections on a Research Project

This article presents a reflection on the evolution of the author’s research project between 2011 and 2015, as it shifted from a focus on migration to one situated within a transnational frame. The author was able to draw extensively on the archives of the Sydney and Melbourne French consulates, which are housed in France. Through these and other documents he was able to explore the role that France and the French played in the development of Australian culture in the late nineteenth century.

Keywords: migrant history, national identity, New Caledonia, cultural capital, Russel Ward, Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

VÉRONIQUE DUCHÉ AND DANIEL RUSSO-BATTERHAM, Australians at War: Food Matters

The authors have drawn on the archives of the University of Melbourne to document and analyse Australian soldiers’ experiences and intercultural interactions around food in the First World War. The importance of food in the daily structure of life and in troop morale, the quality of food and the opportunities for experiencing local food are documented and discussed through extracts from personal diaries, articles, letters and other documents. The article is enlivened by the inclusion of a number of cartoons from Aussie, The Australian Soldiers’ Magazine.

Keywords: The First World War, Australian troops in France, the Comforts Fund, Aussie, the Australian Soldiers’ Magazine, The University of Melbourne archives

COLIN NETTELBECK, The National Library of Australia’s French Second World War Collection

This note documents a little-known collection of French material from the Second World War, which was acquired by the National Library of Australia in 1867. The collection consists of many hundreds of documents relating to the political, social, moral and legal aspects of the war and occupation in France. There are broadsides, pamphlets, propaganda leaflets and publications representing all perspectives on this troubled period in French history. The note includes a small number of cartoons/illustrations from these various publications.

Keywords: France during the Second World War, Léon Delarbre, H.P. Kraus Periodicals, The National Library of Australia

WILLIAM A. LAND, The Palmes Académiques in Australia

This note documents the history of the establishment of the Palmes académiques, their current status and the history of the awards in Australia.
A list of Australian recipients of the award was compiled by the author and can be consulted on the ISFAR website under Resources.

Keywords: Palmes académiques, Association des Membres de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (AMOPA)

CHRISTINA OLSZEWSKI, COLIN NETTELBECK AND PATRICIA CLANCY, Micheline Giroux (1928–2017)

An obituary of a highly regarded teacher of French, who spent many years in the Department of French at the University of Melbourne and then, after retiring, continued teaching at the Stonnington University of the Third Age.

Keywords: lecteur, University of Melbourne, Melbourne French Theatre

BOOK REVIEW
Flanders in Australia: A Personal History of Wool and War, by Jacqueline Dwyer, reviewed by Edward Duyker

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes.

Explorations – No 50 Jun 2011

COLIN NETTELBECK, Foreword

JEAN FORNASIERO, Strangers on the Shore: Musical Encounters in Terra Australis, 1802

This article documents the cultural encounter between members of the 1802 Baudin expedition and indigenous Australians through the medium of music. In their attentive observation of the importance of art in the Aborigines’ daily lives, the French explorers projected an image quite distant from British colonists’ views of a ‘terra nullius’.

Keywords: Nicolas Baudin, Society of Observers of Man, cross-cultural encounters, Joseph-Marie Degérando, Péron, anthropology

KERRY MULLAN, Une entente glaciale? French and Australian English Interaction

An examination of how present-day intercultural misunderstandings in conversations between French and Australian English interlocutors cast light on stubborn stereotypes. Without being overly optimistic about overcoming judgmental attitudes, the author guides her readers towards a greater awareness of how social interactions are informed by underlying cultural values.

Keywords: interactional styles, respect, speaking one’s mind, expressing an opinion

SOPHIE MASSON, The Language of Astonishment: A French-Australian Author’s Reflections on her Identity

This article is based on the author’s reflection on her childhood and on the ‘in-betweenness’ of her identity as a French-Australian and as a writer. The author’s book The Hunt for Ned Kelly has won the 2011 Patricia Wrightson Prize, the children’s literature category in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and was recently elected as President of the Australian Society of Authors. The article concludes with a list of all her published works.

