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

Explorations – No 23 Dec 1997

(issued November 1998)

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

M. BLACKMAN, Transculturalism and Hybridity in the French-Australian Writer Paul Wenz

Maurice Blackman considers the transcultural position displayed by Wenz in ‘both the content and the écriture of his texts’. ‘His point of view is not that of a Frenchman specifically, but of someone who is simultaneously at home in the bush and yet “alien”’. He concludes that ‘Paul Wenz’s narratives do not only thematise aspects of the experience of transculturality, but the processes of their écriture also have the effect of infusing, one into the other, two hegemonic literary discourses, as well as the two dominant “imperial” languages’.

Keywords: Paul Wenz, Nanima, Forbes, Diary of a New Chum, L’Homme du soleil couchant, World War I

PAUL MAISTRE, Scènes de la vie australienne : “De mineur à ministre”, translated & introduced by C.B. THORNTON-SMITH

One of five short stories by Paul Maistre (Paul le Franc) published in the Madrid-based Nouvelle Revue Internationale between 1894 and 1897, De mineur à ministre offers a French view of events leading to the demise of ‘Marvellous Melbourne’. Maistre’s main character, Victorian politician Donald MacGillroe, is an amalgam of some politicians of the day whose excesses led to the 1890s financial crash.

Keywords: Paul Maistre, Paul le Franc, Victoria’s Land Boom, Marvellous Melbourne, Thomas Bent, James Munro, Duncan Gillies.

Explorations – No 22 Jun 1997

(issued September 1998)

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

COLIN THORNTON-SMITH, More on the Reform of the Alliance Française of Victoria

Colin Thornton-Smith presents a letter written in 1900 from Madame Irma Dreyfus to the President of the Alliance Française commenting that it predates the story of ‘Paul Maistre’s pyrrhic victory in his campaign from 1901 to 1908 to reform the Alliance Française de Victoria’ (Explorations No. 17) and indicates that he was not alone in his discontent.

Keywords: Colin Thornton-Smith, Irma Dreyfus, Alliance Française de Victoria, Paul Maistre.

PATRICIA CLANCY, An Aristocratic Adventurer Extraordinaire: Count Alfred de La Chapelle

Count Alfred de La Chapelle was one of a number of sons of French titled families who sought to make their fortune on the Australian gold-fields. He stayed nine years and his book Trente ans à travers le monde (1888) is a colourful account of his adventures.

Keywords: Count Alfred de La Chapelle, Australian gold-fields, Delatite River, Mount Buller, Napoleon III, Second Empire.

Explorations – No 18 Jun 1995

(issued December 1997)

WALLACE KIRSOP, Foreword

R.W. HOME & Sara MAROSKE, Ferdinand von Mueller and the French Consuls

Published here for the first time is a fascinating series of letters (May 1883 to November 1895) from the eminent botanist and explorer Ferdinand von Mueller, Victoria’s Government Botanist from 1853 until his death on 10 October 1896, to successive French Consuls-General in Melbourne. The letters are preceded by an examination of von Mueller’s work in Australia. The letters shed light on his plant exchange activities, especially with the French colonies in North Africa.

Keywords: Ferdinand von Mueller, Comte de Castelnau, Botanic Gardens of Melbourne, Zoological Society of Victoria, Frederick McCoy, Léon Dejardin, Francois Bruwaert, Paul Maistre, Australian-French scientific links

BOOK REVIEW

Jean Chaussivert and Maurice Blackman, eds, Louis Pasteur and the Pasteur Institute in Australia. Papers from a symposium held at the University of New South Wales, 4-5 September, 1987, to mark the centenary of the Pasteur Institute, reviewed by Wallace Kirsop

Explorations – No 17 Dec 1994

(issued October 1997)

WALLACE KIRSOP, Foreword

C.B. THORNTON-SMITH, Paul Maistre, Vice-Consul and later Consul for France in Victoria, 1886-1898, 1901-1908

This article is a detailed account of Paul Maistre’s struggle to reform the Melbourne Alliance Française at the beginning of the twentieth century. Maistre, like Georges Biard d’Aunet, the Sydney-based Consul General for Australia was committed to the Alliance Française as an educational institution. The struggle for reform continued for a number of years until a conflict exploded between Maistre, supported by many key constituents and the socialite Committee. A reformist Committee was established under Paul Maistre. This was however a pyrrhic victory as the Melbourne socialites used their influence with the British Embassy in Paris to lodge a complaint against Maistre resulting in him being recalled in 1909,

Keywords: Alliance Française of Melbourne, French consuls and consul-generals in Sydney and Melbourne, Melbourne establishment, the Crivellis, Maurice-Carton, Paul Maistre, Biard d’Aunet

Kelveriana
An editors’ note about the publication of the first in a series of publications to be known as Kelveriana, consisting of works written by Kelver Hartley or relevant to his interests