Keywords: Andreï Makine, Le Testament Français, bilingual writers, citizenship

BOOK REVIEWS

Jean Fornasiero and Colette Mrowa-Hopkins (eds), Explorations and Encounters in French, reviewed by John Dunmore

Anselme Ricard, Lettres d’Australie, reviewed by Ivan Barko

ELAINE LEWIS, French-Australian Bibliographical Notes

Explorations – No 27 Dec 1999

PATRICIA CLANCY, JACQUES DE SAINT-FERJEUX, COLIN THORNTON-SMITH, Foreword

EDWARD DUYKER, A Distant Thunder: Napoleon, Australia and the National Library

Edward Duyker relates the rise of Napoleon and its effects upon Australia; for example, the Peace of Amiens meant the French in Mauritius were given permission to explore trade with Australia and Nicolas Baudin was able to visit Port Jackson in safety. French attention to the region precipitated the British settlement of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). The life and death of Napoleon are well represented in the National Library of Australia—the author lists some of the most important items.

Keywords: Peace of Amiens, Port Jackson, Nicolas Baudin, Van Diemen’s land, National Library of Australia.

DANIEL DULDIG, The Australian Napoleonic Society

The text of Daniel Duldig’s talk given to the Annual General Meeting of the Australian Napoleonic Society, 15 November 1999.

Keywords: Daniel Duldig, Australian Napoleonic Society.

COLIN THORNTON-SMITH, Two Napoleonic Collections: 11-16

Colin Thornton-Smith reviews the exhibition of the Pierre-Jean Chalençon Collection (Treasures of the Emperor and Imperial France) and the Mabel Brookes Napoleonic Collection. He finds the Chalençon exhibition notable for its presentation of both the Imperial Napoleon and Napoleon the man, from birth to death. The Mabel Brookes Collection focuses more upon the St Helena years and began at St Helena where William Balcombe, the great-grandfather of Dame Mabel Brookes, was the Naval Agent for the British Fleet and Purveyor for the East India Company. This collection and the 1840’s homestead of the Balcombe family (The Briars) continue to be open to the public. (http://www.napoleonguide.com/briars.htm).

Keywords: Pierre-Jean Chalençon Collection, Mabel Brookes Napoleonic Collection, William Balcombe, The Briars

COLIN THORNTON-SMITH, Napoleonic Toponymy in Australia 17-19

Colin Thornton-Smith describes Napoleonic place names attributed by Baudin, Peron or Louis de Freycinet to various geographical features in Australia. His source is Frank Horner’s The French Reconnaissance: Baudin in Australia 1801-1803, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1987 (reviewed by Dr Edward Duyker in Explorations No. 6, September 1998).

Keywords: Colin Thornton-Smith, Napoleonic toponymy in Australia, Baudin, Peron, Louis de Freycinet, Frank Horner, The French Reconnaissance: Baudin in Australia 1801-1803

BOOK REVIEWS

Susan Hunt and Paul Carter, Terre Napoléon: Australia Through French Eyes 1800-1804, reviewed by Edward Duyker

Jill Duchess of Hamilton Napoleon, the Empress & the Artist: The Story of Napoleon, Josephine’s Garden at Malmaison, Redouté & the Australian Plants, reviewed by Edward Duyker

JACQUES DE SAINT-FERJEUX, COLIN THORNTON-SMITH, Napoleonic Literary Awards

Short article on Literary Prizes won by Pierre Ryckmans and Patricia Clancy for the translation of Ryckman’s novel The Death of Napoleon (London: Quartet books; published in Australia by Allen & Unwin) and for Patricia Clancy’s translation of Jean-Paul Kauffmann’s La chambre noire de Longwood (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1997) as The Dark Room at Longwood: Napoleon’s Exile on Saint Helena (London: Harvill Press, 1999).

Keywords: Pierre Ryckmans, Patricia Clancy, The Death of Napoleon, La chambre noire de Longwood, translation awards

APPENDIX — Holdings in Napoleoniana at the State Library of Victoria p 31-48

A list of books and microfilms to do with the life and times of Napoleon I and his immediate family This list does not include imaginative works of which he is the subject. (Follows the order of the Dewey Decimal Classification.)